Education: Polish A-level
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lexden
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to preserve the A-level examination in Polish.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords—or Moi szlachetni Panowie—we remain committed to securing the future of the existing range of language qualifications, including the Polish A-level. We are therefore continuing to work closely with relevant organisations and others to explore how best to enable these qualifications to be offered in future years.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Polish is the second most spoken language in our country. Deep historic ties exist between Great Britain and Poland. Is not the number of candidates sitting A-level Polish increasing, not falling, as is sometimes alleged? Does my noble friend agree that the Conservative Party has given an unambiguous commitment to preserve the Polish A-level exam? Does he also agree that the highly respected Polish Educational Society has put forward effective solutions to the small number of practical difficulties—such as the need to recruit more senior examiners—that have been raised by the AQA and Ofqual?
Lord Nash
Not only are A-levels increasing, but the number of entrants over the last five years for GCSE Polish has gone up by 50%. I agree entirely with my noble friend’s sentiments. We have given a clear commitment. We are determined to ensure that these courses continue. They are very important to us as a trading nation and an outward-facing country, but as my noble friend says they are also particularly important for communities to enable their children to engage with their rich cultural history.
Baroness Ludford (LD)
My Lords, of course it is important for immigrants, not just Muslim ones, to learn English, but is it not also important for this linguistically challenged nation to maximise its language resources? Do the Government have a strategy to support the retention and flourishing of what one might call family heritage languages as a source of strength for the economy and trade—indeed, the Minister just referenced that—as well as social, cultural and intellectual enrichment?
Baroness Coussins (CB)
My Lords, the Government’s commitment to the continuation of Polish is welcome, but will the Minister also assure the House that the Government’s injection of £10 million into teaching Mandarin in schools will not be at the expense of other languages identified by the British Council as the 10 most vital to the UK for economic, cultural and diplomatic reasons, including French, German and Spanish, as well as lesser-taught languages such as Arabic and Turkish?
Lord Nash
I am happy to give the noble Baroness that assurance. China is obviously a country of huge strategic importance to this country and education is very important in that. A great deal of activity is going on. In addition to the £10 million that we have given to boost Mandarin teaching in schools, excellent work is being done at the IOE Confucius Institute, supported ably by organisations such as HSBC and Swire.
Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister tell us what progress has been made on teaching foreign languages overall at A-level? In particular, to what extent are we reversing the trend in the teaching of German, which has shown the sharpest decline in recent years?
Lord Nash
My noble friend makes a very good point about the decline in German, but as I said, we believe that, with our expectation that 90% of pupils will take the EBacc, this will further increase the number of pupils taking GCSEs in modern languages. Certainly, the number of pupils taking languages in the EBacc has gone up by 25% over the last five years. We hope that this will have a compounding effect on A-levels.
Lord Taverne (LD)
My Lords, do the Government not agree that, while traditionally our relations with Poland have been extremely close, one or two statements recently made by the Prime Minister have not improved them? Would not the encouragement of the learning of Polish by British, as well as other, students be of considerable importance at a time when our relations with Poland are so important?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, spoke of the deep historic ties between Britain and Poland. I recall that the Poles produced the largest non-British contingent of pilots in the Battle of Britain, and several squadrons in the RAF and at least two armoured divisions in the Second World War. Britain seems almost entirely to have forgotten about that. I understand that the Prime Minister was unaware of it when he visited Warsaw last time. Could we not do something to symbolise the contribution that Poland made to the British victory in the Second World War, for example by encouraging a visible Polish presence at the next Remembrance Sunday commemorations?
Lord Davies of Oldham (Lab)
My Lords, most British citizens are likely to respect the Poles who live and work in this country not for having obtained A-levels in English, although that is greatly to be encouraged, but for providing the skill levels in crucial trades—plumbing is an obvious example, but there are many other such trades—which we are clearly not matching. Are the cuts in further education defensible, given that we clearly have low skill levels in this country in crucial areas?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord makes an extremely good point. Of course, we have a lot of Polish labour here, particularly in certain skills where there are shortages—partly as a result of the booming economy—such as construction. However, our apprenticeships programme is very much focused on rectifying this.
Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)
My Lords, I do not think our war-time connections with Poland have been forgotten in any way, and they never will be. On the contrary, I think we are constantly reminded of them. However, in considering the teaching of the Polish language, does he agree that Poland recognises the need for the major reform that Europe is now undergoing, and that, despite some differences over the handling of migrant benefits, our relations with Poland are very close indeed and will form a major force in the reform of the European Union which we are now seeking?
Education: Unregistered Schools
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have for regulating unregistered schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, we are taking robust steps to tackle unregistered schools. We are working closely with Ofsted and are pleased that it has agreed to take forward prosecutions in relation to settings operating illegally as unregistered independent schools. We have also consulted on introducing a new system to regulate out-of-school education settings which teach children intensively, and we will intervene and impose sanctions where there are safety or welfare concerns.
Lord Storey (LD)
I am grateful for the Minister’s reply. He will be aware of the unannounced inspection of the premises of three unregistered schools in Birmingham, where some frankly appalling practices were found, including health and safety issues, safeguarding issues, homophobic and misogynistic material et cetera. First, can he assure us that the advice letter from the chief inspector in which he suggests that there should be an urgent meeting between Ofsted and local authorities to review policies and procedures will be followed through? When that meeting has taken place, can the results be shared with Members so that we can see that this matter is being put right? Secondly, can the Minister indicate how we should deal with Sunday schools and communion classes, which may fall into the category of unregistered provision?
Lord Nash
On the first point, I assure noble Lords that we are working very closely with Ofsted and I would be very happy to write to the noble Lord about it. We do not propose to regulate institutions such as Sunday schools and one-off residential settings which teach children for a short period every week. We are looking specifically at places where children receive intensive education, which we think will be defined as more than six to eight hours a week.
Baroness Butler-Sloss (CB)
My Lords, are the Government looking at madrassahs that teach fewer than 12 children? I gather that 12 is the number which means that some inspection can be done but, as the noble Lord will know, many madrassahs have fewer than 12 children.
Lord Nash
We are not specifically looking at madrassahs but we will be covering institutions such as those to which the noble and learned Baroness referred in our call for evidence, which has just closed. We will consider all this in the legislation we propose to bring forward in relation to institutions teaching above six to eight hours a week.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, my noble friend is looking for bad conduct. Does he agree that he is also seeing a good deal of very valuable instruction given to children who need to be integrated into our society and are handicapped in many ways because of their ethnic or geographic origin?
Lord Nash
We are concerned about the point my noble friend makes and about isolated communities, which is an area that Louise Casey has been asked to look at to see how we can improve integration. We are very active in our whole-school approach to making sure that children are brought up to understand enough about the different religions and beliefs in this country that they can be prepared for life in modern Britain.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Will my noble friend ensure that independent schools that intend to become members of one of the independent schools associations do not have registration procedures that are unduly burdensome, while at the same time providing for the full inspection that is required?
Lord Storey
Are there plans to review the arrangements for home education to ensure that they cannot be exploited in order to avoid registration?
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I shall speak to government Amendment 20 concerning communication with parents, the opposition amendments on that and Amendment 27A.
Our amendment is all about ensuring that parents are informed about the action being taken to improve a school. I know that what any parent wants for their child is for them to attend a good school and for there to be quick, effective action if there is significant concern about that school. Where a school has failed, it is right that we take the action that we know will have the best possible impact on improving the school’s performance, and that we make sure that this happens as swiftly as possible. We are clear that becoming a sponsored academy will always be the solution for a school judged inadequate by Ofsted.
That does not, of course, mean that parents do not have a right to know what will happen in their child’s school. Once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, it is already common practice for it to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents know what to expect and that they understand the process of converting from a local authority maintained school to an academy, and to give them the opportunity to share their views about the changes that the sponsor proposes to make.
We have tabled Amendment 20 to ensure that there is greater consistency for parents on this matter. The amendment will provide assurance that when under- performing maintained schools are becoming sponsored academies, parents will always be kept informed.
To support the amendment, we will also make changes to the Schools Causing Concern guidance to reflect the new requirement. We will use that guidance to provide more information about what the communication from sponsors could typically look like in practice; for instance, to suggest that sponsors might want to write to parents when they are first matched to the school to provide more information about them as sponsors—although, as we have heard, it might be appropriate in some cases for the governing body to make the first communication—to explain their ethos, what parents can expect to happen next, and hold meetings with parents to share information and answer questions. We think it more appropriate for this to be set out in guidance rather than in legislation, ensuring that sponsors have flexibility about precisely how they communicate with parents, to allow them to tailor their approach to the specific circumstances of the school.
We will also reflect the new requirement on sponsors in the notification letters that are sent to the school governing body, the head teacher, the local authority and, where appropriate, the trustees of a foundation school, the religious body responsible for the school, where it is one with a religious character, and to the sponsor itself where one has been identified, where a school is being required to become an academy. We will specify as standard in those letters that the sponsor identified by the RSC will communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school. This will ensure that all parties are aware of the duty on sponsors.
I spoke earlier about the commitments we have made to ensure that parents are kept informed specifically when a school is coasting. As I committed earlier, we will use the Schools Causing Concern guidance and the notification that RSCs will send to the governing bodies of coasting schools to make very clear our expectation that governing bodies must inform parents when the school has been identified as coasting.
In the light of the amendment that I have tabled and the other commitments we have made to ensure that parents will be kept informed when their child’s school is eligible for intervention, I hope noble Lords will be in no doubt that we recognise the importance of ensuring that parents know what is happening in their child’s school, and will therefore support the government amendment.
Noble Lords have tabled Amendments 21, 22 and 23 to alter what I have proposed. Rather than requiring sponsors to communicate to parents about their plans to improve the school, the sponsor would be required to consult parents about their plans. As I have already set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process. That absolutely does not equate, however, to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. I believe that the sponsor, who will be responsible for transforming the school, should have the duty to communicate to parents. We know that sponsors already put a lot of effort into explaining the steps that have been taken. Our amendment will ensure that this will apply consistently.
We expect that in many cases, sponsors will want to go considerably further than the minimum requirement and seek views from parents about specific changes they intend to make to the school—for example, if they plan to change the name of the school or the school uniform, they may ask for suggestions, views or designs concerning their proposed options. However, requiring sponsors to engage with parents through formal consultation, which the amendments propose, is not appropriate. As I said, a formal consultation process is inflexible and in too many cases will unnecessarily raise the temperature of the debate. The arrangement that I have proposed is a much more appropriate approach and gives the sponsor flexibility to tailor its communications to parents to best suit the circumstances of that particular school.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked why this does not apply to academies. Amendment 20 addresses the specific concerns raised by noble Lords about the requirement for failing schools to become academies and to share information about the process involved when a local authority maintained school changes its status to an academy. In cases where an academy is moved to a new sponsor, I am happy to reassure the noble Lord that we will consider in our revisions to the Schools Causing Concern guidance how to make it clear that regional schools commissioners will ensure that parents are kept informed.
The noble Lord also asked what would happen if the sponsor fails to communicate with parents. The duty is clear: the sponsor must communicate to parents information about its plans to improve the school before it is converted to academy status. If the sponsor were to fail to comply, we would not enter a funding agreement with that sponsor in respect of that school, and would look for an alternative sponsor. I am very happy to place that on record, and I hope that that reassures the noble Lord.
Amendment 17A proposes a requirement for staff to be kept informed of the changes in a school being required to become a sponsored academy, in addition to parents. While parental engagement is clearly critical, communication with others is already guaranteed through existing legal provisions. Clause 10 is explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include the head and representation from parents, staff and the local authority, so those parties will also be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further intimately involved in the detail of the transfer process of the school to academy status.
Amendment 17A proposes that staff at the school should be included in communications from sponsors, but the existing TUPE process means that employees will be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes which affect the employees, there must be consultation about them. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the incoming academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to their terms and conditions prior to any academy conversion taking place. This is comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents. It is unnecessary for staff to be additionally included in the new requirement, and therefore Amendment 17A is unnecessary.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
Before we leave this amendment, I asked in my opening remarks what would happen if local authorities or governors declined to co-operate. I am not necessarily talking about them being obstructive—just about them saying that they were not going to do anything. What would the Minister anticipate would be the response to that?
Lord Nash
I think we have the power to bring forward directions to the local authority and, eventually, I guess that we could go to court. But I shall write to the noble Lord to clarify that point.
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his supportive words about our Amendment 20. As I said, the Church of England is very skilled in community cohesion, and I take great comfort from his support for our proposals for communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to say more about my assurances about how we will ensure that the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any interventions are necessary. The Government are firmly committed to enabling schools with a religious character to protect and sustain their ethos. There are already provisions in the law that ensure that, when a school with a religious character requires intervention, the religious character will be protected. When a faith school becomes an academy, it retains its religious character by virtue of Section 6 of the Academies Act 2010. The academy’s religious character is protected through provisions within the academy’s funding agreement with the Secretary of State and the academy trust’s articles of association.
When a Church of England school joins a non-faith led trust, we intend to insert the following within the trust’s articles of association: a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the Church of England character of the church school is maintained; an entrenchment clause that requires written consent of the diocese for changes to articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for example, those relating to the local governing body of the church school and appointment of staff; a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocesan representation on the MAT; and a requirement on the MAT to establish an LGB and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school, agreed between the MAT and the diocese. The supplemental funding agreement for the church school will include a clause requiring the establishment of a governing body with the purpose of honouring the characteristics and ethos of the school. The master funding agreement for the MAT will also include a clause to prevent the MAT amending articles relating to the church school’s governing body and the scheme of delegation. A provision within the church supplemental agreement will ensure that the MAT cannot make amendments to the articles as they relate to the governing body of the church school without diocesan consent. This will agree the best academy solutions for any failing church schools, and we are reviewing and updating the non-statutory memoranda that set out the roles of dioceses and RSCs as they relate to the academy programme, to reflect the changes in this Bill and the wider evolving policy landscape. We expect that regional schools commissioners will work closely with dioceses. We will ensure that the RSCs will comply fully with the terms of the memoranda, and we support diocesan directors of education in upholding those terms.
Finally, Amendment 27 proposes that the education provisions of the Bill will be repealed after being in force for five years. The Government are focused on driving up standards of education in this country and giving children the best possible future. The Bill is an essential part of that; it will ensure we have the necessary powers to swiftly tackle underperformance, but it will also ensure that underperformance can be tackled whenever it occurs. It addresses not only schools that are failing right now, but will also ensure that any schools that slip in future will get the support and challenge they need to improve. The Government’s ambition is for every school to become an academy. Until the point when all schools have become academies, it will be necessary to have powers that allow swift and robust intervention in maintained schools that are causing concern, therefore it is right that we have the powers and duties introduced by the Bill for the foreseeable future.
What is in question here is a fundamental undermining of this Government’s commitment to drive up standards of education. It is not in the spirit of this House’s role to make legislation with a built-in expiry date, and I do not consider it necessary in this case. If and when we reach a point where all schools have become academies, we will of course consider what legislation it is necessary for us to repeal at that time. We will, anyway, review and report on the impact that these provisions are having through the academies annual report, which the Academies Act 2010 requires us to produce—or, if in five years’ time this House does not consider the provisions in this Bill necessary, as this amendment specifically anticipates, for whatever reason, this House should have a full and thorough debate on that matter in five years’ time. I do not want to see noble Lords tie our hands on this matter now through this clearly inflammatory amendment. Amendment 27 is not only unnecessary but not in keeping with the long-standing principles of this House, and I urge the noble Lord not to press it.
Following this debate, I hope that the noble Lords will appreciate that we have listened to concerns here and will support our government amendment and the right balance it achieves between decisive and clear action, while ensuring that parents are informed. I therefore hope that the noble Lords will support my amendment ensuring communication to parents and would urge the noble Lords not to press their other amendments.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that comprehensive response. I would like to say a word or two about some of the other contributions. I am not sure whether the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was here when I made my closing speech on the second group of amendments, but I think that I answered most of the points that she raised then. I shall briefly repeat them. The fundamental point is that doing nothing was not an option; it never has been and it has not been suggested. I outlined other possibilities at that time, and that remains our position. Secondly, we have not advocated a ballot, so it is not about having a vote on the matter. Thirdly, the emphasis, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, will be on convincing the parents that what is being proposed is in the best interests of the children. To me, that is always the best way forward, if possible. Finally, Amendment 23 says that the Secretary of State will have the final say by being obliged to “take into account” what has happened. I hope that that answers her points—it is not all or nothing.
I think that I heard the noble Lord, Lord True, correctly when he said in response to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that in this democracy the people decide. That is exactly what we are calling for—but it seems that that does not happen with academisation.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, said that parents have the right to know of and be involved in the plans. Involvement is a rather elastic concept, and what it means to one set of parents may not be what it means to another. I certainly appreciate the value of Amendment 20, as I said in my opening remarks, and parents will be pleased that they will at least, I imagine, be summoned to a meeting in the school hall, given a presentation and able to ask all sorts of questions, but there is no way for any rethink on the sponsor. That is the fundamental issue from my point of view. There may well be a number of reasons why the sponsor is deemed to be unfit as a result of what they say to the parents, but there is no way of dealing with that. That is a problem.
Baroness Pinnock
My Lords, this amendment, to which my noble friend Lord Storey has also put his name, relates to the future of land passed into the academy trust during the process. I thank the Minister for the clarity of his response to my Question in the Chamber earlier this week about the future of church school land if that school becomes an academy. I understand that Church of England bishops have secured a memorandum of understanding that safeguards the future ownership of church land, and I am pleased that that concern has been resolved.
However, other land ownership issues remain unresolved or at least not resolved satisfactorily. For example, I am a governor of a voluntary controlled high school which is not faith-based. It is one of a handful in the whole country. The land on which Whitcliffe Mount School in Cleckheaton, of which I am extraordinarily proud, was built was donated by local businesses 100 years ago and the school building was built by public subscription and the urban district council. What safeguards are there for this trust land if the school becomes an academy? After all, it was in every sense of the word donated by the public, the local community.
There is the wider question of safeguards for the future of land that is currently in the ownership of local authorities. When maintained schools become academies, the land is typically the subject of a 125-year lease. However, the latest clarification of the guidance, which is in the Department for Education’s Disposal or Change of Use of Playing Field and School Land, which was issued in May this year, explains:
“Prior written consent of the Secretary of State for Education is required to dispose of land (which includes any transfer/sale of freehold or leasehold land and the grant/surrender of a lease). Applications and notifications must be made to the Education Funding Agency”.
Noble Lords will have noticed that the future of the land is subject to discussion not with the leaseholder but with the Secretary of State. That land—previously local authority land, which has passed to the academy trust—may well have been bought many years earlier by a local authority, with or without a grant from the Government. It therefore seems only right that the leaseholder is the main consultee if such land is ever the subject of disposal. Local people will be concerned if they think that school land they had helped years ago to purchase could be disposed of without local consultation. I trust that the Minister will be able to give me clarity about this important matter.
Lord Nash
My Lords, Amendment 19, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, concerns the ownership of school land when a maintained school eligible for intervention is required to become an academy. The Secretary of State has no power over privately funded land. That includes the majority of land held by the charitable trusts of church schools, and the majority of land held by the charitable trusts of the small number of non-church voluntary-aided schools. The provisions in the Bill do not change that basic position. As such, the ownership of land by these trusts continues to be protected. If the school to which the noble Baroness refers is a charitable trust, the Secretary of State has no power to acquire it.
Charitable trusts will be able to continue to hold their land and make it available to academies, as they do now. Where land is held by community groups and is in use by schools through local arrangements—for example, where the school uses the local rugby club pitch—there is no reason why any of the Bill’s provisions should change those arrangements. Again, land owned by community groups will be private land, and it will continue to be for the individual group to make its land available to the school. Likewise, where community groups are making use of school facilities—for example, the school renting out use of its playing field—the school can continue to allow it to do so.
Where public land is made available to an academy trust—for instance, by a local authority—the LA would usually lease the land to an academy trust on, as the noble Baroness says, a 125-year lease. The model funding agreement makes it clear that the academy trust cannot dispose of this land without the Secretary of State’s consent. In the rare cases where an academy trust’s funding agreement is terminated, the land will either return to the local authority or alternatively be reassigned, but only for educational purposes. Where the land is designated playing-field land, there are additional legal requirements in place to protect this designation.
We are very clear that we are short of land for schools in this country, so we have a very clear procedure that we do not allow schools to dispose of land unless there are exceptional reasons. As I say, there is particular protection in relation to playing fields. I hope that I have provided noble Lords with clarity and assurance on the matter of land ownership, and I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Pinnock
I thank the Minister for that clarification, particularly relating to the school where I am a governor. However, I did not quite hear him say that if local authority land is put into an academy trust, that local authority will become a consultee in any future disposal or change of use by allowing another educational use. It would be helpful for us to understand that.
Lord Nash
The 125-year lease will be between the local authority and the academy trust. That lease will make it absolutely clear, as would any lease, that the land cannot be disposed of without the consent of the landlord. It is not owned by the trust but is merely a lease, so the local authority in this situation ensures that it has an absolute right of control to stop any disposal. I can discuss this further with the noble Baroness, but these lease agreements are pretty clear on that.
Baroness Pinnock
I thank the Minister. I hope that we might exchange some written information for some final clarity on the matter. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“Duty to communicate information about plans to improve school
After section 5D of the Academies Act 2010 (inserted by section 12 above) insert—“5E Duty to communicate information about plans to improve school
(1) Before a maintained school in England which is causing concern is converted into an Academy, the proposed proprietor of the Academy must communicate to the registered parents of registered pupils at the school information about the proposed proprietor’s plans to improve the school.
(2) For the purposes of subsection (1)—
(a) the “proposed proprietor of the Academy” is the person with whom the Secretary of State proposes to enter or has entered into Academy arrangements in respect of the school;(b) a school is “causing concern” if it is eligible for intervention within the meaning of Part 4 of EIA 2006.””
“Academies causing concern
After section 2 of the Academies Act 2010 insert—“2A Academy agreements: provision about failing schools
(1) An Academy agreement in respect of an Academy school or an alternative provision academy must include provision allowing the Secretary of State to terminate the agreement if—
(a) special measures are required to be taken in relation to the Academy, or the Academy requires significant improvement.(2) The Academy agreement must require the Secretary of State, before terminating the agreement on one of those grounds, to give the proprietor an opportunity to make representations.
(3) For the purposes of this section special measures are required to be taken in relation to an Academy, or an Academy requires significant improvement, if the Chief Inspector has given notice under section 13(3)(a) of the Education Act 2005.
2B Academy agreements: provision about coasting schools
(1) An Academy agreement in respect of an Academy school or an alternative provision academy must include provision allowing the Secretary of State to terminate the agreement if—
(a) the Academy is coasting, and(b) the Secretary of State has notified the proprietor that it is coasting.(2) The Academy agreement must require the Secretary of State, before terminating the agreement on that ground, to give the proprietor a termination warning notice.
(3) A termination warning notice is a notice requiring the proprietor—
(a) to take specified action to improve the Academy by a specified date, and(b) to respond to the Secretary of State by making representations, or by agreeing to take that action, by a specified date. (4) The Academy agreement must provide that the power to terminate the agreement on the ground that the Academy is coasting is available only if the proprietor has failed to comply with a termination warning notice (whether by failing to take specified action, or to respond, on time).
(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that this section does not apply in relation to an Academy of a description specified in the regulations.
(6) “Coasting”, in relation to an Academy to which this section applies, has the meaning given by regulations under subsection (2) of section 60B of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 in relation to a school to which that section applies.
2C Sections 2A and 2B supplementary - new agreements
(1) An Academy agreement may include further provision about—
(a) the procedure for terminating the agreement in accordance with the provision required by section 2A or 2B;(b) the consequences of terminating the agreement in accordance with that provision.(2) This section does not apply to agreements made before the day on which section 1A of the Education and Adoption Act 2015 comes into force (but see section 2D).
2D Sections 2A and 2B: supplementary - old agreements
(1) An old Academy agreement is to be treated as if it included the new termination powers.
(2) A provision of an old Academy agreement that relates to the procedure for terminating the agreement does not apply to the new termination powers.
(3) Subsections (4) and (5) apply where an old Academy agreement—
(a) contains provision about the consequences of terminating the agreement (“relevant provision”), and(b) the relevant provision is expressed in a way that is capable of covering termination in accordance with the new termination powers.(4) The relevant provision applies to termination in accordance with the new termination powers.
(5) If the relevant provision sets out different consequences depending on whether the agreement is terminated on the ground that the proprietor has breached the Agreement or on other grounds, termination in accordance with the new termination powers is to be treated as termination on the grounds of breach by the proprietor.
(6) In this section—
“new termination powers”, in relation to an Academy agreement, means the powers to terminate in accordance with the provision required by sections 2A and 2B;“old Academy agreement” means an Academy agreement made before the day on which section 1A of the Education and Adoption Act 2015 comes into force.””
Schools: Special Measures
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what powers local authorities have to deal with schools that are put under special measures.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, the Education and Adoption Bill, which we will be debating shortly, will require the Secretary of State to make an academy order for any inadequate maintained school, fulfilling the promise made in our manifesto. The local authority will then be under a duty to facilitate conversion. Local authorities retain intervention powers under the Education and Inspections Act 2006 in schools eligible for intervention, including inadequate schools. However, the revised Schools Causing Concern guidance, currently under consultation, makes it clear that it will generally be regional schools commissioners who intervene, using the powers of the Secretary of State.
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the Minister for his reply. The chairman of the Local Government Association’s children and young people board, a Conservative, said that local authorities,
“must be regarded as education improvement partners and be allowed to intervene early and use their vast experience, integrity and desire to improve the system”.
In the spirit of Christmas time, will the Minister agree to meet to see how we can further enhance the role of local authorities in school improvement?
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
If it is the Government’s ambition, as David Cameron stated recently, to make,
“local authorities running schools a thing of the past”,
how will local knowledge about schools and their communities be gathered and how will other local authority services be harnessed to benefit schools?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness quite rightly refers to this Government’s ambition to give every school the opportunity to become an academy. Local knowledge is prevalent on the regional schools commissioners’ head teacher boards. Four members are elected by their peers, and many other boards have a balance of head teachers spread across the region. Regional schools commissioners and local authorities are co-operating well in relation to the schools in their areas.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, many local authorities across the country have demonstrated that effective local improvement can occur through strong local authority leadership in partnership with schools. An example is the oft-cited London Challenge. All the evidence, including the latest government statistics, shows that the maintained sector can turn around inadequate and failing schools better than the academy sector. Therefore, forcing all schools to become academies is not based on the need to improve school attainment. Does the Minister agree?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree that there are local authorities that are perfectly capable of turning schools around. The sad fact is, though, that quite a few—a depressingly large number—do not appear to have been prepared to use their intervention powers. Since 2006, 42 local authorities have never installed an IEB, and 49, nearly one-third, have never issued a warning notice since 2010.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, to go back to the question from my noble friend Lady Massey, could the Minister explain why this Government are bent on giving more powers to local authorities in a number of very important areas, such as health—I use the so-called northern powerhouse as the most high-profile example—yet appear to think that the same local authorities to which they are prepared to devolve those powers are not fit to run education services?
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
Is the Minister aware that by forcing ever more schools to convert to academies, he is in effect making a rod for his own back? If the only role remaining for local authorities is to facilitate those conversions, in the period after that all responsibility for failing schools will fall on the Government, and Ministers will be forced to come to this House and explain to noble Lords why those schools are failing and what they are going to do about it.
Lord Glentoran (Con)
My Lords, what is the intention of Her Majesty’s Government in relation to ensuring that education by devolved Governments is maintained and remains at the same standard as the United Kingdom’s? By that, I mean Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.
Lord Stoddart of Swindon (Ind Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that throughout the 20th century local authorities led and ran education in this country very successfully, and indeed introduced many new systems and improvements to the whole education system? I speak as a former member of a county borough education committee. Would it not be better if local people ran their local services, rather than central government interfering in matters that really should not concern it?
Lord Nash
Actually, I think they do concern us. This Government are passionate about ensuring that every child gets a good education, and sadly there are far too many areas in this country where that is not the case. As I have already explained, regional schools commissioners are very locally based.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, would the Minister explain to the House whether there is any relationship between the way that the Government have decided where schools can be built, where new schools can be opened, where schools can be expanded and where they cannot, and the fact that many parents are now discovering that what used to be their local authority’s responsibility for planning provision over their area has been messed up by the Government moving in because they particularly want a certain sort of school, without looking at the overall planning needs to suit every child of every group of parents?
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Addington
Yes, I hope that it will be reported in Hansard.
Amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9, 9A and 10A concern the new definition of a school in trouble—that it is “coasting”. If coasting is a bad thing, I suggest that all types of school should have it available to them. I also note that the Minister has tabled amendments in this group, so I will resist any further comment until after I have heard what he has to say, as I believe that he has made certain steps towards us.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
Before the noble Lord moves on to his other amendments, I would like to elaborate on the point that he just referred to. As he said, I have tabled an amendment on it, and I take this opportunity to assure him that we take academies’ performance very seriously. We fully intend to hold academies to account in the same way as we do maintained schools. My Amendment 24 will ensure that the “coasting” definition always applies to academies and that we will always have power to take action when academies fail or coast. I will talk about that in more detail, but I hope that the noble Lord is reassured that we have addressed the concerns about tackling underperforming academies raised by him and a number of other noble Lords, and will not press his amendments in relation to that.
Lord Addington
I thank the Minister. I was going to thank him in my summing-up speech, but I do it now.
There are two clarification amendments in this group. Amendment 9 relates to the definition of a coasting school as having three consecutive years of failure. That has been suggested and referred to in regulation, but the amendment seeks to have that included in the Bill, or at least get confirmation that that is what must happen before this type of intervention takes place. Further reassurance would help on that.
Amendment 15A states that certain types of schools will never be affected by the definition of coasting. Once again, this is seeking clarification and reassurance. My attention is drawn particularly to special schools in this regard. The integration of special schools into the education system as a support structure is very important. Some local base will always be important. Who knows what will happen in the future, but under the current structure, it would be appropriate to spell that out more clearly.
The more substantive amendment as far as I am concerned is Amendment 15. When drawing up the definition of a coasting school, a school that is in the throes of failing or at least stagnating, what does one look at? It is quite clear that academic results will be a factor and I have included that in a small list. Lists are of course imperfect, but they are a starting point for discussions. But other school activities are also important and I offer three further examples. One would be arts and sports. If there is exceptional activity in that area, but the academic side is not great, are you in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? If schools are doing something that is good, do we endanger it with a change of school status, organisation and ethos? Any time we do that we will presumably throw everything into the melting pot and changes will have to be made to address something. By changing that structure we may get rid of something good.
The same argument could be made about placement in further education and/or school activity after that. If we have established a good pathway, are we in danger, if we change that, of damaging this process? I still regard apprenticeships as something of a work in progress, but they are lauded by all. If a particular school is doing very well at getting people into apprenticeships, surely that deserves to have some special attention paid to it.
I do not think this is a particularly radical thought, but I have not heard conclusively what we will do if we get these very great gains and positives; will we throw them away? I remind all noble Lords that we have heard much about how schools should not just be chasing grades. If the target is getting definite C grades at GCSE, which is one that is often referred to, just chasing B grades at GCSE is not that much better. It is for the person getting the grades, but outside that, are we actually getting rid of something else?
I beg to move Amendment 8A and I look forward to all the Minister’s replies on this group.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, first, I must apologise to the Minister: I referred to Amendment 20, as the noble Lord, Lord True, rightly pointed out. All I can say is that perhaps that has given the Minister advance notice of any issues that might be raised when we come to that group, but I apologise for misleading the House on that point.
Secondly, my noble friend Lady Hughes and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, until he got into his view about academies and other schools, made the point that these debates on structures are rather tedious and sometimes detract from our overall concern about the outcome for individual pupils at our schools. I thought that the chief inspector, in his recent report, had it right when he said:
“Much of the education debate in recent years has revolved around school structure”.
He refers to academies as having,
“injected vigour and competition into the system. But as academies have become the norm, success or failure hasn’t automatically followed. The same can be said of those schools that have remained with local authorities”.
I appeal for some balance in our debate. I do not understand the argument that academisation is automatically the route to be followed, because the evidence is not there. Where is the evidence? It is a fact, is it not, just to take the recent DfE 2015 data, that recent key stage 2 improvement results show that improvement is significantly greater in primary schools that are not academies—that it is actually greater in maintained schools? This becomes a very sterile argument. We have been debating this Bill for many happy hours and I am still waiting for the Minister to say something positive about maintained schools. Surely the 133 local authority schools graded as outstanding since 1 January deserve some recognition.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I would like to speak to the group containing Amendments 8B, 9B, 10B, 15B and 24, tabled in my name, regarding coasting schools and academies, and Amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9, 9A, 10, 10A, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 15A regarding coasting schools, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Addington, Lord Watson, and Lord Hunt, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland.
First, on my most substantive amendment, Amendment 24 on academies, I am grateful for the support that the House has given this amendment. The vast majority of academies are performing well and the academies programme remains central to the Government’s commitment to secure excellent education everywhere. The programme is firmly based on an approach that freedom, combined with strong accountability, raises standards. We have been clear right from the start that we will tackle underperformance wherever it occurs, whether in a maintained school or in an academy. I recognise, however, that our formal powers in relation to failing and coasting schools vary depending on the age of an academy’s funding agreement. Indeed, the older the funding agreement is, the weaker the powers are—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, referred to that variation. In some cases, that can restrict our ability to take action as strongly or swiftly as we would like. This is not acceptable. As the Secretary of State has said, and as a number of noble Lords have reiterated, a single day spent by a child in an underperforming school is a day too many.
Our amendment will ensure that we have the powers to hold all academies to account when they do not meet the high standards that we rightly expect and will create a more consistent framework for tackling underperformance across different types of schools. This is something that we have been considering for some time. We have listened to what noble Lords have said on the matter during the course of debate and have spoken to some of our leading sponsors. They—all of them charities, of course—tell us that they find the inconsistencies in the present system frustrating. The few cases of high-profile academy failure create a misleading picture of the excellent work being done by academies across the country. These cases have also allowed the myth to grow that the Government somehow favour academies and hold them to account less robustly than maintained schools. That is not the case, and I have in previous debates elaborated on how tough the regional schools commissioners have been, as my noble friend said, in rebrokering many cases.
This amendment will further strengthen the ability of regional schools commissioners to take action where academies underperform. When an academy’s performance meets one of two triggers in legislation—an inadequate Ofsted judgment or performance that falls within the coasting definition—and it cannot satisfy the regional schools commissioners that it has an adequate plan, as in the case of maintained schools, its funding agreement will be read as having, in effect, the same provisions around failing and coasting schools as are in our latest model funding agreement.
I hope that answers the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes. We have already changed our new model funding agreement so that the coasting definition applies to academies, and the latest funding agreement has for some time had the ability to intervene rapidly in failing and inadequate academies. Where a school is failing or has failed to come out of a coasting situation, we will now read all funding agreements as if they had that clause in them.
In practice, this will give regional schools commissioners consistent powers to move a failing academy swiftly to a new sponsor and to require a coasting academy to demonstrate that it can make sufficient improvement. Where an academy is coasting—as with a coasting maintained school—the academy will be given the opportunity to demonstrate that it can improve sufficiently. Where a coasting academy does not have a credible plan to improve sufficiently, this amendment ensures that further action can be taken by the regional schools commissioner. This could ultimately include terminating the funding agreement and bringing in a new sponsor if this is the best way to ensure rapid and sustained improvement.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, referred to the concept of a warning notice—I think she was referring to the warning notice in new Section 2B in my Amendment 24. She will be very familiar with the fact that academies operate through this contractual arrangement and the funding agreement. The termination warning notice in Amendment 24 is part of the process for terminating a coasting academy contract in those circumstances. The powers provided in this amendment take effect only when an academy is failing or meets the coasting definition. We will not interfere in the arrangements or freedoms of academies and free schools that are performing well. This approach reinforces the central principle of the academy programme: trusting heads to run their schools through freedom and autonomy, but at the same time holding them to account for the results their pupils achieve.
I hope the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Watson, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, whose amendments 8A, 8C, 8D, 9A, 10A and 13 all seek to apply the coasting definition to academies, are reassured that we take academy performance very seriously and intend to hold academies to account in the same way we do maintained schools. I therefore urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Turning now to my other amendments regarding coasting—Amendments 8B, 9B, 10B and 15B—I listened closely to all the points raised during the informed and wide-ranging debate we had on Clause 1 in Grand Committee. I know there is widespread support in this House for tackling schools that are not fulfilling the potential of their pupils, and I am grateful for that support. We all want every child, regardless of their background, to have the opportunity to go to a good school and receive the highest-quality education they deserve. Noble Lords have raised some very helpful and relevant points regarding the detail set out in Clause 1. I have considered these points very carefully and have decided to lay a number of government amendments, which will, I believe, further strengthen the Bill and address many of the points Peers have raised.
Amendments 8B and 10B remove an element of subjectivity from the coasting definition that could be implied by the current wording of the Bill. The text currently states that a school will be eligible for intervention when it has been notified that the Secretary of State considers it to be coasting. We have been clear from the outset that we want schools to be certain about whether they have fallen below the coasting bar. That is why our proposed coasting definition is clear, transparent and data-based. To make sure that schools are in no doubt about this, we are proposing to revise the wording of Clause 1 to remove the reference to “considers”. This will also help ensure that schools are treated consistently across regions, as whether a school falls in scope will be down to data not someone’s judgment. I hope noble Lords will agree that the amendment will increase transparency and certainty for schools and remove any unnecessary and unintentional anxiety teachers and head teachers may feel about whether their school could be identified as coasting.
Amendment 9B provides the Secretary of State with the power to disapply the coasting clauses from certain type of schools. The Bill as it is currently drafted applies to all maintained schools, including schools which we have no intention of applying the definition to, such as maintained nursery schools. As our proposed definition is based on key stage 2 and key stage 4 results—assessments pupils take at the age of 11 and 16—it would not be possible or appropriate to use such an approach to identify coasting maintained nursery schools. They will continue to be held to account through the Ofsted inspection regime.
Special schools are also currently included in the scope of the clause, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, referred to this. Special schools should provide excellent education to their pupils, and we have high expectations for what children with special educational needs can achieve. However, it would be inappropriate and unfair to apply exactly the same expectations of pupil performance to these schools. We are consulting on whether and how we can develop a separate coasting definition for special schools. I am aware that this will not be easy but we are consulting on it. That consultation closes this Friday, and we expect to publish our response in the spring.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I really meant that, in the event that the provisions of government Amendment 24 were to be invoked because an academy was either coasting or failing, what did the Minister envisage would be the timescale to get it back on track?
Lord Nash
For a failing academy we would proceed as quickly as we could identify an alternative sponsor. There would be no question of the school closing, unless there was no demand for the school. In all the cases that we have brokeraged, to which my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy referred, we have waited until we identified another sponsor and moved on as quickly as possible. Generally, we are talking about a few months.
There was a question about whether different sets of regulations would apply to maintained schools and academies. There will be just one set of regulations. This is made clear by subsection (6) of new Clause 2B.
In conclusion, I note that noble Lords support our ambition to ensure that all pupils, whatever their background, receive an education that enables them to flourish. I hope that this debate and the amendments that I have laid will reassure the House that our approach will help us to achieve this ambition. I therefore urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments and to support the government amendment that I have laid.
Lord Addington
My Lords, it has been an interesting and very wide-ranging debate. I do not envy the Minister his challenge of bringing all these amendments together in one group. However, I will try to finish where I began. I thank the Minister for Amendment 24 but have one word of caution, although I am probably teaching granny to suck eggs here. Given that the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay, think that this should be looked at again for technical reasons, I hope that the Minister will encourage his officials to do that. He is nodding his head, and that is very much appreciated. That is what Third Reading is for; if there is a technical problem with this amendment, which is generally welcomed, let us get it right.
Amendment 15 was not a “may” or “shall” but a “must” and “may”—the updated version of that hardy perennial of Parliament. I take some reassurance from what the Minister said. The amendment was based on the exact regulations he looked at. I have had excellent help of late. I am more comfortable about the idea that the whole school be taken more into account. However, I think that we should keep an eye on this because it would be very easy to slip back to asking what the exam results are and saying, “That is it—final”. The whole House agrees that that is not a great model. There must be some flexibility. Once again the Minister nods his head, and so I am reassured.
I thank the Minister for correcting what was basically a flaw in the Bill and for doing that very promptly. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
(a) the school is coasting, and“(b) the Secretary of State has notified the governing body that it is coasting.”
“( ) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that this section does not apply in relation to a school of a description specified in the regulations.”
“( ) In section 182 (Parliamentary control of orders and regulations), in subsection (3), after paragraph (a) insert—
“(aza) the first regulations to be made under section 60B(2) (regulations defining “coasting” in relation to a school),”.”
Lord Nash
I shall speak to the amendments to Clauses 7 and 8, which seek to undermine the core intentions of the Bill. The Bill is focused on delivering a manifesto pledge, which is an essential part of the Government’s commitment to ensuring that every child receives an excellent education that sets them up to succeed in modern Britain. That manifesto commitment was that we would ensure that any failing maintained school becomes a sponsored academy, to completely transform that school and its educational performance, as my noble friend Lord Harris has just outlined so eloquently and passionately. I pay tribute to the great work that he does in this area. That is why Clause 7 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of any maintained school that Ofsted has judged to be inadequate. That duty means that there will be no question and no debate about this, which is why Clause 8 removes the requirement to consult on whether such a school should become a sponsored academy. It would be meaningless to consult when our manifesto was absolutely clear that failing maintained schools would become academies. That mandate means there is no question about what will happen, and no decision being made. It does not make sense therefore to consult on whether schools should or should not convert.
Amendment 15C fundamentally undermines our manifesto commitment to turn every failing maintained school into a sponsored academy, and we consider this amendment to be a breach of the Salisbury convention. As I have set out, I cannot accept the reintroduction of a statutory consultation process on whether a school should convert—a question that makes no sense in failing schools, when we have been so clear. The Bill puts children first, not the vested interests of adults who would seek to delay this action. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, for her strong and brave words in that regard. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, referred to a situation that was not a pretty sight some 30 years ago, and I assure her that, sadly, there have been plenty of not a pretty sights much more recently. My noble friend Lord True referred to some, as did my noble friend Lord Harris.
The noble Baroness also talked about the opportunity for representation when a school becomes rebrokered as a sponsor. This is a completely different situation. I attempted to explain to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, that that is because of how funding agreements work, and we are trying to change funding agreements as little as possible, because no Government want to interfere with contracts entered into willingly between two parties any more than they have to.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, cross-referred the situation to the coasting schools situation, whereby a school may be able to improve on its own, and said that it was relevant to thinking again about whether one should make an academy order in relation to an inadequate school. This is a completely different situation. I have been very clear that the default position for a coasting school is not to become an academy, because the school may very well improve, as I am sure many will be able to, on their own or with limited help. But here we are talking about a school that is demonstrably failing and unable to sort itself out on its own. As I say, it is a quite different situation.
However, our position absolutely does not equate to a belief that parents should not have a right to know, or be involved in, changes that affect their child’s school. This is the matter that Amendment 17 is raising. My government Amendment 20 already proposes to require parents to be informed. When a school is required to become a sponsored academy, the sponsor would be under a duty to communicate to parents about their plans for improving the school. This would have to take place before the school converted into a sponsored academy. That amendment therefore already provides robust assurances to parents that they will be kept informed. However, going further and requiring parents to be engaged through formal consultation is just not appropriate. Consultation is overly formal and inflexible. Formal consultations can unintentionally raise the temperature of the debate, rather like when one gets lawyers involved in a divorce settlement, and too often can be used to create delays to the process.
Amendment 16A would prescribe a list of various additional parties who must be included in the consultation exercise. There are already provisions in legislation that will ensure these parties are informed about changes when a school is required to become a sponsored academy. Our proposed Clause 10 is already explicit that the governing body and local authority should work with the named sponsor. The governing body will include representation from parents, staff, the head teacher and the local authority, so those parties will all already be kept informed via that route. The local authority will be further, intimately involved in the detail of the transfer of the school to academy status. The existing TUPE process already ensures that, as a minimum, staff at the school who will be affected by the transfer of the school to the academy trust will always be notified about the transfer by their employer or the academy trust. Where the academy trust proposes any changes that affect the employees, there must be consultation about those. This means that there is already a legal obligation for staff to receive information about the academy trust and be consulted on any proposed changes to terms and conditions, prior to any academy conversion taking place, comparable to what my amendment now proposes to introduce for parents.
The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked whether regional schools commissioners would write to parents. We do not want to be that prescriptive. In many cases, it may well be best for the governing body to write to parents to invite them to come to a meeting with a sponsor because parents may be much more likely to listen to the governing body. I am very happy to discuss the precise contents of the Schools Causing Concern guidance with the noble Lord in that regard, and to discuss why it may not be appropriate to be too prescriptive.
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for speaking in favour of my amendment on communication to parents, and I pay tribute to the great work that he does in Ely and across the country in education. Faith schools have an excellent track record on community cohesion. I attended only last week the Church of England’s Living Well Together conference, which brought together students, teachers, faith leaders and others to share ideas about how we live well together and promote peaceful coexistence. I was very impressed by what the Church of England is doing to promote these discussions within schools, and I would very much look to the church’s view on these matters and the appropriateness of our amendment on communicating with parents. I also take this opportunity to reiterate my assurances on how we will ensure the religious character of a faith school will be protected when any intervention is unnecessary, and I shall give more detail on that later on.
I cannot allow a formal consultation exercise to be introduced that requires governing bodies and local authorities to be given a say in whether a school causing concern should become a sponsored academy. We are talking about the same governing body and local authority that, as my noble friend Lord True remarked, has already allowed the school to fail, and not taken the necessary action to halt its decline at an earlier stage. Amendment 16A takes us back to a position that is more inflexible than the current process, and I hope all Peers will accept that that is a retrograde step and a step towards delay and inaction, which would undermine the fundamental principles behind the Bill.
Let us be clear: Amendment 15C would drive a coach and horses through the core purpose of the Bill, which is to turn failing schools into academies. That was a manifesto commitment, and therefore not only would the amendment fundamentally undermine the Bill but we consider that it would be a breach of the Salisbury convention, as I said earlier. Further, we do not consider Amendment 16A to be consequential to Amendment 15C. However, I have already shown that we are prepared to listen to the concerns raised about ensuring that parents are informed about what changes are being made to improve their child’s school, and that is why I have tabled government Amendment 20, to that effect. I hope noble Lords will agree that I have listened and achieved the right balance between responding to Peers’ valid concerns about parents having a right to know what is going on in their child’s school and not undermining the Bill’s core purpose, which is to ensure that there is no scope for delay in transforming every failing school. I hope noble Lords will recognise that the Bill is delivering a manifesto commitment. I therefore urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, this has been a very interesting debate, with many speakers and many opinions—which can only be a healthy thing. I will be as quick as I can in picking up just one or two of the major points. My noble friend Lady Morris made the point that you need to make a very strong case for excluding parents in this situation, and that case has not been made.
I say to the noble Lord, Lord True, that the consultation is not detailed. The amendment does not state exactly what it should include. The terms, including the time allowed, will be for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations. She will be obliged to take into account only the views expressed in that consultation.
The noble Baroness, Lady Howarth of Breckland, made an important point, and I think that I owe her and other noble Lords an apology because I clearly did not make it evident in my remarks when moving the amendment that the alternative to academy status is not to do nothing and just carry on as before. That never was the case, and I very much hope it never would be. I would certainly never advocate it, but there are alternatives. Academy status is not the only alternative. For instance, the local authority has a role, a new head teacher can be brought in—which has been successful on other such occasions—and new governors can be appointed. Another successful school in the locality could take the school under its wing—again, there have been several examples of that having been done successfully, short of academisation. So the idea that it is one or the other is simply not true, and I am not for one moment advocating no action.
I think that parents at an underperforming school would be likely to want change—perhaps even to academy status. Who knows?
Lord Nash
The approach to trying to improve schools which the noble Lord has just referred to has been tried for years. Bringing in a supportive school from nearby to get the school better and then move off is not a permanent solution. We have seen this for many years in some of the schools to which that my noble friend Lord Harris referred. It is a temporary solution, a quick fix, and it does not work. Here, we are talking about a permanent solution under a sponsored academy arrangement.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, surely the point is that the RSCs still cover a huge area. When we debated this matter in Grand Committee, we were told by the noble Baroness, Lady Evans, that there were 778 approved sponsors and about 20% were waiting to be matched with schools, but we were not told about the long delays. In our earlier debate we were told that a one-day delay would have a crucial impact on the lives of children, and I understood that argument. However, it appears that the great academisation process in itself induces months of delay in certain places and for certain schools.
I would be glad if the Minister would take away and consider the amendment between now and Third Reading. All it is saying is that there may be some circumstances where there is no suitable academy—and that is why it is taking so long—and a local authority or a maintained school might have a role to play. I would have thought that the Minister could give this a little consideration.
Lord Nash
My Lords, Amendments 15D and 25, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, both concern the identification of an academy sponsor to take responsibility for a maintained school that is eligible for intervention.
RSCs are already responsible for subjecting prospective sponsors and their trusts to thorough scrutiny—against robust, uniform criteria—of whether they have the expertise and capacity to bring about improvement in other schools and whether they are in the right place before they are approved to take on sponsored academies. These rigorous processes ensure that academy sponsors which RSCs can match with underperforming maintained schools have a strong track record in educational improvement and financial management, and that their trust has high-quality leadership and governance.
I appreciate the intention behind the noble Lord’s amendments, which is to ensure that RSCs have a complete picture of the performance and capacity of sponsors in their region to inform the decisions they make about matching a sponsor to an underperforming maintained school. However, RSCs already take a wealth of data and intelligence into account when making those decisions. Value added measures are only one factor that an RSC will take into account when deciding on an appropriate sponsor for a failing school. They will also consider the school’s ethos, the capacity of the sponsor and their geographical location. It would be absurd, for instance, to appoint a sponsor far away from the school just because it had a higher value added measure rather than another prospective sponsor which was more suitable geographically. Therefore, Amendment 15D, requiring the RSC to take account of value added performance and progress measures when identifying a sponsor for a failing maintained school, is restrictive and unnecessary.
The amendment also proposes that, where a sponsor of a high enough quality is not available, a failing school should be sponsored by a local authority-maintained school or, indeed, directly by a local authority. Proposing that local authorities or maintained schools should have a role in sponsoring academies completely undermines the point of our reforms. A core principle behind our academy programme is to free strong school leaders from unnecessary bureaucracy by ensuring a robust single line of accountability. If local authorities and maintained schools are able to sponsor, that just blurs this line of accountability, with it going back to local government as well as to the Secretary of State. That would be a very confusing picture for schools.
This Government’s ambition is for every school to have the opportunity to become an academy and, over time, for the role of local authorities in running schools to reduce. As more schools become academies and many local authorities have few maintained schools left, as is already the case for many, I hope that we will see members of local authority teams who are skilled at school improvement spinning out to set up their own MATs. That is certainly a development which we would welcome and which I anticipate will happen before too long.
It is also critical that failing schools become part of a multi-academy trust structure—something that it is not possible for a maintained school to join. Multi-academy trusts are the most rigorous, permanent, accountable, unified and efficient way of bringing about school improvement. The MAT structure of school-to-school support offers substantial advantages, including being in charge of one’s own destiny, substantial career enhancement opportunities, better retention of staff, opportunities for subject-specific teaching in primaries, enhanced CPD and leadership opportunities, a common school improvement strategy, the ability to recruit much higher-calibre finance people and greater economies of scale. I am delighted that the NGA and ASCL have concluded that the best model for academy governance is the MAT structure. I could not agree more.
For all the reasons that I have set out, I hope that the noble Lord appreciates that my approach is not to stop good schools or strong people within local authorities sponsoring academies. In fact, I would actively encourage more schools to convert and talented education experts within local authorities to set up their own multi-academy trusts. However, the MAT model will simply not work unless all schools in the MAT are academies or unless lines of accountability are clear. I hope that the noble Lord now appreciates why this amendment simply cannot work and that he will be convinced that he should withdraw it.
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. I think that I can clarify the point and, at the same time, answer the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I am sorry that I did not do so earlier. The answer that we gave—I will put it in writing to the noble Baroness and other noble Lords, and put a copy in the Library—concerned not how long it took to match a school to a sponsor but how long the school had been inadequate. I am happy to meet the noble Baroness to discuss this further but it is quite clear that the delay in these cases will not always have been because of the lack of a sponsor. There are lots of delays for other reasons—the exact kinds of issues that we debated on the previous amendment, and I am sorry that the noble Baroness did not raise the point then.
Lord Storey
So I say again that some pupils will be waiting for a considerable time in their failing school when there might be a nearby maintained school that has a tremendous reputation and tremendous results—but we are not prepared to engage it. Of course, that comes back to what this is really all about. This is not about providing the best educational opportunities; it is about what the Prime Minister said at the Conservative Party conference. His ambition is for every school to be an academy and for local authorities running schools to be a thing of the past. That is presumably why the Minister is not happy with the notion that, if there is a council-maintained school or local authority with a value-added measure above the national average, you could use them. He is not interested in that because that is not the political philosophy. I think that that is a great mistake and a great shame. It is about what is best for the child. Therefore, on this amendment, I would like to test the opinion of the House.
Schools: Faith Schools
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Pinnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether, if a faith school is rated inadequate and is required to become an academy, they will enforce the transfer of church land to the academy trust.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash)
The Education and Adoption Bill would require failing church schools to become academies, but land will not be removed from the church. Dioceses or their schools will sponsor the majority of failing church schools; where a non-church trust sponsors a church school, the religious character of the church school will be protected. The diocese would continue to own the land and make it available to the sponsor while it is a school, as happens with existing academies, solely for the purpose of a church school.
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
I thank the Minister for the clarity of his response. However, to provide reassurance to all faith groups, I ask that he add an amendment to the Education and Adoption Bill. In addition, what safeguards can he provide that the particular ethos of faith schools can be retained within a non-faith academy trust?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness raises an extremely good point. We are very anxious to ensure that the faith ethos is maintained. We have gone further than the noble Baroness outlines, in that we have had extensive discussions with the churches and there is a revised memorandum of understanding with them, which I believe is now largely, if not entirely, agreed. These have much more extensive provisions as to precisely how a school’s religious character will be protected.
The Lord Bishop of Ely
My Lords, can the Minister expand on the nature and character of the safeguards being provided, given that the prime issue around this land is not the land itself but that it has been given by parishes and generations of generous citizens to guarantee the religious character of those schools?
Lord Nash
I would be delighted to expand on that as the right reverend Prelate mentions. We intend to insert within the articles of association a faith object, which requires the trust to ensure that the character of the church school is maintained. There will be an entrenchment clause, which requires written consent of the diocese for changes to the articles relating to the maintenance of the church school’s religious character—for instance, those relating to local governing bodies or the church’s power to appoint staff. There is a requirement that members and trustees are appointed to provide proportionate diocese representation on the MAT, and to establish a local governing body, and for the creation of a scheme of delegation relating to the religious character of the school agreed between the MAT and the diocese. This will be protected.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I hope that the Minister will have time to answer this question from me. I am sure that he will be aware of media reports over the weekend concerning Highfield Humanities College in Blackpool, where parents were very concerned about its conversion to an academy by the Tauheedul Education Trust, which already runs 10 Muslim faith academies—yet only 2% of the pupils at Highfield are Muslim. Will the Minister provide an assurance that there will always be full parental and community consultation when an academy changes from not having a religious character to having one—and, indeed, when it changes between faiths?
Lord Nash
I am grateful for the noble Lord’s shorter question. I am very much aware of the case to which he refers. Of course, Tauheedul has had three of its schools inspected and they are all outstanding. We shall ensure, as our amendment to the Bill makes clear, that in all these cases in future, as has generally happened in almost every case in the past, parents are communicated with about the details of the change in status.
Lord O'Shaughnessy (Con)
My Lords, a 2011 report by the London School of Economics found that by becoming a sponsored academy the school not only raises its attainment but raises the attainment of neighbouring schools. I declare my interest as managing director of a trust that operates two free schools. Does my noble friend agree with me that, while the ownership of church land is clearly very important, what really matters is the quality of the education that goes on in the schools that sit on it?
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a former chair of education in Lancashire, which has the largest number of church schools. I can tell the Minister that those church schools do not like glib references slurring one side or the other. Will the Minister give the House a total assurance that all church schools will be treated equally financially? At the moment, some schools run directly by the Government get more money—more capital and more revenue—than some local authority and voluntary aided sector schools. Can we have a guarantee that there will be no bribery?
Lord Nash
I assure the noble Baroness that there will be no bribery—I believe it is a criminal offence. Ongoing funding for all schools is done on an equal basis. When some schools are started, there are some diseconomies, and some very small schools get extra money. I point the noble Baroness to the latest figures based on 2014 key stage 2: at Church of England schools, 82% of pupils achieved the required level 4, compared to 79% of pupils at local authority maintained schools.
Baroness Gardner of Parkes (Con)
My Lords, I was not clear on the answer given to the right reverend Prelate. I thought that part of his question referred to the property position and whether the church owning the land would be forced to part with it or have it compulsorily purchased. It seems a bit equivalent to a housing association, where the property was also often given by someone a long time ago. Can the Minister clarify the property position for me? If he does not know it offhand, which I would not necessarily expect, it could come through in an answer. I would like clarification about the property aspect raised in this Question.
Baroness Humphreys (LD)
Protecting the ethos of particular schools is not confined to church schools. There is a widespread feeling that multiacademy chains make new academies in their own image. How will the Minister ensure that locally developed values, nurtured over the years, can be maintained?
Lord Nash
The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. It is very important that sponsors coming into schools are very conscious of what the noble Baroness calls “locally developed values” and make sure that schools’ traditions, which I am very well aware of in relation to one school that I sponsor, are maintained.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Perry of Southwark
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what impact the introduction of the English Baccalaureate has had on the number of young people studying science and mathematics.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, all state-funded schools are required to teach science and maths to pupils up to the age of 16 as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. Since the introduction of the EBacc in 2010, the proportion of pupils taking GCSEs in maths has remained stable at 97%. For science counted in the EBacc, the proportion has increased from 63% to 74%. We have also had a substantial increase of 15% or more in the number of pupils taking maths and science at A-level.
Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)
That is very good news indeed. Would my noble friend not agree that given the importance of these STEM subjects to the future careers of young people and, indeed, to the economy, it would be very profitable to continue the expansion of maths and science as compulsory subjects into the 17 and 18 year-old age group?
Baroness Nye (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the latest figures show that almost one in five secondary teacher training places for September has not been filled, and on non-EBacc courses, less than two-thirds of the number of trainees required have been recruited, with design and technology being the hardest hit. Does he think that the concentration on STEM and EBacc subjects will accelerate the decline in the number of art teachers in schools, which has already fallen 11% since 2010?
Lord Nash
The position in relation to teachers is no different from what it has been several times over the past 15 years: a less than 1% shortfall. The substantial increase in the number of pupils taking maths A-levels—18% in maths and 27% in further maths—gives us good hope that we will see more maths teachers in future.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that a rise of 6% to 18% in the proportion of youngsters now entering school with English as their second language has had an effect on the studying of science?
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will no doubt be pleased at the increase in the number of pupils studying science and maths. He used the phrase “broad and balanced”. He will also be aware that the creative industries are really important to the UK economy. Is he not concerned that we are seeing a decline in the creative and cultural subjects being taught at secondary school? If it continues apace, will he consider recommending that a creative or cultural subject be part of the EBacc offer?
Lord Nash
We are not considering the noble Lord’s second point. There is no evidence that EBacc has had a detrimental impact on arts subjects. Since 2007, the percentage of pupils taking at least one arts GCSE has increased by 6%. A number of free schools—School 21, East London Arts & Music academy, Plymouth School of Creative Arts and the LeAF Studio School—specialise in arts and media.
Lord Vinson (Con)
My Lords, will my noble friend do everything he can to encourage the use of the baccalaureate? Under the old A plus system, at 15, children had effectively to choose whether to become artists or scientists. The result has given us a great raft of illiterate scientists and unscientific artists. The baccalaureate gives one a broad education up to at least 17 or 18. No one can consider themselves to begin to be educated unless they have a good grounding in both the arts and the sciences, and I hope that he will continue to promote the sort of exams that encourage that.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I suspect that the Minister did not give us all the information. At A-level, although there has been a welcome increase in the number taking maths and science, what he did not tell the House was that the trend for increased numbers in those subjects significantly predates the introduction of the EBacc in 2010, and the pace of increase since then has actually slowed. Between 2002 and 2009, numbers in maths increased by 58%; since the introduction of the EBacc, they have increased by only a further 13%. In physics, between 2006 and 2010, numbers increased by 18%; since then, by 16%. The Minister also did not reveal that English and modern languages are also EBacc subjects, but take-up has fallen since 2010.
Last year, the director-general of the CBI said that,
“we have no debate at all about the 14-18 curriculum—only a debate about exams … we need curriculum reform, not just exam reform”.
Was not he right?
Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that those concerned with music education are worried about the impact of the EBacc on music education in schools. That is partly because schools faced with hard choices on budget priorities are less concerned about recruiting music teachers. Is he willing to speak to people from the music education industry about those concerns?
Lord West of Spithead (Lab)
The Minister will be aware of the huge shortage of engineers in this country and, particularly, in the Navy, Air Force and Army. What is being done to translate that increase in science and maths into engineering and to try to encourage that?
Lord Grocott (Lab)
Having failed to answer my noble friend Lord Watson in his first attempt, could the Minister now try again?
Vulnerable Children: Kinship Care
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, for calling a debate on this important subject. I am sure that the whole House would agree that kinship carers, many of whom are grandparents, play a pivotal role in caring for children who cannot live with their parents. I welcome the opportunity to answer for the Government in this short debate.
First, I make it clear that the Government do not see a hierarchy between adoption, fostering, residential care or kinship care. We are interested not in favouring one type of care over another, but in what is right for each individual child. Over the last five years we have made significant strides in this regard. I am grateful for the supportive remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey.
For a majority of children, kinship care will be the first and best option. This is not just because it is what the law requires, but because we know kinship care offers children a vitally important bond of familial love and belonging. That is why we applaud kinship carers who step in, often in a crisis or emergency, to take on the care of a child, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley and the noble Baroness, Lady Drake, said. There will, of course, be many children being looked after by relatives where care proceedings are not an issue but where the primary carers are ill or in distress and cannot easily care for the child. However, the Government recognise that kinship carers take on a role that might otherwise have to be performed by the state. Kinship carers enable vulnerable children and young people to remain with their families, with people they know and trust who can provide the right commitment, security and stability they need to thrive.
We know, through voluntary sector research, that children benefit from living with their extended family and that placement stability is a factor in children’s later achievement. Children in placements with relatives are likely to be more stable than ones in unrelated fostering or residential care. In particular, research indicates that children in these arrangements have fewer emotional and behaviour problems and achieve more academically. As the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, said, an analysis carried out by researchers at the universities of Oxford and Bristol and published only last week found that, among the cohort of looked-after children who were eligible for GCSEs in 2013, children in kinship care had higher GCSE point scores on average than children in other types of care. That is why, through the discretionary housing fund and through funding the advice line provided by the Family Rights Group, we are trying to help kinship carers to safeguard children’s futures by keeping them within the wider family and community.
I welcome the chance, through this debate, to consider the support available to kinship carers and what we are doing to improve this. We know they need better information and support. That is why, during the previous Parliament, we issued family and friends care statutory guidance for local authorities. This makes clear that every council should publish a family and friends care policy, setting out how it will support the needs of children living with kinship carers, whether or not they are looked after. In particular, we made a commitment to increase the number of local authorities that have published their policies for supporting family and friend carers. Following national sector learning days organised by the DfE with local authorities, 83% of English local authorities have now published a policy, compared with 42% in 2012. We intend to write again to councils on this issue.
We recognise that kinship carers are not always accessing the support they should have. Although most authorities have policies in place, we now have to focus on the quality of the support they offer to family and friends carers. To this end, the department has been funding the voluntary sector organisation Grandparents Plus to develop models of best practice in early help and to identify how to overcome the barriers to providing good, well-structured services and early support for kinship carers. Also, we have seen the use of special guardianship orders increase year on year since their inception in 2005. Special guardians are mainly family members, often grandparents, who provide loving, permanent homes for children. This has largely been a positive development and we welcome it. My department has recently completed a review of special guardianship. Evidence from this suggests that special guardianships are, in the main, positive relationships which protect children’s welfare and improve their outcomes into adulthood. We are currently considering the results of the review, including looking at how we might improve appropriate support to special guardians.
We have been working closely with the key voluntary sector organisations, the Family Rights Group and the Kinship Care Alliance. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, I can say that we plan to publish the report of the review before Christmas. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, referred to the important work done by the Family Rights Group, and we are providing financial support to it for its work with kinship carers through, for instance, its helpline and promoting the use of family group conferences. My department has been funding them for more than seven years. That clearly demonstrates our commitment to the valuable work that they do for kinship carers.
We are currently reviewing our grant payments to voluntary and community-based organisations beyond the end of this financial year in the light of the spending review. We will have more information on this in the new year. In the mean time, I express my thanks to the Family Rights Group for its support to families and emphasise that the Government recognise the important work that it does.
The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, mentioned the concept of a presumption of kinship care. The law already states that children should be looked after by their families wherever possible. She also mentioned mental health. Improving access to CAMHS for vulnerable children is a priority of this Government. We have committed £1.4 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years and we are working closely with the DoH and NHS England. The transformation to services we expect is set out in the Future in Mind report, which makes suggestions about what more can be done to improve access, develop better partnership working with parents and carers and provide the right support for children who have suffered trauma.
Many family members make great sacrifices in order to care for children. Local authorities have a legal duty to support children who leave care under other legal orders, and carers should discuss any needs with their local authorities. Children who have left care for a friends and family placement underpinned by a special guardianship or relevant child arrangement order have access to priority school admissions, pupil premium and free early education for two year-olds.
In relation to support for adopters and whether this should be extended, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Watson, the Adoption Support Fund has been set up to address the serious gaps in specialist services for adopted children. It is still in its infancy. If it proves successful, we will look to apply the learning in other areas. We are considering how to improve support for special guardianship as part of the special guardianship review, which, as I said, will be published before Christmas. However, given the wide range of needs and circumstances of family carers, it would be inappropriate as well as complex to provide a national allowance which is both equitable and simple to administer. Children placed in a kinship care arrangement by a local authority are looked-after children, in which case their carer must be approved as a foster carer. In these circumstances, kinship carers must receive the same support as all other foster carers, including financial support. However, the majority of kinship carers will be caring for children who are not looked after. Relatives caring for a child in these circumstances are entitled to support such as child benefit and other benefits available to parents, subject to the usual eligibility criteria. It would be difficult to require local authorities to provide a dedicated support service solely for relative carers, as most of the services required will be the same as those needed by other families.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, mentioned that our recent focus had been on adoption; our recent focus has indeed been on improving one area in relation to it. As we have mentioned in other debates, we have done a great deal of work over the last five years on improving the provision for all children in care. The Children and Families Act was a substantial piece of legislation which has substantially improved the fostering arrangements and introduced early placements. Long-term foster care has been recognised as a distinct placement. We have invested £100 million in Pupil Premium Plus. We have virtual school heads and we are currently conducting a review of children’s homes.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
The Minister mentioned other pieces of legislation that have recently gone on to the statute book. I do not expect him to comment specifically on the Welfare Reform and Work Bill, but I wonder if he and his department are considering the impact of the decision not to exempt adoptive parents from the two-plus children tax credit limit, because there will undoubtedly be an effect on his department, and indeed on the ability of the number of adopters and kinship carers to be extended in the future.
Lord Nash
Noble Lords will be aware that this was discussed last night. I know that my noble friend Lord Freud will have listened carefully to those arguments and will be considering the response. I will discuss it with him.
Finally, I know that the House recognises the crucial role that working grandparents play in providing childcare and supporting working families, as my noble friend Lady Bottomley mentioned. That is why we have announced plans to extend the current system of shared parental pay and leave to cover working grandparents, thereby providing much greater choice for families trying to balance childcare and work. We will bring forward legislation to enable the change to be implemented by 2018.
I am sure the whole House agrees that kinship carers —grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings and friends—fulfil a vital role in the care system and deserve the continued support of the Government. I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate.
Adoption
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Baroness King of Bow
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the drop in the number of children being placed for adoption.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, adoption decisions have fallen by around 50% since September 2013 following two court judgments that have been misinterpreted as having changed the legal test for adoption. The Prime Minister has been clear about his commitment to ensuring that adoption should be pursued where it is in the child’s best interests. The Government are actively considering whether legislative change is necessary to ensure this.
Baroness King of Bow (Lab)
I thank the Minister for the clarity of that reply. In the vast majority of cases where children are not being placed for adoption, they are instead being given special guardianship orders or placed in long-term foster care. The problem is that both those arrangements have dramatically higher breakdown rates than adoption. Given these facts, does the Minister share my sadness at hearing what a social worker told me last week? I have heard it from very many other social workers as well. The social worker told me not to advise a white couple to apply for adoption, because:
“In the last year we’ve stopped putting forward white children without severe complex needs”,
for adoption. The DfE warned that it would not hesitate to take action if placement orders fell. How and when will the DfE decide that the time for hesitation is over?
Lord Nash
I share the noble Baroness’s concern about this. I know that it is of particular relevance to her own experience. We have announced that we are making changes to the regulations governing how special guardianships are assessed to make it more robust. Our review of special guardianships has shown compelling evidence that they are not always assessed in a way that puts children’s interests first. We plan to publish the wider findings of that review before Christmas. As I said, the Prime Minister announced that we are considering legislative change to ensure that decisions are always made in children’s best interests, and to take proper account of the timeliness, quality and stability of placements. We will publish our thoughts in the new year and we will engage widely with the sector about this.
Lord Storey (LD)
It is vital that all children are in a loving and stable home. Data released from the Minister’s own department, the DfE, show that 6,000 children went missing from care in the year to March 2015. What is he going to do about that?
Lord Hylton (CB)
My Lords, we can all agree that the most careful checks need to be made before a child is placed for adoption. However, there have been long delays in many cases. What are the Government doing to ensure that those delays are kept to the absolute minimum?
Lord Nash
The Children and Families Act was very much about speeding up the process. The number of placements made within a year has almost doubled and the time children wait for adoption has fallen by several months. I have already alluded to the issues we have in the immediate short term and the possible plans for legislative change to remedy the situation.
The Lord Bishop of St Albans
My Lords, just last night in this Chamber, noble Lords discussed amendments to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill which sought to exclude kinship carers and adoptive parents from the two-child limit in tax credits. Given the worrying decline in the number of adoptions, this seems an eminently sensible proposal. If things go through as they are at the moment, this would act as a significant financial disincentive for some families to take on extra children as kinship carers or adoptive parents. This House was told last night that that is not being considered in the present Bill, but no reasons were given. Will the Minister explain why this very helpful suggestion is not being taken up?
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, following up on the question asked by the right reverend Prelate, what is the Government’s assessment of the impact of the Bill to which he was referring on the number of children placed for adoption?
Lord Geddes (Con)
My Lords, I may have misheard my noble friend, but I thought that in his Answer he referred to misinterpretation of court judgments. Misinterpreted by whom?
Lord Nash
We believe this may have been misinterpreted by some social workers with, I am sure, the best interests of children in mind. The president of the Family Division has clarified the meaning, particularly in Re B-S and in Re R, where he made it absolutely clear that the law on adoption had not changed. However, it seems that these decisions have sometimes been misinterpreted as raising the legal test for adoption so that adoption should not be pursued unless there is no other option. We are particularly concerned about this.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the greatest shortfall in adoptions is among harder-to-place children. What assurances can he give to people willing to adopt children in that category that they will have full support to enable the adoptions to become permanent?
Lord Nash
We have made £30 million available for the central agency fees, specifically for this category of children. The regional adoption agencies, which the noble Lord will know about because we debated them, will give these harder-to-place children immediate access to a larger pool of potential adopters.
Baroness Afshar (CB)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that because of the restrictions, there is an increase in adopting children abroad on the part of many families who wish to adopt but are perhaps considered too old or do not pass various criteria in this country? Those people would be very good parents for children in this country but cannot adopt them.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister do me the following courtesy? I am sure he will feel that he needs to add to the answer he gave to the right reverend Prelate. Will he please send copies of that answer to me and other noble Lords with an interest in this area? Merely to say that it is not within his brief does not fully answer the question.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Nash Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, I apologise for missing the opening part of this discussion on Report. Amendment 1 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey has a distinct purpose, which is one that I raised in Committee. Schools are a locally delivered service and that will not change, even with the implementation of the Government’s desire that all schools become academies. Consequently, once school-specific processes have been exhausted, parents tend to seek redress for their concerns about a particular school from a local body. Currently, parents see their local authority as that body. Already, in my experience as a local councillor, parents seeking to take a complaint about their local school to the next level turn to the council only to find, where it is an academy, that this is no longer within the remit of LAs.
The second reason for tabling this amendment is that schools are a major spender of public money. More than 50% of a local authority’s revenue spending is on schools. Where is the local accountability for that expenditure, especially as the number of academies increases and their diversity grows? Sadly, there have been a number of high-profile failures of financial governance in the academy sector, which includes some serious allegations of fraud, some of which have been proven; for instance, in schools in Bradford and County Durham. They are not the only ones. The Education Funding Agency has issued financial notices to improve on several academy chains, including the Academies Enterprise Trust, which was served with a notice only last year. Therefore there are already examples of the failure of local accountability to highlight issues of concern about public expenditure on something as important as education and schools.
Multi-academy trusts, which seem to be the current favoured way forward, are accountable only to the Education Funding Agency and the Secretary of State for their strategic and financial performance. Governance models in multi-academy trusts ensure that the sponsor or sponsoring body controls the trust. The strategic direction and decisions on the school’s budget are, crucially, in the hands of the directors of the trust and the trust members, who are self-appointed and accountable for their actions only via agreements signed with the Department for Education. In this model there is no accountability to the local community, which the academy and the academy trust serves, and no accountability to local parents for the investment in the education of their children. This amendment seeks to address some of those concerns.
In 2006, the Government established local authority health scrutiny committees. The scrutiny committees comprise both elected councillors and co-optees with relevant experience in the health sector. The purpose is to provide a public forum where local NHS bodies—hospital trusts or commissioning groups—can present policy changes which are discussed and are subject to questioning from the perspective of the local community. In other forums they are questioned as regards their financial position or their general direction—as regards trusts—from a clinical commissioning point of view. However, the local community has the opportunity through the scrutiny committee to raise issues of concern, such as access to the services that are going to be provided. In my experience, health scrutiny committees can add value by providing access to strategic leadership across the sector and by enabling generalised complaints and concerns about the service to be given a local and public hearing. I suggest that local education scrutiny committees would fill a vacuum by providing a process, based on this sort of model, to have a forum for discussing issues pertinent to the local community.
One of the keys to success in schools is harnessing the support of the local community they serve. The risk in the multi-academy trust model is that the schools become more remote from the communities they serve. I suggest that a successful multi-academy trust would welcome the opportunity of a public platform where it could demonstrate transparency in its decision-making and respond to questions from local people regarding performance. A scrutiny model would also enable the regional schools commissioner to report back via a local public forum. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively and constructively to this proposal. I beg to move.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, responding to the original remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, I am glad that he used the word “dissembled” over the question of the future of the academy programme and local authorities. I think that it is a better word than “dishonest”, which he used in Committee. I have made it absolutely clear on a number of occasions that the default position for a coasting school is not to become an academy. However, the Prime Minister has been clear that our ambition is that, in time, every school will have the opportunity to become an academy. Given that ambition, it is right that we look at how we might reform the role of local authorities in education, although there is no intention of taking them out of education totally. Obviously their role in school improvement will reduce as regional schools commissioners take more responsibility.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
I hear what the Minister says but what did the Chancellor mean by saying:
“We will make local authorities running schools a thing of the past”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 1370.]?
What does that mean in relation to what the noble Lord has said? He may not like my use of the words “dissembling” or “dishonest” but I come back to the core point. Is it the Government’s intention that, willy-nilly, all schools will be academies, as the Chancellor said last week?
Lord Nash
Perhaps the noble Lord will let me finish. In a situation at some stage in the future where all schools were academies, obviously local authorities would not be running schools. However, we certainly anticipate them continuing to have a role in the sufficiency duty, admissions, SEN and safeguarding. Perhaps I may make it absolutely clear that it is not about making every school an academy overnight at the stroke of a pen. That is not what we are after at all; we are about organising schools so that through academies and the multi-academy trust programme many more of them can, by working with each other, take advantage of the benefit of economies of scale efficiencies and deliver career enhancement, better CPD and leadership development. Given that ambition, it is right that we look at how we form the role of local authorities, as we have discussed.
The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, referred to financial irregularities in academies. I think that we have covered this before but I re-emphasise that academies are subject to far greater financial scrutiny than local authority maintained schools. They have to publish annual accounts which are audited by third-party accountants, something local authority maintained schools do not have to do. They are subject to the scrutiny of the EFA and the Charity Commission, and they are also subject to company law. I do not wish to make comparisons—
Baroness Pinnock
In response to the proposal that I made in Committee, the Minister said that academies’ accounts undergo greater audits than those of local authority maintained schools, but I suggest that that is probably not the case. I am the governor of a school in the local maintained sector. The school’s accounts are published as part of the local authority’s accounts, which are audited by a senior auditing company—KPMG in this case. Therefore, the internal and external audit of the accounts is carried out by the council’s own internal auditor and by external auditors. I am not suggesting that they are any better than the audited accounts of academies in terms of overall performance, and I think it is erroneous to suggest that one is better than the other.
Lord Nash
I am sure that anything the noble Baroness is involved in is very well scrutinised financially but, as a rule, all academies have their accounts audited but not all maintained schools do.
Turning to the subject that we are here today to discuss, I shall speak to Amendment 1 tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. This proposed new clause would allow a local authority to establish a committee to review and scrutinise the provision of education in coasting schools where coasting schools make up more than 10% of the schools in the local area.
From our debate on a very similar amendment in Committee, I know that the noble Lords’ concerns are that, where a local authority has a number of coasting schools, the education provision in these schools is monitored and reviewed at a local level, with direct intervention happening where necessary.
I share the noble Lords’ desire to ensure that coasting schools are subject to robust oversight and intervention but, in the past, too many local authorities have made little use of their intervention powers, as we have discussed in earlier debates. The Bill now gives regional schools commissioners working on behalf of the Secretary of State the powers to work with and intervene in any school that is coasting. The Bill provides RSCs with additional intervention powers for maintained schools so that they can tackle schools directly that have been allowed to fail, or indeed coast, under the local authority’s watch. This means that all coasting schools will come under the scrutiny of the RSCs.
The revised Schools Causing Concern guidance, which is currently out for consultation, will set out what steps RSCs will take when schools in their area have been identified as coasting. Initially, the RSC will make contact with coasting schools in their area to identify whether the school has the capacity to improve sufficiently by itself. If the RSC deems that additional support or intervention is needed, there are a variety of intervention options, such as bringing in additional support from a national leader of education, temporary support from a local school or becoming a sponsored academy.
I emphasise that, throughout this process, no coasting school will go unchecked. RSCs will not wait until more than 10% of schools in a local authority have been notified that they are coasting before they start reviewing the education provision in these schools. The work of RSCs in relation to coasting schools will be continuous and thorough, with the aim of intervening swiftly where necessary. It is just not fair on the pupils in a coasting school to have to wait for an extraneous event, such as more than 10% of schools in their LA to be coasting, for support to take place.
RSCs are based in the regions that they serve, which means that they will make decisions on coasting schools based on their knowledge of the local area and with the input from their head teacher board. Head teacher board members are recruited from across the region and so bring local intelligence to RSC decision-making. I welcome the positive comments made today in Ofsted’s annual report about the appointment of RSCs as overseers of school performance.
RSCs are already successfully scrutinising academies in their region when they have concerns, and intervening where necessary. The proposed powers for them to do the same for maintained schools are an extension of this and they will be resourced up to enable them to do so.
RSCs are already working closely with local authorities, meeting them regularly to discuss schools of concern. Since their appointment, RSCs have been proactive in using their intervention powers in relation to academies and encouraging local authorities to do the same for maintained schools. We know that some local authorities have been positive about the introduction of RSCs, and have found that this partnership working can result in a joint understanding of local priorities, a new energy and an effective approach to tackling underperformance in their areas. In some areas we have seen a marked increase in local authorities issuing warning notices to their poorly performing schools.
Noble Lords will be aware that the Chancellor’s spending review speech restated the Government’s position on reforming the role of local authorities, as we have discussed. They will remain responsible for the maintained schools for which they are accountable, but the local authority role will, as I said, have to change in the light of the growing number of schools becoming academies. I therefore do not consider this amendment, which proposes additional responsibilities for local authorities in respect of non-maintained schools in their area, appropriate in that context.
I hope I have been able to reassure noble Lords that RSCs will be actively monitoring and reviewing all coasting schools, not just ones in areas where they are in bad company, and intervening when appropriate. I therefore urge the noble Lords to withdraw their amendment.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 2, 6 and 7, which aim to ensure that voluntary adoption agencies play an important role in the move to, and the future services provided by, regional adoption agencies. Broadly, the amendments in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the Government’s intentions are in the same place.
First, I take this opportunity to again set out our commitment to the voluntary adoption agency sector. Its expertise and the services that it provides have already been central to the improvements we have seen in the adoption sector. We absolutely want this to continue. As I have previously told the House, these organisations have a central role to play in regionalisation, as referred to in the letter that my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families recently sent to the chief executives of all VAAs, reiterating our commitment to their involvement.
Voluntary adoption agencies have knowledge and specialist skills that will be crucial in ensuring that the new regional agencies provide the high-quality services we expect to see. That is why all the projects we are funding this year include VAAs. We have also been clear with projects that VAAs should not simply be involved once decisions about the design of the new regional adoption agency are made. We have required all projects to commit to involving voluntary agencies in the early design phase of their work.
Amendment 2 would mean that local authorities and VAAs would jointly decide who should deliver the adoption functions on behalf of the local authorities being directed. I absolutely agree that it is important that VAAs have a role in any conversations about using the power introduced through the Bill, and I assure noble Lords that this will be the case. As I set out in our last debate, where the power is needed, decisions about its use will be made following extensive discussions with all those involved or affected, including VAAs. All relevant agencies will have the chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is taken. In addition, the Adoption Leadership Board, of which the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies is a key member, will have an important role to play in shaping any decisions about regionalisation.
It would, however, be impractical and unbalanced to give a VAA joint decision-making power with the local authority in relation to the question of which agency should carry out the functions on the authority’s behalf. The local authority has statutory responsibility for delivering its functions. Although it is appropriate for the Secretary of State to make a decision, instead of a local authority, about who should carry out those functions in the limited circumstances where this proves necessary, it is not appropriate to give a VAA the power to make that kind of decision on behalf of a local authority or to veto a local authority’s proposed course of action. Instead, we need to use the mechanisms I outlined above to ensure that the views of VAAs are taken into account when decisions are made about how the power will be used.
Amendment 6 would allow the Bill to be used in relation to particular groups of children. This would enable the legislation to be used to make specific arrangements relating to hard-to-place groups of children. Over the last few years we have made significant strides to improve things for this section of children but there is a lot further to go. I completely agree with the motivation behind this amendment. We know that certain groups of children wait much longer for adoption than others. In 2014-15, hard-to-place children waited, on average, almost seven months longer for adoption than other children.
I am pleased to be able to clarify that subsection (5) of the clause is intended to enable it to be used in exactly this way. Subsection (5) enables a direction to be made in relation to certain categories of children. If, for example, arrangements between a group of local authorities are not working well enough for disabled children, this legislation could be used to direct those authorities to make different arrangements for them. This could, for example, include requiring local authorities to make arrangements for their family-finding functions in relation to those children to be undertaken by a specific, specialist VAA.
Finally, I turn to Amendment 7. When we discussed this issue previously, and again today, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, expressed his concern that VAA adopters would not be used by regional adoption agencies in the future because of financial considerations, and that this would lead to a continuation of the practice of sequential decision-making, which we are all keen to see end. First, I can clarify that VAA adopters do not represent a higher cost than adopters recruited by a local authority. A report by the University of Bristol in 2009 found that interagency fees were perceived as excessive by local authorities, despite the fact that they were found to be lower than what local authorities spend on placing children internally. It is crucial that we address this myth, as it is damaging to VAAs and drives the poor practice of sequential decision-making. I emphasise again that one of the key objectives of the policy is that each regional adoption agency will have a single pool of adopters. This is key to ensuring that swift, non-sequential matching decisions can be made. This is what we all want to see.
The local authorities and VAAs which make up a regional adoption agency will need to come to an agreement about which adopters are part of their central pool, and how the VAAs are remunerated for their investment in recruiting and approving adopters. The department is not prescribing the financial arrangements that will underpin new regional agencies, as we want to be led by what VAAs and local authorities think works. However, we are providing a comprehensive package of support to help local areas work through issues such as these, and come up with models which enable VAAs and local authorities to work together seamlessly and fairly.
Some regional adoption agencies may have the VAA partners doing all the adopter recruitment, given their skill and track record in this area. This would certainly be an interesting model. We will be working with VAAs and local authorities to develop fair and robust financial models which ensure that VAAs are not disadvantaged. However, I note the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the financial drivers in this. He raised a number of points that we want the sector not to be nervous about. I think that it would be helpful—if the noble Lord is willing to do this—if I organised a meeting with the noble Lord, the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, Minister Timpson and officials, to discuss these issues in greater detail. I am glad to see that the noble Lord is nodding in agreement to that.
Finally, I remind noble Lords that regional adoption agencies will not be, and are not intended to be, entirely self-sufficient. There are, of course, some children for whom even a regional agency’s larger pool of adopters will not suffice, either because the child has particular needs or because the agency does not have an appropriate approved adopter ready at the point the child needs a match. Social workers in regional agencies will be expected to identify these children quickly and act promptly on their behalf by engaging with the national pool of adopters using national matching tools.
In view of my comments, I hope that the noble Lord will feel reassured and will withdraw the amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I thank the Minister for that comprehensive reply, much of which I welcome. The noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, commented on the Yorkshire pilot and the support for voluntary adoption agencies. Given the very sad episode that she related, I could not agree more that permanence has to be the aim when children are being placed. It is not just a question of finding a place fairly quickly but of finding one that both the child and the family have a good chance of making sustainable and, ultimately, permanent. That is what we are looking for. That is why I raised concerns about the Prime Minister’s comment that we should simply look to double the number. It is not a numbers game in that sense. I will raise this issue again in the next group of amendments, but I point out that Clause 13, on the terms of adoption, concerns only 5% of the children in care.
I was pleased to hear the Minister stress what he called the essential role of voluntary adoption agencies—those agencies will also be pleased to hear that—and that he foresees them having a role at the early design phase. That is what they are looking for. I do not doubt the Government’s will in this regard, and nor do the voluntary adoption agencies, but it is a question of how they intend to make it happen. This is a case of walking the walk and talking the talk, and doubts remain about how they will match the intention with the reality. Of course, it is not me, my colleagues or, indeed, the other opposition parties that the Minister needs to reassure on this point, but the CVAA and its member organisations. The CVAA was obviously centrally involved in the Adoption Leadership Board and those discussions can—and I am sure do—take place, but I simply reiterate that that the voluntary adoption agencies need that reassurance.
The Minister said that he agreed with the motivation behind Amendment 6. It is helpful to have his comments on the record that subsection (5)—if I am quoting him correctly—is designed to enable the measure to be used in the way the amendment suggests. That is useful and will be welcomed by organisations such as Barnardo’s, which has real concerns about harder-to-place children and the fact that the numbers are increasing and the resources to tackle that are at least in doubt, although the hope is that additional resources will be made available. The Minister may be able to reveal that in the near future.
I understand what the Minister is saying on the sequential decision-making issue but am slightly puzzled when he says that there is no difference in cost between voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities in this regard. He referred to the Bristol University study. I had not heard of that but, even more surprisingly, it seems to have eluded the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, which is saying there are situations where local authorities may have—I will put it no more damagingly than this—a back-scratching operation whereby there might be a bit of a trade-off, such as the whole interagency fee not being required to be paid in certain situations or an understanding about some future arrangement between the two. Voluntary adoption agencies are effectively excluded from that. The new arrangements will certainly make that more difficult but they may not rule it out and that needs to be taken into account. I will look at the Bristol University survey and see what it says. I very much hope that that is the case but it may not be. Finally, I thank the Minister for the offer of a meeting and I would certainly be pleased to take that up.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I am sure that we will all be interested to hear from the noble Lord the answers to the noble Baroness’s questions, particularly his response to her suggestion that the money for the implementation of the education parts of the Bill will be top-sliced, presumably from money that would have gone through local authorities to maintained schools. I would be very interested to know the answer to that.
I am going to tempt fate by asking the Minister the same question again, referring to what the Chancellor of the Exchequer said about the education budget in the Autumn Statement and his announcement that all schools in the secondary sector will become academies. He said:
“We will make local authorities running schools a thing of the past, which will help us save around £600 million on the education services grant”.—[Official Report, Commons, 25/11/15; col. 1370.]
I would like to know how on earth that £600 million is going to be saved. Does he think that the £600 million used by local authorities is simply a waste of money? All those central services provided by local authorities are to be destroyed but presumably most maintained schools think they are pretty helpful. I assume that, when they all become academies, the schools will be given some element of the budget to make up for the services they would have received from local authorities.
Understanding education finances these days is a conundrum but I certainly hope that the Minister will clarify what exactly his right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer meant by what he said last week. Perhaps the answer to the noble Baroness’s question is that the finances are going to come directly from the money that would have gone to local authorities, which may be what she meant by top-slicing.
Lord Nash
My Lords, Amendment 8, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, requires that the Bill cannot be commenced until a report on funding the costs of the academy conversions resulting from the Bill has been laid before Parliament.
As noble Lords may recall, this amendment was also tabled during Grand Committee, when I agreed to say more on the outcome of the spending review in relation to the Bill. I hope the noble Baroness will be delighted to hear that I can now do so. I am pleased to say that, following the Chancellor’s Statement last week, total spending on education will increase in cash terms in this spending review period from £60 billion in 2015-16 to nearly £65 billion in 2020. The exact budget for the academy programme will be finally determined following our internal business planning process, now that we know the exact spending review settlement. But I would like to reassure the House that the Department for Education’s overall settlement clearly recognises the potential costs of academy conversions as a result of this Bill and has been very much part of the detailed conversations we have had with HMT. I hope that the noble Baroness is pleased to hear that.