Education: Academies
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. In it there was mention of people crowing at the Government’s climbdown. I am not going to adopt that approach, although I have to say that I can understand why many would. U-turns are becoming a regular feature of this Government’s attempts to initiate or see through legislation, and the number of times that we have witnessed the brakes being applied soon after bold statements of intent suggests that a little more than bad luck is at play here. Bad judgment is more likely, I think, and that is certainly the case with forced academisation. Before I leave the issue of crowing, I find it rather depressing to hear the Statement say that people are crowing about a victory in their “battle against raising standards”. Is that really what Ministers believe? Nobody is against raising standards. The Minister and the Secretary of State should realise that they and the whiz-kids at the No. 10 Policy Unit do not always know better than those who, day in and day out, are at the sharp end of things, delivering education for our children. Of course there are examples of where schools are underperforming, and they must be helped to improve, but that does not justify the conclusion that academisation is the only answer.
The opposition to the White Paper proposals encompassed a broad alliance, including head teachers—I hardly need to remind the Ministers here this evening that head teachers made their collective voice very clear to the Secretary of State when she spoke to their conference—and also parents, governors, teachers, local government leaders from all parties and Members of Parliament, more than a few from their own party. Although the Secretary of State has conceded on the ideologically driven idea of forcing good and outstanding schools to become academies against their wishes, she still apparently holds the ambition that all schools will become academies, though still without advancing a single convincing reason as to why this aim is sensible in the first place.
The Statement today is certainly welcome, but it none the less leaves questions, one of which is whether high-performing schools will be forced to become academies. At one point, the Statement says:
“We will therefore seek provisions to convert schools in the lowest-performing and unviable local authorities to academy status. This may involve in some circumstances conversion of good and outstanding schools when they have not chosen to do so themselves”.
Yet later it says:
“While we want every school to become an academy, we will not compel successful schools to join multi-academy trusts”.
I say to the Minister: which is it? The Government clearly cannot have it both ways.
There is also the issue of autonomy. Do the Government really believe that that is the outcome when a school becomes part of a multi-academy trust? They claim that academisation devolves power to the front line, but that is a myth. Schools and academy chains actually lose most of their autonomy because the chain controls their premises, their budget, their staffing and their curriculum. The ultimate irony is that chains have far more power over schools than local authorities currently do.
Last week, I asked the Minister in your Lordships’ House whether there was any evidence that academies automatically performed better than local authority maintained schools, particularly those that are already categorised as high performing. The Minister avoided answering the question, perhaps for the good reason that the honest answer was no. What he did do was to pray in aid what he thought was a supportive comment from the Sutton Trust. But what he did not tell the House was that the research by the Sutton Trust found that there is a very mixed picture in the performance of academy chains and no evidence at all that academisation in and of itself leads to school improvement.
The White Paper promotes academy chains as the preferred model, yet many chains are performing badly and significantly worse than many local authorities—a point recognised by the head of Ofsted, Sir Michael Wilshaw. There have been too many examples of financial mismanagement verging on corruption in academy chains and—perhaps it is a debate for another day—the Education Funding Agency is widely recognised as not being up to the job of supervising even the number of academies that we now have. So I again ask the Minister what evidence the Government have that only academisation leads to school improvement. Where is the choice and autonomy that the Government are so fond of emphasising despite advancing a one-size-fits-all approach? Is there sufficient capacity and accountability in the academy system to ensure that it is best practice, not poor practice, which is being spread?
These questions remain as the Government seek further powers to speed up the pace of academisation. Your Lordships might like to ask why this has been deemed necessary so soon after the Education and Adoption Act was in your Lordships’ House. We spent many days and hours going through the fine detail of that Bill; but were the White Paper proposals to be adopted, it would mean that we had effectively wasted our time on it. If the Government were so convinced that only forced academisation would do, why did they not amend the then Education and Adoption Bill appropriately? That would have been the honest approach instead of leading noble Lords and MPs down what is effectively a false path, knowing that the Bill was merely a stop-gap measure.
It is surely self-evident that we all want to see educational excellence everywhere, but at a time when schools are facing huge challenges from falling budgets and teacher shortages, top-down reorganisation of the school system will remove even more money, time and effort from where the focus should be. It is high time the Government recognised that further structural changes are at best a distraction and, at worst, could damage standards. Will the Minister now accept that, when it comes to change in education, the Government need to carry the professionals with them if such change is to be successfully delivered?
Lord Storey (LD)
I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. It is actually good to listen; it is good to hear what other people have to say rather than immediately jump to conclusions, and I welcome the fact that the Government have listened to people who have considerable experience in these matters and adjusted the likely content of the forthcoming Bill.
The Minister said in the Statement that the Government wanted to,
“deliver a great education to every single child”.
But don’t we all? I suppose that the difference is that some of us do not believe that the blind concentration on structures and types of school is really the answer. We think that, more importantly, it is about the quality of leadership of those schools. It is about the teachers—who are highly trained, highly respected and given proper continuing professional development. It is about a broad national curriculum which every pupil takes, and includes, as some of the Minister’s colleagues believe, PSHE and good careers advice. It is about parents being involved in the education of their child, not divorced from it; and it is about a curriculum which celebrates technical, vocational and creative education.
There is no evidence that turning a school into an academy will improve standards. In fact, academies tend to perform less well in Ofsted inspections than local authority schools do. I hope that we will see, once and for all, the end of the ideological obsession with pushing aside the role of local authorities in community schools. They need to be cherished, nurtured and given the resources to do the job.
I am very pleased with what the Minister said in the Statement about rural schools, which have been neglected for far too long and need special attention. But putting them into multi-academy trusts is not always the best solution. If they have to go into a multi-academy trust, the trust has to have a relationship with the community that the school is in, because the community is hugely important to the rural school.
I have two questions for the Minister. So far, he has resisted publishing tables to compare trusts’ overall performance. Will he now agree that that should happen? Secondly, he has refused to let Ofsted conduct full inspections of academy chains. Will he now agree that this should happen as well?
Lord Nash
My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, for his comments about supporting the raising of standards in schools. I have no doubt that he supports that aim.
Many people wanted to see more detail on our direction of travel for academies, so we provided it in the White Paper. However, as I have said, it is clear that the blanket power outlined in the White Paper created anxiety in the system. So we have listened—I am grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about that—to the concern of head teachers and teachers and removed those powers so that people can now take time to understand the benefits of becoming an academy or joining a multi-academy trust. I am confident that once people have had the opportunity to understand that, many more will come forward to convert, as schools are in record numbers at the moment. I hope that noble Lords across the House who have not had the opportunity of spending time with leaders of academies or multi-academy trusts or with the regional school commissions will take the time to do that over the next few months. I am happy to arrange visits or meetings. We will continue to listen and to have dialogue with the sector, parents, teachers, governors, unions and local authorities over the next few months.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to evidence, an issue we have discussed a great deal in this House. I said in answer to his question that schools that have chosen to convert to academies—that is, those that are high performing already—are obtaining better results. Despite their already high performance, they are improving their results and are more likely to be rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. Secondary converters are performing 7 percentage points above the national average and results in primary-sponsored academies open for two years have improved on average by 10% since opening, more than double the rate of local authority maintained schools over the same period.
In answer to the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, in certain limited circumstances, high-performing schools may be obliged to become academies—that is, where they are in local authorities that are either performing poorly or are unviable. As I have said, we will be setting out more on that and consulting on what the viability test will be.
We make no apologies for the benefits of schools working in multi-academy trusts. There are particular benefits in relation to leadership development and CPD for teachers. People who work in multi-academy trusts talk often about the retention of staff benefits. They say that when they were running one school they tended to lose their rising stars because they could not offer them career development opportunities. They can now have rising stars programmes in place and retain their best staff. There are benefits such as the sharing of good practice and economies of scale, and many others. I invite noble Lords, when they meet with people from multi-academy trusts, to discuss this with them.
On accountability, as I have said before, academies are held to a higher standard of accountability than local authority maintained schools. They are obliged to publish annual third party-audited accounts, which local authority maintained schools are not; no one in a governance relationship with an academy can profit from that relationship, which can happen in a local authority maintained school; and they are also held to the standards of the Charity Commission and the Companies Act.
As to leadership, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, made a good point about the capacity and leadership. We have £600 million available to develop this programme. We have invested in a leadership programme with future leaders and executive educators, and we are in discussions with a number of business schools about their developing leadership courses for people who work in academies and multi-academy trusts. I hope to say more about that in due course.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his comments about rural schools. I agree entirely about the importance of their being intimately engaged with their local communities. In answer to his last two questions, we will be publishing MAT performance tables based on this summer’s results. We have had extensive conversations with Ofsted, and agreed an arrangement whereby Ofsted will carry out batch inspections of schools in multi-academy trusts and look at the school improvement services provided by the head office. However, we do not think it appropriate for Ofsted inspectors to inspect the finances, governance and management arrangements of these organisations. We have discussed with Ofsted the idea that in certain circumstances, there may be joint inspections: Ofsted inspecting school improvement and the performance of the schools, and the EFA—possibly working with consultants—inspecting the head office, management, governance and financial arrangements of the trusts. We have also had discussions with Ofsted because we know that it has inspected weak performing multi-academy trusts. We hope that it will soon be inspecting some strong performing multi-academy trusts so that we can see what a really good chain looks like.
Rural Schools
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
When you close a rural school, you literally tear the heart out of that community. The issue is not about structures; it must surely be about resources. If the Government are hell-bent on making rural schools part of multi-academy trusts, does the Minister agree that such a trust must have its other schools within that community, not outside it? In other words, the trust should be only in that county area. Secondly, we have seen governing bodies of trust schools being abolished. Can he assure us that every village school will keep its governing body?
Lord Nash
As I just mentioned, rural schools will get a lump sum for a sparsity factor in the national funding formulas, so we are cognisant of their particular circumstances. As I think the noble Lord knows, we very much favour local schools working together in local clusters. Indeed, in the last few years hundreds of multi-academy trusts operating in their local regional clusters have come together, so this is absolutely essential.
Schools: Parent Governors
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Lord Nash
Actually, it was made absolutely clear in the White Paper that we would create a new expectation that every academy would put in place meaningful arrangements for engagement with all parents. We do not want to be prescriptive about the precise nature of that engagement, but of course a parent council may well be a good way of doing that. So far as privatisation is concerned, it is interesting to note that anyone involved in an academy or in a governance relationship with an academy cannot profit from their arrangement in that, whereas of course that is possible in a local authority-maintained school.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the Minister will be aware that I wrote to him on 12 February following a multi-academy trust abolishing a governing body. In his reply, he said, as he has said here, that academies should make and have in place meaningful and effective arrangements for engaging and listening to the views of parents. How will that happen, and will that be statutory? We do not want parents to think that government policy, in terms of parental involvement in their child’s school, is that parents should be seen but not heard.
Schools: Food Nutrition Standards
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Storey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to legislate to ensure that food and drink provided in all types of schools follow Food Standards Agency food and nutritional guidelines.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, last year the Government introduced new statutory school food standards as a result of the school food plan. They were based on food groups to make it easier for cooks to prepare healthy, tasty dishes without needing a computer program to determine the necessary level of nutrients and are easier for parents to understand. They severely restrict foods high in fat, salt and sugar and have resulted, for instance, in children eating more vegetables.
Lord Storey (LD)
No doubt the Minister will be pleased and delighted with the success of free school meals at key stage 1. Will the Government consider extending that to key stage 2, perhaps paid for by a sugar tax—which, incidentally, would help the 84% of young people in the north-west who suffer from dental decay and would save the National Health Service £30 million a year on teeth operations?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Lord’s comment about the success of universal infant free school meals, which is resulting in 1.3 million more children getting a healthy meal every day. We have funded that considerably, including for new kitchens. In secondary schools healthy food is generally available and we are doing all we can to make sure that, where it is not, it is made available.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, we have now reached the point where this Bill must return to the other place. From these Benches we have to say that it is regrettable that it will take so little in terms of amendments with it. As has been outlined, it has many faults, and despite claims by both Ministers that it is all about rescuing children from underperforming schools, many noble Lords believe that there is rather more to it than that.
I should say that I do not doubt the bona fides of either Minister. The relish with which they have advanced their arguments during the Bill’s time in your Lordships’ House reflects their own backgrounds and motivation. I understand that the noble Baroness has a history in the free schools sector and that the noble Lord has a history in the academies sector, each with some success. If I may draw an analogy, to be handed this Bill is tantamount to a girl and boy being given the keys to the toy shop. It is clear that they are in their element, because it allows them to pursue their personal and particular priorities. But it has to be said that their priorities are not necessarily those of wider society, judging by the briefings we have had from a very wide range of organisations, all of whom I thank, and not to any significant extent those of the education professionals, all of whom also have as their raison d'être providing the best possible education for our children.
We have spent almost 24 hours in debate on this Bill—a full day. I wonder whether we might ask ourselves whether we might have put it to better use—some may say yes—and I am sure that we are now all ready to move on to other things. But before we do so, I want to thank the Bill team. We on these Benches have worked rather hard. On my behalf I pay tribute to my assistant, Molly Critchley, who did the heavy lifting when it came to negotiating over amendments. She did much more besides, and both I and my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath are indebted to her for her tireless efforts. This is the first piece of legislation for which I have had Front-Bench responsibility and I have leaned much and often on the experienced shoulders of my colleague Lord Hunt, for which I am most grateful. Having leaned much, I like to think that I have now learned much—but I suppose time will tell.
I think I am correct in asserting that this is also the first Bill as a Front-Bencher for the noble Baroness, Lady Evans of Bowes Park. She has perhaps had a slightly tougher baptism than she might have hoped for, but through it all she has retained an upbeat manner and an ability to assure—or at least attempt to assure—those on these Benches that the Bill was much more benign than we believed.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, and I have had—what shall I say?—our moments throughout those 24 hours. It seems that neither of us is ever going to convince the other of the veracity of our respective arguments, but at least we have given it our best shot. I have made a discovery about the noble Lord and, in spite of the fact that he has offered precious little in terms of concessions on the Bill, I am about to offer him one of my own. I think he and I have only two things in common. One is clearly membership of your Lordships’ House. The other, I have learned, is that we were born in the same year. I am not about to divulge the year, but we were born just five weeks apart—and that provides me with both good news and bad. The good news is that the Minister was born first. The bad news is that it does not show.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I take the opportunity once again to thank the Minister for being prepared to listen. There have been a number of changes—including changes of interpretation—to the Bill. I said to my colleagues at the beginning, “I am sure that Lord Nash will listen”, and he has done. This is a very small Bill, really. On the adoption side, I think real progress has been made.
On the school side, there are a few issues for me. The first is whether this is not just about the academisation programme and the slow strangulation of maintained schools and local education authorities. Maybe there is a much fairer way of achieving that. I recall the statement from the Chancellor that he wants all schools to become academies, and the same from the Prime Minister.
The second issue is that of parents. I have always believed that one of the hallmarks of a successful education system is that parents are at the heart of it. I think we said in Committee that if the school that your children go to is being closed, that is quite a traumatic occasion; you want to be involved in those discussions and to know the reasons and what is happening. To then be told that you are not even going to have a say on the new school or new academy sponsor is something that I am concerned about.
Another issue follows a couple of Questions that I tabled regarding the governing bodies of schools. Again, it seems bizarre that you can have academy trusts abolishing governing bodies. In maintained schools, of course, you have to have a governing body—quite rightly; parents are an important voice in a school—but in multi-academy trusts you can have one governing body for, say, 50-odd schools. In the Harris Academy chain there are now, I think, 52 schools. One governing body—which could be in another part of the country, for that matter—being the parental voice is really not good enough. It could be said—well-meaningly, I am sure—that parents’ associations are quite important. But many schools do not have parent associations; they tend to be, I have to say, in middle-class areas.
The area of schools commissioners is one that has vexed us for some time. Light needs to be shone on the work and there needs to be transparency, and I am delighted with the comments the Minister has made on that. It is a very important step forward.
Some of us have always believed that driving up standards in our schools is not about waving the proverbial big cane but about professionalism and trusting in the leadership of schools. One of my regrets from the coalition period was that we abolished the leadership academy. That was a great mistake. You need to make sure that the people you put as leaders of your school are of the highest calibre, quality and training. You have to have good leaders.
Secondly, it is all for nought if you do not have quality teachers. It is about ensuring that teachers are respected, highly trained and highly valued. It worries me that 40% of teachers leave in the first five years of their teaching. That is a very worrying trend. I hope that, now that the Bill is out of the way, we can do what the Minister is good at—listen and evolve policies or procedures that work for all our education services.
Education: English Baccalaureate
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Storey
My Lords, Britain's got talent. We have a strong creative and cultural heritage. Our worldwide reputation for creative performers, artists, filmmakers, designers, video-game makers and writers is formidable. Tourists flock to our cultural and creative landmarks to experience our theatre, music and heritage. They admire the work of our designers, filmmakers, musicians and performers. Some of Britain’s leading exports are our creative industries, talent and experiences. As George Osborne said:
“Britain’s not just brilliant at science. It’s brilliant at culture too”.
Even Ed Vaizey, the Minister for Culture, said:
“The creative industries are one of the UK’s greatest success stories … Growing at almost twice the rate of the wider economy and worth a staggering £84 billion a year”.
Why would we do anything to put this in jeopardy? The EBacc in its current form will have unintended consequences for our creative industries.
No one disputes the value of the subjects included within the EBacc. But the measure itself, requiring achievement in only a narrow range of academic subjects, will not meet the ambitions and aspirations of many learners, let alone the skills required for a future workforce—the skills that employers require. With the EBacc there is little room for students to study creative subjects. Why do I say that? Because the EBacc requires students to take a minimum of seven prescribed subjects which do not include any arts or creative subjects. “Ah!” shout Ministers, “There is nothing to stop pupils studying further subjects”. But we know from official figures that the average number of GCSEs taken by a secondary school pupil is eight. If the EBacc becomes a reality, there would be little room left for pupils to study creative industry related subjects—music, art, design, technology, drama, and many other subjects would be squeezed out of schools altogether. What then for our next generation of musicians, technicians, designers, artists, actors and the £84 billion industry that Ed Vaizey talked about?
We are already seeing this happen as schools facing budget cuts ditch non-EBacc subjects or are unable to offer the full range of creative subjects. Some even believe that because a subject is not part of the EBacc offer it has not got the same importance and status. Between November 2011 and November 2014, the number of teachers teaching creative subjects declined by 13.1%. The number of hours being taught in creative subjects in secondary schools is also in decline. It becomes a vicious circle, as fewer students being taught or taking creative subjects leads to a decline in the number of teachers being trained, which leads to a reduction in the number of available teachers of creative subjects. As the NAHT said in its submission to the consultation on the EBacc:
“The decline in available curriculum time for optional subjects and the exclusion of creative and cultural subjects from the EBacc will lead to a significant reduction in pupils taking these subjects”.
It is little wonder that universities and businesses, including the CBI, have asked the Government to think again on the exclusion of arts subjects from the EBacc. Perhaps the Minister in his winding-up speech could explain why Michael Gove’s EBacc Progress 8 measure needs to be changed. It offered a better balance for pupils. It maintained the importance of English and maths, and ensured that pupils took three EBacc subjects to give a clear academic core. It allowed a basket of further EBacc subjects of high-quality, non- EBacc or vocational-subject courses. This enables schools to maintain a broad curriculum, offering pupils and parents to choose what is best for their children. Can the Minister also say, with the consultation on the EBacc having been concluded on 29 January, what the means are by which the responses are accessed, evaluated and responded to?
Our competitors would give their right arm to have the success of our creative sector. For example, in China national and regional governments are pouring resources into providing educational support, market activity and financial incentives for the creative sector. Let us not throw this success away. I thank the noble Earl for organising this debate. It is really important.
Education: Unregistered Schools
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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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 Storey
Are there plans to review the arrangements for home education to ensure that they cannot be exploited in order to avoid registration?
Schools: Special Measures
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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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?
Lord Nash
I would be delighted to meet to discuss that. We are committed to spreading education excellence everywhere. The Schools Causing Concern guidance makes it clear that local authorities should continue to act as champions of education excellence in the schools they maintain.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
I shall speak to Amendment 15. I preface my remarks by saying that I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that it should not all be about processes. There are thousands upon thousands of teachers out there working their socks off to provide for our future generations, many of them in very difficult circumstances.
I would not want us to leave this discussion just talking about the successes of academies. We have many successful maintained schools. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, put it all one way. Although he complained about education in his native country of Scotland, he did not give a fair reflection of what is happening in England. As we know, more than 80% of council maintained schools are currently rated as good or outstanding by Ofsted. Councils perform above the national average in terms of progress made by pupils by three times compared with the largest academy chains.
When the Minister replies, will he put his mind to three issues about coasting? The first was rightly raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mackay. The Bill gives power to future Secretaries of State to decide what may or may not constitute coasting. What will be the process for that? What consultation will be taken on that? We must be clear what is being said.
Secondly, it is not just about particular progress measures but the intake—the cohort—in a particular year. We must consider the number of children in a particular year or particular school for whom English is a second language; we must consider disadvantage. All those issues have a huge impact on the results that the school obtains. It might appear at first glance that it is coasting in terms of the strict definition as laid out in the Bill, but what is being achieved may paint a very different picture. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, is right: other issues in a school are hugely important for not just academic progress but the well-being of our society.
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 Storey
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 15C and 16A. I guess that every Member of the House who has children thought long and hard about the school they wanted to send their children to. Finding the right school to meet the needs of a child at both primary and secondary level is crucial. In some cases where there is no suitable school, or which they think is not suitable, parents have gone to the free school movement and established their own schools. In other cases parents with the resources to do so choose to buy a school place in the independent sector. The choice of a school has been a hugely important part of our education system.
As I said in Committee, when a school closes or changes in nature, it is traumatic for the children, traumatic for the parents, and certainly traumatic for the staff. So what are we going to do? Going back to the previous debate, let us consider a school that is failing. The regional schools commissioner, who by the way is not regional and certainly not local, can decide that the school will close and that a sponsor for a new school will be found. There will be no discussion or consultation with parents. It might well be that the school that the regional schools commissioner puts forward is not the school the parent wants—but tough. For a long time, parental choice has been ingrained in, and has been an important part of, our education system. Various Secretaries of State, both Labour and Conservative, have enshrined the idea of parental choice and parental involvement. Surely, it is right that a parent has the opportunity to express their views.
Following Committee stage, I am pleased that the Minister has made some progress in this regard. He chooses to use the word “communication” and not consultation. When the regional schools commissioner has identified an academy sponsor to take over a school eligible for intervention, the sponsor must communicate to parents information about plans to improve the school. When the regional commissioner decides that a school is failing, will they write to every parent telling them what is happening and what will happen so that they have an understanding of why and when? The letter says that there will be guidance as regards schools causing concern and that they may, if they wish to, have a meeting or they may choose just to write to parents. Would it not be a good idea to specify clearly what should be expected of sponsors when taking over a school so that parents have that information?
Crucially, parents want more involvement in education. They want a say in their child’s schooling—everyone here has wanted a say in our child’s schooling. The selection of the sponsor is critical to the child’s future. Not all sponsors, as the Sutton Trust shows, are as effective as others, particularly, for example, in supporting disadvantaged pupils. I shall give an example of where consultation works. The line we have constantly heard—I think that the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, repeated it—is that a single day in a failing school is a day too long for that child. A single day in the wrong school is too much for that child. A single day in a school which the parents are unhappy with, or has had foisted on them, is too long. Let me give an example of parents who were consulted and made a change. It happened at a primary school in Medway with a large number of pupils who had special needs. They were not opposed to academisation but they were opposed to the sponsor proposed by the DfE. After consultation, and no doubt a short campaign, the academy withdrew. Presumably, it realised that it had not got the wherewithal to deal with that situation.
The other argument against consultation has been the line that it can drag on for months and years, et cetera, which of course is wrong. But it does not mean that there cannot be a very quick consultation over a few months so that the parents are involved. I hope that even at this late stage the Minister might consider how important consultation is to parents and their children.
Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak only briefly on the amendment because the issue of consultation has been covered in an earlier group. I will make two or three points. For me, consultation is not the most important part of the Bill, but it is an important point of principle. Once we decide something today, it will probably set the pattern for future ways we deal with schools, so it is worth spending some time on.
My first point was made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, about the now famous phrase that noble Lords have used during the passage of the Bill: “A day in a school that is failing is a day too long”. I am not sure why the consequence of that is that parents should be denied consultation; it should be that the education system gets its act together. Let us say that three years go by in a coasting school—a school is inadequate. It is not a case of who is to blame, but if you ask what went wrong—it could have been poor leadership; something that Ofsted missed; we could have missed the data; we may not have acted quickly enough; support put in might have been at the wrong point at the wrong time—of all the people who could have got it wrong, it probably was not parents. Yet the bit of the system that we change at this point is, “Well, we won’t consult parents”—almost as though they will be the problem, rather than the potential solution. This is not a huge point, but we have to ask why, if a child should not be in a failing school for a day longer, the education system responsible for that should just carry on working and why parents should be squeezed out.
The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, made another point about this terrible phrase, “We are where we are”. It is one of my least favourite phrases, but we are where we are. Over the last 20 years, one of the features that we have put in our education system, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, just mentioned, is the increasing involvement of parents. I think the noble Lord, Lord True, mentioned what happened in consultation in the grant-maintained days. It is true that it was not a pretty sight, but, believe it or not, that was nearly 30 years ago. Lots of things have happened since then. Whether it is setting up free schools, parents’ right to call in Ofsted inspectors, or the mooted idea that parents should have the right to demand the curriculum, to sack the head or whatever, there has been a trend over the last 20 years of giving parents a louder voice, not only in the education of their own child, which is paramount, but in the education structure their child is in. Whether we like it or not, we are where we are with parental consultation. We have to make a really strong case, given the climate in which we are working, that parents should be excluded on this.
Under new Section 2A(2), introduced by the Minister’s Amendment 24, in a case of a failing school where the academy sponsor has not delivered the goods and must hold some responsibility, and where the department is taking action, the proprietor must be given an opportunity to make representations before the academy sponsor is changed. That is a big issue. If we write into primary legislation that an academy proprietor that has not done a good job—that is why the organisation has been moved out—must have an opportunity to make representations, I am not sure why would want to strike out of legislation the opportunity for parents to make representations as well.
Consulting parents is rarely a bad thing, but it calls for sensitivity and determination, because I do not believe that parents always get it right. I do not agree with the amendment that there should be a plebiscite in all cases and that we should take the action that parents vote for. However, it should be part of this important process.
Lord Storey
“( ) In determining whether to make an Academy order in respect of a maintained school in England, the Secretary of State must consider the availability of a suitable sponsor with a value added measure above the national average.
( ) If no suitable sponsor is available, the Secretary of State must appoint as a sponsor a willing council-maintained school or local authority with a value added measure above the national average.”
Lord Storey
I will speak also to Amendment 25. I am concerned that the whole tenor of this discussion has almost been, if I may characterise it in this way, along the lines of maintained schools against academies. As we know, there are some fantastic academies; we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, about his schools, which I know to be highly successful. However, I am sure that he will agree with me that just as there are successful academies, there are also some failing academies, which over the years have caused a number of raised eyebrows and concerns. Equally, there are some very good maintained schools and some maintained schools which need sorting out. Whether that is done through an academy route or other means, it needs to happen.
I will first deal briefly with Amendment 25, which is about the inspection of academy chains. We know from media that Michael Wilshaw, our Chief Inspector of Schools, was very keen that the head offices of academy chains were inspected. Why? It is because academy chains deal not just with individual schools but with finance and governance, and all those important issues. Just as we would inspect local authorities that provide services and finance for schools, the same should surely be true of academy chains.
We have seen examples of academy chains where, perhaps because we have not had our finger on the pulse of the financial situation and the governance of those academy chains, we have seen all sorts of concerns. I was going to go through them all, but I have decided to cut short what I am saying. I understand that we can inspect individual schools in batches in academy chains but I will be interested to hear from the Minister in his reply how we can be assured that the issues of finance and other governance matters are dealt with correctly.
Amendment 15D, again, follows the discussion on the previous amendments. Over the next 12 months or two years, thousands of schools will potentially need to find academy sponsors because they are failing, or are coasting and becoming failing, or because academies themselves fail and have to find other new academy sponsors. That will put a tremendous pressure on the system. In this amendment we are saying that if there is a suitable maintained school which has value added above the national average, why not use that school and provide its expertise? It is clear and simple. If we are about ensuring, as we heard in the previous debates, that the pupil gets the best possible schooling and teaching, and if an academy sponsor is not available, why not use a council-maintained school?
Baroness Morris of Yardley
My Lords, I will speak on a specific issue to follow up something I raised in Committee and to make reference to a note I received from the Minister’s office this afternoon, which I wanted to put on the record.
On this amendment, considering the difficulty there sometimes is in finding sponsors, we raised in Committee that this is a problem with a number of sponsors and the length of time it has taken in some instances to match a school to a sponsor. The Minister kindly responded to my point in Committee when I asked what the target was for doing the match. He said that there was a 12-week turnover and that 48 schools had not met that 12-week target. That is very reasonable. To get a sponsor matched with a school within 12 weeks is not unreasonable, and I would not complain.
I wrote to the Minister’s office about a month ago asking for a breakdown of how long the schools had been waiting that were in the 48 that had exceeded the time limit. I got a message by email only at the start of this debate. To tell noble Lords the truth, I am quite prepared to sit down and be told that I have read it wrongly, because I find the statistics rather worrying. If that is the case, I apologise in advance and will make sure that the correction is on the record. Of the 48 schools that were just inadequate, which exceeded the 12-week brokerage time, 16 took six to 12 months, 19 took 12 to 18 months, 12 took 18 to 24 months, and one took over 24 months. Therefore the department took over two years to find a suitable sponsor for one school which had been judged inadequate. A quick add-up shows that 32 took over one year. We have heard all about “A child shall not stay in a school that’s failing them for one day longer than necessary”, but who is responsible for that? Who is responsible for those children in that one school where it took the department over two years to find a sponsor? Who is responsible for the 32 that took over 12 months to find a sponsor? I am making a political point, but I am worried about the path we are going along, which has this as the only route and only solution for inadequate schools. Now we will add to it a whole lot more coasting schools and thereby increase the demand for sponsors, and the department seems to be failing miserably in delivering the sponsors in sufficient time. That leads me to conclude as regards this amendment that perhaps we need to look at alternative ways of finding sponsors and support if we go ahead.
Can the Minister ask his officials to convert the email to me into a letter to all Members of the Committee and place a copy in the House so that it can be seen alongside other correspondence which has been part of the consideration of the Bill?
Lord Storey
I thank the Minister for clarifying the situation in terms of the inspection of academy chains. In terms of Amendment 15D, it causes concern when we constantly hear the line about a single day in a failing school being a day too long for a child when we have also heard that if an academy sponsor cannot be found a pupil can wait for months and months, even if there is a nearby local maintained school which has the reputation and the results—
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.
Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Storey Excerpts(8 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, we on this side are now anxious to make progress. We have had the discussions and the debate and are grateful to the Minister for the concessions that he has made on a number of issues. I pay tribute to him for that. He has worked hard at it. We do have some fundamental differences, but this is government: we have to move on, accept what has happened and make the changes work.
Unlike the noble Lord, Lord True, I am not going to pore through every comment that Conservatives have made and try to score cheap points, except to say of course that at the last general election, they got 37% of the vote and only 26% of the entire electorate.
