Birmingham Schools

Lord Sutherland of Houndwood Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

To answer my noble friend’s two questions, we have so far felt that, given that Ofsted is capable of conducting batch inspections on a number of schools in a chain, as it did in Birmingham and has done on many occasions, that gives it plenty of opportunity to examine the support that those schools get from the centre. Visiting the head office—when Ofsted probably would not see very much except the office—would not tell it any more. However, we keep that constantly under review.

On the compromise agreements, when I came to work in education I was pretty shocked by the lack of due diligence that was often taken over referencing people in teaching. Of course, what can happen as a result of compromise agreements is that bad teachers just pop up elsewhere, which is described in America as the dance of the lemons. That is something that we need to look at.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood (CB)]

My Lords, there is much to welcome and to ponder in today’s report. There is an underlying issue of knowing what is going on in schools to which I will draw attention by asking two related questions. I suggest that one of the key sources will always be responsible teachers and head teachers. Is there any way of devising a route that they can follow to raise questions about serious difficulties within the school, knowing that they will be taken seriously?

Secondly, there is an issue of governance and governors. I welcome what is recommended in the report, but it is a much broader issue than that. Could a broader look be taken? I could take the Minister to schools within a mile or two of here that struggle to find enough good governors. We have to find ways of improving that situation, and that will not happen reactively in situations like this.

[Lord Nash]

I pay tribute to the experience of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, in the area of HMCI. We have whistleblowing procedures in place in the department and in the EFA. We have been discussing with Ofsted how we can improve them, and we will look at doing so.

On page 90 of Peter Clarke’s report, he says that he does not see that there is an issue with governance generally, merely an issue with governance in these particular schools. In the last 18 months, as Minister with responsibility for governors, we have dramatically beefed up our focus on governance to focus governors on three core skills, to focus governance on skills rather than representation and to view governing bodies more as non-executive director bodies. I was delighted to hear in the other place earlier this afternoon the shadow Secretary of State support the non-executive director approach. Ofsted is far more focused on governance than it was and we are increasingly working with it to make it more so.

The noble Lord is quite right about recruiting more governors. We have recently launched the Inspiring Governors Alliance to work with the CBI and other business groups to recruit more governors.