Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that that is not what I am saying. I have been an advocate of full inspection for academies ever since the last Bill was introduced, and I still take that position. That is the way in which academies should be judged; have no doubt about that. I do not think it likely that we will deal with that in this Bill but the noble Baroness asked me what my position was, and that is it.

What I am saying is that the Bill deals with coasting schools in the maintained sector and, if that is so, there is a bit of a problem if we are going to deal with the issue by simply recreating that. I simply record my reservations. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was right to say that as it stands the clause may not achieve all that it sets out to, and if it comes back again I would be very interested to have a look at it. Still, I have these reservations and wanted to put them on record.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, this new clause would allow a local authority to establish a committee to review and scrutinise the provision of education in coasting schools, where such schools make up more than 10% of schools in the local area.

First, I shall touch on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about the accountability of academies. Our view is in fact that the accountability structure for academies is stronger because it reflects their status as both charitable companies and public bodies. This means that when it comes to matters of good governance and financial management, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, noted, are very important, they not only have statutory responsibilities under company law but explicit accountabilities to Parliament. Because of this dual layer of accountabilities, academies have a stronger financial framework and are held up to greater scrutiny than most other types of schools.

[Baroness Pinnock]

I wonder whether we are at risk of thinking that accountability for children’s education—their one chance to get a good education—is all about balance sheets, audits and professionals coming to some conclusion having looked at attainment levels. At their heart, parents are concerned about whether their children are happy in school, whether bullying is dealt with and whether they get opportunities outside school for extensive education—creative, artistic or sporting. Those are the sorts of things that they take into account as well as their child’s academic progress. That is the accountability that I am talking about, not some dry, dusty PwC audit report that parents may not be able to understand. They do understand what happens to their children’s experience in schools. Where can they ask the questions?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I mentioned that because the noble Baroness specifically talked about academies suffering financial failures, so I was addressing that point. I will come on in due course to talk about some of the other issues that she has raised.

We believe that the amendment is not necessary as the Bill 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. Both the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned health scrutiny committees as a potential way of looking at this issue. The structure that we believe will work best is that of regional schools commissioners, and I will go on to explain why. I am sure that we will come back to this matter time and again this afternoon but I will attempt to put down the first marker as to why we believe that the Bill has devolution at its heart.

First, the Bill is concerned with improving schools that have failed. Decisions will be taken by regional schools commissioners, who are immersed in their local context—a point highlighted by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, from the conversations that he has had and from what he has seen. They are also advised by outstanding local heads. So there is local accountability and I will come on to talk a little more about that in due course.

Secondly, one of the main measures in the Bill gives greater power and responsibility to education professionals. The thrust of the Government’s agenda is to devolve power down to the very local level, trusting head teachers to know what is best and to do all the things that we want to see in good schools, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am sure that we will return to this in later amendments.

As I said, the Bill provides RSCs with additional intervention powers for maintained schools so that RSCs can directly tackle schools 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 regional schools commissioners. The RSC will work with each coasting school in their area to identify whether the school has the capacity to improve sufficiently by itself, which is one option, or whether additional support, including potential intervention, is needed. Such additional support could come from a national leader of education. Alternatively, the RSC may consider that the school should become a sponsored academy, or, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, mentioned, there might be a partnership between the existing school and other local maintained schools or local academies.

The work of RSCs will go beyond what is suggested in the amendment. RSCs will not wait until 10% of schools in an area have been notified that they are coasting before reviewing the education provision in those schools. Their work in relation to coasting schools needs to be continuous and thorough, with the aim of intervening swiftly where necessary. RSCs are strategically placed around the country to make decisions about coasting schools while, as I said, being immersed in the local context.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about the role of local authorities. They will work very closely with RSCs, and I will come on to that. However, in terms of provision, local authorities can run competitions to set up new schools in areas where there is such a need. So there is still a role for local authorities, and many around the country have been active, although perhaps not enough due to the places issue that we are facing.

As I said, we expect RSCs to work closely with local authorities, and we have already seen evidence of effective partnerships. For instance, in Suffolk, the regional schools commissioner, Dr Tim Coulson, meets the local authority every month to discuss schools of concern. The RSC has strongly encouraged the authority to use its existing statutory intervention powers, and over the last 12 months Suffolk has issued 22 warning notices to poorly performing schools. The RSC has brought into Suffolk a number of new academy sponsors with proven track records of success. Overall, 17 underperforming Suffolk schools have become sponsored academies since September 2014 and a further five are in the process of converting. Also, this month the RSC is meeting the leader of the council to discuss establishing a school improvement board with the aim that every school inspected by Ofsted over the next two years will improve by at least one grade.

As to accountability and parents, the Schools Causing Concern guidance which is currently out for consultation makes it clear that local authorities should already alert the relevant RSC when they have concerns about standards, leadership or governance in an academy or a free school. Parents can, and already do, write to RSCs when they have concerns. As I have said, RSCs are very clear about the need for community and parental engagement.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I am sorry to intervene but I am getting rather confused. Did the Minister say that parents can write to the RSC?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Yes.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Why is it not the other way round? Why does the RSC not convene a meeting of parents? I am quite concerned about the letter from the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Lang, which says that this,

“shows our absolute determination to create a school led system and to devolve decision making to experts on the frontline as far as possible”.

Who are the experts on children on the front line—are they not parents?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Indeed, and also teachers. RSCs, for instance, go to meetings in schools to talk with parents about what is happening. At the last sitting, due to concerns about clarifying how the interaction between parents and RSCs will happen, we also committed to considering whether we can be more explicit in the guidance about what that interaction will look like; so we will come back with more to say on that.

As the Committee can see from the examples I gave, RSCs are already scrutinising the schools in their area that they have concerns about, with a view to intervening swiftly where necessary. In addition to the new powers for RSCs as set out in the Bill, I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords that we will be actively monitoring and reviewing all coasting schools and intervening when appropriate. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

How many of the schools identified for intervention are academies?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We gave figures at the last sitting. I do not have them to hand now but can get that information to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Is the noble Baroness aware that 25% of all failing schools are academies?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

That is because a number of state-maintained schools have now converted to become academies; so they have shifted into being academies.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Is the noble Baroness seriously saying that the only failing academies are ones that have just transferred?

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 15A and I agree with the sentiments espoused by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It is surely sensible that a school should not be the subject of an academy order until or unless a sponsor has been identified as appropriate for that school as an academy. The alternative is for the school to be placed in a form of limbo, which as I see it cannot possibly be of any benefit to the children, parents or teachers or anyone else associated with the school. Can the Minister say, concerning the Bill, how many schools have already been designated as ready to be academised but have not yet been moved to that sector because for whatever reason it has been impossible to find an appropriate sponsor?

It is not clear what the DfE or perhaps the regional schools commissioner would do in such situations. Do they seek a local maintained school to take the failing school under its wing? Does the Minister anticipate that the suggestion made in the amendment relating to a local authority should apply in those situations? It would seem that there are good reasons why it should. I imagine that he will reject the amendment, however, so can he tell us what would happen if in these circumstances a sponsor cannot be found? I will have more to say on the question of sponsors in the sixth group, but for the moment I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I would like to respond to Amendment 15A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Sharp. This amendment concerns whether and how a regional schools commissioner would identify the most suitable sponsor for a maintained school that had failed.

Clause 7 makes it clear, as did our manifesto, that for any school judged inadequate by Ofsted an academy order must be made. The RSC will take responsibility for this, identifying the most suitable sponsor and brokering the new relationship between that sponsor and the school. RSCs are already responsible for approval of sponsors, subjecting prospective sponsors and their trusts to thorough scrutiny before they can be approved to take on sponsored academies. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that they consider all new sponsor applications in their region against robust and uniform criteria which are available, and they approve those which can demonstrate that they have the capacity and expertise to turn underperforming schools around. Through this rigorous assessment process, supported by the advice and challenge of their head teacher boards, RSCs ensure that prospective sponsors have a strong track record in educational improvement and financial management and that their proposed trust has high-quality leadership and appropriate governance.

RSCs are also responsible for monitoring and holding academy trusts and sponsors to account for their educational performance. They do this robustly through Ofsted inspection reports on the schools within a trust and published performance data. Trusts are also held to account for their financial management, governance and compliance by the Education Funding Agency. Information about MATs in these areas is transparent, with academy trust accounts audited and made publicly available. Where it is clear that a trust is not improving a school, the RSC will not hesitate to take action and re-broker it to a stronger trust.

As I have described, RSCs take a wealth of data and intelligence into account when identifying which sponsor should take responsibility for turning around a failed school. The tabled amendment requiring RSCs to take account of value-added performance and progress measures when identifying a sponsor for a failing maintained school is unnecessary. RSCs already look at a sponsoring school’s performance and, of course, in the future our new Progress 8 measure, by which secondary schools will be held to account, is a value-added methodology. In fact, the department has led the way in using added value to assess performance, publishing proposals on using such measures for chains and local authorities back in March.

The amendment also proposes that where there is not a sponsor of a high enough quality available, a failing school should be sponsored by a local authority maintained school or, indeed, directly by a local authority. This amendment is unnecessary because RSCs will ensure that a failing school is matched with an academy sponsor. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, RSCs have a wealth of good sponsors available already. There are 778 approved sponsors, all of have been subjected to the rigor described and the criteria I have outlined. RSCs are continually identifying and supporting additional outstanding schools in their area to become new sponsors. That is one of the benefits that RSCs have already brought to the programme.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for the figures she has just given us but is she saying that there have not been cases where a school has been designated to be an academy but has not been able to continue because there is no sponsor? She mentioned some 700 sponsors. Are these organisations just waiting in the wings for a letter saying, “Will you take over this school?” or is this a plan for if and when this Bill is implemented? It is not clear what the figure of 700 involves.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

There are 778 approved sponsors and about 20% are waiting to be matched with schools. The noble Lord asked which schools may need sponsoring. The precise number will vary from year to year and will depend on Ofsted inspections and test and examination results. We anticipate that as many as 1,000 failing maintained schools could potentially become sponsored academies under the new measures.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

I think the issue about how long schools wait before they find a match with a sponsor is very important. I had heard anecdotally—so this is the Minister’s opportunity to put it on the record—that quite a number of schools are now known as orphan schools because they have been taken away from one sponsor and have not yet been given another one. Does the department have a target time in which an alternative or a first sponsor should be found? What is the department’s record on achieving that target?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We look for a sponsoring match to happen as quickly as possible but one of the issues that this Bill is attempting to address is the delays caused by the very process that schools have to undergo at the moment.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I think it would be best if I wrote to the noble Baroness as I do not have the figures directly to hand.

The academy trust structure also brings greater autonomy with a strong accountability framework. International evidence has shown this drives up standards. Academies operate under a robust accountability framework under which we are able to hold the trust directly to account for their school improvement and we have clear routes to intervene should concerns arise. We would not have the same robust accountability if a maintained school or a local authority took over responsibility for a failing school.

It is also not just about the freedoms and stronger accountability, though; it is also about some of the substantial advantages of operating in a multi-academy trust, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, identified. It is acknowledged that the best way to improve schools is through local school-to-school support, and the best, most rigorous, efficient and accountable way to do that is through such a multi-academy trust. People who run multi-academy trusts talk about the advantages of the freedoms, the sense of being in control of one’s own destiny, the career opportunities as people are employed across a group of schools, the ability to retain good staff and, crucially, the ability to share best practice. They talk about leadership development, the enhanced CPD and, on the operational side, the economies of scale and purchasing power of being in a MAT. They talk about the ability to have common school improvement, behaviour management systems, a common curriculum, common teaching pedagogy and systems and the limitless benefits of pupils moving from primary to secondary when a MAT has both types of school in its family.

[Baroness Pinnock]

What I am concerned about in what I am hearing is that the Minister is suggesting that that does not occur in the maintained sector. There is sharing. The schools forum, which all local authorities have to have, brings head teachers together to discuss the very things that she has just described: a common approach to training, personal development for teachers, the sharing of best practice and being able to determine the “destiny” of schools, as she puts it—I hope that in fact we are talking about the destiny of children within them; it always worries me when people talk about the schools rather than the children. None of the factors that she listed there is relevant only to academies. They apply also to maintained schools, and we ought to recognise that.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I did not say that they did not, but we are talking here about multi-academy trusts and why for failing schools it is a good option for them to be involved. Local school forums do indeed have a role but I think that many head teachers would talk about the positive benefits that they have found in setting up a multi-academy trust. That is all I am saying. I am not saying that local maintained groups of schools are not able to form good partnerships themselves.

[Baroness Pinnock]

Would the Minister therefore support outstanding local maintained schools becoming a sponsor for these schools? As she has just said that they can also behave in the same way, there does not seem to be any argument against a local maintained school becoming a sponsor for a failing school.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

They could certainly become an academy and do that, but they would have to have the same legal structure. I shall come on to that in a second.

Given that 65% of our secondary schools are now academies, it is increasingly sponsors for primary schools that we are seeking to source and develop. In small primary schools the MAT structure is even more critical, again making it necessary for sponsoring schools to be academies themselves that are able to form such a MAT rather than leaving small sponsored primary schools standing alone. We would certainly hope that any maintained school with the expertise, capacity and enthusiasm to support a struggling school would consider converting to academy status in order to do this, in the process unlocking all the benefits and opportunities that I have described.

We also anticipate that as more schools become academies and local authorities have fewer maintained schools left, as many already do, we will see members of local authority teams who are skilled at school improvement spinning out to set up their own MATs, and this development would be most welcome.

In conclusion, I shall quote Maura Regan, CEO of Carmel Education Trust, who attended our sponsor event last week. She said:

“We have to accept that what has happened historically in many local authorities has not worked. We are about revolution—we need to take a break from the past and embrace a new model whereby school leaders are increasingly in charge of their own destinies”.

In light of that, as well as my explanations, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I was interested in what the Minister said about the sponsorship process. I would be interested to learn a bit more about it—how sponsors are selected; how they are inducted; and how they are qualified. I guess there is a certain sensitivity in that one wants people to sponsor, so one does not want to place too much of a burden upon them; but on the other hand, it is important that if they sponsor, it is a success and there is not a clash of cultures but complementary working together. The Minister may like to write to me, or perhaps she will say a few words now about that process and particularly about induction so that we ensure that sponsors perhaps spend time in a school sitting at the back of the class so they have a sense of what it is like at the coalface—the chalkface, I should say.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am very happy to write to the noble Earl on that point.

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[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, Amendment 18, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, concerns provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities at schools which have been judged inadequate by Ofsted and will therefore become academies with the support of a sponsor. This amendment would mean that before a sponsor could take on a failing school, it would have to submit detailed plans about how it proposed to support pupils with SEN and disabilities, both those with an education, health and care plan and those without. Where there is doubt that the individual school would be able to offer specialist provision for these pupils, the Secretary of State would have to provide guidance to the sponsor about how collaboration with other schools could provide this. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that when a school has failed there will be swift, decisive action to bring about urgent transformation. We do not want this to be unnecessarily delayed.

In response to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, we have set out in the draft Schools Causing Concern guidance that the number of pupils with SEN should be one of the factors that RSCs take into account when determining the best course of action for a coasting school, so they will consider it. While I recognise the noble Earl’s concerns in this area, we believe that this amendment is unnecessary and I will set out the reasons why. I reassure noble Lords that we have a robust system in place to ensure that academies are identifying and addressing the needs of pupils with SEN and disabilities—a system that we reformed extensively only last year. All academies are subject to the same requirements and expectations as local authority-maintained schools in their provision for pupils with SEN and disabilities.

To address the concern that the noble Baroness raised on behalf of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, we are not just talking here about those students with more complex needs, who qualify for education, health and care plans. We have also strengthened requirements on schools in relation to how they support all students with SEN. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, asked about that system. It includes the requirement for schools to produce an SEN information report, which must be published on their websites. The report must describe the kinds of special educational needs for which provision is made at the school and information about the school’s policies for making provision for all pupils with SEN. The report must also describe how it involves other bodies, including health and social services bodies, local authority support services and voluntary organisations, in meeting the needs of pupils with SEN and supporting the families of those pupils.

As I have said, academies must follow the same requirements on SEN provision that apply to maintained schools. The sponsor taking responsibility for the failing school must therefore ensure that the school complies with all these requirements. This means that information about the academy’s provision for SEN and how it will collaborate with other organisations as part of that provision must be available, even without this amendment. Sponsors taking on a new school will have to give careful consideration as to how the needs of pupils with SEN at the school are met and whether they can put any additional support in place.

An example, particularly drawing on the collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned, is Dorothy Barley Junior School and Special Needs Base, which became a sponsored academy in 2013. The sponsor identified for the school, REAch2, has “inclusion” as one of its founding principles, and took care to consider the potential impact of academy conversion on SEN pupils. REAch2 committed to make provision for children with SEN through inclusion in mainstream classes and, where necessary, outside class. The trust already included a number of primary schools with specialist units providing support for children with SEN—including a specialist speech and language unit at Aerodrome Academy in Croydon, a centre for children with autism at Tidemill Academy in Lewisham and a specialist unit for children with autism and ADHD at Hillyfield Academy in Waltham Forest—so it had strong experience of delivering SEN provision and managing specialist units. We entirely agree that collaboration really helps in this area. Local authorities will of course retain responsibility for services such as education, health and care plans and for the assessment and monitoring of SEN provision once a school becomes an academy.

Academies are inclusive schools which play a full part in providing for children with SEN and disabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, asked for some figures. Sponsored academies have a higher proportion of pupils with SEN than the average across all state-funded schools. In January 2015, 17.3% of pupils in sponsored secondary academies were identified as having some form of SEN, compared to 14.3% of pupils in all state-funded secondary schools. In relation to sponsored primary academies, 17% of pupils were identified as having some kind of SEN, compared to 14.4% of pupils in all state-funded primary schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about exclusions. I can reassure him that there is no trend suggesting that academy exclusions are more likely to be overturned. Academies and maintained schools have the same rate of reviews resulting in the independent review panel directing a school to consider reinstating a pupil.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for raising in her amendment the matter of collaboration. There are certainly many benefits, as I have mentioned, and many MATs already have common SEN policies across their schools or share specialist provision. We therefore do not see that it is necessary to require this in law. We believe that it is right to leave it up to the professionals to decide exactly how best to meet the needs of pupils with SEN, and where collaboration between different schools would be of benefit. It is in the best interests of children with SEN and disabilities, as it is in the best interests of all pupils, for the failure of a school to be addressed as swiftly as possible. On the basis of these reassurances and my explanation of what is already occurring, we hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for participating in this debate. I thought it was going to be just a quick debate; I am delighted to have the support that I have had around the Committee. I thank the Minister for her response, which, as I expected, was a reassurance that these procedures are already in place.

I will raise just one issue with her. Perhaps she might take this away and think about it. As she will know, with the transfer of so many schools into academies, many local authorities have run down their capabilities of coping with special educational needs and providing help. Increasingly, it is left to outside consultants to provide that help. I know that quite a number of authorities are struggling to meet the demands that are required in reviewing the education, health and care plans, and something of a backlog is building up. There is also a question of whether they have the capabilities to do the monitoring that is now written into the Act; the local authorities are required to monitor these facilities in both local authority state schools and academies. If they are to do this monitoring, it is important that they actually have the capability to do it. Perhaps the Minister and the Chief Inspector of Schools might need to think about this. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.