Education Institutions: Autonomy and Accountability

Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for tabling this debate today and for giving us a chance to have what has been a well thought-through and—despite the shortage of numbers—very detailed and interesting debate. The debate was also very topical, sadly, for the wrong reasons. As we know, a number of examples have hit the headlines which are an illustration of the fact that the Government have not found the right balance between autonomy and accountability, and that a number of challenges remain. That is particularly sad because when that balance fails, it is the children’s education which suffers, and many of these young people will never get a second chance to recover those lost years from an education that has been damaged. Therefore we all have a responsibility to get this issue right.

We know, for example, the issues that have been in the headlines recently: the collapse of Discovery Free School, concerns over the mismanagement at E-ACT academies, the poor educational standards at the al-Madinha Free School and the financial concerns at Kings Science Academy. All those remind us of what can go wrong if we do not get these policies right and rush them through. As the National Audit Office said,

“the primary factor in decision-making has been opening schools at pace, rather than maximizing value for money”.

There is a concern about the pace at which these changes have occurred.

Now we have the turmoil at the Birmingham schools and the Trojan horse allegations. This was an issue that the Minister’s predecessor was worried about back in 2010, but was then unwilling or unable to intervene. We know now that the Permanent Secretary has been asked to investigate that issue. We await the outcome, but I would be grateful if the Minister would confirm that the Permanent Secretary’s report will be made public when it is concluded, so we can all share the lessons. I should tell the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, that one of the rumours coming out from Birmingham was that people felt they did not have anywhere to go. The complaints existed and they were desperate to have their voice heard, but people felt that, for whatever reason, it was not being heard at a local level. We therefore all have something to learn from that.

Now, four years on, we have a situation where schools which were given a clean bill of health by Ofsted suddenly find themselves being downgraded on re-inspection, leading to questions about Ofsted’s role, independence and judgments. We cannot be sure that these concerns and problems are contained only in one city. Already, new allegations are coming to light elsewhere, each one again highlighting that there is a problem about the local oversight of what is happening in our schools.

Whatever the outcome of the inquiries now taking place, particularly in Birmingham, I hope that the Minister recognises that the impact on community relations has been particularly damaging. I could not have put better myself the issues raised by the right reverend Prelate about the challenges to the local community that have occurred in the way the allegations have come to light and been handled by all sides, particularly by the media. That is a particular challenge for us. We also perhaps expect too much from Ofsted, because it is now the only intermediary between individual academy and free schools and the Secretary of State. In a sense, it is put in an impossible position, because it is expected to oversee, in quite some detail, a growing band of autonomous schools, facing it with particular challenges.

I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, that because of Ofsted’s style and the way it behaves when it goes into schools, there have been a number of occasions when it has lost the confidence of the teachers in the schools and the governors. That is a real concern to us when it is the only port of call for many people. Like the noble Baroness, I welcome the fact that the inspectors have been brought back in-house and that quality is being driven up, because it was long overdue.

Of course, not all the schools caught up in the turmoil in Birmingham were academies. While I am sure that Birmingham City Council has its own governance issues that it needs to address, the fact is that, of the 21 schools recently inspected, five out of the six found to be inadequate were academies. I hope that the Government are coming to realise what we told them all along: that 5,000 schools and rising cannot effectively be monitored from behind a desk in Whitehall. The Minister will know that this point was made to him in a private briefing by civil servants recently. They advised that, as ever more bad publicity came from failing schools, there would be a growing public realisation that the department did not really have the tools to enable it to intervene effectively.

I hope that the Government are now reflecting on what has gone wrong with this policy. Perhaps the Minister will share with us details of the steps that they are taking, rather belatedly, to put in place an intermediary tier of accountability.

On these Benches, we already have proposals that we believe will address this accountability deficit. David Blunkett’s recent report sets out an effective blueprint to devolve power down to local areas and ensure that all schools are supported and challenged to improve. This echoes the argument made by the right reverend Prelate and, indeed, by the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, that we need more local oversight and involvement in the performance of schools. Under our proposals, a new director of school standards would be appointed in every area. The director would have powers to intervene in underperforming schools, to broker collaboration and to commission new schools.

The issue of collaboration between schools marks a clear distinction between our approach and that of the Government. My noble friend Lady Farrington commented on the London Challenge, which was introduced by the last Government. It was highly successful in transforming poorly performing schools in London and went on to achieve some of the fastest improving schools in the country. The key difference in that approach was that it was done through a policy of sharing best practice and collaboration between schools. It happened in London, and my noble friend went on to point out where it happened elsewhere in the country, such as in Lancashire. We need to learn more about what schools can do in terms of collaboration rather than have them acting as isolated, autonomous institutions.

A recent OECD report has confirmed the importance of this approach. It states that:

“Knowledge about strong educational practices tends to stick where it is and rarely spreads without effective strategies and powerful incentives for knowledge mobilisation and knowledge management”.

The report goes on to identify a number of high-performing PISA countries and regions, including some of Michael Gove’s favourites such as Finland, Japan and Shanghai, and shows that they have strong histories of co-operation networks and shared resources. Those are what have made them successful. But that does not happen by osmosis. The plan has to be laid down and determined, with a clear expectation that this is the way schools will behave, and rewards have to be linked to it.

The report goes on to address another clear dividing line between ourselves and the Government, which is on the importance of high-quality teachers. Again, this point was made eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry. It emphasises the need for continuous professional development. We on these Benches believe that all teachers should be qualified and expected to be involved in continuous professional development, and should indeed be periodically revalidated. The OECD data support this approach. Further, this research has been backed up by the Sutton Trust and shows that teacher quality can make as much as a year’s difference to the learning progress of disadvantaged children, so it is a very important tool when addressing the issue of social mobility.

To sum up, while we share some of the Government’s desire to give teachers autonomy over the curriculum and how subjects are taught, we believe that it has to go hand in hand with the professionalisation of teaching and evidence of continuous school improvement. The problem with the Government’s approach is that schools sink or swim, and sometimes they sink. When they do, they take with them a cohort of children and their aspirations and dreams. We do not think that that is the right approach. We believe that driving up teacher quality, allowing for early intervention in all schools, a new element of local oversight and, most important, building in an element of continuous improvement through learning and collaboration, are the right way forward. I hope that the Minister will be able to agree, and I look forward to hearing what he has to say.