Oral Answers to Questions

Christopher Chope Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hayes]

The national careers service is the first all-age service, and the previous Government could have introduced such a service; there were calls for them to do so on many occasions. We estimate that its website will get 20 million hits a year, and that its telephone helpline will get 1 million calls a year. I expect 700,000-plus people to benefit from the face-to-face guidance that the hon. Gentleman describes. New professional standards will also be set out for the careers industry for the first time. That is progress by any measure, and he should acknowledge that.

[Mr Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

3. What steps he is taking to reduce regulatory burdens on schools.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

The Government are committed to reducing regulatory burdens on schools. We have already removed a range of unnecessary duties via the Education Act 2011 and, subject to parliamentary process, we will remove further burdens in September. In addition to reducing regulations, we have cut the volume of guidance issued to schools by more than half, removed the lengthy self-evaluation form and the financial management standard in schools, and introduced a streamlined inspection framework. We have also made it clear that neither the Department nor Ofsted expects teachers to produce written lesson plans for every lesson.

[Mr Chope]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that response, but does he think it fair to describe his Department’s performance as meriting a capital alpha for effort while it is still getting only a gamma minus for achievement? In particular, will he look again at the deregulation of admissions criteria, at the pupil numbers that schools can have, and at the whole issue of grammar schools and free schools that are still calling for more freedoms?

[Mr Gibb]

That sounds like Greek to me! The Department deserves an A* for what it has achieved. We have already removed statutory burdens. Performance targets have gone. Changes have been made to consultation on the school day, and it is no longer necessary to appoint a school improvement partner or to prepare and publish a school profile. We have also abolished the absurd rule requiring parents to be given 24 hours’ notice of a detention. We have abolished the requirement to join behaviour and attendance partnerships, and we have removed 20,000 pages of guidance from schools. We have more than halved the guidance going to schools—