School Funding Reforms
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Schools across the country are unfairly funded as a result of an historic and out-of-date system. In March last year, the Secretary of State confirmed that we would rectify these injustices with a new national funding formula, it will be introduced during the next spending review period. The Secretary of State also announced a number of changes to the school funding system to pave the way for a national funding formula. These changes took effect from April 2013.
This started a welcome journey towards a fairer and more transparent funding system, but following consultation with the sector a number of improvements to the initial arrangements need to be made.
The Department carried out a review to understand how the changes introduced in April 2013 have been implemented. We published a document on 12 February seeking views from our partners, and officials also undertook fieldwork in 11 local authorities spread across the country.
We are grateful to the many MPs, head teachers, governors, local authority officers and parents who have taken the time to contribute as part of the review.
Today we are publishing a document which sets out the changes we will be making to school funding arrangements in light of the findings from the review.
In order to maintain momentum towards a national funding formula, we will ensure that more money is targeted to pupils. We will require local authorities to allocate a minimum of 80% of their funding on the basis of pupil characteristics and we will also be setting a minimum amount that each pupil should receive.
In our consultation there was concern about the ability of local authorities to support small schools in rural areas. From April 2014, therefore, we will enable local authorities to provide additional funding for schools in sparsely populated areas.
The document also sets out new flexibilities to provide different amounts of funding to cover the fixed costs of primary and secondary (as well as middle and all-through) schools. These new flexibilities will ensure local authorities can act to take account of varying fixed costs between different types of school. Schools that merge will also be able to keep some of their funding for fixed costs for at least the first year.
We will continue to target support on deprived and vulnerable pupils. Local authorities will be required to target additional funding to deprived pupils in addition to the pupil premium. We are also making changes to ensure that those pupils who are less likely to attain well at the end of the primary or secondary phase are identified and attract additional funding.
We also want to encourage local authorities to provide the right level of additional funding for schools to enable them to support looked-after children, regardless of how long the child has been in care.
We made significant changes to the funding arrangements for pupils with special educational needs last year so we are not making any further substantial changes in 2014. We are, though, intending to require all local authorities to provide notional SEN budgets to their schools on the basis that the school will meet the costs of the first £6,000 of additional support required by a pupil with SEN.
In the document we are publishing today, we are providing the detailed findings from the review, the approach which will be put in place from April 2014 and technical guidance on this for local authorities. Copies of these documents will be placed on the Libraries of both Houses.
Taken together, these changes will further strengthen our funding reforms and will help us move towards our aim of ensuring that pupils attract a more consistent amount of funding wherever they go to school in the country.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Gavin Williamson (South Staffordshire) (Con)
3. What assessment he has made of the level of education funding received by children in South Staffordshire; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
In 2013-14, the Department for Education allocated £4,310 per pupil for pupils in mainstream schools in Staffordshire, plus an additional £900 for each deprived pupil through the pupil premium.
Gavin Williamson
Our schools in South Staffordshire receive on average £695 less than schools in neighbouring Wolverhampton. Many of my constituents think that that is grossly unfair and want it to be rebalanced. What action is my right hon. Friend taking to rebalance it to ensure we get a fair deal for pupils in Staffordshire?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is absolutely right that the last Government left us a funding formula for schools that allocates money across the country in an unfair and irrational way. That is why we intend to introduce a national funding formula, and in the meantime we are funding £20 million more to Staffordshire through the pupil premium.
Michael Fabricant
As you well know, Mr Speaker, Lichfield was, I like to think, the original capital of Staffordshire, and it was certainly the capital of Mercia and was the first place—even before Canterbury—to have an archbishop, but we digress. I am very relieved to hear that the funding formula, which is so unfair, will be addressed, but we heard that long ago from the Labour party when it was in government, so can my right hon. Friend the Minister give some indication of when it will actually happen?
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
17. What recent assessment he has made of the school priority building programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are making good progress in delivering the first schools in the priority school building programme. Unlike previous programmes, we are tackling schools with the greatest needs first—those in the very worst condition and special schools. The first contracts for these schools have been let and building work is to start in the next few weeks.
Mr Thomas
In July last year Harrow council wrote to the Education Funding Agency seeking to secure some resources, in part from the priority school building programme, for the rebuilding and expansion of Vaughan and Marlborough schools in my constituency. Given that as of Friday, almost 10 months on, Harrow council had not received a reply to the letter, will the Minister agree to meet me and representatives from the schools to discuss how we might move the situation forward for Vaughan and Marlborough schools and secure the resources to facilitate their expansion?
Mr Laws
I note that Harrow council has welcomed the fact that eight of its schools are within the priority school building programme, but I can only apologise to the hon. Gentleman that the local council has not had a response from the EFA after such a long period. That is clearly not acceptable. I believe, though, that the council has met EFA officials on a couple of occasions. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that a letter will be going out this week from the EFA, and I am delighted to meet him if he would like to do so, after he has seen the contents of that letter.
Kelvin Hopkins
The Minister may be aware that Luton has one of the highest proportions of school-age children in the whole country. Indeed, at one time a few years ago my constituency had the highest number of school-age children as a proportion. Will the Government continue to give serious consideration to Luton as a priority area, given that several of our schools are still bursting at the seams?
Mr Laws
Yes, Luton is a priority area. Some of the first batches of the privately financed priority schools will be in the hon. Gentleman’s area and we expect those, after proper approval, to be released this spring. We are currently carrying out a survey of the entire school estate and later this year, when we have that evidence, we will be able to prioritise in a sensible way future allocations of capital.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I thank the Minister and the Department for enabling a much-needed and long awaited investment in one of my schools, Marling school in my constituency. Does he agree that this is an example of a paced and sensible capital investment programme?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in celebrating the fact that Kettering Science academy and Kettering Buccleuch academy both have a complete set of brand, spanking new buildings and that, together with the dynamic leadership of the heads and sponsoring organisations, this will help transform two of the worst performing schools in Kettering into two of the very best?
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Thousands of parents are desperately anxious that their child still has no place at primary school next year, and others will be taught in larger classes further away from home. Will the Minister explain to those worried mums and dads why the Government are building two out of five of their flagship free schools in areas where there are already enough places?
Mr Laws
I am delighted to explain the priority school building programme. Unlike its predecessor programme, it prioritises those schools in the worst need, and I am proud that it is doing so, in contrast to the previous scheme, Building Schools for the Future, which did not do so. On the issue of primary places, I caution the hon. Gentleman not to lecture this Government when his Government ignored the warnings of the Office for National Statistics and eliminated 200,000 primary school places.
Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Con)
8. What steps he is taking to ensure that all pupils gain a chronological understanding of British history.
Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)
13. What recent assessment he has made of the availability of primary school places; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We anticipate that 382,000 new primary places and 35,000 new secondary places will be needed over this Parliament. The latest data show that new places are being created at a good rate and that local authorities are keeping up with demand.
Catherine McKinnell
Record numbers of children will be taught in class sizes of 31 or more from September, following the coalition’s decision to ditch Labour’s class size limits. The Lib Dem spokesperson for children’s services in Newcastle said in The Guardian that
“schools should be allowed to raise the number of pupils in each class as they saw fit.”
Are we going to see a return to the bad old days of overcrowded classrooms under this Tory-Lib Dem Government?
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend confirm that between now and 2015, the Government will spend £5 billion on new school places, which is twice as much as was spent by the Labour party during a similar time frame, and that £1 billion of that is earmarked for areas that are under the greatest pressure?
Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)
14. How head teachers of academies can be removed if their schools fail to make the progress that can reasonably be expected.
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
T7. In the interest of transparency and to provide information for schools and local authorities, will the Secretary of State ensure that all reports on the asbestos incident in Cwmcarn high school in Wales, including the final report from the Health and Safety Executive, are made publicly available? I note that the local council has decided to remove asbestos from the school on safety grounds.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I will look at this matter on behalf of my right hon. Friend. We are keen to ensure that policy on asbestos is evidence-based, and that there is clarity about the inquiry carried out by the HSE.
Paul Goggins (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
The average age for leaving home is 24, yet currently only one in 20 foster children is able to stay with their foster carers beyond their 18th birthday. If the Secretary of State is as shocked as I am by that, will he lead and co-ordinate an urgent initiative aimed at ensuring that every foster child, like any child, can leave home when they are ready?
Nursery Funding
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Dobbin. I apologise for the fact that you have had to listen to me twice on different subjects this afternoon.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer (Julian Sturdy) on securing a debate on such an important issue. It is of great relevance not only in his constituency, but, as he explained very clearly and ably, throughout the country. He explained concisely and effectively the concerns that providers, including those in his constituency, have about the funding of early education and their determination to ensure that we have a rational funding system that gets adequate amounts of money through to the front line to do the vital job that he referred to.
I apologise to my hon. Friend for the fact that the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who leads on child care, is not able to be with us in the debate. She is abroad today. She passes on her apologies to my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer and has indicated to me that she would be happy to meet him to discuss these issues with him and anyone he wants to bring along from his constituency, so I hope he will take up that opportunity directly.
My hon. Friend has raised a number of important issues that I should like to deal with directly. Those issues are reflected in many of the recent debates on how to ensure high-quality and affordable child care throughout the country. I am therefore grateful for the opportunity to deal with the points that he has raised, which will be of concern to other hon. Members and to many people who rely on this industry and who work in it.
I should like also to outline some of the reforms that we have made and are in the process of making, and the further reforms that we plan for free early years education—some of the other reforms that my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary has announced recently. It is important to locate the reforms within the broader vision for child care and early years education as a whole, which was championed so effectively by her in the paper entitled “More great childcare”. As my hon. Friend the Member for York Outer mentioned, the Government published that document in January. It sets out an ambitious vision for child care and early education to ensure that we provide the best start for young children and help those parents who want to go into employment to have the child care that they need in a flexible and affordable way.
The vision is to create a dynamic and thriving child care sector in which the emphasis is firmly on quality and which draws upon international evidence of what works best. “More great childcare” is clear that, to achieve that vision, we need a child care profession that attracts the best possible staff to work in it and to lead it. Those people should have a passion for what they do, but, importantly, they must also be highly trained and highly qualified, which has not always been the case.
We need to give providers the flexibility that they need to deliver the best for children and, by doing so, create more affordable, better-quality early education and care, which will help children and ensure that parents can feel confident about returning to work. Alongside that, we are working with Ofsted, as my hon. Friend will know, to create a system of regulation and inspection that has high expectations of quality and that ensures that the quality improvements that the Government aspire to are delivered on the ground.
We need to free providers from unnecessary bureaucracy and give them more flexibility to focus on what makes a difference in improving the impact of early learning on children, not least those from disadvantaged backgrounds, for whom early intervention is particularly important. We need to improve the effectiveness of those who work every day with young children to build a stronger, more professional work force, giving providers greater flexibility to invest in high-calibre staff, as well as overhauling the existing early years qualifications.
“More great childcare” also explained how the Government propose to reform funding for early education. The high-level objectives are clear: simplification, greater transparency and ensuring that as much funding as possible reaches the front line. The responsibility for distributing early education funding rests, of course, with local authorities, which should know their local child care markets. Most visibly for nurseries, that role means setting hourly rates through the early years single funding formula.
My hon. Friend also highlighted a weakness in the early education funding system—the lack of transparency. Some providers have concerns that local authorities do not always pass on enough of the funding that they receive from Government, but, by extension, they find the funding system hard to understand. In too many cases, they do not know what funding decisions local authorities reach—I am talking about many of the people in their areas. Given how providers are affected by those decisions, that cannot be right, so the Government are changing it through the reforms that we have announced.
Working with a number of provider groups, the Department now publishes financial benchmarking data annually. Those data show simply and clearly the funding decisions taken by local authorities across the country. Importantly, too, the data enable providers to compare decisions across local areas. A system of effective local decision making relies on active local accountability, and we are giving providers the information that they need to exercise that accountability. However, we want to go further, and the recent two-year-olds early education funding allocation shows how that might be possible.
As my hon. Friend said, the Government are expanding early education to two-year-olds from lower-income households. That starts with the most disadvantaged 20% of two-year-olds, which is about 130,000 children—
Mr Laws
The Government are expanding early education to two-year-olds, particularly focusing on lower-income households. That starts with the most disadvantaged 20% of two-year-olds—about 130,000 children—in September this year. From September 2014, it will be extended to 40% of children—260,000 in total. That ambition is matched by significant new investment. National funding to support the initiative will reach £760 million in 2014-15. The Government also allocated £100 million of capital funding to local authorities in November last year to support delivery of the new entitlement. That real opportunity for providers will inject a great deal more money into the child care system.
Funding for two-year-olds is not encumbered by the complexities and historical problems that affect schools more widely and early years funding. The new two-year-olds entitlement has enabled the Government to put into practice their ambitions for transparency and simplicity in early education funding. In November last year, the Government allocated the first £525 million to local authorities for two-year-olds early education in 2013-14. For the first time, the Department was able to publish details of how much every local authority is allocated. It could point to an average national hourly rate that underpinned the allocations. That hourly rate should translate into attractive rates for providers locally. The national average rate of £5.09 per hour compares favourably with the £4.13 that the Daycare Trust found in its 2012 child care costs survey, which providers are charging parents per hour. In fact, £5.09 still compares favourably to the £4.26 per hour in its recently published 2013 survey.
I was interested to hear my hon. Friend say that there was evidence that some local authorities might not be funding properly at the full rate. The Government were clear that they wanted local authorities to pass on the new two-year-olds funding in full at the hourly rate. The Department does not recognise the problem of local authorities not passing on the rate in full, but we will collect data on the hourly rates and publish them as soon as possible, and the point that he made today will reinforce that. It will enable providers and others to see exactly what rates local authorities are funding at and to challenge local authorities where there is a discrepancy between the rates that we are funding at nationally and the rates on the ground. If he has any further evidence on that from his area, we would be delighted to see it.
My hon. Friend explained with great clarity the concern of many nurseries that local authorities hold back too much of the funding allocated by Government. In 2012-13, the latest year for which we have data, local authorities retained centrally £160 million out of total dedicated schools grant spending of £2.1 billion. That masked great variations, however, with many retaining little or nothing. Let me be clear: some central spending by local authorities is important in, and indeed critical to, delivering the Government’s vision of early education transforming the life chances of many children. Central spending is often used to purchase, for example, specialist help for providers working with children with special educational needs or other additional educational needs to help them to access early education. Such spending is frequently welcomed by providers and must continue.
Equally, in the current economic climate, we must ensure that every penny is being used effectively. For 2013-14, we introduced, for the first time, the requirement that local authorities must secure schools forum approval for centrally retained early years spending. That gives power back to local providers, but we want to go further.
As my hon. Friend knows, the Government are consulting on reforming the local authority role in free early education. In that consultation, the Government propose two reforms to how local authorities retain funding. First, we propose a new definition specifying what authorities can and cannot retain funding for. In “More great childcare”, the Government were clear that the role of local authorities in early education should be refocused on tackling disadvantage to ensure that all children can experience high-quality early education. In other areas, the local authority role should be more limited. For example, the Government want Ofsted to be the sole arbiter of quality in early years, rather than replicating the job that local authorities have done in the past.
Secondly, we are seeking views on percentage limits on how much of their early years budget authorities may retain for those purposes. We will take into account fully the views of providers responding to the consultation.
The Government also want a simple and clear funding offer, so that nurseries know and understand the funding that they receive and bureaucracy is kept to an absolute minimum. We are consulting on proposals to simplify and rationalise the early years single funding formula. From that, I am confident that we will put in place changes to introduce a simpler and less burdensome system of funding. I have already touched on the complexities and historical problems of early education funding for three and four-year-olds. The changes will resolve those problems. I hope that my hon. Friend will take up the opportunity to meet my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary further to develop the points he made so powerfully today.
Question put and agreed to.
AS-levels and A-levels
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin.
I congratulate the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) on securing the debate and on putting her case so clearly and in such a measured way. I am also pleased that we have had useful and helpful contributions from a number of other Members, including members of the Education Committee.
A lot of the contributions have pointed out that some of the proposals that we are discussing are controversial, and clearly they are. We are aware of a lot of the feedback that has come in from different organisations. Sometimes when Governments go out to consultation on particular proposals, they realise that they have made mistakes and they change the proposals. As a number of Members have indicated, we did that on the reforms to GCSEs that we had proposed, but I should say to those Members who have at times today suggested that popularity is the benchmark for introducing policies and the ultimate test that there are many other examples of changes in education and in other Government policy areas where proposals were extremely controversial at the time—I am thinking of key stage 2 national tests, the introduction of Ofsted and sponsored academies—and not welcomed by many in the relevant sector when they were introduced that have proven to be generally very successful and which are now welcomed. The consensus changes.
If we wanted an example of what happens when policy is introduced just on the basis of what is popular with the sector, we have Wales to look at. Wales has introduced, over time, many policies that were extremely popular in the sector, but which have proven, in many cases, to do huge damage to the quality of education in Wales. That is now widely and internationally recognised.
Pat Glass
Does the Minister accept that although those controversial reforms that he mentioned, such as the introduction of Ofsted and key stage 2 tests, may have been unpopular with some people working in education, there was nevertheless a body of evidence to support their introduction? Therefore, although they were perhaps controversial, there was huge evidence behind them, and they have subsequently proven the evidence.
Mr Laws
That was not said by many of the opponents of those proposals at the time. Actually, many opponents, including to sponsored academies, continue to maintain today that there is no evidence to show the success of those policies, so I do not agree with the hon. Lady that the issue is as simple as that.
Mr Laws
If I may, I will make a little progress and then give way to the hon. Lady. I want to ensure that I get my speech under way.
As the key qualification for progression to university and as a key end-of-school qualification in and of its own right, A-levels have to be robust and to be rigorous, as was pointed out earlier. They need to compare well with the best qualifications internationally; they need to help our young people to compete with students from other countries for university places in the UK and abroad; they need to give pupils the best possible preparation for further study, teaching the core knowledge and skills that young people need to make the most of an undergraduate course; and they need to be—as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), the shadow Schools Minister, indicated earlier—strong qualifications in their own right, providing test and challenge at the end of the school or college experience.
Our reforms for 16-to-18 education build on the reforms that we are making to the national curriculum, secondary accountability and GCSEs. Our proposals in those areas, which are out for consultation until 1 May, are to publish an average point score measure and a value-added progress measure covering English and mathematics, three of the EBacc subjects and three additional slots for other subjects that can be academic, arts or vocational qualifications. As the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston will know, the progress measure will be part of the floor standard. Those reforms will place a strong focus on English and maths while ensuring that students have a rounded knowledge of sciences, languages, humanities and the arts. There will also be a stronger emphasis on computer science and programming.
Our reforms of A-levels are designed to build on that strong base. We want to give students a better experience of post-16 study, ensuring they are studying for rigorous qualifications that will provide them with the right skills and knowledge to allow them to progress. Students currently start A-levels in September and then they immediately start preparing for examinations in January. They and their teachers have spent too much time thinking about exams and re-sitting them, encouraging in some cases a “learn and forget” approach. A student taking A-level maths would need to sit six exams: three papers for their AS-level, and three for their A2. The old rules allowed multiple re-sitting of those papers, so a student might sit some papers in January, and if they wanted to improve their grades they could re-sit them in June and again the following year, while sitting and then re-sitting their A2 papers. In 2010, 74% of maths A-level students re-sat at least one paper.
During the past few years, too many students in our schools system have spent too long preparing for and taking tests in years 10, 11, 12 and 13. During the past decade, we have been in danger of creating an “exam factory” in our schools, particularly in the last four years of education, rather than creating places of deep learning where teachers and students are given the time and space to develop deep knowledge of subjects, rather than just preparing constantly for public examinations. That is one of the key reasons why the Government are making the changes that we are debating today.
The focus that there has been on exams in every one of those final four years of school education can lead to young people failing to deliver and develop that deep understanding of their subject, and to their failing to make connections between topics. Re-sits have also led to too much teaching time being sacrificed for assessment preparation. Research—hon. Members have said that they are keen on it—from Durham university and Cambridge Assessment suggests that repeated opportunities for students to re-sit exams have also risked a form of grade inflation. This is why our reforms to A-levels are so important. Ofqual announced the first stage of the reforms last autumn by removing the January exam window, which will reduce the number of re-sits, as the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston said.
Seema Malhotra
The Minister makes some valid points, which I also referred to, about ways in which we might reform, such as reducing re-sits, which may have contributed to grade inflation, but does he not agree that those changes—those improvements—can take place within the current framework and that the de-coupling of AS-levels and A-levels is not required to achieve those improvements?
Mr Laws
Some of those changes clearly could take place without the additional measures that we are taking, but we believe, for the reasons that I am giving, and will continue to give, that they would not by themselves go far enough. That is why we announced earlier this year that from 2015 we would return to linear A-levels, with examinations taking place at the end of the two-year course. Linear A-levels will free up time for teachers to focus on what teachers do best, which is providing high-quality teaching, developing their students’ deep understanding and love of a subject, and ensuring, therefore, that the final two years of education are about not simply public examinations and test preparation, but doing what our education system is designed to do, which is educating young people in these key subjects.
Mr Laws
I would like to make more progress and then give way to the hon. Gentleman.
Some have claimed that the introduction of linear A-levels will have a negative impact on the social mobility agenda. If that was going to be the case, this Government, and certainly my party, would have no truck with these changes. Creating a more socially mobile society and education system is crucial. The point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) made extremely well was that, listening to and talking about the criticisms from some in the education system, including from Cambridge university, people would think that we had an ideal system for social mobility today in universities such as Cambridge and Oxford. Actually, the proportion of young people from private schools and selective state schools in those institutions remains, in our view, unacceptably high. That model is not delivering social mobility.
Contrary to the claims I have mentioned, linear A-levels will allow young people to develop greater intellectual maturity through a two-year course. Some students may not have developed the skills that they need to excel in an exam in the first year of their A-level course, particularly those who may have had less support at school and home to develop independent study skills. A two-year course will allow all students progressively to develop the skills they need to be successful at university and to demonstrate their abilities through exams at the end of two years. We will also do more to target high-achieving sixth formers, in terms of the social mobility agenda, to ensure that they are fully aware of the higher education opportunities that should be open to them in all universities, including some of the best in the country. We will ensure that they are supported in exploring those options.
The crucial thing about a strategy for social mobility through the education system is not to think that we can solve the massive injustices in access to our education system through tweaking the admissions process at age 17 or 18. All the international evidence demonstrates that, in an education system with massive gaps between the outcomes for young people from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds, which are already visible at ages five, 11 and 16, as we have had in this country for far too long, reducing those gaps through the measures that we are taking to intervene in weak schools—including policies such as the pupil premium, for example, which will target more money for the education of disadvantaged youngsters—will help us to make a step change in social mobility in this country. Those are far more important than the issues that we have been debating today.
Nic Dakin
I thank the Minister for giving way. I find his contribution somewhat naive and a little complacent. I am pleased that he recognises that teachers are doing what they do best in helping youngsters learn, but that is what they are doing now. They do not need changes to assist them in that job, which they are doing extremely well.
Will the Minister focus on the key issue that has come up consistently in this debate—hon. Members agree with much of what he has already said—which is the significant detrimental effect of AS-levels being divorced from A-levels, which will result if the Government continue ploughing on with that ill-conceived policy?
Mr Laws
I will come to the hon. Gentleman’s point directly. May I first say, somewhat gently, that it is naive and complacent to think that the issue that we are discussing—whether universities rely on AS-level grades, predicted grades or GCSE grades—has any central role to play in challenging the massive inequalities of opportunity in our education system today. It is a tiny issue, compared with the huge gaps that are emerging at ages five, 11 and 16. All the evidence, which hon. Members have been urging the Government to use and pay attention to, demonstrates that our social mobility problems are about the inequalities of outcome at those ages, not what is happening with university admissions.
Mr Laws
I will make more progress before giving way again to the hon. Lady.
Some critics of the linear A-level have cited a link between the introduction of modular A-levels as part of the Curriculum 2000 reforms, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West, the shadow Schools Minister, mentioned earlier, and widening participation in higher education. However, the major increase in HE participation took place in the early 1990s, before the introduction of modular A-levels in 2000. Universities continue to work hard to widen participation and ensure they are opening their doors to students from all backgrounds, and I am confident that they will keep doing so when the new linear A-levels are introduced. Indeed, in many cases they need to do much more to offer those opportunities to young people, particularly from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government intend to work in partnership with some of the universities, particularly those that have poor rates of access, to try to target those youngsters who should be gaining access to some of our best universities, but are not doing so.
Making the A-level linear does, of course, have implications—the hon. Gentleman raised this point earlier—for the current AS qualification. My ministerial colleagues and officials have been talking to and working with school and college leaders and universities to understand precisely the concerns that he set out so clearly to ensure that we can address them.
As we move to fully linear A-levels with exams at the end of the two-year course, the AS-level will remain as a qualification in its own right. It will continue to be available as a stand-alone qualification to be taught over either one year or two years, but the marks from it will obviously no longer count towards the A-level. Longer term, our ambition is to develop a brand new AS qualification that is at the same level of challenge as a full A-level, but for the time being that is for the future.
From 2015, the AS-level will be decoupled as a stand-alone, linear qualification and will remain at the same level of challenge as existing AS qualifications. That means that schools and colleges can decide whether to teach the AS-level over one year or two years. If schools and colleges decide to teach the AS in any given subject in one year, that would give them the opportunity, which I think the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) was seeking—it is a valid concern—to co-teach the AS and the new A-level together, if that meets the needs of the students and if it is a sensible way for those institutions to ensure that they can deliver education for all young people who want to access both A-levels and the AS.
We want to preserve the AS so that students can study a fourth subject in addition to their full A-levels. We know that universities consider the AS a valuable qualification to provide that breadth, which a number of hon. Members mentioned. We also know that some universities use the AS in their admissions processes, although most place more emphasis on GCSE results and predicted A-level grades, as well as looking at a range of other information, including personal statements, academic references and, in some cases, admissions tests and interviews.
Mr Laws
I will make this one point before giving way.
Most universities do not use AS results as the main basis for making those decisions. Indeed, in some subjects GCSE results can provide a better prediction of degree results across all universities than AS results. Students who have very good GCSE results from schools where the general pattern is for below-average GCSE attainment also have real potential to progress at university.
Kevin Brennan
If the Minister continues with his proposals, AS-levels will be available for universities to use as evidence in only one subject, instead of all the subjects that the young person is studying. Although we could do with more research, he knows that there is powerful research evidence that suggests that AS-level is in fact the best predictor of how young people will do at university. [Interruption.] He can shake his head, but his own university’s research suggests that AS-levels are the best predictor—far better than GCSEs, and far better even than university admissions tests. I have the research here. I thought he had read it, but obviously he has not.
Seema Malhotra
I thank the Minister for giving way again. He says that most universities do not use AS-level results as the main basis, but that does not mean that most do not use them as a key part of their decision making. Does he not agree that taking away AS-level results at that moment would take away something that is seen as a vital indicator of how well pupils are doing, particularly pupils from state schools or disadvantaged backgrounds?
Mr Laws
No, our judgment is that, if we get education right earlier on, which is the critical stage for delivering the social mobility that the hon. Lady and I want, it should be perfectly possible for universities to make such judgments without a loss from the removal of the AS-level. Some universities may have to adjust how they handle admissions. A-levels, however, are not simply mechanisms to help universities to sort students. The most important priority is to develop A-levels that secure the best possible educational outcomes for young people. Earlier, the shadow Minister said that A-levels are not simply to be structured around the needs of university access. They form a far wider purpose than that.
It will continue to be as important as ever that students from all backgrounds have the information they need to make the right choices about higher education based on teachers’ assessments of their progress, as well as formal examination results. School is the best place to monitor students’ progress and to help them understand the attainment they are working at and aiming for.
A-levels must be high quality, and they must change over time to keep up with world standards. Universities, the bodies that once set up examination boards themselves, are not as core a part of the process of qualification development as they once were. A good way for A-levels to keep up with the challenges of the global marketplace in qualifications is to respond to what universities are looking for. Independent learning and critical thinking are vital skills that A-levels must continue to develop.
We believe that losing touch with universities has meant that A-levels have not always been a suitable preparation for those embarking on degrees in some subjects. Indeed, many private schools offer different courses, such as sixth-term examination papers and the Cambridge pre-U, for those purposes. A-level reform is vital to ensure that all students, whether in the state sector or the private sector, have the best possible skills and knowledge to enable them to compete effectively. That is why the Government are giving universities a greater role in the development of A-levels. Awarding organisations will work with universities to determine the content of the new A-levels, and we are delighted that the Russell Group will be part of that. We also welcome contributions from other universities, as a number of hon. Members have indicated. We expect that the first new A-levels will be developed for teaching to begin in September 2015, with the first exams to be sat in 2017. Each year, Ofqual will also lead a post-qualification review process involving the Russell Group.
We can be confident from the way Ofqual has exercised its functions over the past few years that it will give us the independent and impartial advice that we need to make the right decisions and to develop an A-level system that is fit for purpose—not just for university entry, but for educating young people in the critical years of their lives.
Secondary Schools: Newark
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Crausby.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Newark (Patrick Mercer) on securing this extremely important debate. He has been and clearly continues to be a strong advocate for high-quality schools in his constituency. He has raised a number of important issues today for his constituents and I will seek to address the three major areas during the course of my speech. He has also helped to tempt me to Newark in future by mentioning the Gladstone link that I should have known about but was not aware of, and I would be delighted to visit the constituency. I will be in trouble with those who organise me if I make any commitments to particular dates, but I would like to visit at some stage.
I am grateful for the opportunity to address some of these important issues. It is clearly not right for pupils and teachers to work in buildings in such poor condition that learning is disrupted and staff time is diverted from the necessary focus on teaching. Even if those two things are not happening, having high-quality school buildings sends out an important signal to young people and to those who teach in schools about the importance that we place on education. It can also help to raise the aspirations of many young people, in particular those from more disadvantaged backgrounds, if they are educated in appropriate settings. The Government regard this area as extremely important.
The coalition Government, as my hon. Friend hinted in his opening comments, had no alternative on coming to power but to bring to an end the previous Government’s wasteful, delayed and ultimately unaffordable Building Schools for the Future programme which, remarkably, did not prioritise those schools in the worst condition. That was not the central criterion to allocate funding under the programme. The Priority School Building programme that we have introduced will replace those schools in the worst condition; it will replace the 261 schools assessed to be the greatest priority on the basis of condition. In the majority of cases, those were not even in the previous Government’s Building Schools for the Future programme, which shows the stark gap between the previous plans and the priorities in many areas. In difficult economic times, we have to focus the limited resources that we have where they are most needed—on the repair and refurbishment of schools in the worst condition—and to tackle the urgent demand for new good school places as a result of the rising birth rate in large parts of the country.
Since May 2010, the Government have allocated £4 billion for the maintenance of the school estate to meet the needs of maintained schools and academies, and more than £5 billion to local authorities to support the provision of new school places. On 1 March, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an additional £4 billion for the period from 2012-13 to the end of the Parliament. Over the Parliament as a whole, therefore, my hon. Friend can be pleased that the Government that we both support will have allocated some £18 billion for school capital investment, notwithstanding our difficult times.
We invited bids to the new Priority School Building programme from schools in need of urgent repair. We considered every application on a fair and objective basis, which involved officials visiting every school to validate the accuracy of building condition data. Two hundred and sixty-one schools throughout the country, therefore, will be rebuilt, or in some cases have their condition needs met substantively through the programme. As my hon. Friend is probably aware, 15 of those schools are in Nottinghamshire, including the Newark academy in his constituency. Nottinghamshire has more schools in the programme than any other local authority in England.
The Priority School Building programme is being delivered by grouping schools together into batches to ensure healthy competition for the work which will deliver value for money for the public purse. We expect to deliver the school works for considerable savings on the previous Building Schools for the Future programme. We will continue to investigate every option to accelerate the entire programme, but as far as possible the needs of the schools in the worst condition will be dealt with first. We are making good progress on the delivery of the programme. We have appointed contractors to build the first two groups of capital-funded schools, and construction work is expected to start in May. Contractors are currently tendering for the remaining six groups of capital-funded schools. Obviously, the first two groups consist of the schools that we consider to be the highest priority out of the 261 on the measures we used.
We are also working with the schools that we believe will form the first three privately financed groups. Work will start with further groups of schools later this year. We plan to release the first privately financed batch to the market in the spring, and further batches will be released as soon as possible thereafter. The programme is delivering a more efficient, faster and less bureaucratic approach to building schools. We have developed and are now using new baseline designs that are increasing efficiencies, and we have also reduced the regulations and guidance governing school premises.
The Education Funding Agency will commence engagement work with the Newark academy next year. The EFA will work with the school and other stakeholders to undertake a thorough study to determine the best way to address the condition needs, to manage the procurement process and to enter into the delivery contract.
Patrick Mercer
Has the Minister factored in the likelihood of Newark being the subject of a growth point bid? That will give us an extra several thousand houses in Newark, attracting ready-made families and a large number—explosion is the wrong word—of extra children suddenly arriving inside the town over the next 10 years.
Mr Laws
We have, and I shall come to that point specifically in a minute, when I touch on another issue that my hon. Friend raised in his speech.
I am sure that my hon. Friend agrees that it is important to consider all options available to address the need at the Newark academy and to ensure best value for the public purse. Our current plan is to engage with the school, as I said, at the back end of next year, to ensure that we complete the academy building in 2017.
I understand my hon. Friend’s concern about spending to maintain the condition of the current school buildings at the Newark academy while waiting for the school to be rebuilt. Of course, all the 261 schools are in the programme precisely because they have urgent expected need—that is how we made the judgment on which schools we wanted to take and put into priority need. They are schools that otherwise we would have had to spend a huge amount on just refurbishing buildings that would eventually have to be replaced. I must also thank Nottinghamshire county council for continuing its support for the academy by allocating funds from its capital refurbishment programme to tackle the most urgent repairs at the site. Furthermore, I believe that we have committed some £170,000 through an environmental improvement grant to help fund some aspects of the works. I will ask officials to work with the school and the local authority on identifying sensible solutions to bridge the gap between now and the date when we are able to complete the school.
I understand that, as my hon. Friend indicated, there are proposals to rebuild the leisure facilities currently located adjacent to the academy on a new site, and funding is being secured to enable that. We are more than happy to work with him, the county council and the school on whether any economies of scale can be achieved in the school building project. In fact, we are already working with other local authorities to deliver facilities on their behalf as part of the Priority School Building programme.
I recognise that many other schools in the area have significant condition needs, and quite a number of schools that bid to be in the PSB scheme were sadly not successful. My hon. Friend expressed concern about the condition needs at Magnus and Toot Hill secondary schools. Although they did not apply to be in the PSB programme, their condition needs could be addressed through other funding that we have made available for maintenance work.
As I said earlier, the Department for Education provides capital funding to local authorities to carry out maintenance and repair work to existing school buildings. Nottinghamshire has received £27 million for condition maintenance in the last two years and will receive a further £9.6 million in the coming financial year 2013-14, with further money after that. In addition, schools in Nottinghamshire have received a further £5.1 million in devolved formula capital in the last two years and will receive a further £2 million in the coming financial year.
Toot Hill school is an academy and is able to apply to the Academies Capital Maintenance Fund for funding to carry out maintenance and repair work. The Department is currently providing capital funding of £392 million for academies to access in the coming financial year 2013-14. I understand that Toot Hill school has submitted an application for approximately £3 million for a new teaching block. That application is currently being assessed against the others that we have received from across the country and we expect to be able to notify the academy on the outcome of its application shortly, probably in April.
In addition we will use the information from the national programme of surveys that we are conducting across the country of every school to ensure that, subject to funds available in the next spending review period, those schools that need renovation will have their needs addressed as quickly as possible. By the autumn, we will have details about the condition of every school in the country—information on the condition of all schools was last collated centrally in 2005—and we are waiting for that survey data before announcing the capital allocations for maintenance for 2014-15 because we want them to be informed by the outcome of that survey.
We are pleased to have agreed with the Exemplar Academy Trust to delay the opening of the Exemplar Newark business academy to September 2014. In this case, both the Department and the academy trust judged that the plans for the free school had not progressed sufficiently for it to proceed to opening in September 2013. The academy trust came to that conclusion after reviewing early feedback from its consultation events. Parents told it they supported its plans to open a free school in Newark, but they wanted to know the precise details of location and the head teacher before requesting a place for their child.
I thank my hon. Friend for the time he has taken to talk to members of the academy trust about the local issues. I know that the trust valued the opportunity to talk to him, and his willingness to take part in local events that it has held to consult properly on the issue. Our priority must be to open free schools with the best chance of performing strongly from the outset. We are in agreement with the trust that opening later will give it the extra time it needs to develop and progress its plans. It will allow more time to identify a head teacher and to secure a suitable site for the new school.
Returning to a point that my hon. Friend made, the free school will help to reduce the number of pupils within the Newark catchment area currently attending schools outside Newark. In time, the school could also help to provide the extra school places that will be needed if the planned housing developments in and around Newark go ahead.
Setting up a free school is not an easy task, and I am pleased that the academy trust has recognised the challenges it faces and shown its willingness to be flexible in resolving them. We want the free school projects to meet local needs, to be realistic about the challenges they face and to take the lead in finding solutions to provide the best chance of enabling them to perform strongly from the outset and to deliver positive outcomes for pupils.
Patrick Mercer
Can the Minister offer any crumb of hope to my constituents and me that the programme for the academy’s rebuild could be accelerated?
Mr Laws
I must be straightforward with my hon. Friend. Our challenge is to try to deliver the programme in a sensible and prioritised way. Our current information about the schools in his area suggests that other schools are higher on the priority list. Senior people from the Education Funding Agency have been looking closely at the matter in recent months, and have already carried out some scrutiny, but unless we can change our assessment of the school’s needs compared with those of other schools, and accommodate some change in the batching arrangement—it is incredibly important to take them to market in batches, as he will understand—all we can do is move as rapidly as possible to put in place the plans that we are discussing. I assure him that I will do everything I can to move the whole programme forward—it was always a five-year programme—as early as possible. We want all the buildings to be replaced as soon as possible, but I do not want to give false hope to my hon. Friend.
I have said that I will ask my officials to communicate with the school and the local authority, and to look at the transition issues between now and 2017, which is our current working assumption. If there is any evidence of misjudgement in prioritisation, I will ask for another close look to see whether we can do anything, but that will have to be based on careful evidence because it would be inevitable that if one school came forward, others would go backwards because of our scarce resources. All the 261 schools that we have prioritised regard their challenges as real, and my hon. Friend can imagine their reaction if the dates that have been indicated to them slipped backwards.
I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention to the funding issues facing schools in his area. I am sure he agrees that it is important to focus our limited resources on those in most need. I hope that I have explained the transparent process to prioritise the delivery of schools in the programme. I congratulate the pupils, staff and parents at Newark academy on last year’s GCSE results which, despite the disruption to school life because of premises issues, continue a four-year upward trend which will, I am sure, continue to improve with the sponsorship of Lincoln college.
Question put and agreed to.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mrs Linda Riordan (Halifax) (Lab/Co-op)
8. What plans he has for school improvements; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are determined to drive up standards in all schools. We are doing that by providing significant additional funding for disadvantaged pupils, through the pupil premium. In addition, Ofsted has implemented a more rigorous inspection framework. For the lowest-performing schools, we will look to secure a sponsored academy solution, with a high-quality sponsor.
Mrs Riordan
Moorside community primary school in Halifax is driving up standards, but it has been waiting for investment in a new school building for far too long. Promises have been made, but there is still no new building. When will the school get that new building, to ensure that another generation of pupils does not miss out?
Mr Laws
The hon. Lady will know that when the Government came to power we inherited from the previous Government a complete mess, through the Building Schools for the Future programme. It was over-extended, inefficient and unaffordable. We have now put in place an affordable school building project that is consistent with the finances this nation can afford.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
One of the best ways of improving schools is by getting former armed forces personnel into teaching roles. What progress are Her Majesty’s Government making in turning troops into teachers?
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
9. What assessment he has made of the potential effect of his Department’s traineeships scheme on young people’s readiness for work and apprenticeships.
Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)
17. What recent progress he has made on the Priority School Building programme.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are taking forward the delivery of schools being funded using capital grant. We have appointed contractors to build the first two groups of schools, and construction work is expected to start in May. We are also working with the schools that we believe will form the first three privately financed groups of schools.
Bridget Phillipson
The Minister is aware of the case of Hetton school in my constituency; it has been affected by delays to the PFI element of the programme. Parts of the school have been closed due to asbestos, there are falling drainpipes and the heating system is failing. Will the Minister resolve the funding issues as a matter of urgency? The situation facing teachers and pupils simply cannot be allowed to continue.
Mr Laws
I am aware of the hon. Lady’s interest in this issue; she has written to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about it on a couple of occasions. From the letter that she has already received back, she will be aware of some of the issues arising in getting the batch ready for private finance. I have seen the most recent letter that she sent to the Secretary of State and I would be happy to meet her to discuss the practicalities of these issues further.
Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)
T9. I welcome the Government’s move to introduce the pupil premium, which has helped schools in South East Cornwall, but more can be done. What further action is the Minister taking to assist the 40 education authorities, including Cornwall, that are listed by the f40 campaign as receiving the lowest income?
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
My hon. Friend is right that the introduction of the pupil premium has been very important across the country, and we will announce a further increase in its level for 2014-15. She should be reassured to know that, after we have completed the roll-out of the pupil premium, we intend to move to a fairer national funding formula, which will help many of those areas of the country that have been underfunded, unfairly and illegitimately, for many decades.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
T6. The Government claim to be promoting family life, but the truth is that the bedroom tax will penalise non-resident parents who keep a room so that their children can stay with them on a regular basis. What representations have Ministers in this Department made to the Department for Work and Pensions?
Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)
What advice would the Minister give to the governors of the school that I visited this morning, which, despite their best efforts, has a low take-up of free school meals and, as a consequence, is in receipt of considerably less pupil premium than similar schools nearby?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes a powerful point. Many schools across the country could be receiving far greater amounts of pupil premium if they ensured that all their pupils were registered. The Department recently put out information showing the great range in the take-up of free school meals and advice on how schools should seek to raise that figure.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Further to the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), the Secretary of State has failed to answer the series of questions from The Northern Echo after his disparaging remarks about some east Durham schools. Will he say how many of the schools he referred to he has actually visited or will he have the decency to apologise for his remarks?
Oral Answers to Questions
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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Richard Harrington (Watford) (Con)
8. How many students are enrolled in university technical colleges; and how many he expects to be enrolled by September 2013.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Five university technical colleges are open that, once full, will educate more than 2,600 young people. Twelve more UTCs are preparing to open in September and interest in enrolling is very high.
Richard Harrington
I congratulate the Government on the progress in the expansion and implementation of UTCs, and particularly the work of Lord Hill, the former Minister. I am sure that we all wish him the best in his new position. I must confess that I hope that there will be a UTC in Watford before very long. Does the Minister agree that the time must come very soon when all students of the appropriate age group have access to UTCs? Does he also agree that UTCs are an excellent weapon in reducing the long-term unemployment of young people by providing the skills they need to get jobs?
Mr Laws
I also pay tribute to the work of Lord Hill in this area and I note my hon. Friend’s representations on behalf of Watford. He is absolutely right that it is essential we provide the opportunity for all young people to access high-quality vocational education. He will be interested to hear that we are already well on the way to exceeding the Government’s target of 24 UTCs by 2014.
Mr Gerry Sutcliffe (Bradford South) (Lab)
It is important that areas such as Bradford in west Yorkshire which have high levels of youth unemployment have access to initiatives such as UTCs. How will the Minister expand and promote the policy as quickly as possible so that areas such as Bradford and west Yorkshire can participate?
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
Despite improvements in recent years, educational attainment in North Lincolnshire is still not where we would like it to be. May I urge the Minister to do everything he can to ensure that the UTC application for Scunthorpe progresses?
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
9. What steps he is taking to ensure that children with special educational needs receive a co-ordinated service across agencies.
Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)
13. What recent assessment he has made of the success of sixth-form colleges; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Sixth-form colleges make an important contribution to the education of 16 to 19 year-olds. The latest data show that the sector is performing well in both student attainment and a range of valued-added measures. Nearly four fifths of sixth-form colleges are rated “good” or “outstanding” by Ofsted.
Kelvin Hopkins
As the Minister has just said, sixth-form colleges are our most successful educational institutions, in terms of both quality of education and value for money. I suggest that the Government would do well by our young people and taxpayers if they sought to establish many more sixth-form colleges and ensured that those that we have are treated fairly and supported.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
There is only one school sixth form in my constituency; the rest of the sixth-form students go to Harlow college. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that the poorest pupils going to sixth-form and further education colleges have access to free school meals, as school students have?
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
Will the Minister accept, however, that funding should be equal for sixth-form students regardless of the status of the establishment they go to? With that in mind, will he accept an invitation from me to visit Colchester sixth-form college—arguably the best in the country—to see how successful it is?
Mr Henry Bellingham (North West Norfolk) (Con)
14. What plans he has to encourage the setting up of further academies.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
T10. In recent years, more premature babies, who are being born even earlier, are surviving in good health, albeit that they start school with development that, when measured from their birth date, is delayed. Will the Minister consider fresh evidence, especially about severely premature summer-born babies, and give their parents the final say on when they start school?
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are certainly prepared to consider that further. My hon. Friend will know that in the simpler code that was introduced on 1 February 2012, we clarified some aspects of the admissions situation and made parents’ rights on deferral much clearer. The Department is also meeting parents who are affected by such issues to consider any further changes.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
Earlier, the Under-Secretary of State, the hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), hinted again about changes to child care. A week or so ago there were major trails in the Sunday papers about imminent announcements. Has she been thwarted in her ambitions by members of the Government who do not wish to see women back in the workplace and contributing to the Government’s tax take?
Examination Reform
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We warmly welcome today’s debate on what is an incredibly important topic. It has already been surprisingly interesting because of some of the shadow Secretary of State’s comments on his party’s developing policy. I praise him for the candour with which he has approached the debate.
I thought I heard the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that the qualifications framework and examination system that we inherited from the previous Government were seriously flawed and ripe for reform. I think I heard him acknowledge that there were problems with the system of modularisation. I think I heard him welcome the radical and dramatic reforms—many of which seek to deal with problems that emerged under the last Government—pioneered by Alison Wolf as a consequence of her report. I thought I even heard him acknowledge, under cross-questioning by my hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), that the last Government were wrong to deny state schools the ability to use IGCSE qualifications, which are now used widely in the system.
Partly as a consequence of the hon. Gentleman’s candour, therefore, and partly because of the forensic cross-questioning he received from those on the Government Benches, we have made a lot of progress in establishing that the existing examination and qualification system is deeply flawed and that we are right to be pioneering change.
Stephen Twigg
May I tempt the right hon. Gentleman to match my candour? I mentioned the engineering diploma, which was one of the qualifications downgraded by the Secretary of State. The industry responded and the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to reassemble a version of the engineering diploma. Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge, with matching candour, that the way in which that was handled was a disaster for that crucial area of industry?
Chris Skidmore
Given that we are having these confessional moments, will the right hon. Gentleman also welcome the fact that the shadow Secretary of State has endorsed in full the Wolf report, which stated that under the last Government more than 400,000 teenagers were taking vocational qualifications that were essentially a waste of time?
Kevin Brennan
I am sure the Minister is grateful to his right hon. Friend. Does the Minister recognise these words?
“There has been a breathtaking rise in performance in education since 1997. Inner London was a basket case pre-97; ninety per cent of students were failing to get decent grades at 16 back then. The improvement’s been astonishing, dramatic, unbelievable.”
They were his words in February 2010.
Mr Laws
I will make a little progress before I take other interventions.
In spite of the rather political exchanges we have heard from the Opposition Front-Bench team, I want to say that, as Lord Adonis has recently written, education should not be a political football. We are talking today—this is why the shadow Secretary of State was right to table the motion—about designing a new qualifications system for millions of young people in this country. They and their parents expect us to take the right decisions for the right reasons. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I both want to hear from Members from all parties today. The coalition Government have strong views on this issue, but we always listen to those who have sensible and constructive contributions to make.
I should also confirm that, with your permission, Mr Speaker, and as the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) mentioned a second ago, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be replying to the debate rather than opening it for the Government. That enables me, with your permission, Mr Speaker, to be absent for a short period to fulfil an existing commitment, for which I apologise to the House.
Before I turn in detail to the points raised by the shadow Secretary of State, I would like to step back and consider briefly what the Government are seeking to deliver. Our ambition, quite simply, is to raise standards for all young people. We believe that the majority of young people are capable of leaving education with a wide range of good qualifications at good grades. We are also determined to close the wholly unacceptable gap between outcomes for the most disadvantaged pupils and the rest, which is why we have introduced the pupil premium and many other reforms. Of course, however, improving results and closing the gap are ambitions shared across the House, and I have never been shy in acknowledging some of the progress made under the last Labour Government, including in places such as inner London, where we have important lessons to learn.
If we are to realise this ambition for the schools system, however, we also need to ensure that our education system is delivering in at least three key areas. First, we need to know that the improvements in exam results are real and do not simply reflect grade inflation and falling standards. Secondly, we need to ensure that young people are choosing subjects because of their quality and relevance, not simply in order to meet league table and accountability targets, as I fear was the case for a period under the last Government. Finally, but crucially, we need to ensure that the content and stretch of qualifications are appropriate for the highly competitive environment—the shadow Secretary of State talked about this—that we will face in this century. We should be setting standards of stretch and rigour in our qualifications, not just to ensure the credibility of domestic standards over time, but to guarantee that the educational aspirations and outcomes for English children match the very best in the world.
Angela Smith (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Lab)
Jonathan Ive, the designer behind the iPhone, has said of the EBacc:
“It will fail to provide students with the skills that UK employers need and its impact on the UK’s economy will be catastrophic.”
He said that the EBacc
“will starve our world leading creative sector of its future pioneers.”
What does the Minister say to that?
Mr Laws
I do not agree with that suggestion; otherwise I would not support the reforms. Indeed, I believe that they will have exactly the opposite effect in delivering higher standards and the ambitions I have just set out.
To be blunt, most people consider that, in the three areas I have just set out—as key ambitions for our qualifications and examination system—the last Labour Government failed to deliver. They failed to maintain standards, and confidence in standards, over time, as I think the shadow Secretary of State acknowledged; they failed to ensure that children were always choosing qualifications for the right reasons, and I would be surprised if the hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge that serious criticism; and in their commendable ambition that all should succeed, they failed to ensure that the rigour and stretch of our qualifications kept pace with the best in the world. Therefore, the qualification reforms that we are debating today have two objectives: first, we want to restore confidence in standards, and secondly we want to ensure that the quality of our qualifications matches the best in the world.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I want to ask the Minister about the best way of preparing young people for life and the world of work. Does he honestly think that a three-hour exam at the end of two years does anything other than test a theoretical knowledge, and that the ability to demonstrate a good theoretical knowledge does not translate into skills for life or work? He must accept that and there must be some balance between the theoretical knowledge demonstrated in an exam and other demonstrations of ability, as far as employers and life skills are concerned.
Mr Laws
Of course, there are some subjects for which practical skills have to be able to be assessed properly, but in fairness the hon. Gentleman should also acknowledge the serious concerns about coursework and the credibility of assessment. It is sensible to address those concerns in our reforms, and I believe that for many subjects it is possible to do that without compromising high-quality accountability in the qualifications system.
Stephen Twigg
I gave three examples in my speech of areas of practical coursework—in geography, science and English. Does the Minister disagree with me about any of those?
Mr Laws
I am not going to pre-empt the outcome of the consultation. I am happy to look at the areas the hon. Gentleman suggests, although so far I am not personally persuaded that I have heard clinching arguments for some of the subjects. Far more obviously we potentially need a different system of assessment in subjects such as art and music, but I am not sure that he has so far made a convincing case for some of the areas he has mentioned.
Mr Laws
I want to make a little progress, then I will take some other interventions, but I am conscious of the fact that a large number of people want to speak.
Our reforms combine rigour with a commitment to fairness and social mobility. They will raise the bar, but they will not shut the door on any young people. The shadow Secretary of State asked whether we would have a system in which a defined proportion of students would be able to get particular grades. I can assure him that we are absolutely not going down that route. We launched a consultation on 17 September setting out our proposals for reform. That consultation closed on 10 December. The Secretary of State and I and other Ministers are now taking the time to consider all the responses carefully before we make final decisions.
Before I turn to some of the more detailed points, let me say a little more about the case for change. GCSEs were a bold and radical development in education policy. They introduced the idea that all children, whatever their background or ability, could sit a single exam in all academic subjects and receive a grade recognising their progress. GCSEs replaced a system that was fundamentally unfair, in that it divided children into winners and losers at an early age and helped only a minority of students to prepare for further study and decent jobs. The crucial principle of universality is one that we as a coalition Government are determined to retain. Contrary to what the shadow Secretary of State said, our reforms look forwards. They do not look backwards. There will be no return to the divisive, two-tier system of the past. The reforms also look outwards, to learn from the best-performing systems in the world today—systems that deliver rigorous qualifications, accessible to all children. However, 25 years on, the GCSE is now ready for change. Students and teachers are working harder than ever, but not all are achieving qualifications that properly reflect their ability and support them to progress successfully.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
By and large, many of the reforms that have been proposed would have my support and that of my party. The Minister talks about consultation, but given that there are exam boards in those parts of the United Kingdom where education has been devolved and where students will be applying to universities in England, for example, and given the need, therefore, for comparability of results in the different countries that make up the United Kingdom, what consultation has he had—or does he plan to have—with Ministers responsible for education and exam boards in parts of the United Kingdom other than England?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his broad support for some of the proposals we are debating today. I believe in devolution in the United Kingdom, as does he. Where individual Administrations and Governments decide that they want to go down a different route, it is right that it should be open to them to do so. Indeed, I believe we can learn in the United Kingdom about different solutions that people choose and then work out over time which are seen to succeed. However, I will talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State about the point the hon. Gentleman makes. If there is anything we can do to assist with some of his concerns, I am certainly willing to contemplate that.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The right hon. Gentleman has explained the need for change at GCSE and provided an analysis—an accurate one for the most part—of the legacy from the Labour party. Can he explain why abolition of one suite of GCSEs is the right response, rather than simply introducing the measures and changes he has itemised for GCSEs as they stand?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his points and the work that the Select Committee on Education has done on this and associated areas. I believe that in some of the core subjects where we are making these changes there is value in signalling the extent to which they will be improved and varied from the existing GCSE qualifications. There is some merit in underlining—through a change in how we describe these qualifications—how fundamental the changes could be. That will also be relevant for people when they assess the suite of qualifications and their future value in the labour market.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way; he is being most generous. He is right about signalling. Is there not a risk from the Government’s saying officially that GCSEs as a brand are broken and irrecoverable of sending the signal that the remaining GCSEs—most subjects—for which children will spend an awful lot of time studying are also broken? Surely he must either have plans to abolish GCSEs altogether or recognise that such signalling has risks as well as benefits?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and that is exactly why we say in paragraph 4.7 of the consultation paper that to
“ensure the benefits of this more rigorous approach to the English Baccalaureate subjects are felt across the whole curriculum, we will ask Ofqual to consider how these new higher standards can be used as a template for judging and accrediting a new suite of qualifications, beyond these subjects at 16, to replace GCSEs”.
I promise him—I will come to this later—that we have no intention of allowing the status of the other subjects, which are not at present in the core English baccalaureate certificate, to be downgraded. We place huge value on those subjects, and I will set out later how we will take the matter forward.
Angie Bray (Ealing Central and Acton) (Con)
Is not the most important signal that we must send on behalf of young people to tell future employers that they have been rigorously tested in a way that will make them suitable for work? That is the way we will take our economy forward in future too.
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is exactly right. Whatever policy solutions different employer groups favour, there is an absolute consensus that the problems we are setting out to address are real ones in the system which all the employer groups want us to address.
As I have said, I believe there has been a real improvement in education over the last two decades, but it is now widely accepted in all parts of the House that there has also been grade inflation. Until summer 2012, GCSE pass rates had increased every year since they were first introduced, but when we compare that achievement with our performance in international tests—where there is no incentive for achievement to be inflated—we see a different story. Between 2006 and 2009, the proportion of students achieving a C grade or higher in English and mathematics at GCSE increased by 8%, but England’s ranking in the OECD’s highly respected programme for international student assessment—or PISA—league tables stagnated over the same period. Universities and colleges complain of the need to provide remedial classes for apparently well qualified new students. That is why the shadow Secretary of State for Education has said:
“Sensible, thought-through and evidence-based measures to increase rigour and tackle grade inflation will have the…support of the Opposition”.—[Official Report, 26 June 2012; Vol. 547, c. 175.]
Significant evidence of grade inflation is available in a range of academic reports, and I am pleased that that is now common ground among many of us.
The coalition Government have already acted to address some of the problems that emerged under the last Labour Government, including those that have caused the recent problems in marking GCSE qualifications—problems that have their origin under the previous Government and not, in fairness, under this Government or this Secretary of State. We have started to address the weaknesses of the current GCSEs, which privilege bite-size learning over deep understanding. Ofqual, the independent exams regulator, has already acted to make the GCSE more rigorous—for example, by tackling the re-sit culture and restoring marks for spelling, punctuation and grammar. We have introduced the English baccalaureate, which has powerfully incentivised more pupils to study key academic subjects. We did not hear from the shadow Secretary of State about the enormous increase in uptake in areas such as modern languages since the English baccalaureate was introduced, which I would have thought most Members would welcome.
However, we need to go further. We believe in the professionalism of teachers and those who set exams. They want to do what is best for students—rigorous teaching and rigorous assessment—but the system they are currently working in is flawed. The combination of competition between exam boards and a high-stakes accountability mechanism in the form of league tables has led to a race to the bottom by exam boards. We must address that. In our consultation, we proposed introducing single exam boards for each subject, with franchises given to the winning exam board after a competitive process. In a letter to the Secretary of State on 26 September last year, the shadow Secretary of State made it clear that he supported that proposal. Others have raised delivery issues and risks in relation to the proposal, and we will look carefully at all those points. We will also shortly be publishing a consultation on how we will reform the accountability system for schools.
Stephen Twigg
The Minister referred to “others” expressing their concern. I assume that among them was Ofqual, which wrote to the Secretary of State in November to express its concern about the timetable for change. Will the Government consider adopting a different timetable so that, if changes are to be introduced, they can be implemented with care?
Mr Laws
All those issues are, of course, part of our consideration following the consultation. We have already made the decision, at the time that we made the announcement on the EBCs, to move back the start date so that they will not start being taught until September 2015. We will ensure that the timetable for delivery is achievable.
As part of the accountability consultation, we will consider floor standards and incentives to take high-value qualifications. We will also consider appropriate incentives for schools to teach all their students well, rather than focusing only on students near the C/D borderline.
Let me now turn to some of the specific issues that have been raised during the consultation. The Secretary of State and I are determined that these new, more rigorous qualifications will meet the needs of the vast majority of students who are currently served by the GCSE. The reforms and improvements to education that we are making will enable more students to operate at a higher level—that is exactly their point—and, as exams become more rigorous, we will equip students to clear that higher bar. So there is absolutely no reason to believe that there will be a substantial change in the proportion of students achieving a good pass. Indeed, our clear aim is that, over time, a higher proportion of children will secure a good pass.
The consultation has shown that there is an understandable concern that we should continue to give strong support to many subjects that are not part of the EBC core subjects of English, maths, science, history, geography and languages. The Chairman of the Select Committee has raised that point today. I want to make it absolutely clear to all Members that the Department for Education remains fully committed to ensuring that pupils receive a well-rounded education, with high-quality music, art and design, drama and dance all playing an important part.
Andrew Percy (Brigg and Goole) (Con)
The Minister has referred to the uptake of foreign language studies on a number of occasions. The reality is that most schools have been ditching the subjects that children might have wanted to study, simply to comply with the Ebacc requirements. Where is he going to find room in the school timetable, after the Ebacc subjects have been accommodated, for the teaching of all those subjects that he has just mentioned?
Mr Laws
First, we have made a deliberate decision to keep up to 30% of the school timetable available for the teaching of non-EBC subjects. Secondly, I think my hon. Friend is being rather generous about the reasons for the massive decline in the study of subjects such as modern languages. That happened because schools and others had an incentive to encourage students to go for the qualifications that were easier to pass, even if they were not right for their education and future progression. That is exactly why we are addressing those issues in our reforms.
Mr Laws
I am going to have to make some progress, I am afraid.
Parents want to see their children secure a strong grasp of the core academic subjects, but they also want them to have a fully rounded education, with opportunities in the other areas that I have mentioned. We are determined to ensure that those opportunities will be available. We are committed to ensuring that pupils will be able to take good-quality qualifications in all subjects at the end of key stage 4 that are fair, rigorous and rewarding. Indeed, we said in our consultation that we would ask Ofqual to consider how the higher standards that we are proposing for core EBCs could be used as a template for judging and accrediting a new suite of qualifications at age 16 to replace current GCSEs. We acknowledge that there are subjects for which 100% reliance on formal written examinations is not the best form of assessment, and we will be working with Ofqual, the Arts Council and others to review qualifications outside the core EBacc subjects. We will make an announcement, including on a proposed timetable for reform, in due course.
Mr Graham Stuart
May I probe my right hon. Friend a little further on the subject of tiering? The GCSE was tiered in certain subjects, and I understand that, with the introduction of the EBCs, that will be abolished. Will he tell us what share of children took tiered GCSEs last year? What are the positive and negative implications of the loss of the tiering that was found to be necessary to provide an appropriate assessment of a child’s level of attainment?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is quite right to raise that issue. We are looking at it closely as part of the consultation. I think he would acknowledge that the principle behind our reform is absolutely right. We will look at individual subjects to ensure that the reform is deliverable and that it has the intended consequences.
Stephen Twigg
May I reinforce the point made by the Chair of the Select Committee? Ofqual’s letter to the Secretary of State in November states:
“Our first concern is that the aims for EBCs may exceed what is realistically achievable through a single assessment…Our advice is that there are no precedents that show that a single assessment could successfully fulfil all of these purposes.”
What is the Minister’s response to that?
Mr Laws
These are the issues that we are taking account of as part of the consultation. As I have said, we will reflect carefully on all the responses and make our announcement shortly.
Turning to vocational qualifications, I also want to make it clear that this Government fully support high-quality vocational study. We believe that all students benefit from having a strong academic core of qualifications, particularly up to age 16, but good quality vocational education will remain an option, both pre-16 and post-16. We have already committed to improving the quality of vocational education so that those 14 to 16-year-olds who are better suited to vocational qualifications can be confident that those qualifications will be comparable with the best academic qualifications in terms of content, assessment and opportunities to progress. In the past, too many vocational qualifications simply did not measure up.
Mr Laws
I must make progress, I am afraid.
This coalition Government have rightly sought to address the major challenges about the future of our qualifications system. Securing the right qualifications and examination system for young people in this country is one of the most important tasks for our Department, so it is absolutely right that we should take time carefully to consider all the contributions and views before we make our final decisions. What is clear is that the current system cannot continue as it is. I welcome the support of the shadow Secretary of State for that view, and I am only sorry that more Labour Members do not recognise the necessity for some of the detailed proposals that we are making.
We have a shared aspiration in this House for much better performance by all our young people, and that is welcome, but if we are truly to serve the interests of all young people, including the most disadvantaged, we have to be prepared as a country to face the other challenges. We must have an examination system that commands public confidence and in which changes in results truly reflect changes in real standards and performance. We must have a qualifications system that supports students to make the right subject choices that will lead to progression and success. We must have a qualifications system that matches the best of any country in the world, and that challenges and prepares our young people to reach world-class standards. Those are challenges that some others might wish to duck, but this coalition Government are united in their determination to take the right decisions for this country, and for its young people in particular.
Post-16 High Needs Provision (Warrington)
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Owen. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing the debate, which is important for her constituents. It is, in particular, important for a group of vulnerable young people, whose case she is right to raise today. I am grateful for the opportunity to address her points and to explain the reason for our funding reforms. I will then talk more about the specific situation in her constituency and council area. I assure her that we are taking care to help local authorities and providers prepare for the changes that will happen later this year. We want to ensure that they are given the flexibility to use the funds that we will make available through their dedicated schools grant allocation in a way that best meets the needs of the children and young people they are responsible for.
I offer some reassurance that we take the concerns that have been expressed by local authorities, including Warrington borough council, seriously. Officials in the Education Funding Agency and other parts of the Department for Education have been working closely with local authorities for several months to help them understand the reforms and the necessary adjustments to funding, and that process is ongoing. We have relied heavily on the information that authorities and providers have given and used that to inform the distribution of funds. Where there have been discrepancies or anomalies, we have tried to be even-handed in our approach so as to get as fair a distribution of funding as possible.
Before I go into the detail of the process and of the particular local issues that have been raised by the hon. Lady, it might be helpful if I explain the rationale for the funding changes, which could lead to the consequences to which she referred. We have a disjointed funding system, with different arrangements for the funding of children and young people, depending on whether they are in the pre-16 or the older age group and on whether they continue to attend school or are in further education. Our aim is to establish much closer alignment between the pre-16 and post-16 funding arrangements for those young people who have special educational needs, learning difficulties and disabilities. Local authorities will be required to establish a single high needs budget for use in meeting the needs of all age groups up to 25.
Local authorities currently have statutory duties to make provision available for all students aged 16 to 19 and for those aged 19 to 24 who have a learning difficulty assessment. They only have a funding responsibility for such students in schools, however, not for students in specialist or general further education colleges or sixth-form colleges. Additional support funding for those institutions currently comes directly from the Education Funding Agency, as the hon. Lady mentioned. Although the agency takes into account the local authority’s decisions on student placements, we believe that better funding decisions will be taken, and a more efficient use of resources achieved, if the commissioning and funding responsibilities are more closely associated within local authorities. That is one of the key aims of our reforms to the funding of young people with high level needs.
In seeking arrangements that offer good value for money, as taxpayers expect, I assure the hon. Lady that we are not using the change as an opportunity to cut funding overall.
Helen Jones
I am listening carefully to what the Minister is saying, but does he not accept that if the responsibility for commissioning those places transfers to the local authority, the funding has to transfer as well? The funding that is transferring to Warrington is less than that which will be spent this year, and is certainly not enough to meet the places that we need next year.
Mr Laws
I understand the hon. Lady’s concerns, and I hope that I will be able to address some of them and put her mind a little at rest as I go on.
On the national picture, our plans are to increase funding for post-16 students with learning difficulties and disabilities. We spent £585 million in this area in 2011-12, and we are planning to spend £639 million in 2013-14, which is an increase of 9%. In previous years, the budget for specialist provision, which is now administered by the EFA, has not been fully utilised. We are not reflecting that underspend in the transfers we are making to local authority high needs budgets, so overall spending on young people with high needs throughout the country is set to increase by a significant amount over this period.
In the new system, post-16 funding will be of two kinds. To provide stability to providers, a proportion of funding will be based on places, which I think the hon. Lady understands. Providers will receive an amount per place of nearly £11,000 for the year. That funding will be guaranteed for the year, whether or not the places are utilised, and it will flow to all providers from the Education Funding Agency according to a national formula. The other kind of funding—top-up funding—will reflect the excess of additional support costs over the place-led funding, and will be paid in every case by the local authority responsible for placing each student. This element of funding will follow the student and therefore ensure that funding is not allocated to empty places.
The hon. Lady rightly highlighted the local impact of the changes that we are making. Hon. Members will understand from what I have just explained that to move to this better system we must make adjustments to local authority funding allocations. As the hon. Lady indicated, budgets have been based on what was spent on high needs students resident in each local authority area in the 2011-12 academic year, which is the latest full set of data that the Department holds. Since last August, the Education Funding Agency has shared information with, and gathered information from each local authority. That is to inform the distribution of funds between the place-led element, which is driven by a national formula, and the student-led element, over which the local authority has discretion. In fairness to all local authorities, we have not attempted as part of the process to redistribute the budgets between them.
We have encouraged authorities to collaborate with all the schools and colleges that are currently educating their students with learning difficulties and disabilities, so that they understand the scale of demand for future high needs provision and can decide how best to meet that within their high needs budget. This exercise will enable the place-led funding for each school, college or other provider to be settled so they can plan for their intake in September. The remainder of the funds will be with local authorities, as part of their high needs budget, to allocate as top-up funding for individual students.
The process so far has been complex for some local authorities, including Warrington, because the pattern of provision has changed significantly in some areas in recent years, or because the required information has not been readily available or verifiable. Some authorities claimed increases in the number of high needs students of 25% or more over three years. Warrington council was one that declared such an increase—in fact, an increase of some 65% from 113 in 2011-12 to a projected 186 in 2013-14.
Helen Jones
I want to draw two things to the Minister’s attention. First, the local authority tells me that part of that increase can be accounted for because it has become better at identifying those with special needs. Under the old system, which was run through Connexions, we were not good at identifying those with high-level special needs. Secondly, I hope the Minister accepts that the figures given by Warrington have been verified by his own officials. There is no dispute about how many will need provision next year.
David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)
It is true that the rate has gone up significantly in the last year, which is causing the anomaly. Even after it has gone up, it is still lower than the national average. Surely that is relevant to the way in which the computation is done, because it does not imply any abuse.
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes an important point. When looking at the statistics and trying to understand why the changes have taken place in specific authorities, my officials will carry out such checks to test the credibility of the data. We believe that this level of increase may in some cases result from misunderstanding or inaccurate predictions of the number of students with high-level needs because that scale of growth in numbers is not reflected across the country in the lower age groups. To manage expectations, the Education Funding Agency set a limit of 24% to cap the projected increase in the number of student places, and has encouraged authorities in some cases to provide more realistic estimates of places where the original increase reported cannot be justified. I am not saying that that is the case in Warrington, but in some areas that has been a concern. A cap has been necessary to be fair to all local authorities.
As a result of the exchange of information between Warrington council and the EFA, the position reached just before Christmas was that the post-16 element of its high needs allocation will be £677,000 next year, within a total high needs budget of £18 million. The EFA is now looking at more recent information from the council to see whether further adjustments are necessary to the amount allocated to it. The particular issue in Warrington is that it has predicted a significant increase of 65% in the number of places and a significant increase in consequent costs since 2011. Within the increase in recent years, a much larger number of students have, as the hon. Lady said, attended non-maintained and independent special schools and colleges, which tend to be more expensive.
Although the window for further adjustments to dedicated schools grant allocations has now generally closed, the further education and school sixth form elements of those allocations are not due to be finalised until early March. In general, we expect all local authorities to live within the overall dedicated schools grant that they have been allocated. For Warrington borough council that is £146 million, within which the high needs allocation is £18 million. We are aware that there may be unintended consequences arising from the changes due to specific local circumstances, such as those set out today by the hon. Member for Warrington North and my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat).
An opportunity remains until 22 February for a few local authorities to make an exceptional case to the Education Funding Agency, and I assure them that the EFA and my officials will look carefully at whether adjustments can and should be made if the changes have affected particular areas in ways that were not predicted, and if they are material. In its review of such cases, the agency will ensure that any further adjustments are not to the detriment of other local authorities. We want to be as fair as we can to all authorities.
Helen Jones
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He is being very generous. Will he or a Minister in his Department meet a delegation from the borough council to try to iron out the issues, because they have serious implications for some very vulnerable young people?
Mr Laws
I will certain meet the hon. Lady and representatives from the council. Indeed, there will be a dialogue, as I have said, between the Department, the EFA and her local authority to ensure that there is a sensible conclusion. She will understand that until the process has been completed, I cannot give a cast-iron assurance of any outcome, but I can assure her that we are treating her concerns seriously, and looking into them. If adjustments are necessary, we are open to making them in a limited number of strong cases.
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for drawing attention to how students aged 16 to 24 with high needs will be funded. This is an important question for many young people and their families, and I hope that I have been able to provide some reassurance about the national picture and reassurance that concerns at local level will be treated seriously if they are based on clear evidence that changes in recent years have not been taken fully into account. Our funding reforms will be complemented by new legislation later this year. It is being designed to address some of the wider problems with the current support systems for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. In the meantime, we will continue to work with local authorities, including Warrington, and schools and colleges across the country to implement the funding changes, and to monitor and assess their impact. We will of course make adjustments in future years if that proves necessary.
I thank the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend for raising this issue seriously and in detail. As I said, I cannot give a commitment today, other than to say that we are engaging seriously with her and her local authority. We will examine the issue carefully, and I am happy to meet the hon. Lady and her colleagues from the area, if that is appropriate, to discuss the matter with officials. If we believe that changes are necessary, we will implement them.
Education Funding (Cambridgeshire)
David Laws Excerpts(11 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Mr Weir. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Dr Huppert) on securing this important debate, which will be of great interest in his constituency and in the county that he represents. I am grateful for the opportunity to address a number of issues that he has raised.
The Department accepts that Cambridgeshire is, on our latest figures, the 143rd lowest-funded authority in England. My hon. Friend knows that the Government are determined to address the injustices in our funding system and to seek, over time, to introduce a fairer national funding formula. We are still committed to doing that. I will explain later precisely how we will deliver that in the years ahead.
I am happy to meet my hon. Friend, head teachers and college principals from his constituency in the weeks ahead if he feels that there are further points to be made about funding fairness for Cambridgeshire and the other issues that he has mentioned, and should he want the opportunity for head teachers and principals to put those points directly to me.
I am grateful for the opportunity to address the important concerns that were raised today, which will be of interest to many families in Cambridge and Cambridgeshire and many of the people who work in the educational establishments that my hon. Friend mentioned.
We intend to move to a fairer funding formula across the country, and I will explain how we will do so. Our aim is for every child to be able to succeed at school, regardless of their background and where they live. That is why the Government, despite having to make difficult decisions on public spending since we took power in May 2010, have protected pre-16 school funding in real terms over the spending review period. As part of that, we introduced the pupil premium, which we advocated in our general election manifesto and which, by the end of this Parliament, will have targeted an additional £2.5 billion per year to disadvantaged pupils.
My hon. Friend mentioned how much additional money his county—his constituency—is receiving. He will be pleased to know that the per-pupil amount of the pupil premium will be rising from some £623 per pupil in the current recent educational year to £900 per pupil in the year that we are heading into, which will be a big help to many educational institutions with a large number of disadvantaged youngsters. However, we need an underlying system to support that investment and to ensure that pupils are not disadvantaged as a result of a national school funding system that, frankly, does not distribute funding fairly.
My hon. Friend has highlighted some reasons why the current system for funding schools is in desperate need of reform. It is based on an assessment of need that dates back to at least 2005-06 and it has not kept pace with the changing demographics and needs of pupils. It is also complicated, so head teachers, governors and parents are unable, usually, to understand how their school budgets have been calculated and what the justification is. In addition, the current system is not designed to support the successful expansion of academies. Therefore, it is difficult to demonstrate that schools maintained by local authorities and academies are being funded equitably, which is the Government’s intention.
For the lowest-funded authorities, such as Cambridge, that outdated system may well mean an allocation that does not reflect the current needs of schools in the county. It is not right that schools with similar circumstances in different areas of the country can receive vastly different funding for no clearly identifiable reason. That is why, on 26 March 2012, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education announced our intention to introduce a new national funding formula during the next spending review period. That formula would distribute money fairly across the country, targeting need and getting rid of some of the anomalies that make the current system so unfair and irrational. However, reforming such a complex system—particularly in an environment where, for understandable reasons, all Departments’ budgets are so constrained—is far from easy, and it is important that we do it at a pace that schools can manage, including schools in parts of the country that have been better funded in the past. The last thing that we want is to cause destabilising changes to school budgets, which cause anxiety and distract schools from delivering high educational standards for their pupils.
We are moving gradually towards introducing a new funding system at a pace that gives us sufficient time to agree to the construction of a new formula and that allows schools enough time to adjust to changes in their funding arrangements. At present, we are planning to introduce the national funding formula in the next spending review period. In the meantime, from April, the local system will be simpler and more transparent, meaning far less complexity for us to untangle when we come to address the national system.
Our first step is to ensure greater transparency and consistency in the allocation of funding locally. For 2013-14, the dedicated schools grant has been allocated in three clearly identifiable spending blocks: schools, early years education and high-needs pupils. We set each block for each local authority using details of its spending in 2012-13 and then agreed the blocks with each authority. The spending blocks provide greater transparency over how much has been spent in each of those areas.
We are also making changes to how funding is allocated to schools, so that, within local areas, pupils to the age of 16 begin to attract similar funding regardless of where they go to school. Moving to a more consistent way of funding schools may mean that local authorities and their schools forums have to think radically about how they distribute money to their schools, and a new local formula will inevitably generate shifts in school budgets. That may be uncomfortable, but if we can start to iron out some of the inconsistencies and unfairness that pupils and schools currently experience, that will ultimately help to pave the way towards a fairer, more pupil-led system.
Local authorities have worked hard under the new arrangements to build new formulae that adequately reflect the needs of their schools. However, for some areas, particularly Cambridge, that has proved problematic, and some schools are facing considerable budget changes. I also understand why in Cambridge, as a lower-funded authority, my hon. Friend is worried about how the changes will be managed. Although the budget changes are necessary to reflect a new system, we are clear that they should not be unmanageable, not least in areas such as his. That is why the Secretary of State announced in June that schools will continue to have planning certainty through the minimum funding guarantee. Therefore, in most cases, schools will not lose more than 1.5% of their budget per pupil in 2013-14 and 2014-15, and many schools will gain. In addition, the Secretary of State and I confirmed in October last year that we will continue to operate a minimum funding guarantee beyond 2014-15. We cannot confirm its exact value until the new spending review period, but we are absolutely committed to protecting school budgets from unmanageable changes.
I reassure my hon. Friend that we will carry out a thorough review this year of the impact of the new simpler formula on pre-16 funding, making any necessary changes based on that evidence in 2014-15. Over the coming weeks, we will start to work with local authorities to explore the effects of different factors, such as the lump sum and deprivation factors, so that we can ensure that a robust system is in place for 2014.
The Secretary of State announced on 2 July 2012 that, from April 2013, we are introducing a new national funding formula for 16 to 19-year-olds in education and training. That new formula will be based on the principle of funding per student, rather than the existing system of funding per qualification, which my hon. Friend mentioned. That will allow sufficient income for each student to undertake a full programme of study, whether vocational or academic.
Our objective is to introduce a system of fair funding that will provide a place in education or training for every young person who wants one and will support full participation by 16 and 17-year-olds by 2015. The new formula will give many benefits, including taking into account the needs of the disadvantaged, implementing the recommendations of the Wolf report and supporting the envisaged A-level reforms. The new formula will fund full-time students for an average of 600 teaching hours, which will be sufficient to offer a significant programme of study. The formula will mean that all students aged 16 to 19 will be funded using the same formula, removing the historical differences between schools and academies and sixth-form colleges.
I understand that some school sixth forms and sixth-form colleges that offer a predominately academic programme to their students, such as Hills Road in my hon. Friend’s constituency, are concerned about their funding under the new 16-to-19 funding formula. I am aware of that institution’s reputation, not only in Cambridge, but across the country. In response to my hon. Friend’s question, I confirm that we will provide at least three years of full funding protection from the formula changes, while we continue our reform of qualifications, including the forthcoming A-level reforms. I also confirm that the 30 hours currently focused on enrichment activities are included in that protection. Detailed allocations of funding for 2013-14 will be announced in March. Arrangements beyond 2014-15 will not be announced until the next spending review has been completed. As part of the process, we have established a ministerial working group with key sector representatives to consider the best way to implement the reforms to programmes of study and associated funding changes, as well as to help us to ensure that the reforms work in the best interests of all young people.
My hon. Friend mentioned VAT, and I am sympathetic to the concerns expressed about the different VAT treatment that sixth-form colleges receive from the Government. I have asked officials to raise the matter with the Treasury and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs and to report back to me.
On free school meals, it is only the entitlement to a free meal that is different for schools and academies compared with colleges. There is no actual funding given by the Department for free school meals for sixth- form pupils, even in the school and academy sector, which complicates dealing with the injustice in entitlement. We are currently looking at options for extending eligibility further across the 16-to-19 sector.
We also seek to address concerns around capital funding, which my hon. Friend mentioned. We have more than doubled the capital funding that will be made available in this spending review period to support specifically the provision of additional places to those made available in the same period by the previous Administration. We have made £2.8 billion available for basic needs in this spending review. Most recently, in last year’s autumn statement, the Chancellor announced £980 million of additional capital funding for basic needs over the next two years. That will help us to expand good and outstanding schools where there are shortages of places and to establish new academies and free schools where there is that basic need.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for drawing attention in this relatively short debate to the funding issues faced by schools and sixth-form colleges in Cambridgeshire. I hope that I have provided some reassurance that our aim in making these reforms is ultimately to ensure that England has a fair and transparent funding system precisely to deal with some of the injustices that areas such as Cambridgeshire may have suffered in the past. A new national funding formula will reassess need across the country and will allocate funding accordingly. A refreshed distribution of funding will renew confidence in the system, but only if we put the right formula in place. The Department is working actively on the issues now in the run up to the spending review that will happen before the summer, and it is a preoccupation of mine. I am happy to meet my hon. Friend and any representatives from the education sector in his constituency to discuss this further.