School Funding 2013-14

David Laws Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Today I am announcing details of school revenue funding for 2013-14. My announcement includes the dedicated schools grant (DSG) and provisional allocations of the pupil premium.

Our document “School funding reform: next steps towards a fairer system”, published in March 2012, set out the Government’s intention to introduce a national funding formula in the next spending review period. As the first step in this transition all local authorities have now submitted proposals for simplified local formulae on the basis set out in the document.

The distribution of the dedicated schools grant to local authorities will continue to be based on the current “spend-plus” methodology for 2013-14, but the presentation of the settlement has been changed to show three spending blocks for each authority: an early years block, a schools block and a high-needs block. In addition the baselines of local authorities have been adjusted to reflect the incidence of high-needs pupils and places supported by each authority. The underlying school budget will be kept at flat cash per pupil for 2013-14.

Although the overall schools budget will stay at the same level on a per pupil basis before the addition of the pupil premium, the actual level of each school’s individual budget will vary. To protect schools from significant budget reductions, we will continue with a minimum funding guarantee that ensures no school sees more than a 1.5% per pupil reduction in 2013-14 budgets (excluding sixth form funding) compared to 2012-13 and before the pupil premium is added.

The pupil premium level of funding for 2013-14 for disadvantaged pupils is £900 per pupil. The service premium for 2013-14 is £300 per pupil. We are now publishing illustrative allocations of the premium for each local authority, parliamentary constituency and school. As the pupil premium is calculated using the pupil numbers from the January school census, final allocations will be confirmed in summer 2013.

Details of these arrangements, including per pupil funding for schools and early years for each local authority, are being sent to local authorities today and have been published on the Department for Education’s website.

Education Funding Reform

David Laws Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2012 Written Statements

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The school funding system should be transparent, pupil-led and easy to understand. That is why, from 2013-14, we have made changes so that the core funding for all schools and academies will be allocated based on the needs of pupils using clear and consistent local funding formulae.

We are now reforming the way that local authorities and academies are funded for education services.

The current funding arrangements, designed when there were far fewer academies, can no longer support an increasingly autonomous school system following the growth in the number of academies.

We need to ensure that academies and local authorities receive money for the pupils who are their responsibility. As key responsibilities transfer to academies, an appropriate amount of funding should also transfer.

Academies are responsible for a range of education services, such as school improvement, audit and asset management, that local authorities perform on behalf of maintained schools. This gives academies greater freedom to secure the right services for their pupils.

Local authorities and academies receive funding for these responsibilities separately via two different grants from Government. The method of calculating how much money each academy should receive for education services is bureaucratic and convoluted.

That is why we are establishing the education services grant from 2013-14. The new grant will be allocated on a simple per-pupil basis to local authorities and academies according to the number of pupils for whom they are responsible.

The funding for education services will be fairer, simpler and more transparent as a result.

We consulted on these changes over the summer. The Government have listened to the local authorities that told us the transfer for the education services grant from local government funding was too high. They told us they were now spending less on these services and so we have reduced the amount of money that is being transferred from local government funding for the education services grant by £180 million, from £1.22 billion to £1.04 billion, in 2013-14. A total of £1.03 billion will be transferred in 2014-15. This means that less money will be transferred from local authorities for education services than we originally proposed.

We took this decision in order to protect local authorities, who are now spending more of their funding on other priorities, but it would not be right for academies to lose out as a result. That is why we are using money from the Department for Education’s budget to supplement the education services grant rate for academies over the next two years. This will not affect the amount transferred from local authorities or the funding available for maintained schools. We intend to remove this transitional protection for academies over a limited period of time so that the rates for local authorities and academies are brought together.

The changes that we are announcing today will end year-on-year turbulence for academies, address the wide national variation in the current funding rates, and give local authorities and academies confidence in the way their funding has been calculated.

Copies of the Government response to the consultation will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Laws Excerpts

Monday 3rd December 2012 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)]

9. How many primary schools have become sponsored academies since May 2010.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Since May 2010, 146 sponsored primary academies have opened, including two new provision sponsored primary academies. In addition, 15 underperforming primary schools have converted and joined an academy chain.

[David Rutley]

I was recently honoured to open a new classroom at Mottram St Andrew primary academy. That will not only help to enhance the facilities available to pupils, but will assist the academy’s work with School Direct trainee teachers in conjunction with the university of Manchester. Does my right hon. Friend agree that progress in outstanding schools such as that one helps to highlight the progress and steps that are being made by innovative academy schools, and that that should encourage other primary schools to seek academy status?

[Mr Laws]

I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is a good example of the way outstanding schools can use the freedoms of academy status to innovate and improve their standards further. Too many primary schools in the country are not reaching the level of good and outstanding—we heard from the chief inspector that 2 million children are still being educated in schools that are neither good nor outstanding. Academy status is a potential way to improve the leadership and governance of those schools.

[Mr Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry North West) (Lab)]

The Minister will be aware that Coventry primary schools are rated lowest in the country in the latest Ofsted report, and there is widespread dismay in Coventry about that. Although no one is convinced that sponsored academies are the whole or a necessary part of the answer, at the request of the Coventry council member responsible for education, I have written to the Secretary of State suggesting that resources in the Department for Education might help to rectify the situation. I am looking forward to an early reply. When might I get it?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman can expect a very early reply, and I am delighted that he and other hon. Members are taking seriously the conclusions of Sir Michael Wilshaw who has drawn attention to the massive disparity across the country in the proportion of schools that achieve good and outstanding status. There are boroughs in inner London, for example, where almost 100% of schools achieve good or outstanding status, right down to those local authorities where barely 40% of schools achieve that. Either I or one of my departmental colleagues would be delighted to meet the hon. Gentleman to discuss the issue further.

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[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

12. What plans he has to review the allocation formula for education funding.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The current system for funding schools is unfair and out of date. In March, the Secretary of State announced our intention to introduce a new national funding formula which would redistribute funding on a fair, transparent and pupil-led basis.

[David Mowat]

The current formula, which we inherited, contains in-built bias and anomalies. Given that the Secretary of State and several Ministers are on record as saying that it needs to be replaced, why must we wait until 2015 before that process even starts?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is right to chide by implication the previous Government for failing during a far more benign financial environment to tackle the unfairness of the national formula for funding schools. I can reassure my hon. Friend that the Government are taking action. We are already, in 2013-14 and 2014-15, simplifying massively the funding formula for schools, paving the way for the national funding formula, which we will introduce in the next spending review period.

[Luciana Berger (Liverpool, Wavertree) (Lab/Co-op)]

On a slightly different aspect of the education funding formula, Liverpool Community college has seen an extra 1,000 16 to 18-year-olds enrol this year. However, due to the current funding formula there is a gap of £6 million. Can the Government confirm that none of those young people will lose out and that they will all get the same high standard of education that they deserve?

[Mr Laws]

I am not sure what that gap is, but even in difficult times this Government have produced a fantastic settlement for schools and are doing what her Government never did: deliver a £2.5 billion pupil premium which will get more money to the most disadvantaged youngsters in the country.

[Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The Minister accepts that there are gross funding discrepancies among schools, not on the basis of need but simply because of the local authority in which a school sits. Will the Minister and the Secretary of State consider the f40 group’s appeal again and look to take action in this Parliament? Such gross unfairness cannot be allowed to last into the next Parliament.

[Mr Laws]

I agree with my hon. Friend’s points. I met representatives of the f40 group recently and had a detailed discussion. As I have already explained, we are making the first moves to introduce a national funding formula in the next spending review period. I assure my hon. Friend that in the meantime I will keep a close eye—as will the Secretary of State—on the representations that the f40 group is making about how we get a fairer funding formula.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

13. What his policy is on capital allocations for state boarding schools; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Capital maintenance funding for maintained state boarding schools is allocated through local authorities, and through the Education Funding Agency for schools that are voluntary-aided. In addition, devolved formula capital is allocated directly to boarding schools for their own use. Academies will continue to have access to the academies capital maintenance fund.

[Philip Davies]

State boarding schools are the secret jewel in the crown of the state education system. However, the boarding parts of such schools and the maintenance of them are currently unfunded from capital allocations. Will the Minister take steps to resolve that, or at the very least allow state boarding schools to borrow against their boarding assets?

[Mr Laws]

I know that my hon. Friend is a strong supporter of state boarding schools, and so are this Government. He will probably be aware that the State Boarding Schools Association recently met with Lord Hill to discuss some of these matters, and he may be interested to know that a further meeting is scheduled for the end of January next year. My hon. Friend will also know that my predecessor, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), took a sensible decision to include in the property data survey a review of boarding provision and the capital needs of boarding schools. My hon. Friend will be aware that the data survey will report back next year. At that time we will have the evidence base to make the right decisions to ensure that state boarding schools have good-quality assets.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

14. What plans he has for the secondary curriculum; and if he will make a statement.

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[Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)]

T9. Our schools in Elmbridge face serious financial pressures as a result of a spike in the birth rate, the large number of young families who are moving into the area, and small pockets of relatively acute deprivation. Those factors were consistently overlooked by the last Government. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure that they are properly taken into account in the forthcoming funding formula review?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

As my hon. Friend will know, we are simplifying the funding formula for 2013-14. We believe that it contains the right factors, which will be able to accommodate the real pressures throughout the country. My hon. Friend will also know that we are conducting a review of the formula for 2014-15. If he will write to me about the problems in his constituency, I shall be sure to look at them very closely.

[Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

Sales skills are crucial to British businesses, but although nearly 10% of people are employed in sales, fewer than 1% of apprenticeships are in sales. Having escaped the opportunity to become Alan Sugar’s apprentice, Kate Walsh is now heading the Labour party’s policy review body, which is looking into how we can ensure that more young people get into sales and recognise the value of such work. Will the Minister congratulate Kate Walsh on having engaged in the political process, and acknowledge the importance of sales in our schools and colleges?

[George Eustice (Camborne and Redruth) (Con)]

Many small schools in Cornwall are concerned about changes in the dedicated schools grant and the implications for their future. What reassurance can the Minister give that when the current minimum funding guarantee runs out in 2014, the Government will recognise the importance of funding stability to such schools?

[Mr Laws]

I can give my hon. Friend the assurances first that the minimum funding guarantee will continue, secondly that this Government value the role of small schools, and thirdly that we are carrying out a review of the funding formula for 2014-15, to look very carefully at some of the concerns he mentions.

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Has the Secretary of State read the Pearson report, published last week and written by the Economist Intelligence Unit, which shows that Britain has the sixth best education system in the world and the second best in Europe? Does he agree that that shows great advancement under 13 years of the previous Labour Government and following many years of hard work from our teaching profession, and does he therefore regret talking down our education system and our teaching profession, as he did earlier today?

Oral Answers to Questions

David Laws Excerpts

Monday 29th October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

2. What assessment he has made of the effects of the pupil premium on pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The pupil premium represents a significant investment of £1.875 billion since its introduction in April 2011. We are keen to ensure that schools’ use of the premium leads to real improvements for disadvantaged pupils. We have two evaluations under way—a study we have commissioned from Ofsted and our own external evaluation of the premium’s first year. The findings of both reviews will be available next spring, and will further support our drive to promote best practice.

[Laura Sandys]

I welcome the Minister to his position and thank him for his answer. Fifty-six per cent. of the children at Newington primary school are on free school meals. In the headmaster’s view, the pupil premium has doubled key stage 2 attainment and improved maths and English scores by 41%. Will the Minister give a commitment that the money will be in the hands of the head teacher and not ring-fenced in future?

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind words and am delighted to hear of the success of the pupil premium in her local school. I can confirm that we are not going back to the days under the previous Government, who sought to micro-manage each piece of education expenditure.

[Mr Frank Field (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

Given that the skills that young people have before they go to school will determine how effective they are at school, might the Minister consider extending the pupil premium to cover from birth to five?

[Mr Laws]

The right hon. Gentleman has a long tradition of passion for and commitment to the early years in education. We are constantly keeping schools and early years funding under review, and of course we will do what we can over time to ensure that youngsters, at whatever stage of their education, have an opportunity to fulfil their maximum potential.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The pupil premium is an excellent coalition policy to assist children from disadvantaged backgrounds, as is the free school policy. Can the Minister advise us on what efforts he will make to push forward with the free school policy to target areas with a high proportion of students on the pupil premium?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is right that free schools are being concentrated in many parts of the country where there is disadvantage and where traditionally the performance of the school system has been weak. That will ensure that many disadvantaged youngsters can attend schools producing an outstanding or at least good performance.

[Ann Coffey (Stockport) (Lab)]

The SK5 8 postcode in my constituency is the 162nd most deprived neighbourhood out of almost 32,500 in the UK. Children attend three different secondary schools where they significantly under-achieve, and not all are entitled to the pupil premium. The Brinnington educational achievement partnership set up in 2009 has helped to increase the number of children attaining GCSE A* to C from 33% to 75%—quite an achievement. Funding has now ended, but would the Minister look favourably on its bid to the education endowment fund?

[Mr Laws]

I am delighted to hear about the progress in the hon. Lady’s constituency, and she has ingeniously managed to keep her question in order. If she would care to write to me on that subject, I will certainly look at the issue further. In the light of what she has said about disadvantage in her constituency, I hope that she will welcome the pupil premium, which must be helping schools enormously in her area.

[Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)]

3. How many 16 to 18 year-olds started an apprenticeship in the last year for which figures are available.

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[Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)]

10. What steps he is taking to raise levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy for children from deprived backgrounds; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

The pupil premium provides additional funding—rising to £900 per pupil next year—that helps schools to raise the attainment of disadvantaged children, including in literacy and numeracy. Ofsted will have an increased focus on the performance of pupils who attract the premium. We are also putting in place a new catch-up premium of £500 per eligible child for every year 7 pupil who has not achieved basic literacy and numeracy standards on leaving primary school.

[Derek Twigg]

Halton has seen significant improvements recently in the attainment of those pupils receiving school meals, compared with those who do not. We have also seen a doubling of the number of students getting five or more A to C grades at GCSE over the past 10 years. Resources are of course crucial to all that. The Minister has just mentioned the pupil premium. Can he guarantee that, over the remainder of this Parliament, there will be no cuts in resources going into education in Halton?

[Mr Laws]

What I can guarantee is that the pupil premium will go on rising every year in this Parliament. The hon. Gentleman might like to know that, in this current year, more than £2 million of pupil premium funding is going into his constituency, and he will be delighted to know that that will rise to more than £3.3 million in the year to come.

[Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)]

A car travels, on average, 41.8 miles per gallon. How many miles will it travel on 8.37 gallons? The answer, of course, is 349.866 miles. The problem is that, while 54% of 14-year-olds answered that question correctly in 1976, only 33% did so in 2009, according to a study carried out by King’s College, London. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the new draft maths primary curriculum and the new teacher training courses for specialist maths teachers in primary schools will have a significant effect on ensuring that children grasp and understand the fundamentals of maths and arithmetic by the time they leave primary school?

[Mr Laws]

For a moment, I thought that my predecessor as Schools Minister was going to skewer me at the Dispatch Box, and I began to freeze over. However, I am most grateful to him for his question—and for providing the answer—and for highlighting the important work that the Government are doing to restore the credibility and seriousness of these subjects. I pay tribute to him for the superb work that he has done in these areas over the past two years.

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

May I also welcome the Minister back to the Front Bench? I know that he is passionate about this subject, and I look forward to working with him for the benefit of the House and of the country. Last month’s reading recovery annual report confirmed that 9,000 fewer children received reading recovery intervention last year. That means that 9,000 struggling children, many of whom are from disadvantaged backgrounds, are not getting the intensive support that they need to support their literacy levels. The Department’s own evaluation shows that reading recovery achieves real results for children, and that it could achieve long-term financial benefits for the Government. Does the Minister agree with that evaluation? If not, why is he happy to sit back while children fall behind?

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her kind comments, and I am keen to work across the House where we can on some of the issues to which the previous Labour Government showed considerable commitment. This Government, however, are trying to put in place a simpler funding system, not only for the baseline funding, but by giving schools through the pupil premium a large amount of additional finance— £2.5 billion by the end of this Parliament—so that schools can prioritise in each setting the mechanism and the intervention that best serves their pupils. Schools will, through the pupil premium, have the moneys for precisely the types of reading recovery that the hon. Lady mentioned.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

My constituency is not getting the full benefit of the pupil premium because many parents are far too proud to access free school meals for their children on account of the stigma attached. What can my right. hon. Friend do to address this problem?

[Mr Laws]

That is an important point. Research from the Department will be published shortly, which will highlight the massive differences in the take-up of free school meals right across England. In some parts of England there is essentially 100% take-up, while in other parts almost a third of pupils do not take up free school meals. The Government will look at this and work with local authorities and schools to get those figures up.

[Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)]

11. What assessment he has made of the effectiveness of university technical colleges in delivering high-quality technical education.

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[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

19. If he will take steps to prohibit local authorities from preventing schools from converting to academy status by requiring a 20% pensions fund surcharge for non-teaching staff.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Pension contribution rates for non-teaching staff are determined by local administering authority fund managers. In a joint letter in December 2011 my right hon. Friends the Secretaries of State for Education and for Communities and Local Government made it clear that no academy should pay unjustifiably higher employer pension contributions than maintained schools in their area. The letter also made it clear that other options would be considered if high rates persisted.

[Guy Opperman]

Northumberland county council is blocking schools that wish to go to academy status. Will the Minister review the December 2011 evaluation of this problem and then meet with me and interested representatives from my constituency who wish to turn to academy status or are considering doing so?

[Mr Laws]

I am concerned by what my hon. Friend says about his local authority blocking those schools that wish to go to academy status, and I can tell him that Department for Education officials are continuing to work on this issue with Department for Communities and Local Government officials. I would be delighted to meet him and others to discuss this matter. It would not be acceptable for local authorities to use this move to impede schools that wish to go to academy status.

[Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)]

21. If he will make it his policy to reform the funding formula for schools in Worcestershire.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

In March the Secretary of State announced our intention to introduce a national funding formula during the next spending review period. In the meantime, we are simplifying the local funding system, and I hope I was able to reassure my hon. Friend during a Westminster Hall debate last week that we are committed to introducing a national funding formula and to doing so at a pace which is manageable for all schools.

[Karen Lumley]

I thank the Minister for that answer. I just want some reassurances, on behalf of the parents and young people of Redditch, that finally, after 13 years of Labour failing to deal with the issue, we are going to address the national funding formula. I also wish to invite him to come to Redditch to see some of our fantastic schools, which do a very good job in difficult circumstances.

[Mr Laws]

I would be delighted to visit the hon. Lady’s constituency, and I can guarantee her that, after many years of the previous Government failing to address this very unfair national funding formula, this Government will, in the next spending review period, ensure that there is a fair formula for the whole country.

[Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)]

I am grateful for those assurances from the Minister, and I welcome him to his place. He mentioned the next spending review period. Does the welcome extension of the minimum funding guarantee not give the Government the opportunity to move even faster and to take steps towards a fairer funding formula now?

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is right to say that we already need to take those first steps towards a more rational and fairer formula. We are doing exactly that by reducing the huge number of existing variables in the formulae across the country to a much smaller number. That is the first step in moving to a fairer formula for the whole country.

[Chris Williamson (Derby North) (Lab)]

22. What steps he is taking to raise levels of attainment in literacy and numeracy for children from deprived backgrounds; and if he will make a statement.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I refer the hon. Gentleman to the answer I gave a few moments ago to the hon. Member for Halton (Derek Twigg).

[Chris Williamson]

I am just a simple bricklayer, so can the Minister explain to me why he thinks unqualified teachers in free schools and academies will raise standards, but at the same time he feels it necessary to impose tougher tests on teachers in other state schools in order to achieve the same thing?

[Mr Laws]

We announced last week measures to raise the quality of teachers across the board, and I think those received a warm welcome across the country. In the past, the standards for going into teaching have been too low. It is sensible to raise those in all schools across the country.

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[Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)]

I am sure that forward thinking and value for money are part of the Department for Education’s thinking. With that in mind, does the Secretary of State agree that it would be silly to remove permanently surplus places in secondary education, when it is known, as is set out in question 24, that youngsters coming through the system will need those places in three or four years’ time?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I think my hon. Friend has specific concerns about issues in his constituency in relation to some of the smaller secondary schools. I would be happy to meet him to discuss whether there is some way that we can support his understandable desire to make sure that there is capacity for future children in those schools.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Government’s decision to transfer funding for two-year-olds’ nursery education to the dedicated schools grant will mean an additional cut of 27% for the early intervention grant. Leicester will lose £4 million in 2013. It will have no option but to reduce support for children’s services and the troubled families programme. Can the Minister explain how this will get kids ready for school, promote social mobility or save taxpayers’ money in the long run?

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[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

As Wiltshire’s education settlement has historically been underfunded, we look forward to the new school funding formula, but Wiltshire council is concerned that it might have unintended consequences, especially in relation to support for small schools, so will the Minister please meet me to explore any scope for discretion in how the council can go about making those changes?

[Mr Laws]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss these matters. He will know that in the past couple of weeks the Government have made two announcements to try to ease concerns in this area: first, we have committed to reviewing the funding formula for 2014-15; and secondly, we have promised to continue the minimum funding guarantee beyond 2015.

[Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)]

The special educational needs proposals currently under pre-legislative scrutiny will water down the scope of the SEN tribunal, weakening the rights of parents to get the help they need. Will the Minister give a commitment today to ensuring that parents of children with SEN do not lose out?

School Funding (Worcestershire)

David Laws Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd October 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Thank you very much, Mr Weir, for calling me to speak.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) on securing this debate on an issue that is extremely important for her constituency and that is obviously also important throughout the country. Once again, she is proving to be a most effective champion of her constituency interests.

My hon. Friend warned me before the debate started that the MPs from Worcestershire have a tendency to hunt in packs and her pack is behind her today, if I may say so, in the form of my hon. Friends the Members for Mid Worcestershire (Peter Luff), for Redditch (Karen Lumley), for Worcester (Mr Walker) and for Wyre Forest (Mark Garnier), who have all backed up the points that she made in a very effective way. We have other Members from Gloucestershire and Devon, who are clearly also taking an interest in this debate.

As the Minister for Schools, I am very well aware of the strength of feeling in Worcestershire schools and in schools in some other parts of the country. There is concern about some of the changes that we are seeking to make to the school funding system, and my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire has set out some of those concerns very clearly today. I have received a number of representations from other hon. Friends, and from concerned local head teachers and governors throughout Worcestershire.

Therefore, I am grateful for this opportunity to address some of those concerns and to offer a reassurance that, as we move to a fairer funding system, we will do so very carefully and at a pace that enables proper consideration, consultation and sensitivity about the issues that are being rightly raised today by local MPs.

Our aim is for every child to succeed in school, regardless of their background. That is why the Government, despite having to make difficult decisions elsewhere in public spending, have made school spending a priority and protected school funding over the course of the spending review period, as my hon. Friends will be aware.

We have also introduced, as my hon. Friend mentioned, the pupil premium which, by the end of the Parliament, will have targeted an additional £2.5 billion to disadvantaged pupils. My hon. Friend mentioned that sometimes the take-up of the pupil premium is a concern in rural areas. She might be interested to know that the Department will publish in a few weeks’ time some interesting national figures showing the take-up of the pupil premium and free school meals in different parts of the country, and highlighting the challenge there is in some of the more rural areas to ensure that take-up is as high as it should be.

The Government need to work with local councils, schools and MPs to ensure that in some of the areas where there is a low take-up we address that, to ensure not only that youngsters get the free school meals to which they are entitled but that the extra funding we are making available gets through to the schools that need it.

We also need a system to support the investment that we are putting in through the pupil premium and to ensure that pupils are not disadvantaged as a result of a school funding system that, as my hon. Friends have indicated, does not distribute funding fairly. Sadly, under the previous Government, when there was a much bigger opportunity to increase education spending, the opportunity was missed to bring in a more rational formula. The current system for funding schools is in need of reform. It is based on an assessment of need that dates back to at least 2005-06, and that has not kept pace with changing demographics and the needs of pupils across the country. It is very complicated, meaning that head teachers, governors and parents are often unable to understand how their school budgets have been calculated and why.

That outdated funding system has meant that Worcestershire, as hon. Friends have already mentioned, is one of the relatively lowest funded authorities in England, ranking at 147 out of the 152 authorities. It is not right that schools with very similar circumstances can receive, without good cause, vastly different levels of funding for no clearly identifiable reason. Data taken from the 2010-11 section 251 returns, which set out local authority budgets, show that funding between similar secondary schools can vary by up to £1,800 per pupil, which is an enormous amount and clearly not fair.

It is also not right that the system is so complex that school leaders are often unable to understand how their budgets have been calculated. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education made a statement on 26 March 2012 announcing the Government’s clear intention to introduce a new national funding formula during the next spending review period. I appreciate that hon. Friends would like that to be as soon as possible, but there are obviously a lot of constraints that I will discuss in a moment on the introduction. However, the commitment is clear and is something I feel strongly about, as does the Secretary of State.

A new national funding formula would distribute money fairly across the country, targeting need properly and getting rid of some of the anomalies that make the current system so opaque. However, dismantling a system that is so entrenched and complicated is far from easy. It is important that we introduce full-scale reform at a pace that schools can manage. The last thing that we want, as my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire said, is to cause destabilising changes to school budgets that cause anxiety in schools and among parents and distract schools from delivering high educational standards for their pupils.

That is why we are trying to move gradually towards introducing a new funding system, at a pace that gives us sufficient time to agree the construction of a new formula and to allow schools enough time to adjust to changes in their funding arrangements. Making the local system simpler and more transparent will mean that, when we do come to address the national system, there is far less complexity for us to untangle.

The first step we are taking is to ensure that within local areas pupils begin to attract similar levels of funding regardless of where they go to school. At present, local authorities can use up to 37 factors and countless sub-factors when distributing money to schools. I understand that in the past there has been a tradition of funding schools based on the facilities that they offer, the pay scales of their teachers, the size of their buildings and, even in some cases, the number of trees and ditches on their estate.

Our view is that the majority of money that we spend on education should be based on the pupil, not on the school characteristics. If a pupil chooses to go to a particular school then the funding is available to fulfil that choice, and it is not locked in to the school down the road because it happens to have more expensive teachers or a swimming pool to maintain. Rather than giving money to schools based on their size or other circumstances, local authorities will now have to distribute the majority of funds based on pupil numbers and characteristics. That is very much in keeping with the aims of a funding system that is pupil led and that is fair and transparent.

The new arrangements will mean that funding will be distributed differently, and there will be some shifts between school budgets as we move towards a more consistent way of funding schools. Our aim is to start to iron out inconsistencies and unfairness, which pupils in schools are currently experiencing, to create a fairer system. We remain committed to ensuring that good, small schools are able to thrive under the new arrangements.

We know that small schools often play a vital role in communities, not least in rural areas, and it is not our intention that any good school should be forced to close as a result of these reforms. That is a commitment that my hon. Friend asked for in her speech, and I hope that she will take that as a commitment from the Government. There is no secret agenda to close small, successful schools. I hope that she and her hon. Friends will take that message back to their constituencies.

We are allowing local authorities to allocate a lump sum of up to £200,000 in their formula. The intention of the lump sum is to cover the fixed cost of a small school—for example, a head teacher, a caretaker and some administrative support—and no more. It is not intended to protect the historic grants that were given to some schools and not others to pay for things such as floor space, specialist teachers and so forth.

We have heard a number of concerns—we heard them from my hon. Friend today—about the requirement to have a single lump sum for primary, middle and secondary schools. Although I recognise that the curriculum costs are different in each phase, I reiterate the point that the lump sum is not intended to pay for the curriculum costs. The lump sum should pay for fixed costs, and the per-pupil funding should pay for the curriculum costs. We will, however, review those arrangements, and I will explain more about that review shortly.

The reforms will require local authorities and school forums to break out of historic approaches and to think radically about the way in which money is distributed to schools in their areas. I realise that it is the implementation of the new simplified arrangements that is causing anxiety among schools in Worcestershire, and that there are particular concerns about the impact the changes will have on small and middle schools in rural areas such as Evesham, Pershore and Upton.

Officials in the Department have been in contact with staff at Worcestershire county council to understand why the concerns have arisen and to offer advice. I understand that Worcestershire county council has already agreed to the new funding formula—it did so on 18 October —but it has done so for one year only. I am informed that Worcestershire county council will review its local formula in light of the issues raised during its recent consultation, and in line with any changes made by the Department for 2014-15.

As I said, our main priority is stability and certainty for schools, which is why these reforms will be implemented carefully and with great consideration, as my hon. Friends have requested. The Secretary of State already announced in June that schools will continue to have planning certainty through the minimum funding guarantee, which means that, in most cases, no school will lose more than 1.5% of its budget per pupil in 2013-14 and 2014-15.

In addition to that and in response to concerns raised by my hon. Friend, her colleagues and other hon. Friends, the Department has confirmed within the past few days that a minimum funding guarantee will continue to operate beyond 2014-15. We cannot confirm the exact value of that guarantee as it covers the next spending review period; we need to know our budget for that period and to have Treasury approval before giving any such guarantees. None the less, we are absolutely committed to protecting school budgets from unmanageable falls, and I hope that that will also be an assurance for my hon. Friend.

[Peter Luff]

Is that an extension for one year or for longer than one year?

[Mr Laws]

At the moment, we have made it clear that we will continue it beyond the period of 2014-15. Although we are not in a position to make an announcement yet, given that we are seeking to move to a national funding formula, it is highly likely that we will need some form of protection for a considerable period. I will be happy to update my hon. Friend when we are in a position to say more.

[Mr Robin Walker]

The minimum funding guarantee is excellent, and I am sure we all welcome its extension, but is it not the obvious answer to the turbulence of moving towards a national formula? Therefore, is there any reason for the Government not to move towards a national formula, using the minimum funding guarantee, before 2015?

[Mr Laws]

Moving straight to a national funding formula without the transitional arrangements would be even more challenging and would create an even larger departmental postbag. I understand my hon. Friend is doing his best to push Worcestershire’s case, but the Secretary of State is right to be going about this in a measured way as we are seeking to bring about a complex change.

In any case, the extension of the minimum funding guarantee beyond 2015 should reassure the several Worcestershire schools—including the Hanley Castle pyramid, Prince Henry’s high school and Evesham high school—that have contacted me to express concerns about a potential cliff edge in funding from 2014-15 if the minimum funding guarantee were to end. I have no doubt that my hon. Friends will take that message back to other schools concerned about a cliff edge. The last thing we want is for parents not to send their children to those schools because of fears that are not well grounded.

I also reassure my hon. Friends that we have decided to carry out a thorough review in early 2013, starting now effectively, of the impact of simpler formula factors. We will work with local authorities to explore the effect of the different factors that we have, including the lump sum, which is a key element of Worcestershire’s formula, as well as those that we have eliminated.

We have made it clear that we want to prevent the changes from having unacceptable consequences for good schools. That is why a review will be so important in evaluating the effects and will enable us to make any necessary adjustments in the following year, 2014-15. As a consequence of the representations that have been made today by my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire and her colleagues, I will ask officials to add Worcestershire to the shortlist of authorities that have been particularly assiduous in making representations to the Department and that I would like officials to talk to over the period of the review, which we hope will report back in the springtime—spring being a slightly flexible season.

I am enormously grateful to my hon. Friends for drawing attention to the concerns of Worcestershire schools about our school funding reforms. I hope I have been able to provide some reassurance that our aim in making the reforms is ultimately to ensure that England has a fair and transparent funding system in which funding follows pupils and there is consistency within and between different areas of the country. I know that Worcestershire shares that ultimate aim with the Department. I also hope that my hon. Friends understand that we are listening carefully to their concerns and, where necessary, are responding to them.

I commend my hon. Friends for making their representations so effectively to the Department that the Worcestershire file is probably the largest of any county. I look forward to maintaining contact with Worcestershire in the run-up to the decisions, which we will make and announce next year.

Question put and agreed to.

Teachers Pay

David Laws Excerpts

Tuesday 18th September 2012 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) for the kind comments that he made at the beginning of his speech, and I congratulate him on securing this important debate. As he mentioned a number of times, the issue is incredibly important for many people across the country, particularly in the north and in his constituency, and he will understand that it is an issue throughout much of the country beyond the south-east, including the area that I represent in the south-west of England. The Government acknowledge how sensitive it is for many people who work and do extremely important tasks within the public sector.

My hon. Friend has raised the issue at an important moment. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), mentioned, the School Teachers Review Body is considering the issues and will report relatively shortly. I think the shadow Minister said that he was expecting the response on 20 September. The latest information available to me indicates that it is more likely to be published towards the end of October. The shadow Minister will be aware from his own experiences in Government that the report will be made initially to the Secretary of State, who will then have to decide when to publish the evidence, alongside the Government’s response to the recommendations. I have no doubt that my hon. Friend and the shadow Minister will be assiduous in considering the evidence base and the response and following up with any issues and observations they have.

Before I go into the detail of my response to my hon. Friend, I should say that I agree with him on two strategic observations that he made about this debate. It is incredibly important that measures should be evidence-based. There is a lot of prejudice on different sides of the debate about issues of flexibility in pay, regional pay and local pay, but there is complete agreement between my hon. Friend and the Government that it must be evidence-based. He mentioned that he published his own report on the issues, bringing to the surface some of the evidence available on the issue of regional and local pay, even though it is not uncontested territory.

My hon. Friend referred earlier to having tabled a question to the Department about the regional variations in quality of teaching measured by the Ofsted framework. From my recollection of the last few days, he can expect a letter from the chief inspector on that issue pretty soon. I will be interested to hear his analysis after he has looked through the information, which I think will be quite detailed. It will perhaps take the debate further.

He and the shadow Minister made an important point. We acknowledge that education is an area in which the Government cannot simply press a button in Westminster or Whitehall and create particular policy responses across the country. There are 23,500 schools in this country, and education is delivered not by Ministers but by the people who teach in schools, head teachers and all the others who contribute in educational settings. Motivating and inspiring those people, and supporting them in the common aspiration of improving the education of young people, involves a partnership between the Government and those who serve in education. We are conscious of the need to keep them motivated and to make them understand that the Government want to support them in doing their job as effectively as possible.

The shadow Minister indicated that he is concerned about morale in some areas of the teaching profession. I have no doubt that there are various different propositions to make in this area. From my own visits to many schools across the country, particularly in my own constituency having taken on this role only recently, I think a lot of teachers and head teachers acknowledge that the Government, in difficult financial times, have put in place a good financial settlement for schools, given the pressures on other areas, including the pupil premium, which is ensuring that schools, particularly in disadvantaged areas, have the funding needed to tackle some of the challenges they face.

Before I respond to my hon. Friend, I would like to say that I am grateful to the shadow Minister for his kind comments about me taking up this role. I look forward to working with him as co-operatively as I can, and as the usual cross-party niceties allow. I would also like, as I did when I spoke a few days ago in the House, to pick up on his comments about the three Education Ministers who left in the reshuffle. I think he was indicating and hinting that those three individuals were passionate about their work and were regarded as very strong in the areas they championed. I think all hon. Members wish them all the best for the future, whether they agreed with every one of their policy proposals or not. I have no doubt that all three will go on contributing to the debate about education and children’s services.

In preparation for the debate, I read with interest my hon. Friend’s recent paper on the subject of regional and local pay. As I indicated, it is an important and timely contribution to a timely and topical debate. I will address some of the points he raised in that paper, as well as the points that came up in his speech. First, however, it is important and useful to set out, to some extent, the approach the Government are taking on reforms to teachers pay and the debate about regional and local pay across the public sector.

In the autumn statement in November 2011, the Chancellor said that pay review bodies would be asked to consider how and if public sector pay could be made more responsive to local labour markets. He then wrote to pay review bodies in December 2011. His letter to the School Teachers Review Body said:

“there is substantial evidence that the difference between public and private sector wages varies considerably between local labour markets. This has the potential to hurt private sector businesses that need to compete with higher public wages; lead to unfair variations in public sector service quality; and reduce the number of jobs that the public sector can support for any given level of expenditure.”

Those are some of the suggestions that my hon. Friend was commenting on in the debate and in his paper.

As my hon. Friend will be aware, there are already four geographical pay bands—the shadow Minister commented on this—that apply to teachers pay: inner London, outer London, the London fringe, and the rest of England and Wales. The current pay bands have rigid boundaries, which at the point they were devised took account of areas that historically had higher teacher vacancy rates and costs of living. The starting salary for classroom teachers is £21,588 in the England and Wales pay band and £27,000 in the inner London pay band. I think I am right in saying that all parties across the House, and my hon. Friend, acknowledge that there are some areas where there are very high costs, and where not having a degree of flexibility in pay would mean that it would be very difficult to recruit people who worked in those areas. Many of us are very passionate about ensuring that young people, particularly in areas such as inner London where there are big challenges in many schools, should have very high quality teachers and they should not be penalised as a consequence of teachers not being able to live and teach in those areas. The debate, then, is not whether there should be any element of regional variation within the system of teachers pay, but whether we should have different or greater variation.

The single most important determinant of a good education is for every child to have access to a good teacher. The available evidence suggests that the main driver of variation in student achievement at school is the quality of the teachers. The effects of high-quality teaching are especially significant for pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds, and research from the Sutton Trust has suggested that poor pupils may lose out on a whole year’s worth of education if they spend a year in a class with a poorly performing teacher, when compared with the education that they would have received from a very good teacher. International evidence shows that the top performing school systems consistently attract more able people into the teaching profession, leading to better pupil outcomes. That is a reason why the pay incentives and the overall levels of pay have to be right, as my hon. Friend would agree. Competitive salaries, in line with other local graduate professions, help to ensure that high-quality graduates are attracted into and retained within the teaching profession across the country.

[John Pugh]

The Minister is suggesting, and I agree, that teachers in disadvantaged areas have probably greater potential to make a difference to children’s lives. It is relatively unsurprising, then, that value added is identified in those areas of relative deprivation, as the Propper data show.

[Mr Laws]

That is a good point, but it is perhaps not the whole debate. I will explain why as I proceed through the comments that I have to make.

Recent research from the OECD showed that our teachers are amongst the best paid of all OECD countries. There was an improvement under the previous Government, which we welcome—that is good news. However, alongside ensuring that salaries are competitive we need to consider the case for arrangements for teachers pay that drive up the quality of teaching by rewarding good performance; giving schools as much freedom as possible to spend their money sensibly as they see fit to meet their pupils’ needs; ensuring the best teachers are incentivised to work in the most challenging schools, as my hon. Friend has acknowledged; and ensuring—an important point both for and against the argument for regional pay—the best value for money for the taxpayer in the money that it is allocated. That is why the Secretary of State, responding to the Chancellor, has asked the experts, the School Teachers Review Body, to consider how reforms to the teachers pay system might support schools and head teachers to recruit and retain the best quality teachers. That is in line with the approach being taken for other public sector work forces and will ensure that any changes that are made—this is my hon. Friend’s concern—must be based on the best evidence available.

In his remit letter to the STRB, the Secretary of State asked it to consider a number of factors: first, how we might reduce rigidity within the pay system so that it best supports the recruitment and retention of high quality teachers in all schools; secondly, how teachers pay could be better linked to performance and whether there are existing barriers to that within the current system; and thirdly, whether to make teachers pay more flexible following the commitment in the 2011 autumn statement to ask pay review bodies to consider how public sector pay can be made more responsive to local market conditions. The question of how teachers’ pay can be made more responsive to local labour markets is only one of the things—an important point that I want to draw out from today’s debate—that the Secretary of State has asked the STRB to consider, and it is important that I set out all of the issues on which the Secretary of State has asked for recommendations.

To support the STRB’s consideration of its remit, the Secretary of State submitted written evidence. The STRB has also taken into account evidence from bodies representing employers of teachers, school governors, and teacher and head teacher unions. The Secretary of State’s evidence raised concerns that under the current system the rate at which teachers are paid is more closely associated with the time they have served as a teacher than it is with their performance in the classroom. Almost every teacher on the main pay scale progresses to the next spine point each year, and almost half of qualified teachers across all pay scales are on a higher spine point than the previous year.

Our analysis of vacancy rates shows that some schools find it more difficult to recruit and retain teachers than others. There are different vacancy rates between different regions, between local authorities in the same region, and between schools in the same local authority. There are also differences in vacancy rates between subjects, as my hon. Friend is aware. For example, there are above average vacancies in English and mathematics posts, but below average vacancy rates in the arts and humanities. Where vacancies are filled, some subjects are significantly more likely to be taught by non-specialist teachers, which is a major concern. For example, 21% of physics lessons are taught by non-specialist teachers, compared with 10% of history lessons.

The Secretary of State’s evidence to the STRB suggested five options for reform that it may wish to consider, illustrating the range of approaches that are available to it when making its recommendations. In late October, following careful consideration of all the evidence submitted, the STRB will make its recommendations to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State has stated his intention to then issue a second remit to the STRB that may ask it to produce more detailed recommendations, or to consider further issues on which it has not yet reported. Hon. Members will be pleased to know that no decisions have been made and the Government remain open-minded about these reforms.

My hon. Friend’s paper and his speech clearly set out a number of key arguments made in the recent debate about regional pay for public sector workers. I should like briefly to touch on some of the issues that he highlighted. I remind him that issues relating to how public sector pay reflects the local labour market will be considered alongside other priorities, which I mentioned earlier.

[John Pugh]

Will the Minister consider the following point? We have used the expression “responsive to the local labour market” all the way through, as though we know in every case what the local labour market or the pool of workers is that we are pulling from. It would be useful to have an additional piece of research figuring out, when, say, a school head teacher or head of department post is advertised, the actual field of applicants. Where do they come from and how do people move between one area and another? In teaching, people at a certain level are prepared to move appreciable distances. Often in an advertisement in the paper, a school is appealing to the labour market of the whole nation, not just the local labour market. We cannot talk as though the local labour market is a fixed thing that we always understand.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. He will also appreciate that the reasons that motivate people to take on particular posts or to stay within geographic communities are based not just on pay, but on other connections that individuals may have with an area.

The first of my hon. Friend’s arguments was that the private sector might be disadvantaged in local labour markets where public sector workers are relatively highly paid. He referred to this as the crowding-out hypothesis. As the Secretary of State’s evidence to the STRB showed, there is variety in supply and demand within the teacher labour market, including in the relative pay of public and private sector workers. This appears to be reflected in vacancy rates, with schools in some regions finding it more difficult to attract candidates into vacancies. However, as the Secretary of State’s evidence also shows, there is variation between regions, between local authorities and between schools in the same local authority. Schools also appear to experience greater difficulty appointing specialists in some subjects compared with others. Stakeholders have submitted a large amount of evidence to the STRB and the other pay review bodies in this regard and detailed representations have been made on crowding out. I am confident that the experts will therefore have all the information they need to consider this specific issue carefully when making its recommendations.

My hon. Friend’s paper also considers whether the Government could make savings by reducing the pay of public sector workers in line with local labour markets. Increasing autonomy for schools is central to the Government’s education reforms. Although of course we wish to achieve value for money in all public spending decisions, we have clearly prioritised autonomy for head teachers to allocate the funds available to them in the way that they think is most appropriate to provide for the needs of their pupils, subject to the disciplines that any of us would expect in the public sector. Where pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds attend school, we have made sure that there is additional money through the pupil premium, which my hon. Friend strongly supports, for head teachers to spend on the additional support that they think is necessary. However, there are always advantages and disadvantages in such an approach—my hon. Friend set them out carefully—and those matters will be carefully considered by the STRB in its deliberations.

The final point mentioned by my hon. Friend was public sector pay in other countries. He specifically mentioned in his paper the experience in Sweden. As is well documented, the Secretary of State and the Government wish to learn carefully the right lessons from all education systems that perform most strongly in international comparisons. We have considered the Swedish system, but we are interested in all public education systems where pupils perform well compared with their counterparts in other countries, particularly where the attainment gap between the least and most advantaged children is small compared with the large gap that still exists in this country. We trust that the STRB will take into account systems employed in Sweden and elsewhere in the world. These will inform its recommendations to the Secretary of State.

Regional pay has been at the forefront of recent debates about public sector pay reform. However, my honourable Friend will recognise that, although we have asked the STRB to consider how teachers pay could be made more flexible locally or regionally, there are issues other than regional pay under consideration when it comes to teachers specifically. Increasing the flexibility that head teachers have to determine the pay arrangements suited to their school could be a key element of the drive to increase autonomy from government. We want head teachers, particularly in the most disadvantaged schools, to be able to use the additional funding that they have through the pupil premium to attract and retain top quality teachers to work where the pupils need them most. We need carefully to consider whether the current system enables them to do that.

Our approach all along has been to provide the STRB with the evidence that we think is most relevant to its deliberations and to encourage others to do the same. We are encouraged that contributions to the debate are being made by organisations and individuals who are not among the statutory consultees of the STRB. My hon. Friend has made his case clearly and publicly.

In setting out the Government’s approach after the Chancellor made his statement last year, my hon. Friend will be aware that the Chief Secretary to the Treasury made a speech at a union conference in June, saying:

“Despite some of the more excited press reporting, the only thing we have decided is to look at the evidence…before we decide anything, we want to hear from everyone with a contribution to make to this debate—employers, academics and, yes of course, the Trades Unions. There will be no change unless there is strong evidence to support it and a rational case for proceeding.”

I thank my hon. Friend for his contribution to this important debate. I am sure that, like me, he looks forward to reading the STRB’s report and the Government’s response, and I have no doubt that he will respond again in detail to those.

School Places (Thurrock)

David Laws Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr David Laws)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock (Jackie Doyle-Price) for her kind words and congratulate her on securing this extremely important debate for her constituents. I hope, Madam Deputy Speaker, that you and the hon. Lady will indulge me by allowing me to say that this is the first time since the recent ministerial changes that an Education Minister has appeared at the Dispatch Box, and I want to place on record my tribute to those who left the Department as part of the recent changes—my hon. Friends the Members for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb), for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), for Brent Central (Sarah Teather) and for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes). They all made an enormous contribution to education policy, and many hon. Members will have benefited from the work that they did during their time at the Department.

I know, from my own time as a Member of this House, about the tireless efforts of my hon. Friend the Member for Thurrock on not just education issues, but a range of things that are of great importance to her constituents. She has worked tirelessly on behalf of her constituents to raise the issue of school places in Thurrock. She has written to the Prime Minister, and I believe that she has received a response from the Education Secretary. She has also forwarded the local community’s petition on this matter. It is understandable that she is very passionate, as are her constituents, that children who live in Chafford Hundred should be educated in accessible local schools.

I will respond to the specific questions raised by my hon. Friend. I am grateful to her for giving me advance notice of her particular points. That has been extremely helpful for the departmental officials, who have contacted the council to get more detailed responses to them. I am grateful to those officials for engaging in that process over the past week and, indeed, for resolving some issues today after we discussed the matter this morning.

I hope that my hon. Friend will allow me to start by setting out the national picture, which is relevant to the circumstances in her area and to the requirements placed on councils and the ways in which the Government are seeking to address her concerns. I will then address directly the specific local issues that she has understandably raised about her constituency circumstances.

It is unfortunately the case that currently there are simply not enough places at good and popular schools in some areas of high demand. The Government have shown that they are determined to tackle that problem, whether by addressing underperformance in our schools, by expanding the academies programme, or by making additional capital available in the areas of greatest demand. The Government are determined to give more parents a real choice, and that can only happen when every local school is a good one. Let me say a bit more about the steps that we have already taken to tackle the issue.

On funding, we are facing, not just in the hon. Lady’s constituency, but in particular parts of England, a sustained increase in the number of children of primary school age. Since 2002, there has been a continuous rise in the number of births in England and some areas are facing significant pressure on places, as she described effectively. We as a Government have inherited a serious challenge in the problem of growing numbers and we are determined to address it.

That is why, despite the very difficult economic circumstances that we inherited when we formed the coalition Government in 2010, we have prioritised funding to support the provision of additional pupil places where they are needed. We have doubled the rate of annual spending on primary school places from the levels that we inherited and, in addition, we have allocated a further £1.1 billion over the past year, bringing to £2.7 billion the total that we have made available to support basic need. That funding is provided directly to local authorities to help them meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient schools to meet pupil need. As my hon. Friend pointed out, so far under this Government, Thurrock has received £8.7 million in basic need funding, which is more than double the £4.1 million that the local authority received over the entire period of the last spending review under the previous Government.

Local authorities should be best placed to decide how to use that funding and will deploy a range of solutions to create additional places, from reconfiguring existing space to finding temporary or permanent solutions. Where necessary, they will provide transport to ensure that children can attend a suitable place. We are working closely with local authorities and will continue to work to reduce costs so that every single pound goes as far as possible in providing long-term solutions.

Obviously, as my hon. Friend will understand, the Department’s capital funding is limited and it is crucial that we target it effectively. That is why the methodology that we now use to allocate funding is focused increasingly on the number of spare places in the system, rather than more bluntly on the growth in pupil numbers. We are going further. For the first time this year, we are collecting information from local authorities that will provide a greater understanding of the more localised place pressures within a local authority, including in my hon. Friend’s constituency. That approach will help us direct our limited capital funds to the local authorities where the demographic pressures are greatest, as she would expect.

My hon. Friend is right to highlight the importance of parents having a choice of good schools for their children. The law states that, where possible, parents will be offered a place for their child at their highest preferred school and have the ability to nominate at least three preferences. The Department for Education does not collect preference data on primary admissions. The 2012 secondary data showed that nationally 85.3% of parents were offered a place for their child at their first preference school, and 97.6% were offered a place at one of their preferred schools. In February this year, we published revised admissions and appeals codes that removed much of the bureaucracy that schools and local authorities previously faced in the admissions process. We have also ensured that they are easier for parents to navigate and understand.

It is, regrettably, a regular feature of the correspondence that the Department for Education receives from parents that they are unable to get their children into their choice of a good local school. The problem is that there are simply not enough places at good and popular schools, especially in areas of high demand. That means that local authorities need to make difficult decisions. It is essential that they do all they can to make reasonable offers to parents.

I am aware that many parents are offered the option of transport for their children when the school is a distance from home. Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that suitable travel arrangements are made for pupils who live further away from the school than the prescribed statutory walking distances, which are 2 miles for children under the age of eight and 3 miles for those aged eight or over. As my hon. Friend hinted, parents are of course nervous about using transport for young children, which is why we seek to increase the supply of places in local schools, as our constituents want.

As hon. Members are aware, regulations limit the size of an infant class during an ordinary teaching session to 30 pupils per school teacher. We have no plans to change that law, as the evidence shows that smaller class sizes can have a significant positive impact on the progress of pupils in that age group.

Parents can be given a real choice only when every local school is a good school. We are determined to tackle underperformance where it exists. This month, we are opening 282 new academies. International evidence shows that a more autonomous school system helps to drive up standards. We are also creating a system of school-to-school improvement. We expect all schools that are performing well and that apply for academy status to partner a weaker school.

Up and down the country, as my hon. Friend mentioned, free schools are being set up in response to parental demand for a school that meets the specific needs of the local area. They respond to a need for greater choice and better educational standards, and many of them are providing pupil places in areas with a shortage of school places as well as in areas of high deprivation.

I am aware that my hon. Friend is a strong supporter of the Gateway academy in its bid to open a new free school in the Tilbury area of Thurrock, and I congratulate all those involved in the successful Gateway primary free school development, which has opened as scheduled this week. I heard her other points and representations on the subject and will ensure that we keep the situation under close review. I believe that my colleague in the other place will lead on the free schools programme, but no doubt officials will note and pass on the comments that my hon. Friend has made.

On the other specific local issues that my hon. Friend raised, particularly those relating to the community in Chafford Hundred, I will address the concerns that she sensibly expressed in advance of the debate to enable me to look into those matters in more detail.

As I said, departmental officials have spoken to officers in Thurrock local authority to seek further information on the arrangements that they have put in place. They have told my officials that a significant proportion of the basic need funding that the council has received has been spent on providing additional places in Chafford Hundred. Some £2.6 million was spent on expanding Tudor Court primary school in time for the new academic year, and I understand that Thurrock council has undertaken a detailed piece of pupil planning work to examine demand over the next three to five years. It intends to publish it shortly for consultation, with the outcomes informing its spending plans. I fully expect it to engage with my hon. Friend in an early and constructive way to seek her views about those plans and ensure that they are informed by her views and her understanding of local priorities.

Of course, as we have heard, the priority for parents and children is securing a suitable place right now. I am certainly concerned to hear about the circumstances of some children who are not able to access schools. I am assured that all children in the area have been offered places to start school this September, although not necessarily in Chafford Hundred itself, as my hon. Friend indicated. Such decisions are always incredibly hard and must take into account local issues and circumstances, so it would be wrong to prescribe from the centre precisely what constitutes a reasonable offer. However, there is clearly a legitimate concern about what is reasonable in a local context, and it is absolutely right that she should have raised that issue today and that it should be a matter for debate. There should not just be an assumption that, provided a place can be offered within a particular area, that meets the definition of reasonableness.

I am concerned to hear that the parents of children in Chafford Hundred do not believe that they have had a fair opportunity to make their appeal. When parents believe that their appeal has not been heard in a fair and lawful way, there is a clear process for them to challenge the outcome on the grounds of maladministration. My hon. Friend mentioned the issue of parents getting only 14 days’ notice, which the Department’s officials have raised with the local authority. Our officials have been assured that the local council sent out letters offering the full 20 days of consultation, but I understand that council officials believe that the letters may have been held up in the post. I am sure the local authority will want to improve that situation in future following her powerful points on behalf of her constituents. As she said, it will now be for the local government ombudsman to investigate any outstanding complaints in this particular instance. The authority has stressed to my officials the steps that it has taken to comply with the statutory duties placed on it by the admissions and appeals codes.

In the case of documentation being issued late—another matter that my hon. Friend raised—the local authority has assured departmental officials of the steps that it has taken with affected parents to resolve the issue. Furthermore, the local authority has confirmed that checks are, or will be, in place to ensure—as far as possible—that such a situation does not happen again. The authority remains committed to engaging with the Department and with communities to ensure that best practice on admissions and appeals is fully incorporated, and to continue to improve the service that is delivered to communities.

I hope I have responded to some of my hon. Friend’s concerns. The key locally is to secure a proper, long-term solution that meets her reasonable expectations and those of her community. That is why the current detailed planning work is so crucial, and it is important that my hon. Friend engages fully with it once it is completed so that she can speak on behalf of her communities and express whether the work undertaken by the council meets expectations.

I assure my hon. Friend that I will take a keen interest in this issue, and I hope that she will contact me again if she feels in any way dissatisfied with how things progress.

Question put and agreed to.