Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Mowat and Nick Gibb

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

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

Academy chains want to find efficient ways of providing back office services, but the hon. Gentleman is right to say that chains that are under performing, including the AET chain, are receiving the close scrutiny of the Minister responsible.

[David Mowat (Warrington South) (Con)]

T6. With the advent of the new curriculum, the Government have moved away from a nationally recognised, standardised system based on levels, and schools are now free to choose from myriad different assessment frameworks. Is the Minister confident that consistency will be maintained, and what work is being done to ensure that all frameworks are fit for purpose?

[Mr Gibb]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that question. The old system of levels was flawed. It merely gave the illusion of consistency. In reality, the standard of a particular level varied from school to school. The national curriculum, on the other hand, sets out very clear expectations for each key stage. The national curriculum tests in reading, maths, grammar, punctuation and spelling at the end of key stage 2 will tell pupils’ parents and teachers how children are performing against very clear expectations.

School Funding

Debate between David Mowat and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 24th April 2012 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

In 2013, those issues will be made public, so if some schools forums are redistributing the pupil premium in a way that was not intended, it will become clear and apparent.

[David Mowat]

Are the 10 factors, which the Minister has read out, that are to be used within a local authority to achieve a fair allocation potentially the basis for a national funding formula by which the money would get to the local authorities in the first place, which is the nub of the problem?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. Those are the very issues on which we are consulting, in moving to a national formula. We must move away from the phenomenally complicated formulae that currently apply in allocating funds to local authorities.

To ensure that we are better placed to introduce a national funding formula over the coming years, we are also making changes that will substantially improve how local authorities are funded. They will continue to be allocated amounts for each pupil through the dedicated schools grant based on previous funding levels. The difference will be that that grant will be allocated in three notional blocks: for schools, early years and high-needs pupils. The notional blocks will not be ring-fenced, so local authorities will continue to have flexibility over how they spend their money. That approach will benefit pupils and schools from all sectors and phases.

We will use the October census, rather than the January census as we do now, to calculate budgets for the schools block. Therefore, mainstream maintained schools will receive their budgets earlier, giving them more time to plan. The separate high-needs block will help to secure a more transparent and sustainable approach to funding pupils with high needs. Schools and other providers will be expected to contribute to the costs of a pupil with high needs, up to a clearly defined threshold. Any cost above that threshold will need to be met from the high-needs block. That will ensure that funding for high-needs pupils is funded in an equivalent way, whatever type of institution they attend, and it will improve consistency when young people move from one part of the country to another. The early years block will continue to be funded on the basis of the January census, but that funding will be adjusted to reflect actual numbers by the end of the financial year, to take into account the fact that young children join the school system at different points in the year. It will ensure that local authorities have greater certainty about funding for early years children.

We are aware that we need to reform the administration of the local authority central spend equivalent grant, which is very dear to the heart of my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, so that there is greater comparability and transparency. We are exploring a new Department for Education grant that would substitute an element of the formula grant that is currently paid by the Department for Communities and Local Government. The new grant would cover relevant central educational services and be paid on a national basis, per pupil, to local authorities and academies. That, combined with the maximum devolution of funding to schools, would replace the need for LACSEG. Making the local system simpler and more transparent will mean that, when we come to address the national system, there will be far less complexity for us to untangle. This is the start of the process for which my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South calls.

I am aware of the concerns covered in the opening remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester, including those about small schools, which were also discussed by other hon. Members during the debate. We have considered the additional needs of small rural schools in developing the new funding arrangements. As my hon. Friend the Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) pointed out, very small schools are very expensive. We have built enough flexibility into the proposed system to allow local authorities and schools forums to support successful small schools—for example, through the lump sum that I referred to earlier.

In the remaining period of the spending review, schools are being funded at flat cash per pupil, in addition to which schools receive £600 per pupil eligible for free school meals. However, to support our proposed changes and to protect all schools, including small schools, from significant locally decided fluctuations in their budgets, we will continue to operate a minimum funding guarantee of minus 1.5% per pupil for 2013-14 and 2014-15. Therefore, in most circumstances, schools across the country can be assured that, over the next two years, their budgets will not be reduced by more than 1.5% per pupil each year.

Our analysis has shown that those measures will protect the majority of small schools. However, we are consulting on the issues and listening to all the sector’s concerns. Formal decisions on protection for small schools and, indeed, other areas of reform will be announced in the summer.

Education Policies (Warrington North)

Debate between David Mowat and Nick Gibb

Tuesday 23rd November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Gibb]

Yes—I was coming on to that point. I was not citing those figures as a reason not to take action; I merely wanted to point out what has been achieved in Warrington already.

In 2009, the proportion of 11-year-olds in Warrington achieving expected levels of attainment in both English and maths was 77%, compared to 72% in all schools in England. However, as the hon. Lady intimated, within Warrington, as in many other areas of the country, performance varies significantly from school to school. There are excellent schools in Warrington, as there are many excellent schools nationally, but it is also the case that too many schools are still struggling or coasting. The results at national level and the large gaps in performance between different groups of pupils are why we believe urgent reform is needed.

It is the Government’s ambition to raise academic standards in all this country’s schools to ensure a high-quality education for all children, particularly those from poorer backgrounds. The Government’s key objective is to close that attainment gap between those from the wealthiest backgrounds and those from the poorest backgrounds. We therefore share the hon. Lady’s aim that she set out in her remarks. Education is key to social mobility—indeed, in my opinion it is the only route to social mobility. That is why we announced yesterday our focus on ensuring that every child has mastered the basic skill of decoding and reading words by the end of the second year of primary school, through a light-touch screening check.

That is why we also sought to put onto the statute book the Academies Act 2010, to enable us to expand the academies programme, with 144 new academies having opened since the start of the academic year. That Act for the first time enables primary and special schools to become academies and to enjoy the greater freedoms that academy status brings.

[David Mowat]

I am interested in what the Minister is saying about social mobility. Does he recognise that in the past decade, we as a nation have slipped from fourth to 14th in science teaching and from eighth to 24th in mathematics teaching? The impact of that will have been felt in Warrington. Those statistics are a damning indictment of our ability to be socially mobile. Science, technology, engineering and maths, more than anything else, will provide jobs and skills for the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. I know that he has been campaigning in Warrington for his schools, and I congratulate him on his work, as I congratulate the hon. Lady on hers. On his point, that is why we are considering the national curriculum with the intention of restoring it to its intended purpose of providing a minimum core entitlement built around subject discipline. It is also why we are enabling parents, teachers and other education providers to set up free schools, so parents have a real choice for their children.

Good school buildings, though, are part of that package. School buildings need continuing investment, but it is vital that future spending represents the best possible value for money. Building Schools for the Future was an important programme of the previous Administration, which aimed to rebuild or refurbish every one of our 3,500 secondary schools by 2023. That was a bold and impressive ambition, but unfortunately the programme has failed spectacularly to live up to the hype. During five years of the programme, just 263 schools have benefited. The number of schools completely rebuilt under the programme is even smaller: just 136. That is a very small number for such a grand ambition.

Where BSF has delivered, it has been at exorbitant cost. As has been pointed out, rebuilding a school under BSF has turned out to be three times more expensive than constructing a commercial building and twice as expensive as building a school in Ireland, while the BSF budget has grown from £45 billion to £55 billion and the time scale has increased from 10 years to a projected 18. Some of the reasons for the additional cost and delay are understandable, but the fact remains that BSF had become a vast and confusing morass of process and cost by the time it was ended, and it represented extremely poor value for money. Some £60 million of the £250 million spent on BSF was frittered away on consultants and advisory costs before a brick had even been laid.

[David Mowat]

The Minister might be aware that the average cost of bidding for a BSF project was about £1 million, which is approximately the cost of a new primary school. Does that not say all that there is to be said about the waste implicit in the programme? Everybody wants more and better schools. Two schools in my constituency, Sir Thomas Boteler and Penketh high schools, desperately need refurbishment, but that must be done cost-effectively, not while frittering away money as BSF did.

[Mr Gibb]

That is where we want the money to go: not on consultants, but on refurbishment and bricks.

Nobody comes into politics to cut funding, least of all a new Government who have inherited a school system that we are worried lets down too many of its pupils. However, we are faced with a £156 billion budget deficit, and it is our responsibility—difficult and painful though it might be—to tackle that problem. Although we have announced the end of the BSF programme, that does not mean the end of capital spending on schools.

The hon. Lady will be aware that my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (David Mowat) has organised a meeting with my noble Friend Lord Hill at the Department for Education to make the case for Warrington schools. Also present will be the leader of the council and the head teachers of several schools that have been affected. I know that she is to attend that meeting as well, to represent the schools in her constituency.

In determining which projects would go ahead and which would cease, the Government developed a single set of criteria and applied it nationally. The three types of school project allowed to continue were: those projects that were part of their area’s initial BSF schemes and had reached financial close; the so-called sample projects that were part of their area’s initial BSF schemes, where financial close had not been reached but a preferred bidder had been appointed at close of dialogue; and some planned school projects in addition to a local authority’s initial scheme.

As the hon. Lady will know, Warrington formally entered the BSF programme in February 2010. As Warrington did not have any sample schemes or an outline business case approved before 1 January 2010, the Warrington scheme was stopped. I recognise that those areas close to the cut-off point for BSF, including the hon. Lady’s constituency, might find that extremely frustrating and upsetting, and I am acutely aware that stopping the BSF programmes for schools in her constituency has, understandably, caused dismay among students, teachers and parents. However, it is important to remember that the end of BSF does not mean the end of capital spending on schools. Money will still be spent on school buildings, but it is imperative, as my hon. Friend pointed out, that that money is spent on school infrastructure and buildings, not on the process, especially if we are to meet increasing demand for school places over the coming years as the birth rate rises.

To correct the hon. Lady, cash per pupil is per-pupil cash. Funding for schools will be maintained at the same amount of cash per pupil, so schools’ expanding pupil population will not affect it. On top of that, the pupil premium will come from outside the schools budget, meaning that over four years, spending on schools will rise in real terms.

[Mr Gibb]

Yes. The £2.5 billion is what enables us to deliver real-terms increases across the schools budget.

We appointed a review to consider how capital spending will be allocated in future. The hon. Lady discussed the Green Book allocation process; we will be considering the new basis on which scarce resources will be allocated. We appointed Sebastian James to conduct a root-and-branch review of all capital investment in schools, sixth-form colleges and other services for which the Department is responsible. The review is due to report back at the end of December. It will consider how best to meet parental demand, make design and procurement cost-effective and efficient, and overhaul the allocation and targeting of capital. That will give us the means to ensure that future decisions on capital spending are based on actual need and that all schools provide an environment that supports high-quality education.

Given the fact that the review is still in progress, I am sure that the hon. Lady and my hon. Friend will understand that I cannot make any specific commitments today on how much money will be allocated or exactly when. However, I assure them that the Department will continue to make capital allocations on the basis of need, in particular on dilapidation and deprivation, and that the end of BSF does not therefore mean the end of school building.

[David Mowat]

Does the Minister agree that this week’s announcement by Councillor Woodyatt, who has been mentioned extensively in this debate, of a new primary school in Warrington North, Oakwood avenue, is an example of the fact that capital spending is continuing? Not everything has been stopped by the hiatus in BSF.

[Mr Gibb]

Again, my hon. Friend makes a worthwhile intervention, for which I am grateful. Capital spending is being conducted, and several hundred schools are continuing work under the BSF programme.

The hon. Lady spoke about the education maintenance allowance. I acknowledge that evidence from the pilots shows that the EMA was successful, in its early days, in encouraging young people to stay in education. The decision to end the scheme will be disappointing to many young people, but I do not believe that anyone will have to drop out of education as a consequence. Already, 96% of 16-year-olds and 94% of 17-year-olds participate in education, employment or training. Attitudes to staying in education post-16 have changed. We are committed to going further still and attaining full participation by all young people up to the age of 18 by 2015.

However, a payment designed as an incentive to stay on is no longer the right way to ensure that those facing real financial barriers to continuing their education get the support that they need. We must reconsider the most effective way to support the most vulnerable young people to stay on in education. There is evidence that the EMA has helped a small number of young people stay on, but the same evidence suggests that the scheme has a significant dead-weight cost. Pilot evidence throughout the scheme and more recent research from the National Foundation for Educational Research found that almost 90% of young people receiving the EMA believe that they still would have participated in their courses if they had not received it.

The EMA is a hugely expensive programme, costing more than £560 million a year, £36 million of which is administration. Of course we do not want any young person to drop out of education due to financial difficulty, but we cannot justify continuing to fund a programme so expensive and poorly targeted. Currently, a discretionary learner support fund gives £25 million a year to schools, colleges and training providers to enable payments to be made to young people to help them meet the cost of their education. Colleges value the fund and are happy to play Lady Bountiful, as the hon. Lady said, by handing out the money to the young people whom they consider to be most in need. They can also respond to changes in students’ household income during the year. After the EMA is abolished, the fund will be increased significantly over the spending review period. The detail of future arrangements is still being considered.