Academies Bill [HL]

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I have no reason to doubt that—and if I discover that it is not the case, I will of course write immediately to the noble Lord.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I interject briefly to seek reassurance on those minimum standards. I am reminded by this debate of a report some time ago about a head teacher of a new academy school that had been built without a playground. The head teacher reportedly said, “We don't need one, we will have them working very hard in school all day, thank you very much”. A paper presented to the British Psychological Society emphasised the value to children of having play breaks in the school day, and looked at how those play breaks had been squeezed over time. It would be reassuring to know that there is something in the minimum standards about a play area for children in every new school. If the Minister would write to me on that, I would appreciate it.

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have joined in at this dreadfully late hour. I particularly value the point about CABE, which is an economical and expert organisation that we hope will continue to be used as it has been. I am grateful, of course, to the Minister for the degree of his understanding, and for his assurances on accommodation for children with disabilities. I was not quite so sure about the firmness of his assurances about design standards for all schools. Perhaps he might write to me with the assurance that the current design standards will be used for academies, or perhaps we could have a brief chat about it. If the outcome is satisfactory, there will be no need to take the matter further; but we do feel strongly that there must be this assurance. I will read Hansard carefully and hope for another letter, or perhaps a conversation. In the mean time, I am happy to withdraw the amendment.

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Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

190: After Clause 11, insert the following new Clause—
“Annual reports
The Secretary of State must produce a report every twelve months on the impact of the number of Academies established in the past year on the teaching workforce.”

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I will endeavour to be as brief as possible. This amendment would require the Secretary of State to produce a report every 12 months on the impact of the number of academies established in the past year on the teaching workforce. The purpose of that is twofold: first, to produce some mechanism to monitor the impact of these changes on the workforce; and, secondly, to flag up the concern that inadvertently these changes might lead to the creaming off of the best teachers into the best schools with the best pupils, with the consequence that the poorest pupils in the worst schools would have the least good teachers. I know that that is not the Government’s intention, but it is much better to consider such possibilities now rather than just walking down the road and running into them later.

As regards the reports, will the Minister consider some way of monitoring the impact of academies on the general teaching workforce? Perhaps there is already enough to measure what is happening on the ground. Can he comment on that, or perhaps write to me? I would also be grateful to hear from the Minister what action he can imagine if what I have described were to happen. He has already referred to what can be done—for instance, Teach First is focused on the most vulnerable children in the most difficult areas. I think that City Challenge helps in this area, too. What other mechanisms might be put in place to redress the possibility early on before the rot begins to set in?

I worry about stratification. I have already mentioned the consequences of a mixed market in the Prison Service, in child care and in independent social work practices. Perhaps I may remind your Lordships of the guardians ad litem, who were crack social workers appointed by the courts to represent the voice of children in public law in the courts. They present rather a good case in point for the rationale for having academies, because those social workers were frustrated by working in local authorities. By working for the courts, they were independent and pretty much decided how much time they wanted to dedicate to each child. The posts attracted many of the best social workers, paid less for their experience and gaining little career progression. At least a couple of your Lordships had spouses working in this area. Unfortunately, 12 years ago the Government decided that they wanted firmer control over these practitioners and as a consequence many of them simply left social work.

It is easy to be critical when one is not responsible for such a change, but I remember attending a meeting where the guardians were gathered. It was so disappointing to see such a great deal of expertise leaving the profession. Now we have the Child and Family Court Advice and Support Service, which amalgamates the former guardians ad litem and the former court reporting officers. There again we see a problem, in as much as CAFCASS requires officers who have at least three years’ experience in social work. That means that frontline social workers are pulled off the front line into CAFCASS and are taken away from where they are needed most.

My point is that that was all done with the best of intentions, but the consequences were not thought through at the time. I hope that the Minister will reflect on that. I would appreciate a sense that the Government have considered the issues, that they have ways of monitoring the impact and that there are means of taking action if that becomes a problem in future. I beg to move.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I hope that I can provide some reassurance on the concerns raised by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, which he has made consistently throughout Committee. The Department for Education publishes comprehensive statistics each year on the school workforce—I give way to my noble friend.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his courteous and helpful reply. I hope, like him, that there is no given number of good teachers. I am afraid that my experience elsewhere is that there have been shortages of the best, but I very much hope that his Government’s programme next year will continue the process that was begun by the preceding Government to raise the status of teaching and to make it more attractive. The current recession may well boost that.

A thought occurs to me. One thing that we have done in children’s homes in this country is to have Danish pedagogues working alongside British practitioners. Since we have talked a fair deal about Finland and other countries, perhaps we might encourage an exchange with a country such as Finland so that some of its teachers come and practise in our schools, particularly in our more difficult inner-city schools, as another means of raising standards.

I am grateful to the Minister and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 190 withdrawn.