Graham Stuart
Main Page: Graham Stuart (Conservative - Beverley and Holderness)Department Debates - View all Graham Stuart's debates with the Department for Education
(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Stephen Twigg
The difference on this occasion is that the schools affected have worked for years on a programme for their own improvement, and they came together in Building Schools for the Future. Now that has all been stopped, except for schools that will potentially have academy status. The problem is the uncertainty. I want schools to make the decisions that are best for them. The head of De La Salle wants his school to be an academy and sees the educational advantages, whereas the head teacher and chair of governors of Holly Lodge, another school that was due to be rebuilt under Building Schools for the Future, have decided that they do not want that for their school. I do not want schools to make such decisions simply on the basis of whether the extra money is available.
I wish briefly to make a point about where we go from here. Although there is a real sense of loss and devastation in Liverpool that we are not getting Building Schools for the Future funding, there is also a hard-headed pragmatism. We recognise that there will be a new show in town, and we are starting to consider what the alternatives might be for securing the much-needed capital funding for the city.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Is it the hon. Gentleman’s understanding that Building Schools for the Future would have carried on precisely as originally envisaged had Labour been in power, and that the 50% reduction in capital spending that the last Government had pencilled in, in broad terms and with no details given, would not have had an impact on it?
Stephen Twigg
That is absolutely my understanding, and the figures that the Department for Children, Schools and Families gave under the previous Government were those signed off by the Treasury.
Vernon Coaker
That is right, and my hon. Friend’s comments highlight that we are not trying to make a party political point. We want to ensure that that is the case for local authorities of all political colours and types; that is fundamental and crucial. As I have said, however, I accept that it may not be possible to do this today, as the lawyers will, no doubt, need to check it.
Mr Graham Stuart
I think that I share some of the shadow Minister’s concerns. Low incidence is not about the acuteness of the need; it is about the fact that it is pretty rare. One of the risks of having funds devolved to the individual academies is that they may see this rare condition only once every five years, when suddenly a pupil turns up out of the blue with that need. That is why there is an issue about the difference between where the resource lies and who has the incentive to deliver the service. We need reassurance as to how we will have the system and incentives in place to ensure that, without the Secretary of State having to intervene at a local authority level to assess the whole authority’s failing, the needs of the parents and child concerned are met and there is not a big fuss in doing that.
Vernon Coaker
I totally agree, and the hon. Gentleman makes his point very well. However, I am unclear about the legislative mechanism that we will use to try to stop bad situations arising. I cannot be sure what it will be without there being something either in the Bill or, perhaps, in statutory guidance.
Vernon Coaker
That is an extremely interesting and good point. As I say, the problem is that there are a number of points like that. That one would be worth testing with an amendment to see where it is catered for in the Bill or, if the Bill does not cater for it, where it is catered for in any document relating to the Bill. For example, I think I am right in saying that the new model funding agreement does not contain a requirement for there to be a teacher responsible for children in care, whereas the old funding agreement did contain one. If I have got that wrong, I will correct it. All sorts of little changes sometimes take place in the documents, letters and guidance that go along with such Bills. The changes are sometimes not debated to the extent that they need to be and they then turn out to be crucial. Even Ministers get to the point where they try to do something and are then told, “You can’t do that because section (c) on page 48 of the guidance that you passed says you cannot.” They find that a little change that they had not properly noticed, which may have been implemented with good intent, has unintended consequences.
The hon. Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Mr Timpson) was right to make the point that he did. One of the organisations that I shall refer to in a minute has made representations to us about how we ensure that the needs of children in care and of children with other associated needs are met within the new academy model arrangements that the Bill proposes. All sorts of questions like this arise, particularly if we strip out, as the Bill does in essence, the role of the local authority and devolve the funding to individual school. One unanswered question goes to the heart of the Bill: what is the co-ordinating mechanism at a local level to try to ensure that some of these things happen? That is not in place, and that is a real problem.
Mr Graham Stuart
On a slightly different track, is the shadow Minister aware of evidence that, despite the vast increase in the number of learning support assistants, the more time children with special educational needs spend with learning support assistants and the less time they spend with a teacher, the worse is their learning experience? One of the dangers of a centrally co-ordinated system is that schools that challenge a child’s being taken off for special support might deprive that child of being in the classroom with the teacher and, perhaps, having a better opportunity to learn. We must get the balance right between ensuring provision and not having a monolithic delivery that stops innovation, particularly for the most vulnerable in our society who are too often failed.
Vernon Coaker
I do not disagree with that. Again, the freedom for a school to determine the appropriate mix between teachers, teaching assistants and other staff as well as the appropriate delivery method is a matter for the school. The Chair of the Select Committee is right to say that. However, it does not negate the fact—I think he was making this point, too—that alongside that there is a need for some sort of co-ordinating mechanism. He is quite right that there is a need for balance and there will be debate and discussion about where that balance should be and where the line should be drawn. However, part of the problem is that, as I said yesterday, this is a bit of a leap in the dark. We are almost being asked to take a leap in the dark and being told, “Don’t worry, it will be okay.” There are some fundamental questions that Ministers have been unable to answer, even though they have the best of intentions, because the Bill is permissive and just says, “Well, we’ll allow this to happen but we are not quite sure where it will go.”
A number of concerns were raised by different organisations. We have heard concerns from the Adolescent and Children’s Trust about children in care and about how these services will be met. It is seeking assurances about looked-after children and young people in academies, and it says that it wants recognition from the Government that there is a need for a local agency to assess need and to plan and cost education support services and that necessary resources must be not only identified but ring-fenced.
The Association of Educational Psychologists has also written to us, extremely concerned about some of the changes to local education funding and about how we can ensure the protection of educational psychologists if all the money goes to the schools. The National Autistic Society has made many of the same points about protecting young people in schools. TreeHouse, another charity for autism, is concerned about what it will mean if funds and resources are devolved to individual schools.
Then we come to funding. The Local Government Association states in its briefing, which all Members will have received, that
“90% of funding for schools goes, via the local authority, directly to schools with the remainder allocated back to schools following consultation with schools through the local Schools Forum…Around 20% of this ‘central spending’ goes to private, voluntary or independent nurseries, and the majority of the rest (60%) is used to provide services for pupils with special educational needs, and those who are excluded from mainstream education…In the debate around the advantages to schools of seeking academy status much has been made of the advantage to schools of retaining this 10% of ‘central spending’. However, it is important to understand that this is funding to meet the need of the pupils with the greatest needs. It is crucial that this funding is distributed in a way that does not unfairly benefit academies over maintained schools.”
I do not know whether hon. Members have had a chance to look at the Government’s impact assessment, but tucked away, where it states that local authorities will face a reduction in the moneys that they receive for the provision of such services as it will be distributed to schools, it states the assumption that the savings to local authorities in administration costs will be negligible. So, although they will have fewer resources to provide for special educational needs in an area, they will not make any savings from an administrative point of view either.
It is also totally unclear exactly how all this will be worked out. What will a school that chooses to become an academy receive? I know there is a ready reckoner on the Department’s website, but will the Minister explain how it works? [Interruption.] That was not done yesterday: we asked, but there was no time to do it, so I am asking again today because I think we would all like to know how the ready reckoner works so that schools can understand what they will receive.
What proportion of the money that those schools receive would have gone to local authorities to provide, centrally, services for children with special educational needs? What proportion of the additional money they receive will go to schools and will not be retained centrally by local authorities? How will that be worked out given that every school that is fast-tracked to academy status is outstanding and has, as the Centre for Economic Performance has said, lower numbers of pupils with SEN?
How will schools that have a lower incidence of SEN and that apply to become academies be funded? Will it be on a per pupil basis or a needs basis? If schools are funded on a per pupil basis rather than on a needs basis, big schools with a low incidence of SEN that convert to academies will receive exceptionally high amounts of money that would previously have been retained centrally to provide SEN services to the pupils and children across the local education area who needed them. Why did The Times publish an article on 12 June saying that there was considerable confusion among local authorities and schools about how much money schools would receive? Why are some local authorities saying that when they add together all the amounts that the ready reckoner comes up with as being distributed to schools on the basis of centrally provided services the total is sometimes more than they receive? We need some explanation from the Minister about that.
Pat Glass
I would argue that academies serve poorer neighbourhoods and it is more difficult to get into an academy in the first place. People may argue that academies take a higher proportion of children with SEN than maintained schools, but as I argued earlier it is up to academies to define who is SEN and who is not, and they may have a very different tolerance level from that of maintained schools—that has certainly been my experience.
Mr Graham Stuart
I mean no disrespect to the hon. Lady’s expertise or passion in this area, but she suggests that the existing academies make it harder for children with SEN to get in than other schools. However, the only data that we have suggest that that is not true. She suggests that academies may block children with real SEN getting in and then falsely nominate children as having SEN afterwards. She needs to substantiate that, because it is a serious allegation and if true should be looked into in more detail.
Neil Carmichael
That is also an interesting point, for which I thank the hon. Gentleman.
The Bill is essentially a good measure. It provides for more academies, and we support that because we believe that good leadership, good management, flexibility and less intrusion from local authorities will deliver a higher standard of education. Of course, that must include provision for special educational needs.
We have been promised a Green Paper on special educational needs. The time to discuss the subject is when that is published. A constant theme of the past two or three hours has been the lack of satisfactory provision for special educational needs throughout the country. There are pockets where it is not good enough and delivery that needs to be improved. As long as that is the case, we cannot be satisfied, and we must therefore endeavour to improve the overall provision for special educational needs.
Mr Graham Stuart
It is a pleasure to participate in the debate. It was also a pleasure to hear the maiden speeches of my hon. Friends the Members for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart) and for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe). Both spoke in a fine fashion, and they will be an adornment to not only their constituencies but the House.
I want to start on the most positive note that I can. I think that we all agree that the current system for dealing with special educational needs is not appropriate. The—I used the word yesterday—“pushiest” parents, certainly the most articulate, are best able to get their children statemented and their needs recognised. That is the current system, and people realise that it is not good enough. We heard from the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), in another excellent contribution based on her years of experience, her explanation of the difficulties. The current system is broken.
The Minister has promised a Green Paper in the autumn to look at the whole subject of special educational needs. At that time, I hope that the House will have more time to reflect on, consider and possibly improve the policy. Rushing policy making does not always help, particularly when dealing with low incidence SEN or something that is on the margins of the mainstream. Although there are so many children with SEN, it remains to be tackled.
I do not support amendment 71, but I think that it may be looking for an explanation from the Minister of how the system will work. The hon. Member for North West Durham, who will be an excellent Member of the House and an excellent member of the Select Committee, talked about priorities. That brings me to my favourite topic when dealing with public service reform: incentives. Too often, we reorganise the system without fully understanding the incentives that are in place for the various players in it. We deserve an explanation from the Minister. Given his ability, I know that we will get it. I want to hear how precisely the incentives will work for schools that at times resist parents who are trying to do the best for their children, to the extent that only parents with the nous, money and self-confidence can challenge them and get their child statemented. What happens to the others? I want to hear how the system will work so that, following the changes, it does not become worse. There is nothing obvious in the Bill to make it worse, but I want a cohesive narrative from the Minister about how the system will be better even before the Green Paper is produced. I want to be assured that it cannot possibly get worse. We cannot have more parents in that position.
People come to us, as constituency MPs, about all sorts of topics. I can think of many constituents who are particularly articulate, well educated and well placed, and who have relatives and friends in good positions, yet they are still endlessly and unjustly frustrated by a system that can often seem unbelievably resistant to doing the right thing.
Ian Mearns
Having worked in the system and taken a number of cases to education appeals panels, I have often seen a situation in which council officers think they are doing the right thing by the system by refusing parents what they want, because they believe that other provision is nearly as good but less costly. Does the Chair of Education Committee accept that if parents want provision that costs tens of thousands of pounds a year, allowing that provision incurs an opportunity cost to the system and other children within it?
Mr Stuart
There is always an opportunity cost and people always have to make judgment calls. We need to know who makes those calls, what the pressures on them and their incentives are, and their accountability. It all comes down to that, and understanding what the accountability mechanisms will be if there is a much-increased number of free academies.
Mr Hayes
Rather than waiting till I sum up, may I deal with that point head-on now? My hon. Friend, as Chair of the Education Committee, clearly has an entitlement to ask such penetrating questions—indeed, we expect him to do so—so let me be clear. The Secretary of State would decide whether appropriate provision had been made. If not, he would either direct the local authority to make it, or in exceptional circumstances, ask an alternative body to do so. The funding for such provision in the latter case would come in the first instance from the Department for Education, which would then consider how to ensure that funding in the longer term prevails. That is an absolute assurance that the Government take my hon. Friend’s point seriously: those powers rest with the Secretary of State.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful to the Minister for that explanation. I assume that in reality, the “Secretary of State” means the Young People’s Learning Agency. My understanding is that the systems, embryonic as they are, are probably not as good as they ought to be, and I assume that YPLA officers representing the Secretary of State will do that work. I understand and accept the Minister’s reassurance, and I think the Bill has been improved, but I am trying to work out how the pressures and incentives will work to ensure that the school admits fairly and looks after SEN children in the appropriate way when the decision gets all the way down to the school, the parent and the local authority officer, who is quite a long way away from the YPLA officer. I am struggling to imagine what will happen at that level and to think that all the way through.
Mr Stuart
I am grateful for the Minister’s compliment, which was not flattery—if I had said that it was, he would have corrected me.
One of the issues in this Bill, which the amendment seeks to draw out, is the system-wide implications of a growing number of schools—including free schools and existing schools—becoming independent and taking away money currently spent on their behalf by the local authority. Those of us of a supply-side revolution, 1980s, turning the sick man of Europe around disposition naturally think that things will regrow and they can be better directed by people closer to the front line. However, we need an explanation, because schools are not businesses and we need to understand how it will work.
I wish to chide the Minister gently, although he may not have been responsible, because the place that one would naturally look for that explanation—it may be a by-product of the last Government’s approach—is the equalities impact assessment. At the risk of upsetting my right hon. and hon. Friends, I would criticise the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker)—I will pronounce his constituency correctly—because in many ways he has been too gentle about the equalities impact assessment in the last couple of days. I think it is less adequate than he has made it out to be.
The equalities impact assessment is rather thin. It provides fair information, but it tries to put the best gloss on that information. Given that this is an important document to accompany a flagship Bill, I would not expect paragraph 22 to be repeated, in its entirety, as paragraph 24. I would not expect paragraph 23, which is quite long, to be split and repeated in its entirety as paragraphs 25 and 26. It would suggest that someone has not even bothered to read this so-called important equalities impact assessment. At the end, I was waiting for an assessment of the system-wide impact and the long-term and profound implication of having lots of free schools. But when I got there I found paragraph 31, which states:
“We believe that the Academies programme is already working towards promoting inclusion and equality to the benefit of all pupils in the programme. An adverse impact is unlikely”.
Well, thank you very much. That is not an adequate explanation of the possible system-wide impacts of this Bill.
I know that we will have a master class and a tour de force explanation from the Minister on the system-wide impact and why the Bill will work, but the impact assessment is inadequate. I meant to be gentler about this than I have been—I have a tendency to overstatement —and I apologise to the Minister. But I wish that the impact assessment had been a better document and included more recognition of the potential system-wide impacts, especially on marginal areas—if I may call them that—such as SEN.
Gavin Barwell
I will keep my remarks brief as I am conscious of the time and that the Committee wishes to hear the Minister’s reply. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass), who made an exceptional speech. She brings real expertise in this area to the House and I am sure that we will benefit from that in the months and years ahead. I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Gedling (Vernon Coaker). Both yesterday and today he has approached these proceedings in a much more conciliatory tone than the right hon. Member for Morley and Outwood (Ed Balls) did on Second Reading. That may reflect the difference between Second Reading and Committee stage, or it may reflect the difference in their personalities, but it is certainly appreciated on this side of the Committee.
I disagreed with the hon. Gentleman on whether primary schools should be allowed to be academies and whether surplus places would be a ban on academy status. However, he is right to bring the issue of special educational needs up today. I imagine that all hon. Members have received a briefing from the Special Educational Consortium, which tells us that 21% of children have some form of SEN and that 12% of children with SEN achieve five grade A* to C passes at GCSE, compared to 57% of their peers. That shows the importance of getting this issue right—not just for the children with SEN, but because if we do not get it right there will be an impact on other children in the mainstream setting. The likely impact of this policy on children with SEN is therefore a key test. I am not sure whether the amendment addresses some of the concerns that he raised in his speech, but he is right to ask for some more detailed clarification, particularly in the light of the important amendments that came through on Report and Third Reading in the House of Lords.
It is worth briefly putting on the record the improvements that the Government have already made by ensuring that for the first time academies will have the same SEN obligations as maintained schools. I also want to mention the improvement that I referred to in an intervention that the hon. Gentleman kindly took, which is that the new model funding arrangement now provides that the Secretary of State can direct academies to comply with any obligations relating to SEN. Although the new agreement will not apply to existing academies, hopefully many of them will choose to convert to it, given that in other ways it will provide more freedoms. Over time, therefore, the new agreement might spread.
The core of the objections and concerns raised relates to what will happen if many more schools become academies and the pressures that that will put on services provided by local authorities. Yesterday, the hon. Gentleman expressed concern about the scale of the changes—he used the phrase, “opening the flood gates”—although Ministers have provided reassurances on the pace at which they think things are likely to proceed. However, many of the same issues arise over the role of local authorities in school improvement. For example, my council provides a very good school improvement service, which I hope schools will still want to buy into when they become academies.
I want to make three more quick points. First, the requirement for academies to have the same obligations as maintained schools is not in the Bill, but will be in the funding agreements, which means that parents who think that academies are not fulfilling those obligations will need to go to the Secretary of State, I presume, if they have a problem, rather than resort to the law. Not to have to resort to the legal route, but to go to the Secretary of State, might actually be an advantage to parents. However, as the hon. Member for North West Durham said, we should think about this from a parent’s perspective, so it would be helpful if the Minister could provide more guidance on how that complaints procedure would work. What does a parent do if they have a child in an academy that they think is not meeting their child’s SEN needs? What is the process for making a complaint?
My second point is one that has already been made—it is about the Opposition amendment passed on Third Reading in the Lords on protecting low incidence SEN services. The point made by the hon. Member for Gedling about the need to define exactly what those services are was spot on. It is really important that we get a clear definition, either today or on Monday, as the Bill goes through this House.
My final point concerns children receiving central SEN services. Children with high levels of need will tend to have statements, so the idea that the money follows the pupil and goes to the schools is very important. In my constituency, we have a school called Addington high, which has an excellent unit for children with autism, and most of the children there will have a statement. It is right, therefore, that the money goes to the school, but clearly, as some of my hon. Friends have said, where local authorities are providing services, much will depend on the value that schools place on those services. If they are good services and the local authority is doing a good job, it seems likely that any academy that takes over will want to purchase those services.
The hon. Member for Gedling was right to raise the issues before us, because further clarity is required in certain areas. However, I do not support the amendment, because I am not sure that it directly addresses some of his points. I very much look forward to hearing the Minister’s winding-up speech.
Mr Wright
As I mentioned earlier, clauses 7 and 8 are significant elements of the Bill; they change dramatically the current situation on the transfer of school surpluses and property. It is worth reiterating the point that I made about clause 7. Clause 7(2) requires that when the Secretary of State approves a maintained school’s application to become an academy,
“The local authority must determine…whether, immediately before the conversion date, the school has a surplus, and…if so, the amount of that surplus.”
Under clause 7(3), once that is done the local authority must pay the surplus over to the proprietor of the academy. As I said earlier, that represents a fundamental change to the current landscape, as at the moment surpluses of closing schools remain with the local authority. That includes cases in which an existing school is closed to become an academy.
A school might have built up a surplus for many reasons. Shared facilities might generate an income, for example, or a local authority or other party might have provided additional funding for work in the community and the maintained school might have been encouraged to build up a surplus to ensure that the new community facility could be built or established. That has certainly happened in my constituency, and I am sure that it has happened in other Members’ as well. In Hartlepool, a sports centre has been built on the estate of a particular school, through increased funding from various sources and surpluses held by that school. The understanding is that it will be used by other schools and by community groups.
Under the terms of the Bill as it stands, in such a situation the surplus would be transferred to the new academy, and any benefit to the wider community that was originally envisaged—the original purpose of the surpluses—would be lost. What reassurances can the Minister give to ensure that that does not happen? What is the Minister doing to stop a situation in which, somewhat late in the process, a school that has built up surpluses and is anticipating the building of a new community or shared facility on its estate, following negotiations with the local authority, then decides to convert to an academy?
That could happen without real consultation, but the school would hold on to those surpluses. The issue comes back to unilateral decisions that fail to take into account the wider community and collaboration between schools and the local education authority. In essence, the amendment tries to probe the Minister by asking what checks and balances he will insert into clause 7 to ensure that such surpluses are identified as appropriate and constitute value for money.
Mr Graham Stuart
Why would a school that had built up such surpluses to provide a community facility for joint use suddenly wish to deviate from that when it sought to become an academy? I am not saying that that would be impossible, but the hon. Gentleman seems to be suggesting that it would be the norm.
Mr Wright
I am not suggesting at all that that would be the norm, but we could provide a control mechanism in the legislation on this issue, to tighten up the existing provision. We are not suggesting that the transfer of surpluses should not take place, but wider circumstances might be considered that could prove detrimental to neighbouring schools.
The whole Committee would agree with the need to see transparency and value for money in all aspects involving public money and public assets. To respond to the Chair of the Education Committee, I should say that, essentially, clause 7 moves taxpayers’ money from the public sector to the private sector. What controls is the Minister proposing to ensure that that is subject to appropriate balance, scrutiny, transparency and probity?
Mr Graham Stuart
It is surely unfair to say that the clause moves resources to the private sector. We are talking about an independent state school, but it would still be a state school and not part of the private sector. Yesterday evening, the hon. Gentleman made a desperate effort to change the wording to “free market schools” rather than the wording in his amendment; that suggested more political desperation than is the norm with him.
Mr Wright
I thank the Chair of the Education Committee and I entirely understand his point. Perhaps I should moderate my language in Committee. However, the point is essentially the same: how do we ensure that local taxpayers get good value for money? Like the equalities impact assessment, the impact assessment of the Bill is somewhat vague and light on detail. It states:
“Total one-off costs incurred by schools converting to an academy are estimated to be an average £78k including VAT.
Since the VAT costs are a transfer payment from DoE to HMRC, they are not economic costs. The total economic costs per conversion to academy are therefore £66k.
However, there is scope for Academies meeting these costs from within their existing balances which could reduce the cost to DFE to as little as £25,000 per Academy.”
Will the Minister outline the evidence base for this? No mention whatever is made of the transfer of surpluses in this regard. In preparing for the Bill and with regard to the impact assessment, what work has been done in relation to surpluses that could be transferred to the academy? I would be interested in any information that he could provide about that.
The purpose of amendment 76 is to address those concerns about transparency and accountability and to try to ensure that there is an appropriate process.
Mr Wright
I will come to that, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the amendments are not contradictory—they are trying to address a similar problem and to ensure that we can resolve this issue.
Amendment 76 would ensure that all existing and contingent liabilities, including any liabilities that have been incurred on behalf of the school by the local authority, should also be considered. In this context, I take the contingent liability to mean a possible obligation that arises from past events and whose existence will be confirmed only by the occurrence of one or more uncertain future events not wholly within the existing school’s control. An example could be outstanding legal cases. We discussed in Committee last night the possibility of legal challenge from staff who might not have had the opportunity or the time to consider properly the TUPE arrangements of moving from a maintained school to an academy—a point that has been well articulated by my hon. Friend the Member for Blaydon (Mr Anderson). That might be considered a possible contingent liability.
Another example, which has been discussed this afternoon, could be any liabilities arising under current private finance initiative arrangements. We had an interesting debate about amendment 70, with particular regard to PFI. One of the risks is that a local authority could have a potential 25-year period of liabilities arising from PFI, and converting a maintained school to an academy means that the academy has no way of being liable for that payment over that quarter of a century. What reassurance can the Minister give in that regard?
Mr Graham Stuart
May I take the hon. Gentleman back to TUPE and the speech last night by the hon. Member for Blaydon (Mr. Anderson), who was passionate about the uncertainty that could beset many employees of schools? Will he, as the Minister did, but from his side of the House, put their minds at rest? Can he confirm that when a school converts and becomes an academy, the staff will have no reason to believe that they will have any different conditions, and that it is therefore hard to see exactly what great liabilities could be in store in that transfer?
Mr Wright
I am not suggesting that there would automatically be any sort of change or reduction in terms and conditions. However, the freedoms and flexibilities, and the movement away from national terms and conditions and pay scales, could provide a degree of anxiety for staff, particularly low-paid staff who may have given good and loyal service to the local education authority for many years. For example, staff might think that they have had insufficient time to consider what converting to an academy might mean, and therefore, in conjunction with the union, take their employer to a tribunal. Perhaps that should be considered as part of a contingent liability. We need to ensure that all possible scenarios have been considered when taking into account the transfer of surpluses.
Clause 8 allows for the transfer of other property, and amendment 66 would remove the word “liabilities” from subsection (5)(b), which refers to the apportionment of properties, rights and liabilities. In response to the point made by the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson), the reasoning behind the amendment is similar to the point that I made earlier about contingent liabilities. I reiterate that there is a particular concern about arrangements such as those under the private finance initiative regarding the transfer of liabilities, and the potential for them to be apportioned between the local authority and a new academy. In a PFI arrangement with 25 years of payments still to go, we must ask how appropriate costs should be so apportioned, and the amendment is an attempt to resolve that question.
We reason that if an academy is to operate as an independent school with full autonomy and freedom from the local authority, it should be responsible for full liability under any PFI arrangement in respect of the school. That seems balanced and fair, and I ask the Minister whether he is opposed to it.
We seek reassurance from the Minister that local authorities, which will face immense financial pressures over the next few years, with enormous potential cuts and pressures from changing social circumstances such as the ageing population, will not be liable for the debts of schools that have transferred as well as having to cover the costs of central services such as payroll, human resources and other infrastructure that they were, and will be, providing to maintained schools. I hope that he can provide that reassurance, and I commend the amendments to the Committee.