Department for Education

James Frith Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)]

I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Improving education chances for all young people in my constituency is one of my top priorities, as it will be for many across the House but, sadly, for too many the reality does not match the Government’s rhetoric. So I want to record the reality shared with me by the 67 head teachers from primary, secondary and special schools across the borough of Bury in their letter to The Bury Times in April this year, in which they said:

“Ministers repeatedly claim that education funding is protected and seem to be in denial about the realities of school funding and its impact on children. They talk about there being more money in education than ever before, when there are half a million more children in schools than in 2010. Tough decisions will have to be taken. Governors and Headteachers can no longer guarantee that such cuts will not impact on our children.”

Their letter goes on to warn of the consequences of this funding shortfall—larger class sizes, fewer teachers and senior staff, decrepit school buildings, loss of teaching assistants, fewer GCSE options on offer, difficulty in recruiting teachers and so on. One Bury head told me:

“It is quite simple—there is less money in schools. Government rhetoric says that schools’ funding has been maintained but does not mention the additional costs (NI payments, paying for services which were previously free, pay increases, pension increases etc.)”

Most alarmingly, this impacts on children with special educational needs and disability. I am pleased to have secured, with colleagues from the Education Committee in the Chamber today, the SEND inquiry, which has now started. More than half of the Bury heads responding to my survey told me that they had been forced to cut special educational needs provision. Three quarters say that the number of staff they have dedicated to SEN support has either stayed the same or fallen, despite increasing numbers of pupils needing access to it, while 52% expect to have to cut it further in the next two years. One primary head said, “I do not have the necessary funding to support some of our most vulnerable children in terms of SEND.” Schools need support if we are to create and sustain the dynamic mainstream education system that I would advocate.

It is unlikely to be a coincidence that the number of excluded pupils in alternative provision with SEND is on the rise. Some 77% of excluded pupils in 2016-17 had special educational needs and disabilities, with heads marking the reason for their exclusion from an extensive list of options as “other”. “Other” now represents nearly 20%, despite being a category intended for rare use on which the Department holds no data. In his recent letter to the Education Committee, the Minister for School Standards provided no data for 2017-18 SEND exclusions, which will have been submitted already but are not disclosed. Perhaps he might announce those figures in his closing remarks.

We need more scrutiny of schools’ use of “other” as a reason for excluding, as well as a more sympathetic system that supports and encourages schools to include and does not penalise them through the Ofsted framework. Pressures on our local authorities compound the problem. Some 250 children are being educated out of borough in Bury, at a cost of £6.5 million. I urge the Government to introduce a pupil premium-style funding allocation for children with SEND. Let us call it “SEND spend” and fund it properly. The high needs block funding must rise in line with costs, and the rise in SEND numbers needs to be better reflected explicitly in the system.

In Bury, I have challenged the local authority to commit to no out-of-borough care in five years. Let us not unsettle children who wish to remain, but enable a return to mainstream for children for whom a reasonable adjustment can be made. Alternative provision has a profound role to play—one that I celebrate and defend—but it must not become an alternative to a patient, sympathetic and inclusive mainstream system. This Government have presided over a highly pressurised, poorly funded system that leads schools to off-roll and to exclude, not include. Where now for Every Child Matters? We have a plan for some children, not all, and our most vulnerable are being left behind.

If we delve a little deeper into the Government’s auto-response that 1.9 million more children are in good or outstanding schools since 2010, we see that it is misleading. As I said to the Minister at last month’s Education Committee session, and as the Education Policy Institute confirmed in its report yesterday, a large part of that increase is due to a rise in the birth rate. About a quarter of the 1.9 million pupils—nearly 600,000—are the result of an increase in the population of pupils.

[Nick Gibb]

Can I point out that, in 2010, 68% of schools were judged by Ofsted to be good or outstanding and that figure is now 89%? In between those two dates, Ofsted has raised the bar of what constitutes good or outstanding.

[James Frith]

With respect, the Minister will have a chance to address these points when he sums up.

I have heard of Government intervention, but I am unsure how this Government can take credit for an increase in the birth rate—and anyway, the birth rate increase happened on Labour’s watch. Another quarter of pupils are in schools rated good or outstanding that have not been rated by Ofsted for at least eight years, and 300,000 pupils are in schools not inspected since 2010 because they are in converter academies. I know there is much agreement across the House on these issues, so I say to Ministers: take note of the forensic attention that our heads and your colleagues are paying to performance and ensure that, come the Budget, that is reflected in the allocation.

I will conclude with a brief word on capital spending. In response to my recent request for Lord Agnew and the Secretary of State to consider rebuilding Tottington High in Bury in my constituency, I received a letter acknowledging that the cost of a new school is on average between £9 million and £12 million in current money. Lord Agnew referred us to the £2 million pot given to Bury to look after all its schools. Since the ambitious days of Building Schools for the Future, capital funding has all but disappeared. Tottington High has been overlooked. It was booted off the BSF when the new Government came into power in 2010 and then pushed off their list for new builds. School governors expect more contact from the HSE than the DFE. As I asked the Secretary of State last week, will he send officials from his Department to visit the school to see for themselves the case to rebuild? If he responds to me in this debate, I will update the school when I am proudly its prize-giving speaker on Thursday night.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nick Gibb]

Of course I acknowledge that, but the hon. Lady also has to acknowledge that school funding is at a record level—£42.4 billion this year, rising to £43.5 billion next year. Of course I acknowledge there are costs that schools have absorbed, and I will come to the measures we have taken to help schools to deal with those rising costs, which include employers’ national insurance contributions. Those costs have been absorbed by the private sector, and they have been incurred across the public sector—public sector pensions have also been an increased cost across Whitehall. We are helping schools to address those issues.

By prioritising frontline spending within the Department’s budget, we have ensured that core funding for schools and high needs has risen over and above the allocations set out at the last spending review. The total core schools and high needs budget will rise from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £43.5 billion by 2019-20.

The hon. Member for Bury North (James Frith) mentioned Ofsted, and he pointed out that pupil numbers have increased. Of course he is right, which is why we have created 825,000 new school places since 2010, in contrast with the cut of 100,000 school places under the last Labour Government, despite the increased birth rate being very clear even then.

Sixty-eight per cent. of schools were judged good or outstanding by Ofsted in 2010, compared with 89% today. Although outstanding schools are exempt from routine inspection, Ofsted will trigger an inspection if academic results begin to slide in an outstanding school. The schools in the constituency of the hon. Member for Bury North will see a 6.9% per pupil increase in funding once the national funding formula is fully implemented.

The shadow Minister thanked Conservative Members, and I would like to thank Labour Members for their contributions to this debate because it gives me the opportunity to point out to the hon. Member for Burnley (Julie Cooper) that schools in her constituency will see a 3.2% increase in funding as a result of the introduction of the national funding formula. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden) will see a 3.5% per pupil increase at the end point of the introduction of the national funding formula. The hon. Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns) will see an increase of 3.4% per pupil under the NFF. The hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy) will see a 4.2% increase in per pupil funding as a consequence of the introduction of the NFF. She also talked about teaching assistants, and I should point out to her that in January 2010 there were 194,000 full-time equivalent TAs in our schools, whereas today there are 263,000 TAs. Finally, I should point out to the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) that schools in his constituency face a 3.9% increase in pupil funding.

[James Frith]

I appreciate such sharpened focus and attention in the Minister’s remarks. He feels strongly supported by that information. Would he care to respond to my request for additional SEND funding to be maintained in line with the increase in the number of SEND pupils? Does he believe it acceptable that 77% of excluded pupils have special educational needs and disabilities?

[Nick Gibb]

I should point out that special educational needs funding is rising from £5 billion in 2013 to £6 billion this year. The statistics that the hon. Gentleman referred to in his speech—the exclusion figures—will be published on 19 July in the usual way, as we do every year.

I wish to point out—