Forced Conversion of Schools to Academies

John Pugh Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2013 Westminster Hall

[John Pugh (Southport) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main.

I do not know whether those present have ever had the privilege of reading Evelyn Waugh’s “Decline and Fall,” but it starts with the main character, Paul Pennyfeather, being debagged by something he refers to as the “Bollinger club” and having to leave Oxford in shameful circumstances after being caught running across the quad without his trousers. He subsequently takes up a career as a school teacher after going to an agency—a thinly disguised version of what used to be called Gabbitas-Thring—that tries to interest him in going to a school somewhere in Wales that is recommended to him as follows:

“We class schools, you see, into four grades: Leading School, First Rate School, Good School, and School. Frankly”—

says the man at the agency—

“School is pretty bad.”

We may be reaching a point where to confess to being a school, rather than an academy, might be seen as a sign of failure.

I am relaxed about school types. On a personal note, I was educated in grammar schools. I taught for a short period in a secondary modern school, and for much longer periods I taught in an inner-city comprehensive school and a top-flight independent school, so I think I know a fair amount about school diversity.

The result of my experience is that I am not particularly impressed by the labels that schools bear, and I am fairly agnostic about their structures. However, I differ in that respect from most Ministers, of whatever political persuasion, who seem preoccupied by structures, which interest me far less. The reason for that may be because structures are, as far as the passing occupants of the Department for Education are concerned, quite easy things to change. Frankly, on a wet Thursday afternoon in an inner-city school, or in a rural school for that matter, with a class of difficult adolescents, the name on the board outside the school, or the school’s governance structure, makes precious little difference to the reality inside the classroom.

What does appear to make a difference is good school leadership, committed staff, a relevant and inspiring curriculum, a sound ethos and above all—this has been proved to be the principal determiner of educational success—parental involvement and interest. Those ingredients are independent of governance structure. They are not necessarily present in an academy, although I am prepared to acknowledge that some academies exemplify those ingredients, and they are not necessarily absent in other sorts of schools that happen not to be academies. My conclusion is that the best thing we can do with a school that has all those characteristics is to support it and, so far as possible, not to tinker with it.

There are some, quite a few of whom are around at the moment, who recommend academisation as a solution to all educational ills—it is rather like the old medics prescribing leeches for everything—arguing that it is a sure-fire way of improving educational results. In fact, the evidence is mixed and clearly debatable, particularly when taking into account things such as changes in admission policies, pupil profiles and so on. We can believe the likes of Professor Gorard at the university of Birmingham, who sees no benefit from the academy programme; or we can believe the DFE, which has quite a different view; or we can believe neither. However we cut it, the mooted effects of academisation appear not to be exactly game changing.

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend tell me how academies that were good schools are coping with the opportunity for more freedom and independence? At the same time, there are frankly awful academies that were forced into becoming academies after being run by the local authority.

[John Pugh]

There is a lot to be said for letting schools elect the structures they genuinely prefer and with which they can work. My hon. Friend may be illustrating in advance some of the possible dangers of forcing schools to make a choice they simply do not want to make.

My point is simpler. Academisation itself is not obviously fundamental to solving our biggest education problem in this country, which is the tale of boys from poorer backgrounds losing interest before their education concludes—the not in education, employment or training phenomenon. I do not intend to pursue the debate on academy outcomes, real or alleged, or, for that matter, the difference between converter and sponsored academies, which have chosen to be academies, and those academies that simply found themselves becoming academies, possibly against their will.

Instead, I simply want to point out the self-evident truth that I do not think anyone sane would dispute. Academies are not the only way to improve results, and they are not necessarily the most efficient way to improve results in this cash-constrained world. That also applies to the Labour programme, which later in this debate might be distinguished from the current Government’s programme.

I clearly do not need to say much about the slush funds the Government have found in surprisingly tough times to support the academy programme—I see that £1 billion has been found from somewhere or other—but I would like to draw attention to the National Audit Office report on the Labour academy programme, which produced bright, shiny, new and very impressive buildings and institutions. The NAO compared the Labour academy programme with its predecessor, which was called excellence in cities, and it found that, although there were improvements under the Labour programme, the improvements were not significantly better than those achieved by excellence in cities at a much lesser cost.

We must accept that none of us comes to this debate without in-built convictions and biases, so I will get some of mine out of the way by fessing up to them. I must acknowledge that I have a principled and ideological instinct against assets funded over many years by local taxpayers being alienated or removed from the direct control of local taxpayers. I have also never been sure how the lack of any local strategic oversight can be part of a proper, efficient funding model for education in any area, which bothers me. And I have never been able to understand why the remedy for constant interference by central Government, about which schools commonly complain, should be independence from local government, given that local government’s powers in respect of schools have declined dramatically over my lifetime. I do not grasp why Government should impose less on those schools for which it has sole charge than on those schools left under the umbrella of the local education authority. I feel that the rationale eludes all but the most brilliant among us.

There is a strongly held view, which I accept—I accept it of the Government; I do not accept it as the best view—that being an academy is a good thing. But even if we accept that view, there is still one more unexplained puzzle: if the Government are confident of their case, and they are clearly unafraid of big-scale change, as we have seen, why do they not just make all schools academies and make the case for abolishing LEAs, thereby ending the division, disruption and death by a thousand cuts?

I have pondered that, and the only answer I can give is the answer the Government normally give, which is that they want schools to choose whether to be autonomous. I understand that is the rhetoric surrounding the programme, but as the programme has rolled out that particular answer has come to seem odder and odder. First, choosing has been confined to a limited group of people. Parents and staff were excluded by the Academies Act 2010, and during its passage I moved an amendment on the Floor of the House that sought to allow parents some sort of voice, but the amendment was not supported. So we moved from a position where parents decided to one where only a limited number of people decide.

Secondly, the choice is constrained by the fact that opting for autonomous independence is linked to another choice about funding, because the funding packages are not the same and depend on whether the school chooses to stay a local education authority school or become an academy. Thirdly, the choice to be an academy is being linked with a choice to be inspected less and have less bureaucracy and prescription from Whitehall. What is actually involved in the choice argument is a skewed choice, vested in those who have the most to gain from making that choice in terms either of power, in the case of the governors, or of remuneration, in the case of the head teacher. Unsurprisingly, the choice to become an academy has gathered some momentum. That is the current state of play as we can best understand it.

However, the Secretary of State has gone one step further and, with gifts bordering on the prophetic, has told us that by a certain date, a fixed number of academies will be in place, with primary schools firmly within that range. Primary schools are normally not big enough to provide all the administration and back-up that independence entails, so it is a puzzle to me how the Secretary of State could possibly know how many schools will choose of their own free will to become academies.

[Mr Andrew Turner]

The hon. Gentleman is concerned about the size of primary schools. I draw his attention to a school in Cheshire that had 12 pupils at the time when it became a grant-maintained school. When grant-maintained schools were abolished, it had about 36 pupils. Size did not prevent schools from becoming grant-maintained schools; why should it prevent them from becoming academies?

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[John Pugh]

I do not think it will prevent them from becoming academies; I am just making the simple point that primary schools have less instinct to become academies, simply because the administrative overheads of providing all the services customarily provided by the local authority bear more heavily on their budgets, which in these modern times are already significantly constrained.

I was trying to determine the basis for the psychic gifts that enabled the Secretary of State to anticipate how many schools will become academies by a certain date. I concluded that he probably does not have psychic gifts; he has a gift for irony, as the matter will probably not be left to choice anyway. Throughout the land, brokers are appearing in schools when the opportunity arises to hasten things on and ensure that the targets are met. They show up when a school suffers even a temporary decline in standards. A recent article in The Guardian by George Monbiot—not a man I ordinarily agree or see eye to eye with—compared them to mediaeval tax collectors. I happen to think that mediaeval tax collectors performed an important social function; I do not necessarily feel the same way about brokers.

Brokers appear to come to governing bodies with threats and an academy contract in hand. The threats are, “Sign the contract, or you, the governors, and possibly the head teacher, will be replaced”, or “Choose a sponsor, or if you don’t we’ll choose one for you, which we may do anyway.”

[Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)]

To add to the hon. Gentleman’s examples, a Department for Education adviser said to a school in my constituency, “You lost your autonomy when you went into an Ofsted category. Either you sign the papers to become an academy, or we will put in another interim executive board to do it for you.” I wonder whether he has had similar experiences.

[John Pugh]

I have had very similar experiences, but they are not just my experiences. Reports are coming in from up and down the land, and there is a kind of similarity that makes them wholly plausible.

There is a hurry to get on with things. Schools are basically told, “Get on with academisation now, or we will do it for you anyway.” They are also told—this surprises me—“Don’t tell the parents or the staff until it actually happens. Consult with them afterwards.” To sweeten the pill, cash is sometimes promised, in the form of a changeover fund to accommodate change. Relief from inspection or the school’s current status is also promised: whatever pressure Ofsted or the LEA apply will disappear when academy status is established. More worryingly, I have evidence that sponsors have been recommended, particularly school chains, with whom individual brokers have prior connections.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

Can I take the hon. Gentleman back to what he said before? I have had a number of schools that have received not only that suggestion, but the message, “Don’t talk to the parents before everything is signed, sealed and delivered.” Is it not also strange that ministerial policy is that Members of Parliament should be told about academisation only after the funding agreement has been signed, thereby removing any chance for democratically elected Members of Parliament to advise, consult with the school or have any say in what is about to happen?

--- Later in debate ---

[John Pugh]

Yes, that is distressing. The hon. Gentleman is a witness to the fact that we have moved from a situation in which parents were allowed a vote to one in which parents do not have a voice.

I would like to draw attention to the well documented fact that some of the brokers’ behaviour is markedly aggressive. One governor of fairly robust temperament described a broker as “seriously scary”. I find the process appalling. Regardless of what one feels about the academy programme, I find it distressing that people who have the interests of children and their schools at heart feel that they have been put in that situation. It strikes me that it is bullying. The intention is to close the contract and sign it there and then, which is the worst kind of sharp salesmanship, if I can put it like that. It is obviously wide open to corruption; it is about making offers that people cannot refuse, straight out of the Vito Corleone textbook. I see absolutely no reason why we who wish to stop bullying in schools allow the bullying of schools.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

Fortunately, we have the Minister with responsibility for bullying here, so she can deal with any accusations of bullying.

Surely the hon. Gentleman is being completely unfair to the Government. Did he read the article by Warwick Mansell in The Guardian yesterday? It quoted Tim Crumpton, a councillor in Dudley, who said that after he made accusations of bullying, he received a letter from the Department saying:

“We carried out a thorough investigation and found no basis in the claims.”

Does that satisfy the hon. Gentleman?

[John Pugh]

I am sure that the Department took the broker’s word for it. What I am describing has been told to me by people I have known for some time, who have no axe to grind and whom I trust.

I feel particularly aggrieved about my area. Under previous regimes, not a single school in Sefton ever opted out. We had two ballots, both of which were lost. There were good reasons. Sefton was one of the first LEAs to give schools true financial independence to pioneer; in fact, I was on the local authority at the time. It has kept its central costs low. It has always prioritised education and schools. It stands favourable comparison with other LEAs. Its schools are good and, better still, there are good relations between the LEA and the schools, which themselves cluster together harmoniously and supportively. There is a genuine communitarian spirit, accompanied by good results. To make things more acutely painful, Sefton has a good record, praised by the Schools Minister, for improving its schools; it is in the top five of LEAs.

[Bill Esterson]

I am glad that the hon. Gentleman made the point about how good Sefton is, because we both represent constituencies in the borough. I, too, have experience of how good the schools are. Does he agree that when people have such a good education authority, it should be allowed to support its own schools to improve, rather than having this forced academisation?

[John Pugh]

That is clearly an option, because we in Sefton are not overly impressed by academies. The first school to be awarded academy status—coincidentally, one that tried to opt out before but failed to secure parental support—was subsequently inspected by Ofsted; our first academy was put into special measures and the head teacher and chairman of governors have now gone. The brokers are now in Sefton and, having failed to tempt the more prestigious schools, are pouncing like vultures not necessarily on the weakest but on those temporarily weakened.

I understand that there is a rationale for that, and I do not want to be unkind to Government policy. Schools must be in certain categories, failing or failing to improve, and in such circumstances arguably someone must intervene. The categories, however, have in practice been extended beyond the permanent sink schools or those that are sinking. In one case in Sefton, an otherwise good school had four heads in six years, which caused temporary instability over a short period, but the school and the authority could deal with that. In another case, to which the hon. Gentleman alluded earlier, in the school I attended as a child, there was a temporary and wholly uncharacteristic blip and a firm expectation that the school would improve with or without academy status. None of the bullied schools, for that is what they feel they are, has a poor record over time. Even if they had, what is the case for cutting the umbilical cord with a local authority that has a clear record of improving its schools? What is the case for encouraging the schools, as was done, to seek sponsors some appreciable distance away? A school in the northern part of Sefton was asked to look at a sponsor in Chester or in Bolton, or to consider a chain.

I run out of any coherent educational rationale when encountering arguments to suggest that a change in leadership will help a school whose main problem is that it has had too many changes in leadership; that is when my brain starts to hurt. What appears to have happened is that academies have become ends in themselves, not a means to an end. Instead of academies being a means to school improvement, success is measured by the number of academies, not their products. Can the Minister confirm whether new secondary schools converting will not only be paid for attracting pupils—for success—but be given an under-occupancy payment of £18,000 for three years for failing to attract pupils? In the old days, I am not sure what the Audit Commission which taxed us about surplus places would have had to say about that; fortunately, we have taken the precaution of abolishing it.

The Government can go further; if they want, they can lower the threshold for intervention, they can extend and widen the categories, or they can put pressure—heaven forbid—on Ofsted to toughen up the regime, or make it more partial or timed to suit the academy bounty hunters. There is a real worry that the neutrality of Ofsted might be under pressure and, equally, there is a worry about Ofsted’s reliability. If it delivered a rogue inspection, as it occasionally will, given the nature of things, that could have significant consequences for any school that is the victim of such an inspection. The broker who came to Sefton was asked by a head teacher what would happen if an academy chosen to sponsor a school was failed by Ofsted. The broker said that that will not happen. I do not know how the broker could know that it would not happen but clearly, if so, that seems to indicate that Ofsted is more shackled than we believe or hope it is.

I cannot explain this whole situation educationally any more, although I have sincerely tried. I have run out of any educational rationale that makes sense to me. I can explain it only sociologically. I hazard a guess—it might be right—that Ministers neither like nor understand and do not empathise with councils; they simply think that the sort of people you get on councils should not manage or interfere with the nation’s schools. That is a possible view, if slightly prejudiced, but it is not wholly incomprehensible if you look at some of the more eccentric London boroughs. It is understandable that if you have achieved a good education in an independent school, and contrast that with those with a less fortunate or privileged outcome, you might think—

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Order. I have been quite tolerant with the hon. Gentleman, but he keeps accusing me of doing so many things, in particular in London boroughs, that I would appreciate it if he spoke through the Chair.

[John Pugh]

I am sorry; I was talking about any individual, not you in particular, Mrs Main. I will express myself in whatever way you find appropriate.

One—I think that is all right—might suppose that what is crucial to the success of education is the independence of the school. That is an understandable view. It is a simplistic and probably wrong view, but I can understand people taking it and it providing them with the motive for feeling that academies are an all-sufficient solution.

Another interpretation might be that there is an unstated plot to reorganise schools into private chains rather than in LEAs; if so, we could legitimately debate that at some point. It is likely that many primary schools, if they become academies, will form part of chains. There is nothing particularly wrong with chains, and there have been great ones in the past: Blue Coat schools, Merchant Taylors’ schools, the Woodard foundation, Haberdashers’ Aske’s schools and so on; and, in the state system, organisations such as the Christian Brothers, or the Salesian or Notre Dame schools. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with chains; they are often founded for the poor but usually end up serving the rich. The model is particularly in favour with the Minister responsible for academies, Lord Nash, who I understand supports a chain of some sorts himself.

In the past, however, huge gains to the educational system were not achieved by virtue of the state handing people 125-year leases; normally, it was done by philanthropists digging deep into their pockets. If there is a real agenda, and such motivations are genuinely behind the strange set of phenomena we are seeing at the moment, I am happy to debate that. Let us not, however, have this forced choice, with underhand persuasion and inducement.

In my years as a teacher, the worst sort of bullying was not the stuff that one saw and could stop but the stuff that was not seen and took place away from view. If nothing else, through this debate I hope to bring the bullying of schools, rather than in schools, to people’s attention.

[Mrs Anne Main (in the Chair)]

Before I call other hon. Members to speak, I inform Members that I will be calling the wind-ups at 3.40 pm. I ask Members to keep interventions brief please. I call Guy Opperman.

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[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Elizabeth Truss)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Southport (John Pugh) on securing the debate. We have had an interesting discussion this afternoon on the evidence behind the academies programme and some of the issues with underperforming schools. He outlined the elements of a good school. I agree with him, and think everyone in this House would agree, that good leadership, a good ethos and parental involvement are all things we recognise about good schools. He also suggested that those attributes were completely independent of academies, and that is where I cannot agree with him.

Strong evidence across the OECD links school autonomy with improved performance and, where there is a strong accountability system—also important—strong leadership in the school and improved results. It is notable that many of the countries that have successfully improved their educational performance—Germany over the past 10 years, for example—have done so by increasing the amount of autonomy that schools have, setting strong standards and a strong accountability regime. Germany has seen a marked improvement, relative to other countries. The OECD used evidence from PISA 2006 to show that science results for 15-year-olds had improved in countries that gave more autonomy to schools. That evidence is generally recognised, and was recognised by the previous Government when they established and promoted the academies programme. There is a link between autonomy and accountability and improved performance.

[John Pugh]

Is there a system in Germany whereby schools selectively opt for greater autonomy or are they all simply endowed with greater autonomy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The German system is rather more complex because each Land has its own education system. I am happy to discuss it with my hon. Friend in more detail in due course, but there has been a general move across the country to have fewer decisions made by the Government and more decisions made by school leaders. That is my general point. The point about process he raised is a slightly different issue.

My hon. Friend mentioned that our other school policies and what happens in schools are important. He is right. The academies programme is part of what the Government are doing to address educational standards. We are also giving significant funding for disadvantaged pupils through the pupil premium, which is £2.5 billion a year. We are also improving the quality of teaching in our schools, by increasing the number of high-quality applicants to the profession and developing existing teachers. We are reforming the national curriculum to make it more rigorous and more focused, so that teachers have the freedom to design lessons that inspire and motivate their pupils.

Some freedoms that have hitherto been held mainly by academies are being extended to all schools. All schools are being given more freedom in how they design their curriculums. We are encouraging schools to collaborate and share best practice, so that strong schools can help weaker schools to improve. We are increasing the rigour of the accountability framework, including introducing the English baccalaureate and our new floor standard measure for key stage 4. Ofsted’s inspection framework is raising the bar on inspections, so “satisfactory” is no longer good enough. The policies have to be looked at in the round. The academies programme is accompanied by other policies, in areas such as accountability, to ensure that school leaders are accountable for what they do.