Education and Adoption Bill (Ninth sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 61, in clause 12, page 8, line 4, at beginning insert
“Except where an Academy Agreement has been made under section 1(3),”
This amendment is to establish the implications of this clause where an Academy Agreement has already been made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 62, in clause 12, page 8, leave out lines 9 to 12
Requires any Order revoking an Academy Order to be made by a statutory instrument which has to be laid before Parliament.
Amendment 63, in clause 12, page 8, line 12, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State’s power in subsection (1) does not apply where the Secretary of State can revoke an Order under section 570 (Revocation and variation of certain orders and directions) Education Act 1996.”
A probing amendment to see if the existing mechanism for revoking orders which do not have to be made by statutory instrument applies.
Kevin Brennan
I understand that you are not with us this afternoon, Sir Alan, so I take this opportunity to thank you for chairing our proceedings over the past few days. I speak for everyone when I say that we will all miss our get-togethers, but good things have to come to an end. Thank you for your fair chairmanship of our proceedings.
We now come to amendments 61 to 63, which relate to clause 12. Amendment 61 is designed to establish the implications of the clause where an academy agreement has already been made. Amendment 62 would require that any order revoking an academy order be made by a statutory instrument that has to be laid before Parliament. Amendment 63 is a probing amendment to see whether the existing mechanism for revoking orders that do not have to be made by statutory instrument applies.
Under section 4 of the Academies Act 2010, the Secretary of State has the power to make an academy order in two sets of circumstances: first, where an application for an academy order has been made in respect of the school, such as with a voluntary conversion; and, secondly, where the school is eligible for intervention within the meaning of part 4 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which has subsequently been amended.
The statutory guidance, “Schools causing concern”, makes it clear that conversion to sponsored academy status should be considered the normal means of improving a school where it has a history of sustained underperformance. Clause 12 inserts new section 5D into the 2010 Act. It allows the Secretary of State to revoke any academy order in relation to schools eligible for intervention. The explanatory notes give the example of a situation where the Secretary of State decides that it would be better to direct the local authority to close the school.
With amendment 61 we are probing on where, in the process of creating an academy, the power to revoke applies. Does it lapse when a funding agreement is signed, for example? That is not immediately obvious to us from the wording. If it does not lapse then, that radically undermines the position of academy trusts. If they have a seven-year contract, they might reasonably expect some clarity.
Given the implications of the clause and the potential for controversy, amendment 62 would require a statutory instrument to be laid, which could be prayed against. Would that not prove a useful safeguard in the circumstances?
We tabled amendment 63 to explore whether there are two bits of potentially contradictory legislation here. We look forward to the Minister’s explanation.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
May I add my thanks to you, Sir Alan, for your professional and courteous chairing of the Committee? I am sure you will miss our deliberations as we go into the summer recess.
Amendments 61, 62 and 63 relate to the power in clause 12 for the Secretary of State to revoke academy orders. The Bill strengthens the Secretary of State’s powers to turn around failing schools by bringing in sponsors with the necessary expertise to raise standards. The Bill simplifies the process of conversion and reduces opportunities for ideological obstruction, ensuring that the necessary improvements to schools are secured more quickly.
There will, however, be rare circumstances where an academy order needs to be revoked. As the hon. Gentleman said, clause 12 addresses that by inserting new section 5D into the 2010 Act. That will allow the Secretary of State to revoke any Academy order issued to a school that is eligible for intervention. The Bill requires the Secretary of State to make an academy order for every school judged “inadequate” by Ofsted. The vast majority of those schools will become sponsored academies as a result.
Under clause 1, other schools will become eligible for intervention because they are coasting or, under other provisions, have failed to comply with a warning notice. In those circumstances, the regional schools commissioners may decide that the best strategy to tackle underperformance is for the school to become a sponsored academy. Those schools will also be issued with an academy order.
There might, however, be a small number of exceptional cases where the Secretary of State decides not to pursue academy conversion after an academy order has been issued. A school may, for example, prove to be unviable because of falling pupil numbers. As the hon. Gentleman alluded to in his opening remarks, in those circumstances closure would be more appropriate. One such example was Wakefield Pathways school, which was judged to require special measures in November 2014. After undertaking our due diligence, and with agreement from the local authority, the Department decided not to pursue sponsored academisation. The school’s falling pupil numbers meant that it is not considered to be viable and the children will be supported to move to other schools.
There may be other examples in the future. There may be an instance where a school has gone from “outstanding” to “inadequate” due to a specific safeguarding concern but that issue has been quickly resolved. In such a case, the Secretary of State may not view academisation as in the interests of the school or its pupils. She would be able to revoke the automatic academy order using the power in Clause 12.
In amendment 61, the hon. Member for Cardiff West seeks to remove the power of the Secretary of State to revoke an academy order after a funding agreement has already been signed. I understand that this is a probing amendment, to see at which point the power lapses. We do not believe that the amendment is necessary. Once a funding agreement has been signed, the academy will open. It is important to have the power to revoke an academy order prior and up to the point of the funding agreement being signed and an academy opening, for the reasons I have set out; but it would make no sense to have a power to revoke the academy order after this point.
Amendment 62 would require any revocation of an academy order to be made by statutory instrument. This is an unnecessary complication. We anticipate that the Secretary of State will use her power to revoke an academy order only in a very small number of exceptional cases. For each of these cases, of which I have already provided examples, the case for revoking an academy order is clear and straightforward. This amendment could create unnecessary and costly delays when the Secretary of State has determined that a school should be closed because it is not viable.
Amendment 63 would remove the provision in clause 12 enabling the Secretary of State to revoke an academy order, on the basis that she already has other powers regarding revocation and variation of certain orders and directions under section 570 of the Education Act 1996. Given our aim of simplifying the streamlining of the processes for turning around underperforming schools, it is important that there is a clause contained within the Education and Adoption Bill that applies specifically to the revocation of academy orders. The Bill is clear that the Secretary of State has a duty to automatically make an academy order for every school judged “inadequate” by Ofsted. It is only right that it should also contain a power that relates specifically to academy orders and permits the Secretary of State, in the exceptional circumstances which I have described, to revoke an order. It is important that these processes are clear on the face of the Bill and available for exceptional circumstances as they occur.
In view of this I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel reassured and withdraw his amendment.
The Chair
Before we call Mr Brennan again, I have indicated to Mr Jones and Mr McCabe that it is okay to remove their jackets if they so wish. Other members are entitled to do the same, although no more.
Kevin Brennan
Well, Sir Alan, we are all very grateful that you are protecting the interests of public decency at the same time as chairing our proceedings.
The Minister is right: these are probing amendments. We are trying to find out what the Government’s thinking is here and how far along the road this revocation could take place. He has given a further example to the one given in the explanatory notes. We would be interested in due course, perhaps, to hear about other circumstances in which a revocation order might be brought into play, but he has extended that in his remarks. I am not entirely clear until what point the power to revoke exists. I do not want to extend this into a clause stand part debate, but does the Minister have anything to add on whether the power to revoke exists only until the signing of the funding agreement? Unless he knows the answer now or I missed him saying it, I would be happy to hear it later.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful for that. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
The clause gives the power to revoke an academy order made on the grounds that a school is eligible for intervention. The Bill is clear that the Secretary of State must make an academy order for every school judged “inadequate” by Ofsted. The vast majority of those schools will become sponsored academies as a result. There will be other schools that have become eligible for intervention through being a coasting school or failing to comply with a warning notice, for which becoming a sponsored academy is also the best way of bringing about sufficient improvement. They will therefore also be issued with academy orders.
There might, however, be a small number of exceptional cases where the Secretary of State decides not to progress with academy conversion. Such a case might, for example, be where a school is not considered viable and closure is appropriate, or where a school has gone from “outstanding” to “inadequate” only because of a specific safeguarding concern that has quickly been resolved, rather than concerns about leadership or standards, so the school does not need the additional support and leadership of a sponsor.
When an academy order is made for a school that is eligible for intervention, through the new sections of the 2010 Act inserted by the Bill, the governing body and local authority have a duty to facilitate the conversion and comply with directions given by the Secretary of State. Where the Secretary of State made an academy order in relation to a school that was eligible for intervention and has subsequently decided not to proceed to enter into academy arrangements, it is desirable that she provides certainty for all those involved by revoking the order and telling those involved that she has done so.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 12 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 1
Coasting schools
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 66, in clause 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—
“(a) in subsection (1) after (c) insert—
“() an Academy”;
(b) ”
This amendment would include Academies in the definition of maintained school in Part 4 (Schools causing concern) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 67, in clause 1, page 1, line 4, at end insert—
“(a) in subsection (1) after (c) insert—
“() a Pupil Referral Unit”;
(b) ”
This amendment would include Pupil Referral Units in the definition of maintained school in Part 4 (Schools causing concern) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.
Amendment 77, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—
‘(2E) A maintained school under this section does not include—
(a) a maintained nursery school,
(b) a community or foundation special school, or
(c) a 16-19 school.”
This amendment would exclude certain maintained schools from these provisions.
Kevin Brennan
We now finally come to the very first clause of the Bill, on the very last day of our proceedings. Clause 1 creates a new category of school eligible for intervention: coasting schools.
Although we have left this clause until last, we have probably had more submissions of evidence on it than any others. We have had external stakeholders’ views from, among others: the Institute of Education; the editor of Schools Week magazine; Professor Becky Francis, who spoke to us during an oral evidence session; the National Union of Teachers; the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers; Unison; the Association of School and College Leaders; PTA UK; St Helens Council; David McNaught, a former headteacher in Sheffield City Council; the Local Government Association; the Alliance for Inclusive Education; Bill Griffiths, a headteacher, primary consultant and national leader; the Association of Teachers and Lecturers; the Local Schools Network; Professor Gorard of Durham University; Alison O’Sullivan, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services; Russell Hobby of the National Association of Head Teachers; Dr Rebecca Allen from Education Datalab; and Robert Hill, visiting senior research fellow at King’s College London.
We have had a lot of interest in the clause, so it is right that we scrutinise it thoroughly today. I want to make it absolutely clear from the outset that we do not have a problem with the concept of a coasting school or the need to do something about schools that might be superficially doing well but are failing to fulfil their pupils’ potential. I said as much, as many colleagues will recall, on Second Reading. We do not have a problem with that construction at all. In fact, hon. Members will be aware that when we were in government, we wanted local authorities to identify coasting schools whose intake did not fulfil earlier promise and whose pupils had lost momentum and failed to make progress. Often, this is related to children or pupils with special educational needs who get left behind and can be disengaged from their education, but it is also applicable to able pupils not being stretched—not being challenged enough. In the latter stages of our time in office, we were developing plans for coasting schools to benefit from the support of other schools and leaders and to form trusts and federations to formalise the benefits of collaborative learning.
We therefore absolutely recognise the concern. However, we are not entirely convinced at this stage that the way in which the Government are dealing with this issue currently by attempting to legislate in this way in relation to coasting schools will necessarily work well. Furthermore, the draft regulations, which rigidly seek to define coasting schools in a way that produces significant anomalies and a competing means of judging schools beyond the inspectorate of Ofsted, is not necessarily the best way forward. That is why we seek to stress-test the Government’s approach vigorously and why we believe that the Government, as I said earlier, introduced the Bill before they had done enough work on defining exactly what they meant by a coasting school.
Amendment 66 would extend the provision of the Bill to cover academies. By amending clause 59 of the 2006 Act it would, in effect, extend all the provisions in this Bill to include academies. It seems to be the Government’s view that maintained schools that are experiencing difficulties need a fundamental change of structure, but that does not need to apply to academies.
When the hon. Member for Southport who is in his place this morning asked the Minister last week if:
“Coasting schools are to be forced to become academies. What is going to happen to coasting academies? Are they to be forced to become schools?”—[Official Report, 15 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 1.]
he got very short shrift from the Minister. It seems that if academy status is right for failing and ultimately coasting maintained schools, it is right for failing or coasting academies too. However, they just get to “evolve”—I think that is the word the Minister used last week—possibly with a new name on the door.
This is very strange given that the Schools Minister told the Committee last week:
“The hon. Gentleman is also wrong to say that we see schools as a hierarchy with academies at the top and maintained schools at the bottom. We do not”.—[Official Report, 7 July 2015; Vol. 598, c. 220.]
That statement was considered so unusual that it merited a story in “Schools Week”, as a result of what the Minister said. He actually went on to name some good maintained schools, after some prompting by me that he should adopt the one in one out policy of naming a good maintained schools after naming a good academy and conversely, naming a bad academy after a failing maintained school, possibly. I very much welcome that. However, it all turned out to be a little bit too good to be true, as apparently one of the schools he named, Roxham primary school, is in fact an academy, not a maintained school. Still, I suppose it is the thought that counts and we should be grateful for the fact that he believed that it was possible that a maintained school could be good; even if, as in this case, that was not actually true.
The impression that has been given by Ministers in the frequency of their praise for one type of school rather than another, and in their singling out of one for legislation over another—as is pertinent to these amendments—is that they do see schools in a hierarchy by type rather than by quality of performance—that is what people think.
One of the other ways in which they do that is through the use of statistics. We have had some exchanges during the course of our proceedings about statistics. I note from Warwick Mansell’s article in today’s Guardian that I am not the only one who has been concerned about the way in which Ministers use statistics. In fact, Warwick Mansell complained to the UK Statistics Authority about the use of a statistical publication released by the Department for Education in December, which was seized on by Ministers as a way of advocating more academies. The publication showed, quite correctly, that SATs results from 2012 to 2014 improved more quickly in sponsored academies than in non-academies.
Mr Gibb
I would hate the hon. Gentleman not to include the full findings from the UK Statistics Authority, because it did say:
“The Authority has reviewed these uses of the statistics and concluded that the comments made by Ministers on the Today programme and in the House of Commons did not misrepresent the statistics.”
Kevin Brennan
I am very grateful to the Minister for that clarification. I am sure that, in future, he will not imply a causal link. In time, perhaps we will see what the UK Statistics Authority makes of our exchanges. It is a timely reminder for us all to use statistics in the appropriate manner.
Currently, the only powers that Ministers have regarding academies are in their funding agreements. Given the way that funding agreements have changed over the years, there is no consistency in those powers. Some, but not all, mimic the language of the 2006 Act.
Coasting is not mentioned anywhere in funding agreements because the concept is only being introduced through this Bill and is not applicable to academies. It is not clear how the Minister’s right to intervene in coasting schools, under his proposed definition or any other, can be applied to an academy. The model funding agreement echoes the 2006 Act. It does not echo the Bill. No reasonable reader would imagine that the coasting provisions could be read into the existing funding agreements.
It seems that the Minister has a choice. He could accept our amendment, which would bring academies within the scope of the Bill, or he could renegotiate several thousand individual funding agreements to ensure that coasting academies do not escape the scrutiny and intervention that he thinks is so vitally important—not because they are maintained schools, but because coasting educational establishments have an impact and an effect on children.
A wider issue is the use of private law to manage academies that are causing concern. Becoming “of concern” is a private contract law matter between the Secretary of State and the academy trust, but public law is used to identify, support, manage and improve provision in maintained schools that are causing concern. The Government should be asked why they do not want to bring academies causing concern into public law. Under the coalition Government, certain academy matters were brought into public law, when they were faced with the reality of managing a public education service by contract law—the situation that we are rapidly moving towards.
There are several examples. One of the most important is special education provision in the Children and Families Act 2014. An academy trust had shown it did not have to admit a pupil with what was then called a statement of special educational needs. Another is pupil admissions in the Education Act 2011. The Minister and I both served on the Bill Committee for that. We argued very strongly for and achieved direct power of the school adjudicator over admission arrangements. That was a welcome development. There are several minor examples such as infant free school meals in the 2014 Act. Can the Minister explain why he wishes to use inflexible private contract law to manage academies causing concern when by amending the Bill we could make matters much more straightforward?
Amendment 67 is about pupil referral units or alternative provision, as they are often now called. They are similarly not covered by the 2006 Act. This applies to both local authority maintained schools and to alternative provision academies. There does not seem to be any particularly good reason why alternative provision should be outside the terms of the Bill, given that the units are increasingly taking on the characteristics of schools with their own governance and financial arrangements. In this respect the scene is very different to that in 2006. At that time, pupil referral units were usually fully controlled units of the local authority rather than autonomous schools. However, the criteria currently proposed would of course be entirely inappropriate for pupil referral units, so if they are to be included, there would need to be a significant rethink on definitions and criteria. The Bill presents an opportunity to address this anomaly and this amendment is to probe further the Government’s thinking on this matter.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
While the Bill generally seems to have been ill-conceived—the fact that it has been dealt with in this back-to-front fashion shows how ill-prepared the Government were—does it not seem remarkable that alternative provision, the very pupils for whom one would have thought we would have the maximum concern, is relegated to two lines at the bottom of the Government’s explanatory statement, saying that they will consider the possibility of consulting on it later? That shows that the Government have not given any consideration to the needs of that particular group at all.
Kevin Brennan
Yes. My hon. Friend again puts it more eloquently and accurately than I could have. There is a general concern about a lack of attention to pupils with special educational needs and disability needs in a lot of the Government’s thinking, not just with regard to the Bill and this particular provision but more broadly.
The Schools Minister answered written question No. 2637 tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on 22 June. We thank him for that answer, which stated that
“pupil referral units…will…not be eligible to be defined as coasting schools.”
It would, however, be possible to use secondary legislation under section 19 of the Education Act 1996 to include pupil referral units in the definition. The Minister said in Committee on 9 July, column 273, that he would consider extending the clause 7 duty to academise to pupil referral units using secondary legislation. We would welcome further clarity from the Minister on pupil referral units as well as his response to the remarks made by my hon. Friend in his intervention.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I am sorry to have to disagree with the hon. Member, because I have agreed with everything that he has said up to now, but there is another special problem with pupil referral units in so far as their population is very volatile; it changes all the time. A longitudinal assessment over three years might be quite hard to accomplish to help decide whether a school is coasting.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point and, as I said, we are probing the Government’s thinking about this. We must not lose sight of the fact that it is equally important—if not sometimes more important, as my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said—that provision is excellent for pupils in pupil referral units, pupils with special educational needs or disabilities and so on. We should have the same, if not more, passion about schools for them, as we do for schools in general. However it is achieved, it needs to be achieved—I think that we can probably agree on that.
Section 59 of the 2006 Act explicitly included all the types of school in amendment 77 in its definition of “maintained school”, and that definition is carried forward into this Bill. The draft regulations can be applied only to mainstream primary or secondary schools, however. The data used are obviously not applicable to either a nursery school or a 16-to-19 school, because they are based on key stage 2 and key stage 4 outcomes. Equally, the criteria are entirely inappropriate for special schools, where the same nationally set rates of progress cannot be expected. It is important that the legislation is explicit and accurate and that draft regulations cover the circumstances of all schools that are to be covered. Either the Bill or the regulations need to be changed, and we would be grateful if the Minister would clarify this matter.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
May I add my thanks for your excellent chairmanship during these proceedings, Sir Alan. I rise in support of amendment 66 in the name of my hon. Friends. On Second Reading, the Secretary of State outlined the intention that,
“No child should have to put up with receiving an education that is anything less than good”,
before going on to say that,
“The measures in the Bill are designed to speed up the process by which underperforming schools are transformed”.—[Official Report, 22 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 638.]
Clause 1 specifies, however, that only a maintained school can fall under the proposed coasting regulations and, as we know, there is no provision whatever about transforming failing academies and failing academy chains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West has already made clear. Indeed, under one of the measures of coasting—below 60% of pupils achieving grade A* to C at GCSE—the figures from the DFE performance tables are revealing.
The number of academies and free schools not meeting the 60% benchmark has almost trebled in the past three years, whereas the number of maintained schools failing to meet it has halved. They now very nearly match each other, with the number of maintained schools missing the benchmark falling from 1,445 to 854 and academies rising from 214 to 558. I appreciate that this is just one benchmark of the new coasting definition, but it is telling that the Government have chosen to focus their new performance measures entirely on maintained schools when, under their own terms, there is a clear issue with academies, and failing academies in particular, especially given that there were proportionally more inadequate academies than maintained schools as of April 2015. Further, and finally, as my hon. Friend mentioned, Opposition Members have serious concerns that this Bill will, yet again, leave academies free of direct parliamentary scrutiny, to be dealt with via private contract law behind closed doors. We hope that this amendment will go at least some way to increasing the scrutiny of academies and will allow standards to be raised for all schools.
Mr Gibb
I will have to think further on what the hon. Gentleman says. I remain confident that the progress measure will reflect a lack of progress by pupils, at whatever speed and whichever point during their school career they make or fail to make the progress that they should be making, given their starting point. I understand the point that the hon. Gentleman makes about Rebecca Allen’s evidence in our first evidence session. She said that in non-affluent areas there might be a disincentive for schools to recruit high-ability teachers. She felt that those schools were unfairly penalised by the metrics that we used, and we were therefore compounding the problems that those schools faced by making it difficult for them to attract highly able teachers. The argument against her viewpoint is, of course, that you cannot have lower expectations for schools in more deprived areas than for schools in leafy suburbs. That is why we are determined to tackle coasting schools using the same metrics in more deprived areas as in affluent areas. We expect every child to receive the same quality of education as a child in a leafy suburb, regardless of their background.
Kevin Brennan
I am sure that we will also discuss many of these points later in the clause stand part debate. What did the Minister mean when he said earlier that the level of parental support should be irrelevant—I think that was the word he used—because of the pupil premium? Is he really suggesting that a payment of £1,320 could compensate for a lack of parental support at home for pupils attending school?
Mr Gibb
We want it to be irrelevant. Of course, it is not irrelevant so far as the child is concerned. Supportive parents who encourage the children to do their homework and to read, who read to their children and take them to museums and theatres and around the country on trips, will of course all impact on the child’s education and ability to learn. However, if we want an education system that is needs-blind and tries to remedy all the problems that a child may face as a result of their background, we need to have very high expectations of every school, regardless of where it is situated and regardless of its intake. That has been the drive behind many of the education reforms implemented over the past five years, and behind the concept of the pupil premium.
The reason for the pupil premium is to provide extra funding for schools that face the challenges that the hon. Member for Hyndburn described. That is why significant sums of money totalling £2.5 billion a year have been allocated to schools, particularly to schools serving deprived areas. We want very high levels of expectation in schools.
I can take Opposition Members to schools that serve challenging areas and deliver the education that we want for every child in this country. They are managing to do it. I admit that they are fewer in number than we would like, but the Government’s ambition is to expand the number of schools that deliver high-quality education in areas of deprivation so that every single child reaches the expected level or beyond. Given that it can happen— for example, at the King Solomon Academy or the Ark Priory primary school in London—I do not see any argument, whether from Rebecca Allen or from the hon. Member for Hyndburn, that cannot be countermanded by those examples. We believe strongly that every school in every area is capable of delivering the high-quality education that we see in the best schools in the country.
Mr Gibb
There are several points there. When one is dealing with a state education system one needs the elected officials to be vigilant—whether at local authority or national level. That is inherent in our democratic structure. If people are misguided enough to elect a Government in which Ministers are not vigilant, people have the right—as Nick Ridley famously said—to vote for unemployment. In a democracy, people have the right to vote for inadequate Ministers. I say that they ought not to do that; they ought to vote Conservative at every election to ensure that that will not be the case, but people in a democracy have that right and we see the consequences around the world.
On a more serious point, we will be updating the funding agreement to contain a comparable clause that defines the coasting definition. Of course, as the hon. Member for Cardiff West says, we cannot rewrite all 5,000 funding agreements, or however many there are. The way the system has worked is that those funding agreements have gone through an iteration process, so that when they are renegotiated and renewed, and when new schools obtain funding agreements, they will always be required to adopt the latest draft. Even before those provisions in the funding agreement, regional schools commissioners are very vigilant. They were appointed on the basis that they would be vigilant in identifying and tackling underperformance. They will now be guided by the definition of coasting in the way that they assess underperformance in the academy schools.
Kevin Brennan
Does the Minister recognise that accepting cases where academies have to be brought within public law provision shows that, in a system where more and more schools become academies, relying only on funding agreements is a completely inadequate approach? It was all very well when academies had targeted intervention with a limited number of schools, but when the majority of secondary schools have become academised, as they are now, it starts to look inadequate. That is why the Government have had to accept some provision of public law over academies.
Mr Gibb
I do not accept that. We now have more than 1 million pupils in good and outstanding schools, compared with 2010. Much of that was a consequence of the academies programme: 60% of secondary schools and an increasing proportion of primary schools are now academies. That is why we have a situation in which so many schools are now good schools. I am just trying to find the proportion of school academies that are rated “good” and “outstanding”—I will come back to that in a moment. However, as hon. Members are aware, academies are charitable companies. They operate in accordance with the terms of the funding agreements between the trusts and the Secretary of State. This was a regulatory regime that the last Labour Government established. The contractual funding agreement between the academy trusts and the Secretary of State includes a clear, formal framework for action where there are concerns about the performance of an academy. We have demonstrated that we will take—and are taking—these steps. Given this separate robust framework, it is unnecessary and inappropriate to apply the statutory regulations to academies, as Opposition Members propose.
We want the academies regime to be as similar as possible to the regime that applies to independent schools, with the exception that, under the funding agreement, the academies are funded by the taxpayer and are therefore free to parents and pupils. We want professional autonomy for headteachers and teachers. That is a key feature of the academies programme and has been successful in ensuring that we now have more than 1 million pupils in good and outstanding schools in this country.
The Chair
May I point out to all hon. Members that while we have had a lively, informative and questioning debate, with a lot of participation, we have only three and three quarter hours to go? We have 15 amendments, six clauses and the Bill itself to debate before we conclude by 5 o’clock this afternoon. I question whether Members should spend a lot of time on stand parts. It is entirely up to you, but we should try not to repeat ourselves so that we can draw out more information on the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
You are quite right, Sir Alan, to point out the time restrictions on us, although I am confident that we can have a thorough debate on clause 1, including clause stand part, and dispose of some other clauses more swiftly than we will necessarily dispose of this clause, which is at the heart of the Bill. The Minister said a number of things—more general points about the nature of the progress measure and so on—that will form part of the clause stand part debate, so I will not respond to them now.
The Chair
Order. Mr Brennan, may I point out that it is the job of the Chair to ensure that the House is informed as much as possible on any particular Bill? What you do with the Bill in Committee is entirely up to you, on either side, but it might best serve the House if we became more informed of the contents of the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
Thank you, Sir Alan. Of course I will follow your guidance. I am sure that we will manage to get through with your help and assistance.
I notice that in the Minister’s response to this group of amendments, he departed somewhat from the promise he made last week to adopt a one-in, one-out policy when mentioning the performance of schools. I am afraid that when he did mention the performance of an academy school, we did not get a similarly balanced response, highlighting a high-performing maintained school, although I mildly teased him about naming a maintained school that, in fact, was an academy.
I hope that the Minister instructs his officials to give him plenty of briefing material on high-performing maintained schools because that matters. It sends a signal to teachers, pupils, parents, communities and so on that Ministers care about it when their schools do well. It sends the message that Ministers think it is important, significant and should be celebrated, whatever kind of publicly funded school it is. Whether it is a maintained school or an academy, achievement needs to be celebrated equally, particularly as there are many examples, as the statistics have shown.
We can argue about the exact nature of the performance of the two different sectors, but there are many examples of great performance from schools in the maintained sector, as there are from academy schools. We should hold that achievement on an equal basis and be even-handed. I am happy and pleased to celebrate the performance of any school that is doing well by its pupils, whatever its structure. I hope that the Minister agrees with me.
Mr Gibb
I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman. In September, I will write to every primary school in the country that gets 100% of its pupils through the phonic check that ensures that those children are reading fluently. I will also write to every primary school, regardless of whether they are an academy or a maintained school, where more than 95% of pupils achieve well in the phonic check.
Kevin Brennan
Any praise that is equally and fairly distributed to schools for their performance will be most welcomed, I am sure, by everybody concerned.
Earlier, I indicated that amendments 67 and 77 really just probe the Government’s thinking. I think that the Minister understood that. It is not our intention to divide the Committee on those amendments. However, we remain concerned that there is not really a credible explanation of the way forward in relation to how academies will be included in the new regime of coasting schools. An opportunity has been missed to ensure that we have a robust system that would be applicable to all schools, regardless of status.
The Minister said that we need an education system that is needs-blind. I agree with that. We also need an education system that is, in a sense, structurally blind to the type of school that we are talking about. If a school is deemed to be eligible for intervention because it falls under the coasting regulations—we will argue later about whether the definitions are right—that eligibility should apply to all publicly funded schools.
Although the Minister said that he wants academies to be regulated as private schools are, there is one huge difference between academy schools and private schools: academy schools are funded by public money. We have to ensure that taxpayers’ money is being equally well scrutinised and spent on education in one form of taxpayer-funded school as in another.
In the absence of a credible explanation of how the coasting schools definition will apply and be enforced in relation to academies, and given that the Minister has admitted that it is impossible to amend the thousands of funding agreements for academies to achieve that, and that we have already brought academies into the public law system where there have been issues in the past, I will ask my hon. Friends to support a vote on amendment 66.
Question put, That the amendment be made:
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 68, in clause 1, page 1, line 11, after “notified”, insert “in the prescribed manner as set out in regulations made under subsection (1A)”
The Bill does not address how and in what manner a school will be informed that it is coasting, or who should advise the Secretary of State on whether to notify a school that it is coasting. This amendment requires the Secretary of State to set out in regulations referenced in a new subsection (1A) how this will be done.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 69, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(1A) The Secretary of State must make regulations to define the manner in which a school governing body will be notified that he considers the school to be coasting.
(1B) Regulations made under subsection (1A) will require the Secretary of State to submit the advice of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills and the Regional School Commissioner to the school governing body.”
Amendment 70, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(1C) Regulations under subsection (1A) must—
(a) give the governing body and the maintaining local authority fifteen working days’ notice of the Secretary of State’s intention to notify the school that it is eligible for intervention,
(b) give the governing body and the maintaining local authority five working days to respond to the notice, and
(c) require the Secretary of State to consider any responses before confirming or otherwise the notice.”
This amendment aims to ensure there is a procedure of prior notification of an intention to notify the school it is coasting, and to provide for time for the local authority and school governing body to send responses for consideration by the Secretary of State.
Amendment 71, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(1D) Regulations under subsection (1A) must—
(a) require the governing body to inform all parents of registered pupils of the Secretary of State’s intention to notify the school that it is coasting,
(b) require the Secretary of State to convene a meeting for parents to explain the implications of the school being notified that it is coasting.”
This amendment aims to ensure parents know that the Secretary of State is intending to notify the school that it is coasting and to provide them with an opportunity to have their questions answered about a coasting notification.
Amendment 72, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(1E) The Secretary of State may not make an Academy Order under section 4(1)(b) of the Academies Act 2010 in respect of a maintained school he has notified under subsection (1) until two calendar years after the school was notified.”
This amendment prevents the Secretary of State requiring that a school be academised immediately after it has been notified that it is coasting.
Amendment 81, in clause 1, page 1, line 14, at end insert—
“(1F) Regulations under subsection (1A) and meeting the requirements at subsection (1B) relating to the advice of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills may include a requirement to take account of surveyed views of parents of registered pupils at the school about the quality of education provided by the school, and also those of parents in the immediate vicinity of the school whose children are not registered pupils at the school.”
The amendment allows Ofsted in advising whether a school is coasting to report the views of parents who choose not to send their child to the local school.
Amendment 78, in clause 1, page 1, line 16, at end insert—
“(3A) In section 73 (Interpretation of Part 4), at the appropriate place insert—
‘Regional Schools Commissioner is an official appointed by the Secretary of State, or in an area of a combined authority, and if so requested by the mayor, the mayor elected under arrangements made under Section 107A (Power to provide for election of mayor) Cities and Local Government Devolution Act 2016.’”
Legislation does not define the Regional Schools Commissioner. This definition provides such a definition and for the devolution of responsibility for the function to combined authorities with elected mayors.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 68 reflects the fact that the Bill does not address how and in what manner a school will be informed that it is coasting, or who should advise the Secretary of State to notify a school that it is coasting. Amendment 69 would require the advice of Her Majesty’s chief inspector to be taken into account.
Amendment 70 aims to ensure a procedure of prior notification of intent to notify a school that it is coasting and provide time for responses. Amendment 71 aims to ensure that parents know that the Secretary of State intends to notify the school that it is coasting and provide an opportunity to have questions about a coasting definition answered.
Amendment 72 would prevent the Secretary of State from requiring that a school be academised immediately after it has been notified that it is coasting. Amendment 78 reflects the fact that legislation does not define the regional schools commissioner. It would provide for that and the devolution of responsibility for the function to combined authorities with elected mayors.
Amendment 68 is intended to probe the Secretary of State about requiring him or her to set out in regulations how and in what manner a school will be informed that it is coasting. Amendments 69, 70 and 71 address the fact that the Bill gives us no indication how the Secretary of State will actually carry out the process of deciding that a school is coasting and informing a school of that decision.
Kevin Brennan
No, the amendment does not say that. As I said at the outset, we tabled the amendment to probe the Government’s real intentions, because the Government have said that they want to give schools an opportunity to improve if there is a coasting finding under the regulations, and yet that seems to be at a disjuncture with what was said in the Conservative party manifesto. So we want to know whether the Minister has changed his mind about what is in the Conservative party manifesto, or whether the Bill will implement what is in the manifesto, but not say that that is what it is doing. I want to hear what the Minister has to say about that. I am as impatient as he is to make sure that we improve schools—all schools, as I said earlier, including maintained schools and academies—on an equal basis.
Amendment 78 says that we should consider whether using combined authorities is a good way forward. It provides for mayors of combined authorities to exercise the responsibilities that have been delegated to regional schools commissioners, just as they will take on the role of police and crime commissioners. Such a change would go with the grain of what the Government claim is one of their central strategies. It is surely clear by now that running an education system through central control is not the way forward. Even academies find the EFA and the Department for Education a source of endless frustration, because they really do not have a grip on what is going on.
There was an article in The Times Educational Supplement on 13 July, in which academy sponsors talked about their qualms about the rapid expansion of the academies programme and how they were being pushed to take on schools at a rate that they did not think appropriate:
“DfE officials were ‘queuing up’ to hand over schools in special measures to willing academy sponsors. At one stage, officials even lost track of the number of academy orders that had been signed off.”
So there is concern out there in relation to that level of bureaucracy and centralisation, as expressed in the article in The Times Educational Supplement. Interventions can also promote conflict between Government and local communities. We have just had an example of regional schools commissioners allowing a school in Redditch to change its age range in a way that will completely disrupt the local three-tier school system, despite 92% of consultees being opposed to that change. There is an interesting article about that in Schools Week of 10 July, which shows the kind of tension that can emerge between central Government and local communities unless there is a better relationship than has been outlined so far in relation to the Bill. This is what happens when there is no accountability to local communities, so we would like to see a step towards stronger local accountability.
There is also the issue of the commitment given in the schools White Paper issued by the Government in the previous Parliament—“The Importance of Teaching”, published in November 2010, on the commissioning role of the local authority. I asked the Secretary of State when she planned to implement the commitment that was given in paragraph 5.39 of the White Paper to consult with local authorities and academy sponsors on what role local authorities should play as strategic commissioners when all schools in an area have become academies. I asked on 22 June in a written question, No. 2886, which areas have no maintained secondary schools and when the Secretary of State was going to start the consultation. The Committee might, I think, be quite shocked to hear that the Schools Minister’s reply was not entirely forthcoming. Can the Minister state whether the 2010 White Paper commitment still stands, what conditions are likely to be opposed, and whether it would be better for consultations to start now, as local authorities might then encourage the remaining maintained schools to academise in order to be in a commissioning role? I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify the status of that White Paper commitment—has it been abandoned or does it still stand?
Amendment 81 proposes that the Ofsted framework contain an additional requirement for the inspection of schools. It would require Ofsted to survey parents who live within a school’s catchment area but have chosen to send their child to a different school. It is intended to provide Ofsted and the school with richer information about the views of local parents—views that seem to be largely absent from the Bill. It would apply to both primary and secondary schools and we propose a consultation process for determining the weighting and reporting of the survey data within the final inspection judgment report.
Steve McCabe
It occurs to me that this would be a perfect opportunity to address some of the points raised earlier by our hon. Friend the Member for Hyndburn. If parents are having to pay for additional services to compensate for the inadequacies of the school, it might be masked, as we have heard, by the assessments. If parents were able to reveal that information it would give the Minister access to a whole new range of data that we might otherwise miss.
Kevin Brennan
Yes, indeed. My hon. Friend is right. It seems to me that it is important to understand what parents think about local schools and why it is that parents might choose to send their children to schools other than the one in their local area. It would give a bit more contextual information that could be useful for school improvement, a positive purpose. I wonder whether the Minister has considered this approach; it was something that was mentioned in our 21st century schools document some time ago. I should be grateful for the Minister’s response on that.
Mr Gibb
Amendments 68 to 72 and 78 all relate to how the Secretary of State will notify a school that it is being considered to be coasting. Clause 1 would insert proposed new section 60B into the Education and Inspections Act 2006. This provides that where a school has met the definition of coasting and the relevant regional schools commissioner acting on behalf of the Secretary of State has notified the governing body of that school that it is considered to be coasting, then the school will be eligible for intervention. The Bill takes the power for the Secretary of State to convert all coasting schools into academies. We are fulfilling the manifesto pledge to ensure that all failing and coasting schools become academies, unless of course the regional schools commissioner is convinced that the school has the ability to turn itself around so that it is no longer coasting.
Kevin Brennan
It is good that having abandoned the foxhunting vote, the Government are now moving on to skinning cats.
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman, as always, makes a pithy intervention. The hon. Member for Hyndburn makes the very valid point that we have to address coasting schools and failure wherever they exist, but my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South is also right to say that we can use tools other than the definition of coasting to tackle underperformance. There are other measures that help schools deal with underperformance that do not always use the accountability regime but show how good schools around the country are delivering high standards of education. They include using synthetic phonics approaches to teach reading, Shanghai maths or a knowledge-based curriculum. Those measures and our other reforms to the curriculum and the examination system are all designed to raise standards right across the board.
Amendments 68, 69 and 70 would require the Secretary of State to specify in regulations exactly how and when she will make the notification. They would also add several procedural requirements to the notification process.
The measures that we have used in the definition of coasting are objective and transparent; they are not, as the hon. Member for Hyndburn said—or it may have been the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak—subjective. As the Secretary of State set out on Second Reading, the coasting definition is based on several principles. First, it is based on pupil performance data, not a single Ofsted judgment. Secondly, it takes into account the progress pupils make and whether they achieve their potential based on their starting point. Finally, it will be based on performance over three years—identifying schools that have been coasting for a period of time—rather than on the basis of a single set of results. The coasting definition is therefore based on data with which schools will already be familiar, and which headteachers and governors will already be monitoring each year. Schools will be able to assess for themselves whether they meet the coasting definition and most coasting schools are likely to identify that they meet the definition as soon as they receive their assessment or GCSE results, even before they receive notification from the relevant regional schools commissioner.
The regional schools commissioner’s notification to a school is the beginning of a process. Where headteachers and governors have an effective plan to ensure sufficient improvement, they will be given the time and space to do so. Only where the capacity to improve sufficiently is not evident will the regional schools commissioner require the school to accept additional support. Academisation with a sponsor will not be the right decision for every coasting school and some will have the capacity to bring about sufficient improvement themselves so that they are no longer coasting and need no further intervention.
Once schools have been notified that they are coasting, they will be allowed time to develop an improvement plan and to discuss it with the regional schools commissioner. If the regional schools commissioner agrees that the plan is likely to deliver improvements in academic standards, they will be allowed time to implement it. We will publish a new version of the statutory guidance on schools causing concern for consultation, reflecting the changes in the Bill and setting out how regional schools commissioners will exercise their discretion to support schools and decide when further intervention is necessary. Where appropriate, regional schools commissioners may signpost coasting schools to sources of school improvement support such as national leaders of education or the NAHT’s Aspire programme.
Amendment 69 proposes that the advice of Ofsted should be provided together with the advice of regional schools commissioners to governing bodies of schools that are considered coasting. The coasting definition is based on data, not Ofsted judgments. Ofsted judgments will of course remain significant for other purposes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth South said. They will determine when a school is failing and help to identify where other interventions may be necessary. Regional schools commissioners will want to consider recent Ofsted findings when deciding what action may be needed in a coasting school. In my view, amendments 68, 69 and 70 are therefore unnecessary.
Amendment 71 would require the governing body to notify parents when a school is deemed to be coasting. It would also require the Secretary of State to convene a meeting with parents to explain the implications.
The coasting definition uses performance data that the Department publishes. Parents are able therefore to monitor a school’s performance and challenge it if they are concerned that it is not performing well enough or that it meets the definition of coasting. Where a school is taking action to raise standards, it will want to engage staff and parents in discussions. We do not believe that it is necessary to include this requirement in legislation or require the regional schools commissioner to convene meetings directly. Schools should have the flexibility to engage with parents in the way most suitable to their circumstances. There is no requirement for local authorities or the Secretary of State to interact with parents in this way when schools become eligible for intervention via any other route under current legislation or elsewhere in the Bill.
I take the point that the hon. Member for Cardiff West raised about the importance of parental involvement. Parents have a very important role to play: they hold school leaders and governing bodies to account locally for what the school is doing to ensure that it makes progress. They challenge headteachers and governors where they do not think that enough is being done. As I said, performance data are available, so they can be used to hold schools to account. Schools will want to engage parents locally in their actions to bring about improvements. We believe that it is right for schools to make that decision about how and when to consult parents and that it is not a matter for legislation.
Kevin Brennan
One could observe that the last example is not a very good one, because in the case of London, the elected Mayor would cover all three of the regional schools commissioners that the Minister said were responsible for parts of London. However, I accept his point about his intentions for areas that should be covered by regional schools commissioners.
The issue of accountability will inevitably return. History shows us that Ministers being responsible for appointing officials with a great deal of influence and power is not ultimately an effective or appropriate way to run public services. We found that in the 1980s and 1990s with the quango-isation of a lot of the state. Appointing people to positions of great influence and power with command over public resources simply through a phone call from the Minister to someone they happen to know, have met down the club or think are particularly good is not a sustainable system in the longer term.
I accept that the system that the Minister has set up is new. However, with the powerful positions that he is creating outside statute, simply by virtue of their being appointed by the Secretary of State in a not terribly transparent manner, accountability will have to be more than accountability to a group of academy heads. Having said that, the amendments are probing, so I do not intend to press them to a vote.
We did not hear much from the Minister about the status of the White Paper from 2010. Will he respond to my points in writing?
Mr Gibb
I apologise for omitting that. The commitment in the schools White Paper was to consult on local authorities’ role in school improvement when they do not have any maintained schools left. As yet, there are no local authorities where all maintained schools have become academies, so there has been no need to consult in the way set out in “The Importance of Teaching” White Paper. We continue to consider the important evolutionary role of local authorities. We will consult on how the role has changed in the statutory guidance on schools causing concern, and discuss that with local authorities at a national and local level.
Kevin Brennan
I thank the Minister for that. It is helpful to know that the matter is still under consideration and that the White Paper commitment has not been completely wiped out as a result of subsequent changes. I will certainly reflect on his comments, which I welcome.
I would also like the Minister to consider my point about the role of parent councils. We feel that parents are largely missing from the Bill. They have been referred to as more of a hindrance than a help to the educational system, and he needs to reflect on that.
On academisation, there is likely to be a rapid expansion as a result of the Bill. Although the Minister said that the Government were implementing the manifesto commitment, that commitment appeared to be an assumption of automatic academisation of coasting schools. I welcome the fact that, according to the Minister’s remarks, that is not his plan. There are real concerns about the system’s capacity to deal with a rapid increase in the number of schools eligible for intervention, and there is a potential problem.
The TES article I mentioned earlier pointed out that only 3.6% of sponsorship applications have been rejected by the DFE. That is a very low percentage of rejections and suggests that the DFE is so desperate for sponsors that its quality control is not high enough. That is reflected in the failure rate among some sponsors. We cannot gamble with our children’s futures.
Kevin Brennan
I hope to conclude at this point. I therefore beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
We will deal next with amendment 73 to clause 1. However, we have reached the witching hour of Question Time.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Margot James.)
Education and Adoption Bill (Eighth sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Welcome back to our proceedings, Mr Chope. It is again a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship.
Amendments 39, 40, 46, 42 and 45 all relate to clause 7, as does amendment 24, which was tabled by the hon. Member for Sefton Central. Clause 7 places a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order for any maintained school that Ofsted has rated inadequate, removing any doubt about how we will intervene in failing schools: they must become academies with the support of an effective sponsor to give them the necessary support and challenge to turn the school around. The clause is therefore a crucial new power to strengthen our ability to deal with failure and to do so more swiftly.
Amendment 39 seeks to make the duty to issue an academy order dependent on whether the Ofsted chief inspector advises that such an order should be made. The Government of course greatly value the independent advice of the chief inspector on school performance, but I consider the amendment to be unnecessary and likely to lead to a less efficient process for taking the necessary action quickly once a school is identified to be failing. Ofsted judgments on a school’s performance are made under the powers of Her Majesty’s chief inspector, as set out in the Education and Inspections Act 2006. When Ofsted judges a school inadequate, the chief inspector has already sent a clear signal to the school, local authority and the Secretary of State that he judges the school to be failing to provide an adequate education. Once a school is deemed inadequate, there should be no further question about whether the school should be converted into an academy. In such cases, the school is failing to provide an adequate education and requires academisation as quickly as possible. Regional schools commissioners are then responsible for taking the necessary action to secure improvements, and they are accountable to Parliament through the Secretary of State.
The amendment would create a further review stage for the individual school before an academy order is issued, but when Ofsted has already given a clear judgment that the school is failing. That additional step is unnecessary and runs against our aim to make intervention more effective and efficient. In short, we will have already asked for the opinion of Her Majesty’s chief inspector, and that will have been provided when Ofsted awards a school a category 4 grading.
Amendment 40 would remove the requirement for the Secretary of State to make an academy order when a school is found to be inadequate. In every case in which a school is found to be inadequate, it must have a fresh start immediately, secured through an academy solution with an effective sponsor. The duty that the clause places on the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect on any maintained school that Ofsted has rated inadequate removes any doubt about how we will intervene in failing schools: they must become academies, with the support of an effective sponsor.
Since 2010, sponsors have taken on more than 1,100 such schools. The replacement of the governance of a failing school with the support of a strong sponsor is an effective way to secure rapid improvement. By 2014, results in sponsored secondary academies open for four years had risen by an average of 6.4 percentage points compared with their predecessor schools. During that same period, results in local authority schools rose by an average of 1.3 percentage points—[Interruption.] In previous sittings we have debated whether that is a valid judgment. I contend that it is, because it puts in perspective what those 6.4 percentage points mean in terms of how standards are rising overall through the system.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
As the Minister is using that same statistic again, will he ask his officials to crunch the numbers for schools that were in similar positions and tried other methods of improvement to see what results were produced? Officials have had several days to do that, so I would have thought that he would have those numbers in his notes by now.
Mr Gibb
We are always crunching numbers when comparing schools and we are always looking at how individual schools and academies are faring. We pore over all kinds of crunched numbers the whole time. That is a particular role of the regional schools commissioners, who do similar analysis to identify schools, and indeed academies, that are failing.
We do take swift action when academies are failing. Thetford academy, for example, was put in special measures in March 2013. The sponsors acknowledged that they did not have the capacity to make the required improvements, so the Department brought in the Inspiration Trust, who took the school on in July 2013. Results in the next academic year showed that the number of students achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and maths increased by 10 percentage points. In December 2014—just a few months later—Ofsted judged Thetford to be “good”, with outstanding leadership. Its report described the school as “transformed beyond recognition” and said that the trust’s leadership and support had
“created a strong culture where only the best is good enough.”
That demonstrates that we are equally as rigorous when dealing with underperforming academies as we will be when dealing with underperforming maintained schools under the Bill. The difference is that we have the powers to deal with underperforming academies through the funding agreement between the trust and the Secretary of State. We do not have similar powers for maintained schools; that is what the Bill is about.
Mr Gibb
We are taking the same approach. Clause 7 deals with schools that have been awarded category 4 in an Ofsted judgment. Therefore, we will take swift action to turn that school into an academy. When a school is coasting, whether it is maintained or an academy, those discussions start. If the regional schools commissioner is convinced that there is an adequate plan to deal effectively with that coasting, they will support that plan. It is only after those discussions lead the regional schools commissioner to believe that it does not have an adequate plan that the Secretary of State will use the powers under other provisions in the Bill to move towards academisation.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister said that the Bill gave power to the Secretary of State in those circumstances. Will he confirm that under the 2010 Act the Secretary of State can make an academy order in relation to any school that has received an adverse Ofsted finding? Therefore, the Secretary of State has the power. What this proposal would do is restrict the type of action that the Secretary of State is able to take.
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman is right. There is a “may” power. The Secretary of State may issue an academy order under that provision of the 2010 Act. The provision in clause 7 would make it automatic, so that the academy order is automatically issued on the day or day after Ofsted awards a judgment of “inadequate” for that school. That fulfils our manifesto commitment to take action from day one, when a school is demonstrated to be failing. We make no apology for bringing in a Bill that changes that “may” into a “must”. That demonstrates the seriousness of the swift action the Government intend to take with failing schools.
Mr Gibb
May I disabuse the hon. Gentleman of that last comment? Academies do play their part in providing for children with special educational needs. Sponsored academies actually have a higher proportion of pupils with special educational needs than the average across all state-funded schools. In January last year, 22.1% of pupils in sponsored secondary academies were identified as having some form of SEN, compared with 17.8% of pupils in all state-funded secondary schools. The figures are similar for primary schools.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman is correct, because that is not the interesting comparison. It is hardly surprising that sponsored academies have a higher number of children in that category since they are the schools that were likely to have been causing concern. The real test would be comparing the number of special needs pupils in those schools, now that they have become sponsored academies, with the number they had before. The Minister is no doubt about to supply us with that statistic.
Mr Gibb
I hope to be able to do that, but in the meantime I can tell the hon. Gentleman that academies perform well as far as children with special educational needs are concerned. Between 2013 and 2014, key stage 2 results for pupils with special educational needs in sponsored academies improved at a faster rate than those in local authority schools. The proportion of SEN pupils who achieved level 4 or above in reading, writing and maths improved by six percentage points in sponsored academies, compared with four percentage points in local authority schools.
Kevin Brennan
The statistic that the Minister just read out—inadequate as it is, as we have already pointed out—shows that academies are doing worse with special needs pupils than with other pupils, given the statistics he read out earlier.
Mr Gibb
No doubt one would see similar disparities across the system.
The hon. Gentleman keeps asking about a like-for-like comparison. The Department has published detailed analysis comparing the performance of sponsored academies and similar maintained schools. Analysis published in 2012 and 2013 showed sponsored academies performing at a faster rate than maintained schools with similar prior attainment, levels of deprivation and pupil starting points. Last week, the NFER published data comparing the 2014 GCSE performance of academies open for two to four years with those of matched maintained schools. It found that the percentage of pupils achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs in sponsored academies was 2.9 percentage points higher than in similar local authority schools. With that statistic, I hope to have put this debate to rest once and for all.
Mr Gibb
We are working with the Collaborative Academies Trust to ensure that it has a robust action plan to help make improvements in its schools. Whenever there are failures in sponsored academies, we take swift action. The record shows that we take swifter action in those circumstances than has historically been the case in many local authorities, where there are examples of schools languishing in special measures for many months, if not years.
Kevin Brennan
On that point, will the Minister confirm that every time an academy receives an “inadequate” Ofsted rating, it will be removed and given to another sponsor the very next day, in the same way that he proposes maintained schools should be academised or have an academy order issued the day after receiving that Ofsted rating? That would show he is serious about parity of treatment.
Mr Gibb
We are certainly taking swift action. The difference that the hon. Gentleman fails to understand is that a new system of academy chains is now developing. There are more than 400 academy chains of at least two academy schools evolving into successful chains. Some are taking time to become effective in their overall governance and school improvement support services. Where they are struggling, we take action to remove the sponsor or to insist that reform takes place.
We are trying to make the evolving system work so that we have a collection of effective academy groups and chains that we can see developing. We have Ark and Harris at the top of the performance table, but other academy chains such as Outwood Grange are busy developing effective models of how to run multi-academy trusts. I am optimistic and excited that, in the future, we will have a very effective governance system. Be in no doubt that where we see academies graded as category 4, we will take swift action with their multi-academy trusts. If we believe that they are not capable of managing their school improvement, we will take action to remove that sponsor.
Mr Gibb
That is a technical point. My instinctive answer is that, of course, if an education, health and care plan names a maintained school that converts to be an academy, that plan will apply equally to the successor academy school. However, given the technical nature of that point, I will ensure that I have got my answer correct, so I will come back to the hon. Gentleman.
I hope that I have managed to deal with hon. Members’ concerns and that, on that basis, the hon. Member for Cardiff West will withdraw his amendment.
Kevin Brennan
We have had an interesting debate on this group of amendments, in which we have teased out some interesting points from the Minister. One is that when academy schools and chains are deemed “inadequate” by Ofsted, he is happy for them to evolve—I think that is the word he used—out of the situation. Evolution is the preferred option for academy schools that are found to be “inadequate” by Ofsted.
The Ofsted report on the Collaborative Academies Trust mentioned Lumbertubs primary school in Northamptonshire, which was a predecessor school before it was academised. It received grade 3 in its final inspection before academisation, which means that it was definitely requiring improvement; there is no question about that. However, in the school’s most recent section 5 inspection since academisation, it was given grade 4—special measures. The school was turned into an academy and went from a grade 3 to a grade 4.
Under the Bill, if that school were a maintained school, the Secretary of State would have absolutely no choice but to issue—the very next day, we have been told—an academy order for the school to be academised. That is a bit difficult when the school already is an academy and has gone from grade 3 to an “inadequate” special measures situation. Under those circumstances, it is allowed to evolve out of the situation in which it has been deemed “inadequate”. As I said on Second Reading, so much for the Secretary of State’s professed view that no child should be allowed to languish in an inadequate school for one single day. If it is an academy school, it is all right because it will have plenty of opportunity for evolution to take place—that is, by the way, if the school teaches evolution. Some of the schools being contemplated by some sponsors apparently have doubts about one of our greatest ever scientific achievements—the theory of evolution by Charles Darwin. Anyway, we will leave that aside.
We have teased at least that point out of the Minister and have had a good knockaround with the amendments. So much more could be said, but I think we have said most of it. We want to move on to the debate on clause stand part, so I will not press our amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
The clause places a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order for any maintained school that Ofsted has rated “inadequate”, whether by virtue of being in special measures or of being judged to have serious weaknesses. This removes any doubt about how we will intervene in failing schools: they must become academies with the support of an effective sponsor to provide the support and challenge necessary to turn that school around. The clause is therefore a crucial new power to strengthen our ability to deal with failure and to do so more quickly.
We are clear that becoming a sponsored academy is an effective way rapidly to transform a failing school. There are numerous success stories of failing schools being turned around by the leadership of a sponsor, and of the huge improvement that can make to performance. For example, Meopham school was judged inadequate by Ofsted in 2012. Attainment across all subjects, especially mathematics, was poor. The Swale Academies Trust took on sponsorship of the school in 2013 and appointed two new assistant headteachers who were both specialists in maths. Extra classes were introduced to support students. Ofsted described the impact of the trust as transformative and judged the school to be good in 2012.
By requiring the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of a failing school, the clause will make it automatic that failing schools must become sponsored academies. When a school is found to be failing, a transformation needs to be able to take place from day one. Our experience over the past five years shows that in many cases where it was most needed, transformation was delayed by unnecessary debate, delaying tactics and obstruction of a process. The Bill seeks to put an end to such delays, which do nothing to improve the quality of education that pupils receive.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister keeps referring to this as a new power. As I pointed out, the Secretary of State already has the power to academise. This is not a new power; it is a new restraint on the Secretary of State. It limits their power to take another action that might be the appropriate one when a school is found “inadequate” by Ofsted.
The Minister went on to describe academisation as an effective way—he did not use the definite article—which suggests there may be other effective ways. That is the case we have been making and he himself has accepted by saying that those ways could be used in the interim prior to the academy order finally taking effect. He went on to describe and give an example of where academisation has been accompanied by an improvement in the school’s performance. Earlier I gave an example of where academisation did exactly the opposite, where it resulted in the school’s performance declining, with the school going from category 3 to 4; that is, from requiring improvement to inadequate.
I want to make it clear that we are completely on board with the concept that, in certain circumstances, the use of a sponsored academy can be the right approach to school improvement. If there are the right sponsors and real quality, it can be a powerful way to turn a school around. However, the clause would place a requirement on the Secretary of State to issue an academy order the very next day, according to the Minister, no matter the circumstances or how many sponsors are available, their quality or whether they are to be trusted with a large number of schools.
Whatever their previous record, without their being vetted—another issue, Mr Chope—the Secretary of State must hand over the school, via an academy order, to an academy sponsor whatever the current circumstances. That means the Secretary of State does not have to take professional advice or worry about whether it is appropriate. The decision is, in effect, taken in advance under this clause. It is not surprising that there is opposition to the clause from all sorts of quarters.
I quote from the NASUWT briefing on clause 7 of the Bill:
“The lack of guidance on the face of the Bill on how the Secretary of State should exercise these discretionary powers could lead to uncertainty across the system and unacceptable variation between the ways in which different cases are handled. It should be a minimum expectation that these powers should be used in a way that is transparent and consistent. This clause seeks to apply an ideological ‘one size fits all’ approach to school improvement, regardless of local circumstances or evidence.”
That is exactly the point that we have been making. We gave copious examples of other forms of school improvement during the debate on the amendment. We think that the clause is not fit for purpose. The debate is not about whether academies sometimes work; it is about the proposition that they always work, and that nothing else ever works as well. In making those presumptions the Ministers are ignoring what the Select Committee said. The cross-party Select Committee—with a Conservative majority—in the previous Parliament called on the Government to “stop exaggerating” with regard to the success of academies.
“Current evidence does not prove that academies raise standards overall or for disadvantaged children.”
I am glad the Minister in his last remarks provided us with some new data we can get our teeth into, and we will enjoy doing so. Perhaps he could stick to that in future rather than the pointless comparisons that he sometimes makes.
Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, said at the end of 2014:
“There could be little difference in school improvement under an academy chain or a council.”
He argued that,
“a new name and a breathless new motto”
was all that some schools received after exchanging local authority governance for a chain of academies.
The RSA Academies Commission found that,
“it is increasingly clear that academy status alone is not a panacea for improvement.”
It went on to say that,
“the evidence considered by the Commission does not suggest that improvement across all academies has been strong enough to transform the life chances of children from the poorest families.”
Steve McCabe
As my hon. Friend demonstrated, there is little evidence to support the Minister’s arguments. In truth, the clause is the authoritarian face of this Government. This is the Government at their dictatorial worst. The Minister will be stripped of all flexibility as a result of the clause, which he should call the “compulsory academisation at all costs” clause, because that is what he really seeks to achieve here.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend, once again, is right. We have to wonder what the Secretary of State’s problem is. Does she not trust herself to make the right decision? Why does she have to legislate to ensure she makes the right decision? It is a highly unusual clause, and I am racking my brains to think of something similar to it. I am sure that some constitutional experts, many of whom will be following our proceedings, will dig some up. I hope that this peculiar clause will be removed from the Bill, if not now then at a later stage, not because it is not vitally important that we do everything we can as quickly as possible to improve our schools, because it is, but simply because it is extremely foolish for Ministers to tie their hands and prevent themselves from carrying out other forms of intervention that might be the right pathway for improving schools in the long term.
The Government do not say enough about pupils who are languishing in failing academies—25% of failing schools are academies. From listening to Ministers’ wonderful anecdotes about academies that are thankfully successful, it would be easy to think that failing academies do not exist. We believe that a judgment about the future of a school should be based on evidence and on the particular circumstances of the school and the community. There should be a proper, open debate about that. There should be no stitching up of things behind closed doors.
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Is it not clear from the evidence we have heard that some academy chains perform excellently and some do not, and some maintained schools perform very well and many do not? It is a mixed picture, but it is clear that the academisation programme over the past decade has produced success. The academisation of a school in my constituency has taken it from below average to “good”, and it is on track to “outstanding”. That must surely be progress. Anything that empowers that process and takes it a step forward must be supported.
Kevin Brennan
I agree with everything the hon. Lady said in the first part of her intervention, and I am very pleased about the success of the intervention in her constituency that she talked about in the second part of her intervention. She said that that kind of improvement can take place in the maintained sector or under a sponsored academy programme. She was lucky that the Collaborative Academies Trust—those great experts who are supposed to take over and improve our schools—did not take over the school in her constituency, because if they did the school might have ended up in special measures. That example makes my point that we must not tether the Secretary of State to a particular course of action, which is what clause 7 does. Turning around an “inadequate” school requires the right course of action, with the right leadership, the right people and the right solution.
We need more evidence about the degree to which the fragmentation of what is intended to be a national system of schools is linked to the concerns my hon. Friends expressed about the treatment of special needs pupils and the socioeconomic segregation between schools. We need to look carefully at that. Professor Stephen Gorard of Durham University pointed out in his written evidence that we should be very careful about that fragmentation and ensure it does not cause socioeconomic divides and issues around special needs, which we spoke about earlier. On that basis, I ask my hon. Friends to join me in opposing clause 7 stand part.
Mr Gibb
The Bill is not driven by ideology but by tackling underperformance, and we are happy for local authorities such as Bristol to do their work. GCSE results in Bristol have risen for 10 years in a row. Ofsted has judged 85% of primaries and 90% of secondaries to be “good” or “outstanding” and 100% of nursery and special schools are now judged “good” or better.
Kevin Brennan
I am pleased to hear that, but the clause says that should a Bristol school have an Ofsted inspection tomorrow and receive an “inadequate” rating, the Minister would not be prepared to work with the local authority and an academy order would be granted the very next day.
Mr Gibb
Yes, that is right, because Bristol’s oversight of that particular school, of which it would have had oversight for decades, would have been proven not to be effective. We are not prepared to tolerate or risk a further decade of unsuccessful oversight. We are looking at underperformance. Where regional schools commissioners see high performance in schools, they are simply not interested in using their resources to intervene. That is the system to which we are moving.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 47, in clause 8, page 6, line 15, leave out—
‘is converted into an Academy’
and insert—
‘applies for an Academy order under section 4’.
This amendment makes clear that consultation on an application for Academy status must occur before an application for an Academy Order is made.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 48, in clause 8, page 6, leave out lines 18 to 22.
A consequence of requiring consultation before an application for an Academy Order [see amendment 47].
Kevin Brennan
What a shame—I really thought that we might have won that one!
Under the Academies Act 2010 there is a duty to consult on an application for academy status, albeit a fairly loose one, put on the governing body to consult who “they think appropriate”. Such a consultation can happen before or after an academy order is made and it is only on whether a school should be an academy. There is no such duty on the Department for Education, despite the fact that in many cases it will require the conversion to happen, nor is there any consultation on who should be a sponsor.
On schools eligible for intervention, the clause removes all requirements to consult, which is a familiar theme in the Bill. Earlier last month, we heard the Secretary of State present the Government’s true intentions in the Bill: it is seen as a way to
“sweep away the bureaucratic and legal loopholes previously exploited by those who put ideological objections above the best interests of children”—
otherwise known as parents. The objections she referred to are mostly those of parents with affected children and members of the local community. It really has come to something when parents’ genuine concerns about the Government’s rather dogmatic approach to schools policy are treated with such contempt by Ministers.
Amendments 47 and 48 would rescue the requirement to consult, which vitally gives a voice to the local community that the schools in question serve. It has been said that, under the clause, governors will no longer have a duty of care to their children; instead they will have a duty to implement Government policy, and that that in itself is an attack on freedom of speech. It is not surprising that governors around the country are concerned.
The National Governors’ Association said:
“The proposed Bill removes the requirement to consult parents, pupils and staff on the decision to change the status of the school, if the school is eligible for intervention and subject to an academy order. We accept in clear cut situations, school improvement should not be delayed, but in the interests of transparency, NGA suggests that the case of an academy order over and above other forms of interventions, in particular an IEB, should be made public.”
We know that the Department has a history of favouring closed-door policy making and believes that it always knows better than everyone else, so it is a slight inconvenience for the Department that we live in a democracy. The Government do not always know best, so we should not assume that they always do.
Mr Gibb
Clause 8 removes the requirement to consult where a school is eligible for intervention. An academy order will be made either under the existing section 4(1)(b) of the Academies Act 2010, where a school is eligible for intervention, or under the new section 4(A1), where an academy order must be made because a school has been rated “inadequate” by Ofsted. The effect of the clause is that, where a school is eligible for intervention, a consultation is not needed on whether it should become an academy, but a governing body will still need to consult if it proposes to convert to academy status by choice and is not eligible for intervention.
Amendment 48 would require the governing body to consult when a school is to become an academy as a result of intervention by the regional schools commissioner. The Bill makes it clear that any school judged by Ofsted to be “inadequate” will become a sponsored academy. In some cases, a regional schools commissioner may also require schools that are eligible for intervention for other reasons to become sponsored academies, such as where a school has met the coasting definition and the regional schools commissioner has judged that it does not have a sufficient plan to improve. Where a school is underperforming and an academy solution is required, we want the improvements in standards to begin immediately. The process should not be delayed by ongoing debate about whether the school should become an academy. An academy solution, with the support and leadership of an effective sponsor, is the best way to turn around that school.
Our experience over the past five years shows that, in many cases where it was most needed, transformation has been delayed by unnecessary debate, delaying tactics and obstruction of the process. Twydall school, for example, was judged to be inadequate in March 2014. The Department wrote to the school and to the local authority within five working days of the Ofsted judgment to outline that an academy solution should be considered, and in May 2014 the governing body voted to become an academy. Subsequently, however, there has been a series of drawn-out consultations, which have prevented a sponsor from being agreed and put in place. Between June 2014 and May 2015, Ofsted conducted four section 8 monitoring inspections and found that the education of pupils at that school has continued to suffer throughout the period of delays caused by consultation. The Bill seeks to put an end to such problems, which do nothing to improve the quality of education that pupils receive. Amendment 48 would serve only to defer those essential improvements, which is why I urge colleagues not to accept it.
The position is different for high-performing schools that wish to benefit from the additional freedoms that academy status provides. Such schools are currently required to consult on academy conversion. They should discuss that decision with staff, parents and others who have an interest, and they should take account of those views before entering into academy arrangements with the Secretary of State. Clause 8 makes it clear that that requirement will continue, but amendments 47 and 48 propose that that approach should change, and that the consultation by a governing body that proposes to convert voluntarily would have to take place before the school applies for an academy order, rather than, as currently required, before conversion is finalised—a later stage in the process.
There are good reasons why it is usually most appropriate for a formal consultation to take place after the academy order is made. Before the order is made, the governing body will prepare an application to the regional schools commissioner to convert to academy status, and that application may not necessarily be accepted. For example, the RSC may judge that a school that has applied to convert to being a stand-alone academy should instead join a multi-academy trust or benefit from the support of a sponsor. For that reason, it will generally be most appropriate to consult after the regional schools commissioner has considered the application. If the application is approved, the regional schools commissioner will make an academy order. This is an enabling order. It is a first step in the administrative process that a school will go through to become an academy. It acts as an agreement, in principle, that the school will be permitted to become an academy, but it is not a guarantee. There are further processes between an academy order being made and a school becoming an academy to work through, such as the arrangements for the transfer of staff, land and assets. By consulting after the academy order is made, the governing body has more details about the implications of conversion that will help inform the views of staff and parents.
The crucial decision-making point is when the school and the Secretary of State enter into academy arrangements, which is when the funding agreement is signed. It will therefore be more meaningful for schools voluntarily converting to academy status to consult about whether to enter into academy arrangements with the Secretary of State at that point in the process, so that staff and parents can give informed consideration to what is best for the future of the school.
Although the statutory consultation generally takes place after an academy order has been made, governing bodies are able to carry out some consultation before making their application, if they wish. For example, they may informally consult the staff prior to making an application and then consult more widely after the academy order has been made. Clause 8 does not prevent the first informal consultation from happening for schools voluntarily converting. I therefore do not agree that the approach to consultation proposed by the hon. Members for Cardiff West and for Birmingham, Selly Oak in amendments 47 and 48 is necessary or appropriate. I urge them not to press their amendments.
Kevin Brennan
We remain concerned about the withdrawal of consultation in the Bill for all sorts of reasons. It is not my intention to press the amendments to a vote, but we have laid our concerns on the record and they remain. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 49, in clause 8, page 6, line 24, leave out “any” and insert “a majority of”
Currently, legislation does not require a majority decision of the Governing Body of a Federation to apply for a federated school to become an Academy. This amendment rectifies this position.
This is a probing amendment, which reflects the fact that legislation currently does not require a majority decision of the governing body of a federation to apply for a federated school to become an academy. It might be a sensible provision that the majority of the governing body of a federation applying for a federated school to become an academy should agree with that decision. If a majority of concerned governors oppose the academisation of a federated school, it seems that, superficially, the desires of that majority ought to be honoured. I should be grateful if the Minister would elucidate that point.
Mr Gibb
The amendment seeks to change the consultation process required for a federated school to become an academy. It proposes that the decision on who to consult when making an academy order application for a federated school should be made by a majority of the governing body, not simply by the governing body, as explained by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. The amendments would have no material effect because all decisions of a governing body, including who to consult, are already made by majority vote. Therefore, we resist the proposed amendment.
If, however, the intention of the amendment is to change not the consultation process, but the application process for a federated school, I can confirm that the Department has recently consulted on changes to regulations to require at least 50%—not 100%—of prescribed governors to approve an academy order application. The consultation closed on Friday 3 July and we are now considering the response. Any changes will be made to the regulations in September. Therefore, there is no need for the matter to be addressed through the amendment or in primary legislation. On that basis, I urge the hon. Gentleman to withdraw the amendment.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
I cannot comment on the specific example that the hon. Lady gave, but Outwood Grange as an academy sponsor is highly effective; and so far as the school that I cited, Bydales school, is concerned, it is still early days since Outwood Grange took it over, but the indications are that it is making good progress.
The Bill seeks to put an end to the delays that I have described. They do nothing to improve the quality of the education that pupils receive. We want the transformation of a failing school to begin from day one. However, this clause retains the requirement that where the governing body of a school is proposing voluntarily that it should become an academy, it must consult on whether the conversion should take place. In these schools, the governing body is expected to take account of that consultation process in deciding whether to go ahead with becoming an academy.
Kevin Brennan
Clause 8 represents an extraordinary departure from the normal processes of governmental decision making. The Secretary of State is empowered under this clause to make a decision without making any attempt whatever to listen to pupils, parents, teachers, governors, employers—anyone at all who might be thought to have some knowledge of the situation on the ground. In fact, concern has been expressed by the NASUWT in its briefing that the provision might breach article 26(3) of the universal declaration of human rights:
“Parents have a…right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.”
Of course, we know what the Secretary of State thinks of other people’s views, because her press release about the Bill said that
“campaigners could delay or overrule failing schools being improved by education experts by obstructing the process by which academy sponsors take over running schools.”
That is really the attitude expressed in the Bill to any concerns, or anybody who ought to be consulted. Of course, it is based on the absolute presumption that the Secretary of State’s view and solution is always best, but as we have demonstrated time and again during our debates, that is not always the case. To put it generously, there is no evidence that her case has been made and that academy conversion is more likely to lead to improvement in an inadequate school than adopting other school improvement approaches in particular circumstances. And there is plenty of evidence, from Ofsted and from the DFE’s own analysis of results, that there is enormous variation in effectiveness among sponsors. That is why, as we found out earlier, Ministers always mention good sponsors when talking about academies but never really emphasise the bad sponsors until we press them and make them do so. The idea that every sponsor who comes forward has some unique level of expertise is frankly not true.
What is most likely to improve a particular school in particular circumstances is a matter of judgment. Exercising judgment requires evidence, and gathering evidence means listening to those who have views. Dismissing those who have different experiences and different views is not an acceptable, or even a sensible, way to carry out any branch of government. It inevitably leads to bad decisions, and certainly worse decisions than would have been made in general, had they been made after obtaining the views of those who have some knowledge locally.
There is a case generally for consultation and a case for consultation on specific issues. Local communities should not have particular sponsors imposed on them without having some say in the matter. They are not just interchangeable; they have different and particular approaches to managing schools and the curriculum, and they have different records in terms of their effectiveness and of managing public money. Despite the strenuous efforts of Ministers to prevent Ofsted from inspecting academy chains, we know from Ofsted how inadequate some chains are. From the Select Committee evidence, for example, we know that one chain, the Kemnal Academies Trust, takes pride in having sacked 26 out of 40 headteachers and holding the axe over the heads of the rest, with targets to be met every six weeks. Not surprisingly, perhaps, Ofsted did not think much of its record.
Communities are entitled to say that they do not want this regime locally, and then there are the cases in which the proposed sponsor is given the job of carrying out the consultation. That is hardly a way of guaranteeing that the process is open and above board. It is wrong that it is done behind closed doors—not only in principle, but it makes the whole process of improving a school harder than it needs to be. A sensible Government negotiate and seek to persuade local people. They listen and are prepared to amend their views, and recognise that there is not only one source of wisdom. Schools are not lollipops to be doled out to Ministers’ friends, supporters and party donors. Government should not leave themselves open to the charge that they have favourites and will support them regardless of evidence to the contrary.
It may ultimately be that after consulting, the Government decide to carry on with their initial view. That is fine, but not to consult at all is wrong. On Second Reading, I thought my hon. Friend the Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz) put it very well:
“Amazingly, the Bill says that parents should not be consulted, so the very people who know about a school will not be allowed to have a say. In this country, we consult, we do not dictate, and that is one of the key areas that judges will look at in considering whether a decision is lawful.”—[Official Report, 22 June 2015; Vol. 597, c. 684.]
The Minister and the Government are opening themselves up to that kind of challenge. I agree with my hon. Friend and we will continue to pursue this matter as the Bill progresses, although we will not press clause stand part to a Division.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 8 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 9
Consultation about identity of Academy sponsor in certain cases
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 50, in clause 9, page 6, line 29, leave out from second “section” to end of line 31 and insert “4 has effect”
Clause 9 provides for consultation about who should sponsor an Academy in certain cases. This amendment widens the scope of the new section 5A to include all Academy sponsors.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 51, in clause 9, page 6, line 32, after “into”, insert “or terminating”
This amendment provides for consultation when there is a change of sponsor.
Amendment 52, in clause 9, page 6, line 34, at end insert—
“(za) parents,
(zb) school staff,
(zc) local community,
(zd) local authority,”
This amendment widens the group of persons that must be consulted about the identity of the academy sponsor or when there is a change of Academy sponsor.
New clause 3—Consultation about identity of Academy sponsor in all cases—
‘After section 5 of the Academies Act 2010 insert—
“5B Consultation about identity of Academy sponsor in all cases
(1) This section applies where an Academy order under section 4(A1) has effect in respect of any maintained school.
(2) Before entering into Academy arrangements in relation to the school the Secretary of State must consult the following about the identity of the person with whom the arrangements are to be entered into—
(a) the school’s governing body,
(b) the local authority,
(c) the Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Schools,
(d) parents of registered pupils at the school,
(e) the teaching and other staff of the school,
(f) registered pupils at the school, and
(g) any other such persons as he thinks appropriate.”’
Kevin Brennan
We are now motoring on to clause 9. As you said, Mr Chope, we are considering amendments 50, 51 and 52 along with new clause 3, which has been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley.
Amendment 50 notes that clause 9 provides for consultation about who should sponsor an academy in certain cases, and it widens the scope of the proposed new section 5A to include all academy sponsors. Amendments 51 and 52 provide for consultation when there is a change of sponsor.
The amendments would require the whole local community to be consulted about the identity of sponsors. It is important to note that the identity is a matter of concern not just to faith groups, which the Minister has acknowledged elsewhere in the Bill, but to others. They would require consultation when there is a proposal to change a sponsor, which has happened when chains collapse, such as the Prospects Academies Trust in May 2014, or when schools are taken away from them due to poor performance, and we heard examples of that from the Minister earlier. An academy chain in charge of running six state schools—the Prospects Academies Trust, which we talked about earlier—was forced to close. It was the first example of that happening, which shows that it is extremely important that there is consultation in such circumstances. Communities should not be left in the dark and treated with contempt by the Government when it happens. That is no way to run an education system. I hope that the Minister agrees that under those circumstances, consultation would be the right route to take.
Louise Haigh
New clause 3 goes a bit further than the amendments tabled by my hon. Friend. It amends the Academies Act to require that a certain number of people are consulted over an academy order in respect of any maintained school, including the chief inspector of education, children’s services and skills; registered pupils of that school; and any other persons that the Secretary of State thinks appropriate. The Government are not fond of consultation—that was made very clear by the 2011 legislation—but the official Opposition are big fans of democracy and accountability. We do not believe that they and school improvement are mutually exclusive.
The amendments are important because, as both sides of the Committee accept, there are good and bad academies. There are “outstanding”, “failing” and now “coasting” academies, and those terms apply to maintained schools as well. If pupils and parents do not have a say in whether their school becomes an academy, it is right that they should have a say in who runs it. If an academy chain such as the Harris Federation was going to run the school, that would be a very different story from its being run by a chain such as E-ACT, which has had so many schools removed from it.
It is important to include the chief inspector on the list of consultees, to ensure that as much information as possible is available, particularly given Ofsted’s press release last week. I know it has been referenced several times, but it is important to the Committee. It included information about the inspection of the Collaborative Academies Trust, which is sponsored by EdisonLearning. Nine academies are in the trust: three in Northamptonshire, five in Somerset and one in Essex. Ofsted found:
“Too many academies have not improved since joining the trust”
and that at the time of the inspection,
“there were not yet any good or outstanding academies in the trust.”
The amendment is important because if a school is to become an academy, parents, pupils and all other relevant stakeholders should have a choice in whether the academy is run by a trust such as EdisonLearning or perhaps a local federation, an outstanding local school that can sponsor schools or, possibly, a co-operative trust. If I were a parent—I assure the Committee that that is a thoroughly hypothetical situation—I would want a choice over which sponsor was going to run the school. I would want to know its background, as well as the governance arrangements, and to be given as much information as possible. I am sure that parents and children across the country feel the same. I hope the Minister will seriously consider the amendment and the new clause in his response.
Mr Gibb
Except where underperforming schools have, in the past, been transferred to those trusts, there has been consultation. The hon. Gentleman is presumably asserting that those academy chains are not performing as well as they should. However, the decision about which academy group is responsible for an underperforming school will now be left to the regional schools commissioner, who knows the academy chains and the area and will choose the appropriate chain.
Kevin Brennan
By what logic would there be fewer failures in academy chains if we wiped away consultation?
Mr Gibb
It is not the success or failure of the process at stake. I am simply pointing out to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that the school acquisitions he cited took place with consultation. He may be critical of their outcomes, but they happened with consultation.
My objection to amendment 50 and new clause 3 is that they will delay the process. In the example that I cited in Croydon, a year of children’s primary school education was wasted. We would have had significantly more children getting good literacy and mathematics results if that process had happened when it was meant to.
Kevin Brennan
What about the academy chains that were appointed and failed those children? What about that waste? By what logic would that be less likely to happen if we do not bother to consult anyone?
Mr Gibb
The issue with consultation is time. If we take steps out of the process, we reduce the time. The issue of whether a particular academy chain is good or poor is one that we take swift action on. We take much swifter action now in dealing with underperforming academy sponsors than local authorities have in the past in dealing with underperforming schools, which in many instances—not all, but many—have languished in special measures for far too long. The whole academisation process is designed to speed up the process. Where we find that academy chains are underperforming, we take equally swift action to deal with the sponsors.
Kevin Brennan
In the interests of making progress, I will not make lengthy remarks, but we do not see the logic of sweeping away consultation. Our amendment sought to ensure that consultation would take place and we do not see by what logic academy chains are less likely to fail when no one bothers to consult anyone about the correct sponsor in the first place; in fact, surely they would be more likely to fail, and we have had too many failures already. However, given that our views have been put on the record, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 53, in clause 9, page 7, line 15, at end insert—
‘(2) After section 5A of the Academies Act (inserted by subsection (1)) insert—
“5AA Designation of Academy sponsors
(1) An Academy sponsor may make proposals to enter into Academy arrangements under section 1 (Academy Arrangements) only if the Academy sponsor is for the time being designated for the purpose—
(a) by the Secretary of State; and
(b) has been approved for this purpose by Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills.
(2) This section does not apply where the Academy sponsor is proposing to enter into an arrangement for a single school.’.’
There is a need for public scrutiny of Academy sponsors. This amendment provides for the Secretary of State to maintain a list of Academy sponsors and for sponsors to be approved by Ofsted. Subsection (2) relieves sponsors of schools converting to Single Academy Trusts of the need to be designated.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 54, in clause 9, page 7, line 15, at end insert—
‘(3) In section 17 (Interpretation of Act) in the appropriate place in subsection (2) insert—
“Academy sponsor” is a person to whom the Secretary of State has entered, or is proposing to enter, into Academy arrangements under section 1 (Academy Arrangements), or a person who wishes to enter into Academy Arrangements with the Secretary of State.’.
Although the Bill uses the term “Academy sponsor”, the Academies Act does not define an Academy sponsor. This amendment corrects that omission.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 53 would bring some transparency to the process of selecting academy sponsors. There is currently no public quality control of potential sponsors. Ministers have totally committed to the policy, so they will need to find sponsors at all costs, and regional schools commissioners, as we found out in oral evidence, are paid by results, so they also need to find sponsors.
Someone in the system has to be responsible for saying no to people who come forward if they are not good enough. If that means that schools cannot be converted, that is better than using an inadequate sponsor; another solution or sponsor should be sought. Logically, Ofsted should play that role. Ministers may argue that they can be trusted, but that is hardly convincing because we know that that is not true.
Sponsors’ performance shows that some are simply inadequate and that there are not sufficient checks and balances. Some have misused public money, which the Government profess to be greatly concerned about. Some, such as the Prospects Academies Trust, have collapsed. Some have seriously dodgy international links, such as the Aurora Academies Trust, which is linked to one of the more dubious US chains with a record of failure and scandal.
The Bill will throw up a greater need for academy sponsors, so we require that proper quality control; the independent inspectorate needs to take on that role urgently. We want to know what the Government will do about quality control and what they will do to make sure that it is independent in this extremely murky area, where we have already heard about many failures on the part of academy sponsors. Amendment 54 is intended to gain some clarification on the definition of an academy sponsor. If such companies are to become so important in our education system, we need to know exactly what they are. I hope that the Minister can shed some light on the matter.
Kevin Brennan
It is interesting to hear the Minister confirm that all the academy chains and sponsors on that list have been paused by regional schools commissioners. Presumably, those sponsors were approved, and deemed to have the capacity and expertise to turn around schools, in the first place by the same regional schools commissioners and Ministers. That makes our point for us: regional schools commissioners and Ministers do not have the capability to assess accurately whether sponsors have the capacity and expertise to turn around schools. If they had, they would not have had to pause them before taking on any more schools, and we would not have had the failures of academy sponsors and chains that we heard about earlier.
There are real issues with the current arrangements, despite the Minister saying how wonderful and successful they are, and it is absolutely sensible that there should be a rigorous assessment process beyond the current process, which he says is rigorous but which is creating the need to pause the particular academy sponsors on the list that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak read out.
Mr Gibb
Can I just point out to the hon. Gentleman that there are 735 approved sponsors, and that 597 of them are responsible for 2,675 academies and free schools? When he cites one, two, or half a dozen academy chains that have been paused, it is a very small number out of 735 approved sponsors. I think that 14 is the number that were paused, and the number on the list that he was going to read out is a very small proportion of the total number.
Kevin Brennan
At least my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak gives out examples in 14s rather than in ones and twos, as the Minister does when he wants to prove his case. I thought that my hon. Friend was being very generous in providing all those examples; he might have held some back for later on in our proceedings and just leaked them out one by one, in the same way that the Minister does. I do not think that the Minister has proved his case.
The point is that, yes, there are a large number of approved sponsors, but that number will become even larger, and therefore we might expect that unless there are some changes in the quality of the assessment of academy sponsors, the number of failures and the number of pauses in future will increase by the same proportion; there is no reason for us to believe that that is not the case. Therefore, there is every need for a better level of quality control, which is, of course, what we propose in the amendments.
Once again, I think we have won the argument, but I sense that we might not win the vote if we pressed the matter to a vote at this stage. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
The clause inserts new section 5A into the Academies Act 2010, which imposes on the Secretary of State a duty to carry out a consultation when, under section 4(A1), my right hon. Friend makes an academy order in respect of a foundation or voluntary school with a foundation before entering into academy arrangements in relation to the school. In such a case, the Secretary of State must consult about who she proposes should be the sponsor, and that consultation must be with the trustees, the foundation and, where the school has a religious character, the appropriate religious body.
For schools that have failed and been judged inadequate by Ofsted, there should be no debate about whether transformation via academy conversion is needed, and urgent action is required. A new start is needed, to be secured through an academy solution with an effective sponsor. That is why we have sought through this Bill to impose on the Secretary of State a duty to make an academy order in such cases.
However, we appreciate the great contribution of the foundation schools, which is why there is an exemption for church schools and dioceses that have taken on the role of supporting struggling schools.
On that basis, I urge that the clause stand part of the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
The clause limits the requirement to consult about an academy order to foundation schools and voluntary schools with a foundation. We see no reason to limit consultation in that way, for the same reasons that we have outlined in debates about other parts of the Bill. We will not vote against the clause standing part of the Bill, because at least it allows for some consultation; there is a little bit left after the Minister has swept through the consultation landscape in the way that he has proposed. At least there is some consultation and we hope that it will be expanded further on Report or when the Bill reaches another place, given the sheer illiberality of sweeping away consultation. However, on that basis, we will not vote against the clause standing part of the Bill.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Duty to facilitate conversion
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 55, in clause 10, page 7, line 21, after second “school”, insert
“, if relevant, the persons listed in section 5A(2)”
This amendment adds to the persons who are placed under a duty to facilitate academisation to include those listed in the new section 5A(2) as found in Clause 9.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 56, in clause 10, page 7, line 24, after “body”, insert
“, or, if relevant, the persons listed in section 5A(2)”
A consequence of amendment 55.
Amendment 59, in clause 11, page 7, line 35, after “authority”, insert
“, or, if relevant, the persons listed in section 5A(2)”
A consequence of amendment 55.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 55 is a probing amendment and seeks to discover the Government’s thinking behind why some people are placed under a duty while others are not. It is not necessarily about whether the Opposition think that the duty itself is the correct approach. The other two amendments are a consequence of amendment 55.
Clause 10 places a duty on a school governing body and the local authority to “take all reasonable steps” to help the conversion of a school when forced academisation is required under clause 7 or when the Secretary of State chooses to go down the forced academisation route for another reason. If the Secretary of State notifies a school and local authority that they want a specific academy sponsor, the school and local authority must “take all reasonable steps” to help the Secretary of State and the sponsor to reach a funding agreement.
Clause 11 enables the Secretary of State to give specific directions to school governing bodies and local authorities about the forced academisation process, presumably when they think that the local authority or school governing body are not taking reasonable steps. Such directions relate to section 8 orders regarding the transfer of staff, contracts for photocopying, cleaning, school dinners and so on, moveable property such as minibuses, intellectual property used by the school and part 1 of schedule 1 orders to do with the transfer of land owned by the local authority and not by a governing body, foundation body or trustees, which is covered by part 2 of schedule 1 of the 2010 Act.
Bodies other than the maintained school governing body and the local authority have a role to play in expediting academisation, the most important of which is the owner of the school building and land when they are not owned by the local authority or a foundation school without a trust. Voluntary-aided schools, voluntary-controlled schools and foundation schools with a trust are likely to be occupying land owned by bodies that may not be directly concerned with the academisation process. In particular, the bodies listed in new section 5A(2) to the Academies Act 2010, as inserted by clause 9, are bodies that either own the school land and buildings or have an interest in preserving the religious identity of the school on forced academisation, including the trustees of the school, the person or persons appointed by the foundation governors and, in the case of a school with a religious character, the “appropriate religious body”—defined for Church of England and Roman Catholic Schools as the diocesan authority, but all faith schools are included.
I accept that this is a complex area, but we need clarity. There was a time when any proposal by the state to remove Church-owned land occupied by Church schools from Church control might have resulted in some considerable controversy, but times have changed. Sorting land ownership on academisation can be a lengthy process that has nothing to do with the school governing body or local authority. These amendments are designed to probe why such bodies are not included in clauses 10 and 11, without accepting the premise of the clauses.
When the ownership of land is transferred, lawyers get excited and get involved. Lord Nash agreed with me when I raised the matter. He said:
“Lawyers do argue on those issues”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 90, Q211.]
He commented that the delays were not “extensive”, but they are delays nevertheless. Perhaps the Ministers can quantify those delays. One of the law firms with a financial interest in such things is Lee Bolton Monier-Williams, which has helpfully placed an article on its website that analyses the issue:
“Neither the school governors of voluntary or foundation schools (acting in their capacity as the trustees of the GB as a charity) nor the site trustees of such schools may be required to facilitate conversions or directed to do so if to comply would result in a breach of their trust. This is not recognised in the Bill as it stands and appears to us to be a major defect.”
In other words, these lawyers see the difficulties arising from the dual responsibility of school governors who are charity trustees when the Secretary of State selects the sponsor in a forced academisation process. They continue:
“Secondly the question will we think inevitably arise as to whether an academy (or a school about to be converted into an academy) may lose its religious character without closing and being re-opened as a new institution. The DfE has imposed ‘as is’ in respect of gaining or losing a religious character with regard to conversions under s4(1)(a) but we suspect may want to remove a religious character without closure in respect of conversions under s4(1)(b) or under the new s4(A1).”
New section 4(A1) of the Academies Act 2010 is about the forced academies route. The briefing goes on:
“The Bill certainly reads as though this is either expected to be the case or the issue has not been considered and will become a problem. We argue most strongly that removal of religious character without closure is not possible and that the power in Regulations for the Secretary of State to remove independent schools from the list of those designated with a religious character cannot be exercised if the objective criteria governing designation still apply.”
As the Government have not sorted out that issue, lawyers are likely to get involved. That means delay and cost, which are likely to be borne by the local authority as the maintaining authority, so there will be an overall increase in costs to the public purse.
Ministers should know what is going on and what is delaying academisation. Helpfully, the Commons Education Committee inquiry asked about the academisation process and faith schools. Regrettably, only three local authorities responded. One of those authorities, Kent, which has many Church schools, commented:
“The proposed sponsor sometimes makes considerable extra demands upon the LA and its financial and capital resources towards the end of the process of transfer of a school to an academy chain. This slows down, and can hinder the conversion process and can interfere with the urgent school improvement work required.”
That sounds like the point in the academisation process where lawyers start to make their money, and it could result in significant delay to an academy order. That delay is caused not by the issues outlined by the Minister—ideologically driven people, otherwise known as parents—but by the legal minefield involved.
Kent County Council’s response to the Education Committee continues:
“Considerable public resource and LA Officer time is expended unnecessarily waiting for sponsors to decide to proceed with their initial interest.”
Perhaps it is the sponsor who should have a duty under the Bill to take reasonable steps. By imposing a duty on one party to take reasonable steps in the academisation process, the Government seem to be granting a charter to the other party to make unreasonable demands at a late stage in the process. What estimate has the Minister made of the cost of legal fees incurred when lawyers make last-minute demands on behalf of sponsors? How does he see the Bill affecting that trend in the future?
Mr Gibb
We are now considering clauses 10 and 11. Clause 10 inserts a new duty on governing bodies and local authorities to facilitate the conversion of a school into an academy. Clause 11 inserts a new power to give directions to governing bodies and local authorities when progress is slow and direction is needed. Both the duty and the power are placed on governing bodies and local authorities because they are the responsible bodies that must take swift action to ensure an academy can open.
The hon. Gentleman’s amendments seek also to place that duty on any trustees of the school, the person or persons by whom any foundation governors are appointed and, in the case of a school with a religious character, the appropriate religious body—he has lifted the list of consultees from new section 5A(2) of the 2010 Act. The amendments will place duties on independent charitable bodies, such as dioceses or historical foundations, that do not have a direct relationship with the Secretary of State and are not accountable to Government. In this context, placing a direct duty on independent bodies would be disproportionate. Local authorities and governing bodies are in a different position as public bodies that are funded by the state. The Bill does, therefore, place them under a duty to facilitate conversion. Putting an additional duty on trusts, dioceses and charitable bodies would be unnecessary as their interests are already engaged through their stake in the school’s governing body, which will be under a duty to facilitate conversion. I hope that, with that explanation, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.
Kevin Brennan
Well, I did say that they were probing amendments. I have raised very real issues, which I hope the Minister will take some time to ponder. I do not know whether he—having received some in-flight refuelling—wishes to say anything further on it. I would have paused a bit longer if he did, but he does not. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 57, in clause 10, page 7, line 28, at end insert—
‘(3) A reasonable step does not include a step that would result in additional expenditure by a local authority or a school governing body.”
This amendment seeks clarification about the meaning of “reasonable step”.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 58, in clause 11, page 7, line 34, after “direct”, insert “by order”
This amendment requires direct parliamentary accountability for the use of the new power by the Secretary of State to direct bodies to carry out unspecified actions to facilitate the conversion of a school to an Academy.
Amendment 60, in clause 11, page 7, line 41, at end insert—
‘(4) The Secretary of State must provide reasonable compensation to a local authority where a direction under subsection (1) causes additional expenditure or the loss of capital assets.”
Requires the Secretary of State to pay for the cost to local government of her directions.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 57 seeks clarification about the meaning of “reasonable step.” Amendment 58 requires direct parliamentary accountability for the use of the new power by the Secretary of State to direct bodies to carry out unspecified actions to facilitate the conversion of a school to an academy. Amendment 60 requires the Secretary of State to pay for the cost to local government of her directions, and we have already heard how those costs for academy conversions can spiral—I understand, sometimes into six-figure sums.
Amendment 57 is about the loose phrase, “reasonable step”. What may seem reasonable to Ministers may not be quite so reasonable to someone else. The amendment seeks to put some limit on what can be required by saying that it should not require additional expenditure by a school or local authority.
Amendment 60 is designed to protect the financial position of the local authority by requiring the Secretary of State to meet revenue costs and any loss of capital assets in the process. Amendment 58 says that, when the Minister is making a specific direction, it should be done with transparency and with the possibility of parliamentary and public scrutiny. Those directions are likely to be about property, and significant amounts of money will be at stake. It is essential that there is a proper process for ensuring that public assets are protected. I am sure that the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office will be interested to ensure that as well.
Mr Gibb
The amendments relate to clauses 10 and 11. Clause 10 inserts new section 5B into the Academies Act 2010, ensuring that, when a failing school has been issued with an academy order, the school’s governing body and local authority
“must take all reasonable steps to facilitate the conversion of the school into an Academy.”
Those steps include working with an identified sponsor.
If that does not happen, clause 11, which adds new section 5C to the Academies Act, allows the Secretary of State, via regional schools commissioners, to direct the governing body or local authority to take specified steps for the purpose of facilitating that conversion into an academy. The effect of the two clauses is to require local authorities and governing bodies to facilitate, proactively, the conversion of failing schools into academies, removing the roadblocks, which have sometimes delayed necessary improvements to underperforming schools. The measures will not place any additional burdens on the governing body and local authority but will ensure that they work efficiently to progress an academy conversion.
Amendment 57 seeks to ensure that a local authority or governing body does not incur additional costs as a result of the duty in the Bill to facilitate academy conversion. I recognise that there are costs to the schools involved in academy conversion. The Department contributes towards those costs by providing a grant. High-performing schools converting so that they benefit from the freedoms of academy status receive £25,000. Failing schools that become sponsored academies receive a higher start-up grant. The value of that grant depends on whether it is a primary or secondary school, and on the scale of change required. We currently expect the local authority or governing body to fund any additional costs not met by the grant. That will remain the case under the Bill.
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend raises an important point. This is about requiring involvement where it seems to be being resisted. She is right to make that point.
It would be wrong to introduce a new requirement for the Secretary of State to compensate local authorities in these circumstances. The clauses do not require the local authority or school governing body to do anything more than would be required for an academy conversion. As a school converts to an academy, it will be granted a 125-year peppercorn lease to operate on its land. The land continues to be used for educational purposes, and the local authority retains the freehold. In view of that, I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West will feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendments.
Kevin Brennan
I thank the Minister for that full explanation. As I indicated, these amendments were intended to probe what the Government meant by “reasonable steps” to facilitate conversion. Once again, the Minister used examples of successful academies, but I emphasise that things can go wrong from time to time. We hear news that the much-lauded Perry Beeches III academy—part of the Perry Beeches academy chain in Birmingham visited by the Prime Minister; there are copious photographs of that occasion—has been rated “inadequate” by Ofsted.
Superficial examples of superheads are all very well, but we need to look at the evidence. We all know how from time to time particular academy sponsors might superficially present an effective PR case for their school, so we need to be careful about requiring people to take reasonable steps when they might have reasonable concerns.
On the basis that we have registered our concern on this matter through the debate on these proposals, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
With your permission, Mr Chope, I will speak to clauses 10 and 11, as the powers that they take are inextricably linked. The purpose of the two clauses is to tackle the long delays and blockages that governing bodies and local authorities can create in securing a sponsored academy solution. Where a school is underperforming and an academy solution is required, we want the transformation to take place from day one. We do not want the process to be delayed unnecessarily.
Our experience is that governing bodies and local authorities have used delaying tactics, including long debate. One example of progress being unnecessarily delayed was when the City of Derby academy opened in place of the failing Sinfin community school in 2013. The school has come out of special measures and improved its GCSE results in the first year of its academy status. Ofsted confirmed that since becoming an academy, the quality of teaching has improved, pupils are progressing more rapidly and pupil behaviour and attendance has improved. Unfortunately, the turnaround was held up by a prolonged campaign that sought to delay the school becoming an academy.
Clause 10 will ensure that, where regional schools commissioners make an academy order in respect of a school that is eligible for intervention, the governing body of that school and the local authority must take all reasonable steps to facilitate the conversion of that school into an academy. Clause 10 will also ensure that where the regional schools commissioner tells a governing body and a local authority that they are minded to enter into academy arrangements with a specific sponsor in respect of that school, the governing body and the local authority must take all reasonable steps to facilitate the making of academy arrangements with that sponsor.
In the majority of cases, the effects of clause 10 should ensure that governing bodies and local authorities take the necessary action to ensure that a sponsored academy solution is in place quickly, but clause 11 is still necessary in the event that they do not. Where an academy order has been made in respect of a school that is eligible for intervention, clause 11 allows regional schools commissioners acting on behalf of the Secretary of State to direct the governing body or local authority to take specified steps for the purpose of facilitating the conversion of a failing school into an academy. Under section 8 of or part 1 of schedule 1 to the Academies Act 2010, a direction may in particular require the governing body or local authority to prepare a draft of a scheme relating to the transfer of property.
Clause 11 also allows regional schools commissioners to specify the period within which any steps for facilitating the conversion must be taken. Where a governing body or a local authority fails to act according to the duties in clause 10 and is not taking all reasonable steps to facilitate conversion, the regional schools commissioner can more specifically direct them to take certain steps by particular deadlines. It is crucial that regional schools commissioners have the powers in both clauses 10 and 11 to prevent delays in transforming failing and underperforming schools and to ensure that improvement is brought about as swiftly as possible.
The Chair
Following the Minister’s lead, I am happy to accept a joint debate on the two clauses.
Kevin Brennan
I am also happy to accept that approach. Clauses 10 and 11 are intended to avoid delay in academisation, but when the Government are asked for evidence on the details of delays beyond one or two of their favourite anecdotes, Ministers can be surprisingly unforthcoming.
Recently, I asked a question of Ministers and received an all too typical non-answer in the form of a written answer from the Minister for Children and Families—I presume that the Minister for Schools is a bit too grand to answer written questions these days. The question, at column 2649, was:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools whose governing body had made an application for an Academy Order on or before 31 May 2012 had not been included in an Academy Agreement with her Department by 1 June 2015”—
in other words, after three years.
I asked another question, at column 2650:
“To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many schools which had an approved Academy Order on or before 31 May 2012 had not been included in an Academy Agreement with her Department by 1 June 2015.”
So, my questions covered the schools that had made an application and those that had had their academy order approved.
The answer that I received was as follows:
“We publish a list of open academies and academy projects in development at”—
and then there was a Government web address. The answer continued:
“The list includes all schools that have applied to convert and those that have received an academy order. It is updated monthly…Since the Regional Schools Commissioners took up their positions in September 2014, the individual decisions to approve or decline an academy order have been published on their website”
and there was another helpful hyperlink, before it continued:
“Schools may withdraw from the academy process at any stage prior to signing their funding agreement.”
I thought, perhaps naively, that my question would have been much easier to answer than it turned out to be for Ministers and their civil servants. If I asked you, Mr Chope, how many cups of tea you drank yesterday—I do not know whether you drink tea, but it is a hypothetical example—you might say three or five, or, if you could not remember exactly, you might say, “Somewhere between four and six.” I would not expect you to refer me to your website to try to find the answer, or even to someone else’s website, as I was referred in the second part of the answer to my question.
As my question to you would have required, Mr Chope, the question I asked Ministers simply required the correct number to be given as an answer. After digging through all these websites, doing the work of Ministers and civil servants for them, it was possible to find the answer, if one had to hand the 2012 list—which has long since been removed from the DFE website so is not readily available at the hyperlinks provided. The answers to the questions about how many schools had applied for an academy order but had yet to be converted, and how many already had an academy order but had yet to be converted, were 160 and 95 respectively.
Why has the Minister not properly analysed the real reasons for all these delays? They are not all caused by ideological individuals—otherwise known as parents. Such analysis might show that the real reason is not orchestrated campaigns but departmental bureaucracy, complications of ownership, private finance initiatives and, as I pointed out earlier, sponsors using expensive lawyers to get one over on the taxpayer, which is what is actually going on in many cases. Perhaps clauses 10 and 11 are further examples of legislation being made up on the hoof in order for the Government to be seen to be doing something tough, based on prejudices, rather than on the evidence that I was seeking to illicit from the Department through my written questions.
Kevin Brennan
I would expect that, which is why I did not ask about those schools that are in the process of converting; I asked for those that had taken more than three years to get to this stage, and I ended up with those figures. I am not sure whether they are right—perhaps the Minister has the actual figures—but from digging around myself, I believe them to be 160 and 95 respectively. In the case of the second group, that is three years after an academy order has been granted. I put it to the Minister that that cannot be down to the reasons that he has given. That is why we are legislating here, for the most part.
Kevin Brennan
No one is suggesting that anyone should be given a free rein, to use the hon. Lady’s expression, and neither is anyone suggesting that it might not be appropriate in certain circumstances for an interim executive board or an academy sponsor to have to step in to run the school, but the clause goes way beyond that contention.
Steve McCabe
Following the logic of the hon. Lady’s argument, would it not also be reasonable to assume that if the school had got to such a state, the Secretary of State must have been negligent in her duty and would therefore be ill equipped to make a judgment?
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, every academy that is rated “inadequate” is the responsibility of the Secretary of State, and is now the responsibility of the regional schools commissioners. Their failure has to be accounted for according to the logic of the Government’s approach.
I simply ask, given the rhetoric of the Secretary of State, how on earth the Schools Minister can square such rhetoric with the reality of the clause. Is it not the case that the freeing up of governors mentioned in the Secretary of State’s speech was just empty rhetoric? Removing their freedom is the reality.
Mr Gibb
I sense that the hon. Gentleman simply does not have the same sense of urgency to deal with underperformance as we on the Government Benches have. I accept that he wants to improve schools and that he accepts the academy programme as a good programme in certain circumstances, but given the accumulation of his amendments and the points that he made in his speech, I sense that he does not have the impatience and sense of urgency that we have to improve the education of children in schools that are underperforming. That is where we will have to agree to differ.
Kevin Brennan
I will not agree to differ in this sense—I am impatient, but I am also impatient with reckless decision making that can lead to unsuitable academy sponsors being selected, as we have already seen. That is why we need good-quality decision making. We will agree to disagree on many things during the course of the Bill, but I am glad that he acknowledges that we can both agree that we want to see schools improve rapidly.
Mr Gibb
The policy that the hon. Gentleman proposed of some form of combined local authority approach will not deliver the sense urgent improvement that we absolutely have to have in our schools.
May I also address the hon. Gentleman’s point about the numbers? I will ask my officials to check his figures to see if they are correct and to get to the bottom of what they represent.
Mr Gibb
Superficially, it appears that some of those schools that are taking more than three years to go from an academy order to a funding agreement are actually schools that have voluntarily converted. They might have had the academy order, but have not finished—perhaps there are concerns about land or all kinds of other issues. I do not know. We will get to the bottom of that. To the extent that those are underperforming schools where there is some resistance, that provides an argument for us to take the powers to push the process forward faster.
Kevin Brennan
We can probably expedite things by saying that we will both be interested to see the breakdown of those figures and the reasons for the delays.
Mr Gibb
Good. On the face of it, however, it sounds like an argument in favour of the measures that we are taking in the Bill to improve the speed with which schools are moved from an academy order to a funding agreement. That is what, in particular, the measures in clauses 10 and 11 seek to do by requiring local authorities to get their act together and to provide all the required information about pensions, land transfers and so on. For that reason, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will support clauses 10 and 11 stand part.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 10 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 11 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned.— (Margot James.)
Education and Adoption Bill (Seventh sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 36, in clause 5, page 5, line 4, at end insert—
(a) Where a school has been designated by order under section 69(4) of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, the interim executive board shall be under a duty to secure that—
(i) the religion or religious denomination of the school is preserved and developed, and
(ii) the school is conducted in accordance with the school’s instrument of government (except in relation to the composition of the governing body) and the foundation’s governing documents, including, where appropriate, any trust deed relating to the school.
(b) In exercising any powers under this schedule, the Secretary of State shall comply with any agreement between the local authority and the appropriate diocesan authority, if any, and person or persons by whom the foundation governors are appointed, in relation to the membership and operation of the interim executive board.”
The amendment is to preserve the religious character of religious schools when the Secretary of State takes responsibility for an Interim Executive Board.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 37, in clause 6, page 5, line 25, at end insert—
‘( ) Subsection (2) has no effect if the local authority is exercising a power under sections 63, 64 or 66.”
The amendment is to avoid the confusion to a school if the local authority is exercising a power of intervention.
Amendment 38, in clause 6, page 5, line 39, at end insert—
‘(3) A notice by the Secretary of State under this section cannot take effect until 21 days after it has been given.”
The amendment is to provide for an orderly transition from a local authority established IEB to a Secretary of State directed IEB.
Kevin Brennan
I welcome everyone back, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship again, Sir Alan.
Amendment 36 is intended to preserve the religious character of religious schools when the Secretary of State takes responsibility for an interim executive board. Amendments 37 and 38, for the benefit of Members who have not sat on many Bill Committees in the past, refer to the next clause—clause 6. Amendment 37 is intended to avoid confusion to a school if the local authority is exercising a power of intervention. Amendment 38 is intended to provide for an orderly transition from a local authority-established interim executive board to a Secretary of State-directed interim executive board.
The aim of the lead amendment is to put in place safeguards to prevent regional schools commissioners perhaps unintentionally undermining the Church-appointed majority of an interim executive board. Usually such a board is put in place following discussions between the local authority and the diocese, with carefully considered agreements as to its operation, including in relation to its members. To that end, the diocese and local authority agree a memorandum of understanding, which enables the school to continue to comply with its trust deed through a Church-appointed majority on the interim executive board.
The Catholic Education Service has made representations on how the clause might affect Catholic schools. Should regional schools commissioners intervene and appoint their own members to an interim executive board without regard to the Church-appointed majority, the CES says that the school would then cease to be a Catholic school. Once a school is no longer recognised as Catholic by the bishop, it is no longer complying with its own trust deed, presumably forcing a closure that ultimately undermines the intention behind an interim executive board, which is to prevent the closure of the school, as well as to bring about the necessary improvement.
That issue could apply to a school of any faith. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the appointment of an interim executive board does not undermine, inadvertently or not, the faith character of a school. The amendment has been drafted with the agreement of the Catholic Education Service. It would provide the safeguards that faith groups are asking for without in any way undermining the process of school improvement. It also illustrates the complexity of governance issues and the care that local authorities have taken over the years to work with partners such as dioceses. We hope that Ministers will appreciate how sensitively such matters need to be handled and therefore that they will be willing to accept the amendment. I look forward to the Minister’s response.
Amendment 37, Mr Chope, relates to clause 6—
Kevin Brennan
I beg your pardon, Sir Alan. I apologise profusely.
I was getting very far ahead of myself and going on to the next clause, but amendment 37 is grouped as it is because it is designed to alleviate confusion for schools that are undergoing an intervention following a warning notice or a poor Ofsted rating. It does not really make sense to create more confusion and uncertainty for headteachers, senior leadership teams and the rest of the school community by having schools undergo various interventions, both from local authorities and the Department for Education. That would obviously not be conducive to effective school improvement, if that is the Government’s intention. If it is another means to force academisation on a school, which might have found a more effective and appropriate way to improve standards and outcomes for children, they will obviously not agree with this concept. We think that the amendment is sensible and hope that it will get a similarly sensible response from the Minister.
Amendment 38 would also amend clause 6. It requires 21 days’ notice to be given before the Secretary of State may act under proposed new section 70C of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, given that it will be extremely confusing for a school not to know how quickly the Secretary of State’s intervention under this section will take effect. The amendment would allow an orderly transition between interventions. We believe that the amendment is sensible and therefore anticipate that the Government should not really find any reason to reject it—but you never know, Sir Alan; they might come up with something.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Welcome back to the Committee, Sir Alan. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship yet again.
The amendments relate to the Secretary of State’s proposed powers of intervention in underperforming schools in order to secure the necessary improvements in standards, and in particular, they relate to the appointment of interim executive boards.
Clause 6, which is the next clause that we come to discuss in more detail, seeks to amend the Education and Inspections Act 2006 by adding three new sections: sections 70A, 70B and 70C. The first new section— section 70A—would ensure that local authorities and the Secretary of State notify each other when they intend to intervene in a school. The second—section 70B— would restrict a local authority’s intervention powers when the Secretary of State is using her similar intervention powers. The third— section 70C—would allow the Secretary of State to take control of a local authority-appointed interim executive board. The new sections aim to ensure that local authorities and regional schools commissioners work together in identifying appropriate interventions in underperforming schools to secure improvement.
Amendment 37, tabled and moved by the hon. Member for Cardiff West, seeks to amend the new section 70B. Clause 6(3) of the Bill states that when a local authority is notified by the Secretary of State that she intends to exercise any of her intervention powers, the local authority’s powers of intervention are suspended. Amendment 37 would mean that if the local authority was already exercising those powers, they would continue to be able to do so even if notified that the Secretary of State and the regional schools commissioners intended to intervene.
The amendment would therefore create confusion. The governing body would be required to comply simultaneously with directions from both the local authority and the regional schools commissioners. It would also mean that the local authority could continue with interventions that the regional schools commissioner for that area had considered to be ineffective. When the regional schools commissioner considers that a local authority’s action is having little or no effect, they should have the power to take their own action without the school being confused or distracted by conflicting interventions. Regional schools commissioners need to be able to take action to secure improvement in that school when improvement may have stalled.
The need to act swiftly and decisively when a local authority’s intervention is not working also leads me to resist amendment 38. It focuses on the proposed new section 70C, which would be inserted in the 2006 Act by virtue of clause 6 of the Bill. That section would ensure that if the local authority has put in place an interim executive board, the Secretary of State can take over the responsibility for and management of that board where necessary. Amendment 38 would have the effect, so ably described by the hon. Gentleman, of requiring the Secretary of State to give the local authority 21 days’ notice before taking over responsibility for that locally appointed interim executive board. In my view, that waiting period would add unnecessary delays to the intervention process in cases in which immediate action is needed. IEBs are put in place to secure rapid improvements in the schools in which they are appointed. Where that is not happening, the regional schools commissioner should have the power to take over the responsibility for the IEB members.
Under the new power in the Bill, the Secretary of State would have been able to take over the responsibility for the IEB members at the Pear Tree school in Derby. That school has a history of underperformance. The local authority appointed an IEB to the school in May 2012, but six months later, after being inspected in November 2012, the school was put into special measures. The Department tried to work with the IEB and issued an academy order, with a strong sponsor, in March 2013, but the IEB would not co-operate, so progress at Pear Tree school remains slow and attainment is not good enough. It is those situations in which the Secretary of State, through the regional schools commissioners, will want to intervene swiftly. Delaying that process by adding 21 days in all cases would not help the children who were being failed in their education.
Amendment 36 focuses on scenarios in which the Secretary of State makes a direction about a local authority IEB in respect of a Church school. The Churches are important deliverers of education in our system, but sometimes Church schools, like other schools, fail, and we have to be confident in our capacity to respond decisively and effectively in those cases, too.
Paragraph 10(2) of schedule 6 to the 2006 Act requires the IEB to comply with the same duties as applied to the previous governing body. That will include any duty to comply with a trust deed, as referred to by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. Members of a Church school’s IEB are therefore bound to preserve and develop the school’s faith character. That is the case even where the Secretary of State uses the new power under clause 5 of the Bill to direct the local authority to appoint specific IEB members. Proposed new paragraph (5B)(a) of that schedule, proposed by amendment 36, is therefore unnecessary, as it simply restates a requirement that already exists.
New paragraph (5B)(b), which is also proposed by the hon. Members for Cardiff West and for Birmingham, Selly Oak, is concerned with protecting the continuing involvement of the relevant diocese where a regional schools commissioner exercises the power under clause 5 to direct the local authority to alter the make-up of an interim executive board in a Church school. It would require the RSC to comply with any existing agreement between the local authority and the diocese about the membership and operation of the IEB.
An IEB is responsible for protecting the character of a Church school, as well as securing educational improvements. When making directions about an IEB in a Church school, regional schools commissioners will be expected to discuss the IEB with the diocese. That includes how it is constituted and what support the diocese might offer, as well as any specific concerns or requirements relating to the school’s character.
Kevin Brennan
I am obviously listening carefully to the wording that the Minister is using, because what we have on the record at this point will be very important in relation to what happens next. He said that regional schools commissioners would be “expected to discuss”. Can he confirm that by that he means that the regional schools commissioners will be required to discuss these matters?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman should be aware that they are not “required” now. The memorandum that he referred to—the memorandum of understanding between the local authority and the diocese—is agreed only as a matter of practice and not a legal requirement. In the same way, we do not need a requirement in legislation to agree membership between regional schools commissioners and the diocese. However, we have reiterated, or I have done so just now, our desire that these two parties will work together and reach agreements in practice.
Kevin Brennan
May I press the Minister a little further on that point? Is he willing to say on the record that, in all cases, he expects RSCs to discuss these matters in the way he outlines?
Mr Gibb
One can never state on the record in parliamentary proceedings the situation in all circumstances, but I am happy to reiterate that, as a matter of practice, it is important that regional schools commissioners discuss the membership of an IEB with the diocese. There may be circumstances, although I am not aware of what they might be, when that is not possible, but the desire is the same kind of desire that is in the memorandum of understanding between local authorities and dioceses to continue with regional schools commissioners. The London Diocesan Board for Schools has submitted written evidence welcoming
“the Secretary of State’s willingness to become pro-active in the formation of IEBs as proposals initiated by the Diocese have not always been acted on as quickly by local authorities as we would like.”
There is therefore support for these measures from the Church.
The purpose of the power is to enable regional schools commissioners to intervene swiftly when they are not convinced that an IEB constituted by the local authority will secure necessary improvements. The amendment would restrict that power by requiring regional schools commissioners to endorse an IEB whether or not they have confidence in it. That contradicts the clause’s purpose, which is to allow the Secretary of State to act decisively on underperformance.
We value the Churches’ important role in our education system, a role that predates the role of the state. Indeed, I have already written to the Second Church Estates Commissioner, my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), to reassure her of our continuing desire to work closely with the Church. My letter set out that if the Secretary of State is required to issue an academy order to a Church school that is inadequate under clause 7, there is a requirement under the Bill to consult the diocese on who might be the best sponsor for the school. In other cases of intervention, such as if a Church school is coasting or an underperforming church school has failed to comply with a warning notice, we will still seek the diocese’s views if we propose to make an academy order, as is required by section 4(1)(a) of the Academies Act 2010. We want to ensure that there are effective interventions in underperforming schools both to secure improvement and to protect their ethos. We already have non-statutory memorandums that set out the roles of the Church and the Government in relation to the academy programme. We have offered to review and update those memorandums with the Churches to reflect the changes in the Bill, as well as changes in the wider evolving party landscape. I am pleased that the Churches have confirmed their intention to work with us.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. If I am going too far, it is only because I have been asked to go too far by the Catholic Education Service, which has been working closely with the Church of England on these issues. I am sure that they will have listened intently to the Minister’s response to the amendment and my interventions. I am pleased that he has put on record the Government’s thinking and their intentions with regard to the responsibility to preserve and develop the character of a school, which he says is covered elsewhere. I am glad that he has taken the trouble to put that on record. We will ponder what he has said carefully and, if necessary, return to the matter at a later stage of our proceedings. I do not intend to press amendment 36 to a Division.
On amendments 37 and 38, the Minister’s example of Pear Tree school did not seem to indicate that a 21-day notice period would be unreasonable. He said that there had been unreasonable delays because the Secretary of State did not have at their disposal the power conferred by the clause, and that if they had had that power, they would be able to act much more quickly in the case of Pear Tree school. Amendment 38 would simply provide for a reasonable period of notice.
I do not intend to pursue the matter further at this stage, but it would be useful to know what is considered to be reasonable. I know that the Minister is well meaning in his wish to take action if a school requires it, as we all do, but this reminds me of something that my father used to say to me: “Come here immediately, if not sooner.” Although our desire to act quickly is commendable, we must be reasonable. People must have the opportunity to respond to action proposed by the state, and we are simply trying to probe the Minister on what he believes a reasonable period to be.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
Twenty-one days is four weeks, which is nearly half a term. That is quite a long time in the academic year, so does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need to get things going pretty quickly?
Kevin Brennan
I have occasionally made the odd mathematical error while on my feet in the House of Commons, so I will not tease the hon. Lady about 21 days being four weeks, but I know what she means. I will interpret her remarks in a generous way by assuming that she is referring to working days, not that Government Members have always been so generous when I have made mathematical errors. I did get a grade A in my O-level which, according to the Minister, is at least a PhD in current parlance.
I take the hon. Lady’s point, but the purpose of amendment 38 is simply to probe the Minister on what he considers to be a reasonable period. I am not sure that we have found out the answer, but at some point I am sure that that we will.
Finally, I turn to amendment 37. As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt), pointed out on Second Reading, the clauses on the powers of regional schools commissioners and the actions of Ministers really show the disjuncture in the Bill between the centralisation of power with Ministers and their appointees, and the Government’s professed desire to devolve public services out to the regions. The way forward ought to be a process of pulling together combined local authorities, as the Government envisage doing in other contexts as a means of devolving power. Some might think that that process is a means of cutting expenditure, but let us take it at face value as a means of devolving power around the country. The Bill is not an example of that. Even if regional schools commissioners have local headteacher boards that are entirely made up of academy heads and principals, that is not the sort of devolution of power that is required. Ultimately, the combined authority approach would be much better.
Mr Gibb
The academies programme is about devolving power to academies, professionals and front-line staff, and combining that with strong accountability. This is the model that, according to OECD evidence, works throughout the world to deliver the highest-performing education systems.
Kevin Brennan
I will not test your patience, Sir Alan, by debating at length with the Minister what the OECD actually says; he and I have had such debates in the past. The OECD favours school autonomy in the education system, and we, too, believe that autonomy is important for schools and that they should not be held down unnecessarily by regulations. However, that does not necessarily mean that there should be no accountability in the system. Here, the accountability is simply to the Minister, who is a long way from those local schools.
The importance of having some accountability at the local and regional level began to be recognised with the appointment of regional schools commissioners. There is an understanding that Ministers actually cannot cope with all the schools that now come under their ambit—they cannot keep an eye on them. Things have gone wrong at lots of academies, and they have been allowed to go wrong because Ministers did not wake up quickly enough to what was going on at local and regional levels. In the past we have proposed ways of trying to bring accountability closer without interfering with the necessary autonomy that professionals and schools should have in running their affairs. That, in fact, has been a trend in our system for some considerable time. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
The appointment of an interim executive board is one way in which a local authority can intervene in a school that is eligible for intervention. The clause enables the Secretary of State, via the regional schools commissioners, to direct local authorities as to: who the IEB members should be; how many members to appoint; what the term of appointment should be; and the termination of any appointment. That will enable the Secretary of State to contribute to the make-up and arrangements of the IEB when it is felt that the local authority is best placed to take that forward, without the need for the Secretary of State to take complete responsibility for the IEB under the new power under clause 6.
IEBs can be used to drive school improvement when there has been a decline in standards or a serious breakdown of working relationships in the governing body. When used effectively, IEBs can provide challenge to the leadership of a school and secure rapid improvement. The power will help to minimise the number of IEBs that are not working at their most efficient, either by being too big or by having members with incorrect skills sets. A poorly constructed IEB will take longer to make improvements and therefore deny children the quality of education they need and deserve. Regional schools commissioners will work with local authorities to ensure that IEBs secure solid platforms from which their schools can improve. The Bill is about making sure that intervention in underperforming schools is fast, effective and deliverable, and the clause will help to achieve that.
Kevin Brennan
Again, the Minister is taking the power to take over another part of the school improvement process pretty much whenever he wants. As always, no one knows when that power will be exercised because there are no criteria in the Bill to tell us when it might be appropriate, so local authorities will be looking over their shoulders and wondering when their decisions will be interfered with.
Why do Ministers want that power? Are sure that they always know best? Do they not trust anyone else to make decisions? Do they want to ensure that their favoured trustees get appointed? They have a degree of form in that respect, as they have appointed proposed sponsors to interim executive boards in a not very subtle way, thus pre-empting further due process with regard to academisation.
There is no transparency in the IEB-appointing process. No applications are invited, no criteria are published and no reasons are given for the decisions finally made. Those decisions may well be delegated—they probably will be—to regional schools commissioners. There should be a basic requirement for Ministers to take responsibility for those decisions and to be prepared to justify them in public, rather than in the secretive way they currently do. Removing a governing body from a school is a drastic step that will have a substantial and lasting effect. We have tabled an amendment that would require IEBs to be appointed by order so that there could be appropriate scrutiny and Ministers would have to justify decisions in a public forum.
Mr Gibb
The clause requires a local authority to notify the Secretary of State before using its intervention powers. The Secretary of State, through regional schools commissioners, is also required to notify the local authority before they use their powers. From the point that the regional schools commissioner notifies the local authority that they intend to intervene in a school, the local authority’s powers to intervene are suspended.
The clause states that if the local authority has put in place an interim executive board, the Secretary of State can take over responsibility for IEB members. If that happens, the notice given by the local authority to the governing body, setting out that it will consist of interim executive members, will be treated as having been given by the Secretary of State along with anything else done by the local authority in relation to the IEB. The Secretary of State will have as much responsibility for IEB members as the local authority had before.
Once a school is eligible for intervention, the local authority or the Secretary of State can use their powers of intervention. In practice, the clause means that the local authority and regional schools commissioners will need to work together in identifying the action that should be taken in underperforming schools. When the local authority has already intervened in a school and the regional schools commissioner feels that a different approach is needed, the regional schools commissioner can decide to exercise the Secretary of State’s powers. From that point, the local authority will be restricted from intervening further. The regional schools commissioner can give permission for the local authority to continue with its intervention if that is the best thing to do.
Many local authorities, such as Bristol and Essex, are working well with schools to improve educational standards and provisions, but some do not make full use of their interventional powers and are too slow to act in relation to underperformance and it is these authorities over which we expect the regional schools commissioners to exercise the Secretary of State’s power. The clause will allow regional schools commissioners to understand in which schools the local authority has intervened and to use the powers in the Bill to work with the schools to make improvements. This is all about improving standards in schools where they are not high enough.
Kevin Brennan
Listening to the Minister, I wonder why he does not go the whole hog by abolishing local authorities altogether and replacing them with appointments from the Minister because—[Interruption.] That was probably unwise. I am sorry; I might accidentally have prompted a Government amendment at a later stage of the Bill. Could we strike that from the record?
It makes me wonder: what is the role of a democratically elected local authority not only when the Minister intervenes occasionally when there is an extreme issue and a need for state power to be exercised at a local level in a draconian way, but when he has decided to appoint a group of unelected and unaccountable people who can exercise the Secretary of State’s powers on her behalf and, to use the Minister’s word, restrict what local authorities do? Local authorities have to go cap in hand and ask for the permission of these appointed persons to act in relation to the schools in their area. The Government need to think this through in relation to what is said everywhere else about devolution. There is a disconnect between that and what the Bill will do to our education system.
Clause 6 claims to sort out how the intervention powers of the local authority and the Secretary of State interact. The way that the Minister has described it, it is hardly an interaction. The key is proposed new section 70B, which basically says that the local authority must give way to the Secretary of State or the regional schools commissioner acting on the behalf of the Secretary of State whenever she, or they, want to intervene—no matter how involved the local authority has been and how effectively the local authority might have been working with the school or how effectively the local community thinks that the local authority was working with the school.
Similarly, proposed new section 70C allows the Secretary of State or the regional schools commissioner—an appointed person, accountable to no one other than the appointed Minister of the Crown—to take over an interim executive board that has been set up for the express purpose of taking over from a governing body and taking any action necessary to improve a school.
Suella Fernandes
I note the hon. Gentleman’s concerns. However, what does he suggest should be done if a local authority fails to pick up on a failing school? Sir Daniel Moynihan highlighted that problem in the evidence sessions:
“If a school fails, it will not normally be because of something that has happened overnight; it will be because of a gradual decline in performance over a period of time. The local authority should have picked up on that and used its resources to do so”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 13, Q22.]
Therefore, his view as an independent expert is that there should be a power for someone else to intervene. Is that not what the clause is getting at?
Kevin Brennan
I certainly respect the work that Sir Daniel has done in the field of education, although he is not entirely independent with regard to this issue. He showed in his evidence that he has a particular view about one particular means of school improvement, although the independent evidence does not show that it is the only one that can be successful.
I am certainly not saying that the Secretary of State should not have powers to intervene from time to time. I am just highlighting the extent to which those powers are being massively increased by the clause, and the fact that the general public have little understanding of who and what the people being appointed by the Secretary of State are and what resources and powers they have. The Bill is massively expanding all of that without accountability. At the same time, the Government are saying that the way to improve the quality of every other area of our public services is to devolve power and to encourage bodies that are democratically accountable locally to work together and with the Government.
Mr Gibb
This programme is about devolution to the academy level. The regional schools commissioners have no intention of engaging with or intervening in schools or academies that are performing well. In the majority of cases, we expect local authorities and regional schools commissioners to work together to decide where to intervene when there is underperformance, but some local authorities have been ineffective. There are 28 that have never appointed an IEB or issued a warning notice, and Ofsted has judged 12 to be ineffective, often for their poor use of their intervention powers. We need these reserve powers to intervene when there is insufficient action by local authorities.
Kevin Brennan
On the one in, one out rule, one could say that there are often academy trusts that fall into that category. I am sure that the Minister has seen Ofsted’s report on the focused inspection of the Collaborative Academies Trust, dated 25 March 2015, which points out that there are real problems with the rapid expansion of the academies programme and that there are serious weaknesses from time to time in the work of academy trusts.
Of course it is possible that local authorities will need intervention. My point is that the Government’s philosophical approach, which is to centralise all power with the Secretary of State, not genuinely to devolve power to a local level, is at odds with their approach elsewhere, and it will ultimately lead to the sorts of problems we have seen in lots of areas where there is not that level of accountability.
One has to call into question, as we have done—this has not been answered adequately—the capacity of regional schools commissioners to take on all these additional responsibilities. When we debate clause 1, we will discuss the fact that the huge expansion in the number of schools that will be eligible for intervention by regional schools commissioners will emphasise that capacity problem.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I am conscious of the Minister’s previous intervention. Does my hon. Friend agree that the powers are not reserve powers? It was made clear during our debate on Tuesday that the interventions of regional schools commissioners or the Secretary of State would trump local authority warning notices. This is not about intervening when local authorities fail to do so, but about centralising all power in the Secretary of State’s hands, as my hon. Friend is making clear.
Kevin Brennan
My hon. Friend makes a good point because there is no need to justify why they are doing it. There is no need to provide the evidence that the action is necessary. The Secretary of State or the regional schools commissioner, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, can just decide to do it.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 39, in clause 7, page 6, line 5, at beginning insert—
The amendment requires the Secretary of State to take advice before using new provision.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 40, in clause 7, page 6, line 5, leave out “must” and insert “may”
There may be a good reason why the school should not be academised, and this amendment allows for mature reflection of the need for academisation.
Amendment 46, in clause 7, page 6, line 6, after “intervention”, insert “for the first time after 1 January 2016”
The Bill does not make clear when the Government will implement this new power. This amendment would provide that the power could not be used retrospectively.
Amendment 24, in clause 7, page 6, line 8, at end insert—
‘(A1A) Prior to making an Academy Order in respect of a maintained school under subsection (A1), the Secretary of State must arrange for an independent assessment of the impact of conversion into an Academy on vulnerable pupils, including but not limited to—
(a) children with statements of special educational needs,
(b) children with special educational needs without statements,
(c) looked after children,
(d) children with disabilities, and
(e) children with low prior attainment not otherwise falling under (a) to (d).
(A1B) A report of any assessment conducted under subsection (A1A) shall be laid before each House of Parliament by the Secretary of State.
(A1C) Where a report under subsection (A1B) indicates any risks of negative impacts on vulnerable pupils, the Secretary of State must accompany the report with a statement of the steps he is taking to satisfy himself that reasonable mitigating steps will be planned and implemented to reduce such risks.”
Amendment 42, in clause 7, page 6, line 8, at end insert—
‘(A2) For the avoidance of doubt, subsection (A1) does not apply to a maintained nursery school or a Pupil Referral Unit.”
The amendment is to clarify whether the new provision applies to maintained nursery schools and Pupil Referral Units.
Amendment 45, in clause 7, page 6, line 10, at end insert—
‘( ) in section 19 of the Academies Act 2010, in subsection (2), insert at start “Except subsection (A1) of section 4” and insert after subsection (3)
( ) Before the Secretary of State makes an order commencing section 4(A1) she will lay before Parliament an independent report demonstrating the improvement, or otherwise, of schools which have been academised, or not, after being eligible for intervention by virtue of sections 61 or 62 EIA 2006.”
The amendment requires the Secretary of State to demonstrate that academisation is the best solution for schools which receive an inadequate Ofsted judgement.
Kevin Brennan
We now move on to clause 7, which is another clause where the Secretary of State takes considerable power, and we will consider this group of amendments. As the clause stands, the Secretary of State need take no professional advice about the appropriateness of an academy order. The decision is, in effect, taken in advance by the absolute duty that would be placed on her by the clause. The clause is unusual in that it places an absolute duty on the Secretary of State to academise under certain circumstances.
With amendment 39, we are simply urging the Secretary of State to pause and listen to the best available advice. She ought to take each case as being potentially different, and should inform herself of the circumstances. It is hard to imagine why the Secretary of State would not want to take the opportunity to listen to the best available advice, unless the concern is that the advice that she might be given would not fit well with the predetermined ideological position on what should happen.
Michael Tomlinson (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (Con)
On that point of pausing, is not the problem with some of the amendments, specifically amendment 40, that schools will potentially be left in a state that is causing concern for too long? The explanatory statement with amendment 40 says that
“this amendment allows for mature reflection of the need for academisation”.
Is “mature reflection” simply another phrase for “undue delay”?
Kevin Brennan
No, it is not. It is what one should be doing when considering the best way to improve the school, which is to look at the evidence. What is the evidence that suggests that a particular approach should be taken? The problem with the clause is that it simply fetters the Minister from any other action, even if that action is one the evidence shows would be better. Mature reflection means considering all of the evidence available.
Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab)
On a minor point, I notice that the Government have announced this morning that there is going to be a period of “mature reflection” on their plans for EVEL. Is that actually the Government deciding to waste time?
Kevin Brennan
Obviously we are now to have two versions of EVEL. I assume that the one they are going to do now is the lesser of two EVELs. I apologise for that. We shall see in due course whether that is the case.
I will come back to amendment 40 later. Returning to amendment 39, we are simply asking the Secretary of State to take the appropriate and best available advice. Her Majesty’s chief inspector is an independent voice in the system—so independent that Ministers seem to have lost a little bit of faith in his willingness to do whatever they would like him to. Nevertheless, the role has independent status for a good reason.
The chief inspector will have a view on the strengths and weaknesses of the school concerned and the kind of support it needs most, and on the effectiveness of sponsors. In our view, he should not be obstructed from scrutinising sponsors much more carefully than happens now. He will also have a view on the effectiveness of particular local authorities and on schools that might be involved in providing support to another school that needs it. Why would the chief inspector not be listened to? Why is the Secretary of State so sure that she knows best in every case and that she does not need the view of the person paid to be her principal source of independent advice?
The current chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, may not always say what people want to hear. All sorts of people might not want to hear what he has to say, but that is a poor reason for not listening to him. There may be a very good reason why a school should not be academised. As the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole pointed out, amendment 40 allows for an opportunity for mature reflection. Perhaps the word “mature” is otiose because I was not going to propose any immature reflection, but amendment 40 allows for a period of reflection on the need for academisation. It is entirely possible to debate whether, in particular circumstances with particular sponsors, the academy model is the best. There are clearly cases in which it has worked, and we very much have supported that approach when it is appropriate.
Michael Tomlinson
An example of where it works would be Magna Academy, which is now a sponsored academy in Canford Heath in my constituency. Two years ago, the school was in special measures but, in the past two weeks, it has received an “outstanding” in every single category, which I am told is a first in the south-west in that framework.
Kevin Brennan
May I take the opportunity to congratulate the school on achieving that outstanding rating from Ofsted? He is quite right. There are cases where academisation has been an extremely successful model for school improvement. In other cases, other models have worked, and it is only fair that we consider some of those.
The Catholic Education Service has kindly provided some examples in which it thinks other methods have worked well. For instance, St James the Great Catholic primary school in London used an executive headteacher. The school had a section 5 inspection in June 2012 in which it was given grade 3 for three categories except for leadership and management, which was given grade 4; the school received an overall grade 4 with notice to improve.
As I understand it, in such a case under clause 7 of the Bill, the Secretary of State will have no choice but to order the academisation of that school. St James the Great used an executive headteacher despite pressure from an academy broker to join an academy chain. The chain was not acceptable to the school because it is a Catholic school and did not want a non-Catholic sponsor. The diocese brokered a package with St John’s Catholic primary school in which the headteacher of St John’s became the executive headteacher of both schools. A school improvement plan was implemented immediately, which included teachers from St John’s going into St James the Great—we all know about that sort of approach. St James the Great was inspected a year later and as a result of that intervention it went up to an overall grade 2. That is a good example of an alternative approach to school improvement, brokered at a local level, which, effectively and astonishingly, will be banned by the clause. As the Minister wants to intervene, perhaps he can confirm that that is the case.
Mr Gibb
The point about those examples is that the bodies that oversee those schools have done so for many years, often decades. The question we are asking is: why had they not intervened until now to bring about school improvement? We have lost patience with allowing children, year after year and decade after decade, to go to underperforming schools. That is what we seek to deal with and that is why the Bill is so important.
Kevin Brennan
I think that is confirmation that the use of an executive headteacher in circumstances such as those would be banned by the clause.
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman will have heard in earlier discussions on other clauses that the issuance of an academy order is step 1 of the process towards academisation. There is then a period of time when other intervention measures such as IEBs and executive headteachers can be used to try to get improvements happening before a sponsor is put in place. He is therefore wrong to say that other interventions are banned in the interim period before a funding agreement is signed.
Kevin Brennan
Indeed that is the case, which is an admission that the approach I am outlining can work and that, in effect, academisation is taking place only because of the ideological prejudices of Ministers to that approach, rather than because of evidence.
Case study No. 2 is Corpus Christi Partnership and St Joseph’s Catholic primary school in Crayford. The school had a bad inspection, as academies sometimes do, which led to an overall grade 4 with special measures. The diocese provided a support programme led by the headteacher of St Catherine’s Catholic secondary school in Crayford—in other words, its intervention used a partnership, with schools working together to try to bring about improvement. The school, which was inspected under section 5 a year later in June 2013, had improved in all areas and gained an overall grade 2.
That was so successful that all Catholic schools in Bexley—seven primary, two secondary and one sixth-form college—formed the Corpus Christi Partnership, a school improvement and support board in which the schools are committed to collaborative working and supporting schools where support is needed. That approach, however, will be trumped by the requirement of the Secretary of State to academise that school, despite clear evidence of the improvement brought about by that collaborative working and partnership approach.
Case study No 3: federation to try to bring about school improvement. The Regina Coeli Catholic primary school in South Croydon had a section 5 inspection in September 2013. It also had an overall grade 4 with special measures. An interim executive board was put in place—we just debated them—and again there was pressure from an academy broker and a local authority for the school to join a multi-academy trust, but the diocese did not agree that that was the best solution for the school. Again, that would be trumped by the Secretary of State’s requirement in the clause to academise.
The diocese arranged for the headteacher of St James the Great Catholic primary school in Thornton Heath to become executive headteacher of both schools until a permanent arrangement was agreed to join a local federation. Key staff from the other school, including the deputy head, who was seconded, were used to support staff in the weaker school. The school joined the federation of Catholic schools in Sutton on 1 November 2014. The Regina Coeli school benefited immediately from a well-established school improvement programme already in the federation, including the leadership of the existing headteacher. There was a significant and quick improvement, and a year and a half later, the school was graded 2 in all areas.
Kevin Brennan
I could equally ask if sponsors of academies are aware of the problems in academy schools before Ofsted comes in and frequently finds them to be inadequate. Of course, the diocese became more aware as a result of inspection. The purpose of inspection is to find out whether a school is working and up to scratch; that is the whole point of inspections, and it applies equally to academy schools and other schools. The point is that the diocese, having been made aware of real problems in the school as a result of the inspection, was able to find a solution and bring about genuine and rapid school improvement using methods other than simple academisation.
Academisation might well be the best solution for schools in many cases. Where it is, we all ought to support it. However, I have outlined alternatives such as the use of an executive headteacher, of partnership or of federation. Where such alternatives are available, they should not be precluded from being the means of school improvement simply because the clause says that the Secretary of State must—not may, must—academise a school found to be in this Ofsted category. Many academy schools are found to be in that category. If the answer is always academisation, what is the answer when a school is already an academy?
Mr Gibb
We expect the same effective oversight of academies by multi-academy trusts as we expect of local authorities. When we believe that a multi-academy trust is not capable of overseeing the schools within its group effectively, we take action to remove the sponsors of those academies. We have done so in the case of 75 academies so far, and we will continue to take swift action where we are convinced that multi-academy trusts are not engaged in proper oversight of the academies in their group.
Kevin Brennan
I am not disputing that the Government have done that, but they are saying, “The only answer is to academise.” The 75 schools that the Minister talks about have been academised, so the answer for those cannot be academisation; the answer is, “Let’s try something else. Let’s try an executive headteacher from another sponsor or better partnership working.” The simple act of academisation does not bring about school improvement. That is why the clause is so ludicrous, frankly; it fetters the Secretary of State’s freedom to act according to the evidence.
Mr Gibb
But those measures—an executive headteacher or collaboration between schools—should have been in place before Ofsted came in and awarded a “special measures” grading to the school. That is what we want to happen in local authorities and multi-academy trusts. If it is not happening under a local authority, the schools have to become academies with a strong sponsor. If it is not happening under a multi-academy trust, we will find a new sponsor for those academies. The essence of our approach is that we want strong oversight of academies and schools. If the local authority cannot do it, it will be in a multi-academy trust, and if the multi-academy trust is not doing it, we will find another multi-academy trust to run the group.
Kevin Brennan
Reductio ad absurdum is the Government’s policy here. Ultimately, what improves schools is stronger leadership, better headteachers, better trained staff, more effective organisation and all those sorts of things. I have given several examples of where that has happened without following the academisation path. The Minister has helpfully given many examples of where academisation has not resulted in school improvement and where inspectors have had to come in and rate those academies “inadequate”.
Putting in the Bill a requirement for the Secretary of State to academise a school is an example of not only a one-club golfer—the analogy we used earlier—but of what has happened to Rory McIlroy ahead of next week’s Open golf championship. He has effectively shot himself him in the foot by injuring himself before the tournament begins. He has hobbled himself, and he cannot carry out his job properly. That is what the Secretary of State will be doing if she has no discretion when Ofsted gives an “inadequate” rating.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
I wonder whether, like me, my hon. Friend has heard the Minister more than once today use the phrase “academies and schools”, which suggests that he does not regard academies as schools. Does my hon. Friend agree that if I were a parent—in fact, I am a parent—
Bill Esterson
I am extremely concerned to hear that one of my children goes to something that the Minister of State does not regard as a school. What does that say about his attitude and the Government’s education policies?
Kevin Brennan
Can I confirm that I, too, am a parent? In fact, I come from a long line of parents. I therefore think that I am particularly eligible to run for the leadership of the Labour party, as the Government Whip just suggested. You will have to hold your breath on that one, Sir Alan. I have no intention of doing so—I want to prevent any rumours from starting, following this debate. I think that the Minister made a slip of the tongue. He probably meant to say “academies and maintained schools”.
For the Government to introduce a clause that states that the Secretary of State must follow one particular path of school improvement alone is, at the very least, not very sensible. Ministers seem to believe that there is only one pathway to school improvement heaven—so much so that they regularly descend to abuse anyone who disagrees with them in a manner that is not appropriate to their office. Their ideological position is to regard private sponsors as always better than a public authority —or even a Church authority, as in the example I gave. In particular, they regard private sponsors as better than local authorities, regardless of their party affiliation. They apply their contempt equally to Conservative-led and Labour-led authorities.
The amendment states that decisions should be made according to the circumstances of the particular case, which I think is an eminently sensible proposition. Ministers have all the powers that they need. Under the Academies Act 2010, they can already make an academy order for any school that has received an adverse Ofsted finding. With this clause, the Government are tying their own hands.
Even if a high-quality sponsor is not available—there will be a rapid expansion and there is a limited number of high-quality sponsors, so a number of low-quality sponsors have been given an opportunity to run the schools that our children attend—even if the local authority or diocese has a strong record of stepping in and improving schools, and even if the parents and the school propose a credible alternative approach that has proven evidence of success, Ministers will not even be able to entertain an alternative to their prescription. They are set on removing their ability to exercise discretion or make exceptions.
We know already that the Government have not been able to convert all the schools that they could have done in the past five years, and not just because of the opposition of ideologically driven local activists, who perpetrate and orchestrate campaigns for ideological reasons, otherwise known as parents. There are often delays and difficulties when the Government try to academise a school, including bureaucratic delays in the Department and other legal issues, which we will return to when we debate the later amendments. What makes the Government so sure that they will be able to manage the 1,000 more to which the Prime Minister has committed himself? In some circumstances, academisation will clearly not be the best route, but the clause will tie Ministers to it regardless of whether it will do the school any good.
I will speak briefly to the other two amendments that we have tabled. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central will speak to his amendment which is part of this group. Amendment 42 is intended to clarify whether the new provision applies to maintained schools and pupil referral units. There is some ambiguity about what is covered by the phrase “maintained school”. The amendment is designed to remove that ambiguity. Perhaps the Minister will make that clear in his remarks.
The provisions on academisation in the Bill are based on Ministers’ assertion that turning a school into an academy is always the best solution. That assertion has been widely questioned by a range of researchers. Neither the Government majority on the previous Select Committee nor the RSA/Pearson Commission set up on the assumption that academies were the future was able to say with conviction that there was clear evidence for the superiority of the academy model.
Amendment 45 would allow the Secretary of State to try to prove her case, so the Government should welcome it. The way to make schools improve is not just to cherry-pick a few anecdotes to illustrate the point, or to abuse statistics, at which the DFE has become infamous and expert in recent years. The independent UK Statistics Authority has had to rap Ministers’ knuckles about that on more than one occasion in recent years.
The Government should commission independent research from a trustworthy source into the impact of turning schools into sponsored academies. They should listen to the evidence and make policy that is driven by the evidence rather than by uninformed ideology. I know that that is a radical suggestion for the Government, Sir Alan, but commissioning independent research and listening to the evidence would be a good way forward.
Mr Gibb
Was it uninformed ideology that led Lord Adonis in the previous Labour Government to adopt this very policy for failing schools and turn them into academies? By the time the previous Labour Government left office, there were 200 such academies. Are they all based on ill-informed ideology?
Kevin Brennan
No, it was not, Sir Alan. I supported Lord Adonis in what he was doing. He was making a targeted intervention, which was very well supported by Ministers and quality sponsors, and using it to try to turn around schools. As I have made clear, I am not opposed to that. I am opposed to the idea that only one solution can ever be attempted and that Ministers should not even be allowed to attempt another solution to bring about school improvement.
We are moving to a system in which many more schools will be subject to academy orders, and Ministers will be scrabbling around looking for suitable sponsors for those schools. We already have plenty of evidence, even from the current academy programme, that low-quality academy sponsors have had schools removed from them because they have failed to do their job properly.
Steve McCabe
Is not this the Minister’s problem? Lord Adonis was creating an additional model, something that we could do that was different and extra, where we felt that we had tried everything else and the school had continued to fail. The Minister is seeking to sweep all of that away and now have one single model and, when it fails, or when it cannot raise good-quality sponsors, the Minister will be in a straitjacket of his own making. Is that not the fundamental problem?
Kevin Brennan
As ever, my hon. Friend has put it far better than I could; he is absolutely right. Amendment 45 would allow the Secretary of State the opportunity to prove her case, by commissioning that independent research in order to see whether only this pathway is the right one for school improvement.
Mr Gibb
I am pretty sure that the hon. Gentleman was here when we debated clauses 2, 3, 4 and 5, which are packed full of other interventions that can be implemented to ensure that schools improve. Clause 2, for example, includes issuing warning notices, and clause 4 would make schools enter into contractual arrangements with school improvement organisations. Those are other types of interventions. We are discussing just one clause here, clause 7.
Kevin Brennan
We are discussing clause 7, which says that if a schools gets a failing Ofsted report, all those other interventions ultimately cannot be used to improve that school. That is the problem with the clause. The Secretary of State already has the powers that she needs on the matter. The proposals fetter the action of the Secretary of State and future Ministers in an unhealthy way, which is why we have tabled these amendments.
Bill Esterson
Before I speak to the amendment in my name, I want to make a few comments about some of the amendments tabled by my hon. Friends. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West made extremely good points about the range of options available. As evidence, he mentioned the success of federation, school-to-school support, collaboration, school improvement measures, and different types of activities over a great many years. In previous debates, I mentioned the example of success that is readily available for the Government to draw on—the London Challenge. Its various iterations around the country were never allowed to flower when the coalition came in, in 2010. The coalition Government sadly failed to look at the evidence of London Challenge’s success, which my hon. Friend asked them to consider. They were dismissive of it and decided not to continue it in Knowsley and the Black Country among other places.
My hon. Friend also touched on the importance of inspection and the fact that it gives the opportunity for improvement using a range of measures. It occurred to me that we have again come to the point of debating the difference between what the Government say and what they do on devolution and localism. The Government clearly do not trust local schools, communities and people to know best about how to improve schools in their areas. If they did, they would allow more than one route for school improvement. The approach is very clear and very worrying indeed; it is not evidence-based. If it were, the Government would look at what the Select Committee found—not only our conclusions, but the evidence that we took from many people around the country about what works—rather than dogma.
The Minister mentioned, quite rightly, the success of the relatively small number of schools—several hundred—that were converted to sponsored academy status, following the work of Lord Adonis in the last Labour Government. The Select Committee has looked into that. There has been sufficient time to determine that the Labour academies were a success; that they raised standards and improved outcomes and results for children at those schools compared with schools in similar situations faced with similar difficulties. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said, academies were never intended to be more than an additional tool in the box—an additional means of school improvement.
The Select Committee was advised by the charter schools in America that these sorts of approaches should only ever be used in a small number of cases at a time, because that gives an opportunity to evaluate their success or otherwise. I only wish that the Government had listened to that advice, rather than ploughing on with changing many thousands of schools in one go. As the Select Committee said, it is impossible to know whether the changes have worked or not, because so much has been changed so quickly.
Amendment 24 relates to the situation of some of the more vulnerable children in our schools—children with statements of special educational needs, children with special needs without statements, looked-after children, children with disabilities and children with low prior attainment not otherwise covered by the categories listed in the amendment.
Headteachers in my constituency and elsewhere over the years have raised concerns that not only academies but schools generally sometimes suggest to parents, “This school is not for your child.” Schools do that because it is a challenge to ensure that children with additional needs receive the education that they need to progress without affecting the school’s accountability measures.
The Children and Families Act 2014 has an important presumption of mainstream education for children and young people with special educational needs. However, a concern has been put to me and to the Committee in written evidence that if a school is required to become an academy under clause 7 because it requires improvement or special measures, some children might be deemed to challenge or threaten the school’s ability to hit its targets when it comes to progress measures or more general results. That could lead to undesirable behaviours or, if I can put it this way, unintended consequences. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that concern.
The provision in the 2014 Act stating that mainstream education should be the presumed approach is definitely the right one, and we should consider carefully anything that moves away from that presumption. Amendment 24, like so many of the amendments, is an attempt to get the Minister to think carefully about the consequences of what he proposes. The last thing we need is the exclusion of disabled children, looked-after children or any children who might adversely affect a school’s results.
Figures given to me suggest that children with special educational needs are four times more likely to be excluded from academies. If that is true, it is certainly a concern and would justify the amendment. I will be interested to hear the Minister’s response to that figure.
The structures available in multi-academy trusts allow for alternative provision as a main option. That is not consistent with the presumption of mainstream education provision in the 2014 Act. Concerns have been expressed by the Academies Commission that alternative provision is being offered by setting up a free school, to ensure that the children I described are not included in performance data. If that is true, and if the point about the likelihood of exclusion from academies is true, amendment 24 is certainly worthy of our consideration.
I hope that the Government’s intentions are as good as their word—namely, the 2014 Act’s presumption of mainstream education. The points I have made about exclusion and alternative provision using the free school model, as well as the anecdotal evidence that I cited of some children being rejected from schools because of their effect on performance data, are of great concern. I look forward to the Minister’s response and hope that he will understand why I tabled the amendment.
Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Margot James.)
Education and Adoption Bill (Sixth sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 2, page 2, line 46, at end insert—
‘(2A) Any power exercised under this section by the Secretary of State must be done by Order.”
Clause 2 removes the mechanism for governing body appeal to Ofsted. This amendment requires the Secretary of State to exercise any power under the amended section 60A by Order contained in a statutory instrument under section 181(1) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 34, in clause 5, page 4, line 44, after “may” insert “by order”.
The amendment requires Parliamentary accountability and visibility in the direction making power of the Secretary of State.
Kevin Brennan
I welcome everyone back for the Committee’s afternoon sitting. We come now to the third and final group of amendments to clause 2. Amendment 19 is an attempt to answer the problem of clause 2’s removing the mechanism for a governing body appeal to Ofsted. We are seeking more clarity about the decision to remove a governing body’s right of appeal to Ofsted following a warning notice. As the Bill removes the power of a governing body to appeal against a warning notice, the amendment would insert, as an alternative way of getting some measure of appeal, direct accountability for all decisions to intervene by the Secretary of State. It would require those interventions to be made via the mechanism of a statutory instrument.
It is clear from this and other actions by the Government that the Government lack confidence in Ofsted. Perhaps the fact that Ofsted has recently had to sack so many of its contracted inspectors—the very same inspectors on whom the Government have relied for judgments about which schools to intervene in—has led Ministers to strip Ofsted of the role of hearing appeals against these notices. I do not know. Perhaps the Minister will clarify why he does not think that Ofsted is a fit body to hear those appeals from governing bodies. However, just because the Government have lost faith in Ofsted’s ability to hear an appeal of this kind, that does not mean that they should completely abandon basic principles of natural justice. If Ofsted is not trusted by the Minister for Schools and the Secretary of State in this respect, surely something else should be put in its place as a safeguard against the arbitrary use of ministerial power.
The Schools Minister and I may disagree from time to time about the reasonableness of the actions that he takes and that the Secretary of State takes. I accept that we will sometimes see things differently when we are looking at ministerial actions, but as the Minister himself pointed out earlier in today’s proceedings, we are legislating for all future possibilities, including the most unlikely of possibilities for who might be sitting in his seat or the Secretary of State’s seat in the future. I remind him that there was a time when he was on the Opposition side and I was on the Government side. A week is supposed to be a long time in politics, so yes, that is ancient history, and I accept that we are likely to be in the same position for a few years to come, but on a serious note, we are legislating for all future Ministers, so we should be vigilant about legislating for anything that allows the arbitrary use of power by Ministers.
Amendment 19 means that, when issuing a notice, the Secretary of State would have to do so by order, rather than by direction. There would therefore be an opportunity for Members to pray against the statutory instrument—to use the technical term that we use in this place, not always understandable to the public—or, in effect, to put a question mark against what the Minister is doing to trigger at least a debate on the use of the power, against which the right of appeal is being removed from governing bodies.
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue is about not only who is Secretary of State, but an additional layer of accountability? As we heard time and again in evidence last week, that confuses the system and adds yet more challenges to a demoralised and over-pressurised workforce. Does he agree that the amendment would allow Parliament to scrutinise the impact on the workforce and on the education system as a whole of any order by the Secretary of State?
Kevin Brennan
With her usual acuity, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is an additional argument. We will be hearing from her later about her amendment, and I look forward to that immensely.
Amendment 19 proposes a minimum, light touch, democratic and parliamentary safeguard against a clause that introduces ministerial fiat into the Bill. Members might not be aware of this, but even the closure of a motorway slip road has to be done by statutory instrument through this place, yet apparently the Secretary of State, under the Bill, will be able to intervene in a school without any parliamentary accountability being necessary.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Does the hon. Gentleman think that, were the local authority to use the powers under discussion, those interventions should be subject to a negative resolution procedure in the House?
Kevin Brennan
Preferably, another route of appeal would be available when the power was exercised by a local authority, namely an appeal to Ofsted. Given that the Minister is sweeping away any right to an appeal to Ofsted on behalf of governing bodies—presumably because he has lost all faith in Ofsted’s being able to deal with it—there must be some alternative. I am interested to know whether there is such an alternative, and whether that might be through a statutory instrument. That is particularly apt when the Minister, who is after all accountable to Parliament, would be making such an order—or, indeed, such a direction—unless the amendment is accepted.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
It was interesting that the Minister asked about an appeal to the local authority. Does he think that that is a route to be explored, if he is concerned that using statutory instruments is excessive? Perhaps a local authority is the route to deal with such matters.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister was not suggesting that—I am saving him the trouble of explaining that to the Committee. He was testing whether, in the case of a notice laid by a local authority, there should also be a means of appeal through a statutory instrument, as envisaged in the amendment. I am simply saying that it is worrying that he is sweeping away any right of appeal and that such an approach has severe dangers—we will hear from several Conservative Members this afternoon, but I do not know if they are concerned about natural justice. The Schools Minister may be able to tell us, when he makes his remarks, about how he thinks the clause will fulfil the normal common-law requirements on natural justice—he mentioned common law in this morning’s sitting, so perhaps he will explain that point to the non-lawyers among us this afternoon.
All governing bodies are not necessarily up to scratch—everyone acknowledges that. The National Governors Association admits that governing bodies vary in quality across the country, and says, as we would—I am sure the Minister would—that
“governing bodies need to be honest and realistic about their own performance”.
However, there are many competent governing bodies across the country, which play a central part in school improvement and are capable of adequately challenging headteachers and senior leadership teams. There should be some channel for their concerns to be heard.
The revocation of the fundamental democratic right in the clause genuinely offends against natural justice. Disallowing any means of appeal constitutes unfettered power of the sort that the Minister has previously denied that he is seeking. I took the trouble of reminding myself of what the Minister has said on this issue in the past. In this case, it was during proceedings on the Education Act 2011, specifically when discussing the insertion of section 96A into the Education and Inspections Act 2006—again, this business of making legislation by amending previous Acts, which we were talking about earlier. At the 20th sitting of the Public Bill Committee on that legislation—it was a much longer Bill than this one; hon. Members will be relieved to hear that this Committee will not be sitting for that long—the very same Schools Minister who, Lazarus-like, is sitting here now after being taken out of the Government for a while, said:
“While we believe that the intervention power is necessary, we do not believe that the power of the Secretary of State should be unfettered. Schools will be able to make representations to Ofsted against the warning notice, whether or not it is given as a result of a direction. Ofsted will be the final judge of whether the warning notice should have been given. If the notice is confirmed, and the school fails to take the necessary action to remedy the concerns set out in the notice, the school will then become eligible for intervention.”––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 835.]
There we have it—that is what he said back in 2011.
It is therefore only fair that the Minister should give the Committee a full and properly justified explanation of why he now disagrees with himself. We all look forward to hearing from him at the end of the discussion on this group of amendments, and I may want to probe him a little further once we have done so, so I will leave my remarks there for now.
Mr Gibb
We are talking about an appeal to Ofsted, so the hon. Gentleman’s query is rather strangely worded. What is happening at Ofsted is a reform process that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, has been preparing for some time. Inspectors are now directly employed by Ofsted, rather than through various subcontractors, which is a better way of managing inspections. It is a worthwhile reform, and I commend Sir Michael for what he has achieved in his determination to improve the quality and consistency of inspections. With those final words, I hope that Members now feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Kevin Brennan
I listened with great interest to what the Schools Minister had to say. We had an interesting discussion about this group of amendments, with good contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for South Shields and for Sheffield, Heeley, as well as interventions from other hon. Friends—with the exception of our Whip, who stays quieter than most of us for most of the time.
As I have said, we are concerned about the removal of any kind of appeal. I take seriously the Schools Minister’s point; we do not want any encumbrance in the system that would prevent swift action being taken in schools when necessary. We all take that seriously, but it is not a reason to sweep away any notion of natural justice. People who are often working extremely hard to run a school may feel that they have been the subject of an injustice in how the notice has been issued.
We should be extremely cautious about sweeping away any means of appeal. I hoped that the Minister might propose some alternative that would overcome his concerns about the potential misuse of an appeal to Ofsted in a process that he clearly does not think is appropriate, or that he might come up with some alternative means for people to have such decisions reviewed or to appeal against them. We do that all the time with constituents who come to us with concerns about a decision made by the Executive, the bureaucracy or a powerful institution. People feel that they are voiceless and do not have an opportunity to appeal against decisions. We help people all the time. Why should a governing body that feels it has not been treated fairly in the issuing of a warning notice by the Secretary of State not have a similar basic right to have the decision properly reviewed? Why can it not have an appeal mechanism—one that is not necessarily overly bureaucratic or lengthy? I cannot see any justification for allowing no means of appeal whatever.
The Schools Minister said that regional schools commissioners would issue a warning notice only where they thought it was warranted. If a public official or body is going to issue a warning notice that effectively tells an organisation that it is not running a school properly, the very least we expect is that the notice is warranted. If we are all supposed to be massively grateful that regional schools commissioners will not issue notices where they feel that they are unwarranted, I do not regard that as a crumb from the Minister.
Kevin Brennan
I see a breach in the Government Back Benchers’ Trappist vow of silence.
Kevin Brennan
Not until I have teased the hon. Gentleman a bit—[Interruption.] He can sit down while I am doing it. In fairness to him, he has previously contributed to our proceedings.
James Berry
The hon. Gentleman is a former Minister, as he has reminded us, and he well knows that all Ministers have to act rationally. That is a basic common law requirement of any Minister, so his point does not take the argument any further, does it?
Kevin Brennan
That is why we need some form of appeal, to determine whether Ministers are acting reasonably and rationally, which is exactly what I am arguing. Rather than our having to go to judicial review and line the pockets of the hon. Gentleman’s lawyer friends, we could make an amendment so that Members of Parliament could consider the matter for themselves. We could have free use of his expertise. I remind him that praying against a statutory instrument is not a common occurrence—although it happens from time to time. It is an outlet or a safety valve where there is real concern that a Minister has exercised a power in this way. I am glad that he has taken the Schools Minister’s advice to get out more by joining in with our proceedings this afternoon. Some of his hon. Friends should follow that advice during the rest of our proceedings. I look forward to hearing from them. I am not convinced—[Interruption.] I make an exception for everyone who has done so, because I can hear some grumbling from the hon. Member for Portsmouth South. She has made a thorough and interesting contribution to our proceedings, which I welcome.
Clause 2 means that there is no safety valve. The Schools Minister said that an RSC would only issue a warning notice when it was warranted. They will be advised by their headteacher board, which will consist only of academy heads. I hope that the Minister will reconsider that. He said that there had been 40 such appeals to Ofsted and that two of those appeals were successful. We can read that in a number of ways. I have a feeling that, if all 40 appeals had been successful, the Minister would have told the Committee, “That’s another reason to get rid of the appeals, which are wasting everybody’s time by overturning these decisions.” If two out of 40 are wrong, is it not right that those two decisions should be overturned on appeal? If a wrong decision is taken, is it not right that it should be reconsidered? I think it is right. I do not propose that we should be overly bureaucratic. I would like to know more from the Minister about the alternatives. I feel that he has made his mind up on that.
Interestingly, he said that Ofsted’s reforms—bringing all its inspectors in-house—would improve quality. Perhaps the Government could learn that lesson in other areas from time to time. Contracting out is not always the answer to providing a quality public service. I will leave that thought hanging. On that basis, it is vital to lay down a marker about the importance of the principles of natural justice. I invite the Minister to give us a few more thoughts before we decide how we will dispose of the amendment.
Mr Gibb
I will be brief. I see your expression and sense that you want us to make some progress, Sir Alan. The powers that the Bill gives to the Secretary of State are identical to the power that exists for local authorities. The hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members have not suggested in their remarks that the process of local authorities issuing a warning notice should be subject to a statutory instrument. Neither has he suggested that a byelaw is passed by the local authority before a warning notice is issued. He is asking for a process that does not apply to local authorities.
The hon. Gentleman quoted our exchanges from the Committee that considered the Education Bill that became the Education Act 2011. He cited my quotes about the insertion of a new section 69A into the 2006 Act. I refer him to clause 2(6) of this Bill, which says, “Omit section 69A”. We are repealing the very section that he cited as evidence of wanting to build in safeguards for new powers. We are now repealing the very powers that we sought safeguards over in 2011. Therefore, he should be an effusive supporter of clause 2, especially of clause 2(6). With those few remarks, I urge him to withdraw the amendment.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful for that further clarification, if that is what we should call it. I freely accept that, as is often true on such occasions, all Opposition amendments may not cover every eventuality. We are on a journey of passing legislation, and there is a long way to go before it comes into law. That does not mean that we cannot add to the Bill on Report or when it is considered in another place.
We may well need to revisit the correct form of an appeal in relation to local authorities issuing warning notices. I am pointing out that Ministers are taking the power to issue a warning notice and abolishing any means of appeal against that, which seems a rather illiberal step for the Government to take. I ask my hon. Friends to join me in testing the opinion of the Committee on the amendments.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
I was going to say that it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, but we were both on the Crossrail Bill and I have to say that it was not a pleasure all the time.
I have something to add about the appeal mechanism. Although I think that amendment 19 is a little too heavy-handed to address the issue, I want to appeal to all Members to consider carefully the concept of appeal. With regard to governing bodies, in certain cases an appeal for them would be worthless because they can be part of the problem. I am sure that members of the Committee can think of poor governing bodies in their own areas that have very little to say in defence of poor results and performance. However, there is another side of the story and I would like to give an example from my neck of the woods.
I have in my constituency a single-form-entry primary school that fell below the standard for entirely comprehensible reasons. There were quite a lot of staff changes, which make a big difference in a single-form primary school, and the school also had intake changes produced by an increase in migrant workers. The governing body rapidly found itself trapped in a room with somebody who described themselves as a broker on behalf of the Government and said that the school must join an academy chain as soon as possible—with which, incidentally, the broker had some connection. I never knew there were such people called brokers, but there are indeed; I am simply recording what they do. I have heard many descriptions of what then went on. There was an extraordinarily abrasive and unpleasant conversation, in which the broker said that either the school must join the academy chain, or the head and the governing body—the full set—would be replaced.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. Is he aware that some of those brokers, as revealed in parliamentary answers, were being paid up to £1,000 a day by the Department for Education to carry out the work that he is describing?
John Pugh
I have not finished describing it. A number of witnesses—people I have learned to trust—described the conversation as brutal and tantamount to bullying, and we are all against school bullying. Neither the head nor the governing body in that case was weak. They were saved at the last hurdle, because Ofsted produced a more favourable picture by bringing in objective data. The school is now thriving, and is part of the local education authority family. Had the broker got their way, it would have joined a chain, in which the nearest other school was 20 to 30 miles away. That example illustrates what can happen if some of the hurdles to what is called improvement are clipped away. Not only might there be a brutal, ineffectual intervention, but we might be endorsing a form of bullying, which we would all regret.
Kevin Brennan
I am sure we all want to confirm that we like the Minister. One of the reasons why I like him is because he welcomes the fact that when others disagree with him, they do so vigorously. He enjoys the cut and thrust of debate. We should not be misinterpreted as not liking him on a personal level.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak and the hon. Member for Southport have given practical illustrations of why it is important that there is a safeguard or appeal mechanism in these sorts of processes. This may have settled down a bit now, but during the early years of the coalition Government—I should point out that there were Liberal Democrat Ministers in the Department for Education—some of the activities being carried out by those mysterious academy brokers were extremely dubious. They turned up at schools and metaphorically took the headteacher for a walk in the woods with a rubber truncheon, with the express intention that, by the time they came back from that treatment, they would roll over to anything that was demanded of them—in particular, that they would join an academy chain, whether or not that was the right solution for the school. For doing that work, they were paid huge sums of public money—up to £1,000 a day—by the Government. It is right that a light should be continually shone on those sorts of activities.
In our view, clause 2 represents an unnecessary further step towards centralising control over the school system in the hands of Ministers. It does so in two ways. First, it gives the Secretary of State the power to issue a warning herself. That might seem a small step, because the difference between the Secretary of State telling a local authority to do something, which is what the 2006 and 2011 Acts set out, and doing it herself might seem modest, but it is significant. Previously, the Secretary of State had to channel warning notices through local authorities, thereby ensuring that they are engaged in the process and that schools do not receive mixed messages. The clause does not even contain any requirement for the Secretary of State to consult a local authority before issuing a warning. There is no requirement on her to inform herself properly about what has been going on, merely a right to insert herself into the process whenever she feels like it.
Mr Gibb
The clause would amend the process for issuing a teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice—a type of warning notice that only local authorities have the power to give. Such a notice is given to a school by a local authority when a school fails to comply with a schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. Failure to comply with the notice means that the school becomes eligible for intervention. That does not necessarily mean that the school will become an academy, but it would allow the local authority or the Secretary of State to appoint additional governors or an interim executive board. It would also allow the local authority to suspend the school’s right to a delegated budget if the school did not comply with the written warning notice.
The clause would amend the timescale for compliance with the notice from the current statutory 15 days to a period specified by the local authority. That will give the local authority scope to choose an appropriate period, to recognise the action that the school is required to take and to allow the school time to demonstrate that it has taken the necessary action.
Finally, under the clause, the local authority would be required to give a copy of the notice to the Secretary of State when they give the notice to the school’s governing body, which will allow the regional schools commissioner to monitor more effectively local authorities’ use of such warning notices. The school’s governing body would no longer be able to make representations to the local authority. That will speed up the process and ensure consistency with a performance warning notice. We propose to remove the equivalent process for making representations to Ofsted.
Kevin Brennan
As the Minister said, the clause affects warning notices that relate to teachers’ pay and conditions, amending section 60A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. It raises some of the same issues that we debated at length on clause 2, and I do not propose that we do the same now.
In particular, the clause removes a school’s right to make representations in response to a warning notice. However, the process as a whole is more straightforward than the one in clause 2. Removing the Secretary of State’s power to issue an order clarifies responsibilities. It might be worth asking why, if it is appropriate here, it is not appropriate elsewhere.
The Opposition agree that it is important to maintain a national framework of pay and conditions or we could get into a process of a wasteful and continuous bidding war—even more than there is currently—between schools that are trying to attract staff from one another. A national framework also does something to ensure that all staff are treated fairly, reduces the ability to play favourites with staff, and has some bearing on something that is becoming more of a concern, which is the ability of heads and senior staff to pay themselves inflated salaries at the expense of other staff. That, potentially, is a growing feature, particularly in areas of the system where there is no requirement to adhere to the pay and conditions document. The Minister has taken the opportunity to explain the Government’s thinking and, having had an extensive debate on clause 2 and the amendments, I do not propose to detain the Committee any further on clause 3.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 3 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 4
Power to require governing body to enter into arrangements
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 28, in clause 4, page 4, line 7, leave out “section 60A” and insert “sections 60A, 61 and 62”
This amendment and those to clause 7 are to find out what happens to the existing provisions in Part 4 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 should the Government’s proposed amendment to section 4 of the Academies Act 2010 found in clause 7 come into effect.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 41, in clause 7, page 6, line 6, leave out “61 or”
The amendment removes the borderline Ofsted “Inadequate” judgement schools (schools requiring significant improvement, or notice to improve) from the scope of this new provision.
Amendment 43, in clause 7, page 6, line 10, leave out “61 or”
The amendment removes the borderline Ofsted “Inadequate” judgement schools (schools requiring significant improvement, or notice to improve) from the scope of this new provision.
Amendment 44, in clause 7, page 6, line 10, at end insert—
‘(4) The Education and Inspections Act 2006 is amended as follows:
(a) in section 63 (Power of local authority to require governing body to enter into arrangement) in subsection (1) after “60A” insert “, 61 or 62”
(b) in section 64 (Power of local authority etc to appoint additional governors) in subsection (1), after “intervention” insert “other than by virtue of sections 61 or 62”
(c) in section 65 (Power of local authority to provide for governing body to consist of interim executive members) in subsection (1), after “intervention” insert “other than by virtue of sections 61 or 62”
(d) in section 67 (Power of Secretary of State to appoint additional governors) in subsection (1), after “intervention” insert “other than by virtue of sections 61 or 62”
(e) in section 68 (Power of Secretary of State to direct closure of school) in subsection (1), after “intervention” after “60A” insert “, 61 or 62”
(f) in section 69 (Power of Secretary of State to provide for governing body to consist of interim executive members) in subsection (1), after “intervention” insert “other than by virtue of sections 61 or 62””.
The amendment is to remove the inconsistency in legislation that the local authority and Secretary of State can exercise intervention powers even though the Secretary of State is under a duty to make an Academy Order.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 28 highlights some of the confusion that may have been caused by the speed with which the Bill has been produced. We hope to obtain some clarity as a result of the debate. As it stands, it seems that there are two contradictory sets of provisions relating to schools eligible for intervention. The provisions of the 2006 Act are not being repealed so the battery of intervention techniques set out then is still in force. Clause 4 reinforces some of those by giving the Secretary of State the power to use them. Clause 7, to which some of the amendments relate, says that schools that receive an adverse inspection report must be academised. There is a need for clarity about which of those provisions has priority.
Our view is that the Bill should be making provisions for maximum flexibility. We will therefore propose to amend clause 7 to make it permissive rather than mandatory, but we will come to that later in our deliberations, possibly on Thursday.
Amendment 28 asks why the Secretary of State is seeking powers in clause 4, through proposed new section 66A, to direct a school with an “inadequate” Ofsted judgment to seek support from other bodies—in other words, to enter into arrangements—when it must be academised. Amendment 28 excludes clause 7 schools from the scope of this new power in clause 4, in order to test the Government’s thinking in this area. The purpose of Amendments 28 and 44 is to enable the Government to make their position clear. Do they contemplate the use of the powers of intervention set out in this clause when clauses 61 and 62 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 apply—that is, after an adverse inspection outcome—or do they not? If not, they should say so and make it clear that they are entirely inflexible and will always pursue academisation regardless of its suitability in any particular situation. If that is the Government’s position, what evidence do they have to support it?
Mr Gibb
We are now debating clause 4, a favourite clause of some Opposition Members, although that joke is probably a little bit old now. [Interruption.] I wrote it very late last night, so apologies to members of the Committee.
Amendments 28, 41, 43 and 44 raise the issue of how we intervene in failing schools—those which Ofsted has rated as “inadequate”. The Academies Act 2010 permits the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of a maintained school that is eligible for intervention within the meaning of part 4 of the Education and Inspections Act. Clause 7 of the Bill amends section 4 of the Academies Act 2010. It places a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order in respect of schools that are eligible for intervention by virtue of sections 61 or 62 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006—schools that have been judged by Ofsted to have either type of “inadequate” rating.
There are two types of “inadequate” rating. There is a “serious weaknesses” judgment, which is defined in section 61 of the 2006 Act as requiring significant improvement. There is also a “special measures” judgment, which is defined in section 62 of the Act. A school is judged to have serious weaknesses if one or more of the key judgments is “inadequate” or—this is an important point—there are important weaknesses in the provision for pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. I know this will interest the hon. Member for Cardiff West, who mentioned the importance of identifying and tackling extremism in some of our schools. A school is judged to be in special measures if it is failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education and its leaders and governors are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvements.
Despite these distinctions, the fact is that both categories of school are “inadequate”. Any school judged to be “inadequate” by Ofsted is failing its pupils and there is a strong moral imperative to act quickly to secure for them the high quality of education that they need and deserve.
Amendments 41 and 42 seek to disapply clause 7—the requirement to make an academy order—to those schools with a serious weaknesses judgment from Ofsted, leaving the power applying to only those schools with a special measures judgment. So there would not be an automatic issuance of an academy order. If the school receives a category 4 Ofsted judgment, the automatic academisation order would not apply if the judgment related to serious weaknesses and not special measures. A school with serious weaknesses may be failing in terms of pupils’ behaviour and safety, the teaching it offers, or the progress and attainment of pupils. In some cases, it will be a combination of those things. I hope that hon. Members will agree that this is not acceptable and we have to take urgent measures to tackle those schools. We are talking about a group of schools that are the outliers. In England today, 20% of schools are, according to Ofsted, providing outstanding education to their pupils. A further 62% are graded “good” and 16% require improvement. Clause 7 does not affect those schools; instead it targets a small minority of schools at the very bottom, which have been judged “inadequate” and failing.
Our manifesto was clear that we would tackle failing schools from day one. I hope that hon. Members—certainly those on the Government Benches—will agree that it is absolutely right that both categories of “inadequate” schools are included in the duty as set out in clause 7. I urge hon. Members to reject the amendments tabled by Opposition Members that seek to apply that provision only to one category of “inadequate” schools.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister understands that, in tabling that amendment, we are seeking to understand exactly what his intentions are. Is he absolutely clear that it is the right thing to do to compel the academisation of a school in these circumstances, even where there is powerful evidence that another approach would work better?
Mr Gibb
Yes, the evidence of the sponsored academies is compelling: those underperforming schools that have been converted to a sponsored academy have, over a four-year period, seen their grades rise by, on average, 6.4 percentage points compared with 1% for local authority-maintained schools in the same period. Similarly, for primary schools that are sponsored academies, their results have improved by around 9%—significantly higher than the figure in the same period for maintained primary schools.
Kevin Brennan
I think that I have heard the Minister quote those figures before but will he be clear for the Committee? Is he quoting a figure of 6.4% for schools that have been academised—is he comparing that improvement with figures for schools in similar circumstances that have adopted other means of school improvement, or is he taking a figure for schools to which academisation is applied as a means of improvement and comparing them with the generality of other schools that have not had any kind of intervention of this sort?
Mr Gibb
I will come back to the hon. Gentleman to get the precise wording right; since he has asked a specific question, I want to give him the right answer. But my understanding is that those schools that have been sponsored academies for four years have improved their grades by about 6.4% compared with local authority schools over the same period. I will come back to him with precise chapter and verse on what I mean when I talk about local authority schools over the same period.
Amendments 28 and 44 both pose questions about why, given the new duty to make an academy order for any maintained school that Ofsted has rated “inadequate”, we might still require intervention powers in such schools. It is a perfectly valid question. Amendment 28 specifically questions why clause 4, giving the Secretary of State the power to require governing bodies to enter into arrangements, is applicable to schools that are eligible for intervention because they have been rated “inadequate” by Ofsted—because they are going to have an automatic academy order. Amendment 44 then questions why we are retaining in the law a wider range of existing intervention powers, for instance to replace the governing body with an IEB or appoint additional governors to be used when a school has been found by Ofsted to be “inadequate”.
An academy order is made in respect of a school to enable its conversion to academy status; while this Bill aims to speed up the process of achieving academy solutions in failing schools, the making of an academy order, on its own, does not mean that a school becomes an academy with an effective sponsor in place overnight. Where a school has been found to be failing, it is clear that transformation needs to take place in that school from day one in order to bring about improvement as swiftly as possible. We know from our experience that other intervention powers can therefore still prove valuable in failing schools that will, in time, become sponsored academies. Such powers may allow for the diagnosis of current problems and enable some early improvements to be made in the period before the academy solution is in place. For example, Norton Canes and Heath Hayes, two primary schools in Staffordshire, were both placed in special measures in 2012-13. In June 2013, the Secretary of State appointed interim executive boards to both schools and issued academy orders. The IEBs, which worked in a challenging environment against a backdrop of considerable resistance from those opposed to such improvements, conducted reviews of teaching and leadership in the schools and identified problems and improvements that might be made before the schools progressed to become sponsored academies in the REAch2 Academy Trust in January 2014.
The Secretary of State’s additional powers to intervene in “inadequate” schools may be necessary when the local authority has taken action in the school and that has not proved effective or helpful, or to ensure effective governance before a long-term solution is put in place. That was the case in the Dorothy Barley junior school, which was judged to require special measures in December 2012—the third time that it had been judged “inadequate” by Ofsted in eight years—and an Ofsted monitoring visit concluded that it was not making enough progress towards removal of those special measures. The Secretary of State appointed an IEB and issued an academy order in October 2013 with an explicit duty on the IEB to conduct the school so as to secure the provision of a sound basis for future improvement.
Dorothy Barley had been in a serious situation for some time and urgent action was required to ensure that it received the support and expertise it needed to improve rapidly and sustainably. An IEB was the best way to do that and its effective governance was important to support the school’s transition to academy status in June 2014.
Clause 10 requires that local authorities and governing bodies take all reasonable steps to facilitate the conversion of a school into an academy when an academy order has been made. Clause 11 gives the Secretary of State the power to direct that school’s governing body or local authority to take specified steps for the purpose of facilitating conversion into an academy.
We were asked on Second Reading what that would mean for that school’s governors or the local authority. In the event that governing bodies were to fail to facilitate conversion, or to comply with such a direction, it may be necessary for the Secretary of State to put in an IEB to facilitate the conversion. I hope that helps to answer some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Cardiff West as far as his amendments are concerned.
I have had some in-flight refuelling, so I hope that I can also provide the hon. Gentleman with the answer he required. In secondary sponsored academies open for four years, the proportion of pupils who achieved five good GCSEs, including English and Maths, in the 2014 results was 6.4 percentage points higher than they had been in their predecessor schools. In that same period, results in local authority-maintained schools were 1.3 percentage points higher than they had been in 2010—I infer that that is for all local authority-maintained schools, but if that is wrong, I will come back and correct what I just said.
The first sponsored primary academies that have been open for two years have seen the proportion of pupils achieving the expected level improve by 9 percentage points since opening: from 58% in their predecessor schools to 67%. That is double the rate of improvement seen in maintained schools in the same period, which showed a rise of 4 percentage points: from 75% to 79%. That is the national figure so it is the figure for all maintained schools and I can confirm that the 1.3 percentage points figure was also for all maintained schools. With those remarks, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.
Kevin Brennan
I am aware that a Division in the Chamber might interrupt us, but I am grateful to the Minister for clearing up that point. He has used that statistic often in his remarks and I pointed out—perhaps not very well—during the oral evidence sessions that that is not a like-for-like comparison. That is a good reason why all such claims by Ministers should be subject to testing by the UK Statistics Authority.
I invite Ministers to do that, because there are lies, damned lies and statistics, as has been said all too often, but the UK Statistics Authority was created by the last Labour Government in order to give people some certainty and comfort about the statistics that Ministers were using. Of course, for these comparisons to be meaningful we would have to compare schools that had become sponsored academies as a pathway to school improvement with schools that took another pathway to school improvement but had been in a similar position in requiring to be improved. We will return to that and some of the evidence around that when we get to clause 7.
The Minister said that there had been a 6.4% improvement in the performance of secondary schools at GCSE.
Kevin Brennan
We were discussing the statistics that the Minister used in his remarks and in the evidence sessions. He provided helpful clarification of the statistics he quoted of sponsored academies improving their GCSE five A to C grades, including English and maths, results by 6.4%, compared with local authority maintained schools’ increase over the same period of 1.3%. He accepted that that was a comparison between schools that had been made sponsored academies and all maintained schools, rather than a comparison between schools that had been made sponsored academies and schools with similar issues that had been subject to other school-improvement methods.
Similarly, the Minister quoted statistics for primary schools, saying that sponsored primary schools had improved their performance at double the rate of maintained primary schools, again comparing sponsored academies with all maintained primary schools, rather than comparing like with like—in other words, taking schools at a fairly low base and comparing their performance with that of all other schools, without comparing them like for like with schools that had achieved similar levels of performance but had attempted other means of school improvement. That is like saying that football teams that have engaged new managers have done better than all the other teams in the league, rather than comparing the teams at the bottom of the league that have engaged new managers with other teams at the bottom of the league that have tried something else, such as buying a new player or attempting a new formation in their play.
That is why I appeal to Ministers to subject all of their favourite statistical observations to the UK Statistics Authority for comment, so that we can have independent assessment of them. I am sure that would hugely enhance the quality of our debate and bring a better use of statistical evidence to our proceedings when considering the most effective policy for school improvement, which is why we are all here. I invite the Minister to do that.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend is right. I am reminded of the Labour party’s attempt to get the Office for Budget Responsibility to scrutinise the budget plans of all the parties before the election. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a similar reluctance now to look at evidence? Does he also agree that there is a danger of the Hawthorne effect? Early examples of new initiatives tend to attract the very best people and, therefore, have better outcomes than over time. Statistical analysis should be carried out over an extended period before any conclusions are reached.
Kevin Brennan
I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I think that is an additional point, although sponsored academies have been with us for some time, as the Minister pointed out, so there is some long-term evidence. My hon. Friend is right that any new initiative, in whatever field but in particular in education, is likely to attract those who are most enthusiastic and have the zeal to be part of an interesting, innovative change. It is understandable that very high-quality educational leaders might be attracted to new initiatives in education, and we have to factor that into any judgment of the success of innovations. Quality teaching and leadership are scarce resources. We all want to increase the quality of teaching and leadership, but we will not do that simply by “initiativitis”. We have to look into how we can grow better school leaders and better teachers through valuing them, paying and training them well, so that we attract the very best into the profession.
As the Minister fairly and accurately noted, we are trying to tease out in our amendments why clause 4 is still applicable to “inadequate” schools if under clause 7 they will be automatically academised, without being subject to the Secretary of State’s discretion, if they fall into either “inadequate” category. It is interesting that, as the Minister confirmed, there are two types of “inadequate” school: those with serious weaknesses that require improvement, and those that are in special measures. That can be confusing, given the new Ofsted category “requires improvement”. It is worth reminding hon. Members that “inadequate” schools can fall into either of those two categories.
The Minister confirmed that clause 4 will still apply to “inadequate” schools, despite the fact that they will be automatically academised under clause 7, because the academy order could take some time. It is not always caused by the obstructionism of ideologically motivated people, otherwise known as parents. It is often due to delays and bureaucracy in the Department for Education, problems with the legality of who owns the land and other issues that rightly have to be sorted out. The Minister said, in effect, that in the meantime it is good to be able to do other things. So he has freely admitted that other methods work. He is making a deliberate effort in the Bill to retain the ability to use other methods of school improvement in the interregnum during which the academy order is going through. We know through parliamentary answers that the orders can take years, and not because of the obstructionism of ideologically motivated people, otherwise known as parents.
It is good to have an admission from the Minister that other methods of school improvement work. We will seek, throughout our debates, to show that that is the case, and that by fettering Ministers’ ability to pursue those other methods, the Minister restricts their ability to undertake effective school improvement. I do not intend to press the amendments to a vote, but if the Minister has a point of clarification, we would all be glad to hear it.
Mr Gibb
The point of comparing the 6.4 percentage point increase in the proportion of pupils who achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, over four years with all schools is to put it in perspective, and to highlight the way that grades have improved generally. It is the same with the primary sector. We want to put the nine percentage point increase in perspective, and compare it with how the proportion of those achieving level 4s has increased nationally so people can see the figure in context.
There is plenty of other evidence I could cite for the success of academies. There is the 2014 Hutchings et al survey, published by the Sutton Trust, which finds that the best academy chains outperform other state-funded schools, and that across the board disadvantaged students in 18 of the 31 chains in the study are improving faster than the national average. The research found that disadvantaged pupils in sponsored academies made greater improvements in the proportion of pupils with sub-level 4 key stage 2 attainment going on to achieve five A to C GCSEs with English and maths than schools in the other comparison groups. The research identifies that chains of three or more academies had a greater impact than solo academies.
The benefits of collaboration within academy chains in helping to raise standards and develop future leaders of the teaching profession were identified as far back as 2011, when a Public Accounts Committee report said that,
“sponsored academies see collaboration across chains or clusters of academies as the way forward which will help to further raise standards and develop future leaders.”
Finally, in 2012 Ofsted highlighted that sponsor-led academies can make a positive difference, particularly those that are part of a well managed group or chain of schools. That is really the essence of the academies programme: professional autonomy and the excitement that the hon. Gentleman talked about, combined with the fact that there is a formal collaborative arrangement. The most successful academy chains use that collaborative arrangement to provide a central vision, which is then spread throughout the schools in the academy group.
Kevin Brennan
I want to respond briefly because the Minister has introduced a whole new raft of information at this very late stage in the debate. Again, one could probe and test some of the statements that he has just made, although I will not at this point. Yes, of course, the best academy chains do very well. They are the best academy chains, and that is why they are doing very well. When is the Minister going to cite how the worst academy chains are doing? That is the point. He is making an argument here for the whole programme, rather than for just a limited part of it. The best maintained schools actually do very well indeed, too. This is my point about having to look at all these different things. Of course, the Minister did not quote the Select Committee report, about which my hon. Friend might be about to intervene. I am reluctant to go on too long.
Bill Esterson
In the Education Committee report, there was a Sutton Trust comment that,
“most [chains] are not achieving distinctive outcomes compared to mainstream schools”.
My hon. Friend is right that the best are doing best, but overall I am afraid that the evidence was not there. That is what the Select Committee found, and that is what it reported.
Kevin Brennan
I am not going to test your patience any further, Sir Alan, and, as I said, I do not intend to press the amendments to a vote. However, I look forward to the Minister’s agreeing at some future point to subject all his statements on statistics to the scrutiny of the independent statistics authority.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 29, in clause 4, page 4, line 22, leave out “creating or joining” and insert “creating, joining or leaving”
The amendment leaves open the possibility of leaving a federation and joining another as an option for a school eligible for intervention.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 30, in clause 4, page 4, line 23, at end insert—
‘( ) to take specified steps to make the governing body a member of a person with whom the Secretary of State has made an Academy Arrangements under section 1, Academies Act 2010.”
Although it is possible within the law for a maintained school governing body, as a corporate body, to be a member of an Academy Trust, the Government is understood not to support this course, leaving academisation as the only “hard” way a school can be involved in an Academy Trust. The amendment gives the Secretary of State the option of requiring a maintained school to be a member of an Academy Trust.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 29 leaves open the possibility of leaving a federation and joining another as an option for a school eligible for intervention. Amendment 30 reflects the fact that, although it is possible within the law for a maintained school governing body as a corporate body to be a member of an academy trust, the Government are understood not to be particularly in favour of this course, and therefore they leave academisation as the only hard way that a school can be involved in an academy trust. The amendment would give the Secretary of State a bit more flexibility, with the option of requiring a maintained school to be a member of an academy trust. Again, here we are probing the thoughts and intentions of the Government. In amendment 29, the possibility of leaving a federation and joining another is envisaged as an option for a school that is eligible for intervention.
It might occasionally be hard for Ministers to contemplate this, but new structures do not always work. It is not always the case that when something new is invented, it will work. Some federations, as we know, have been highly successful. All parties have promoted and supported the federation of schools. However, legislation should always allow for the possibility that, in any particular case, change might not work. It is entirely possible that this might not work. I am afraid that the Bill is full of presumptions of this kind. It never allows for the possibility that Ministers’ particular flavour of the month policy may not be successful, and, in some cases, may make things worse. The clause is an illustration of this, and our amendments are an attempt to tease that out. Federations can and do work, but if they do not, there needs to be a way out. That is the important point.
Mr Gibb
I was intrigued when the hon. Gentleman said that change might not work. He sounds very conservative in his outlook. He reminds me of Lord Salisbury, who said:
“Change? Change? Aren’t things bad enough already?”
So I think the hon. Gentleman is bidding for the Lord Salisbury award of the anti-change brigade.
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman is also wrong to say that we see schools as a hierarchy with academies at the top and maintained schools at the bottom. We do not. I acknowledge that there are some very good primary and secondary schools in the maintained sector in this country, and we need to do everything we can to encourage excellence throughout the system.
Kevin Brennan
Although the Minister has made a welcome statement—I wish he would say it more often—will he now accept the compelling evidence that headteacher panels should not only consist of academy heads, if that is his position, but include heads of maintained schools?
Mr Gibb
The role of the headteacher panels in each regional schools commissioner area is to advise on the brokering of academies from the maintained sector into the academy sector. Lord Nash indicated in the evidence session last Tuesday that he would consider the matter again when the Bill comes on to the statute book and panels have a greater role in intervening in underperforming schools in the maintained sector. He is right to raise that and I put on the record the same issue in the same manner as Lord Nash.
The amendments probe the intentions behind the power set out in clause 4 to require a governing body to “enter into arrangements” and how it will be used. Local authorities already have that power, but we also want regional schools commissioners, on behalf of the Secretary of State, to have the power available to them to use quickly and effectively where necessary.
Clause 4 enables regional schools commissioners to require governing bodies of schools that are eligible for intervention to enter into several different arrangements to ensure that schools take steps to improve. In some instances, a regional schools commissioner might use the power to require a school to enter into a contract with an organisation for
“services of an advisory nature”,
which could include directing a school to take on support from a national leader of education or an organisation that specialises in school improvement. There are over 1,000 national leaders of education—the excellent headteachers in our school system that the hon. Member for Cardiff West mentioned—and we intend to increase this number by 400 within the next year and further beyond that.
Support from strong leaders has been shown to improve standards. Research by Sheffield Hallam University for the National College for Teaching and Leadership showed that 89% of schools had seen an improvement in their leadership and management skills, knowledge and practice and the quality of their teaching and learning since being supported by a national leader of education. A wide range of NLE support is available. Academy heads can support weaker maintained school heads and vice versa, and the focus can be tailored to the needs of the school.
Clause 4 also specifically gives regional schools commissioners the power to require a school to create or join a federation. Federations can be created under provisions in the Education Act 2002 to provide a structured collaboration for a group of maintained schools, either as a hard federation under section 24 or as collaborating schools, commonly known as soft federation, under section 26. The following words are a bit dull: the School Governance (Federations) (England) Regulations 2012 set out exactly how federations operate under section 24 of the 2002 Act. The School Governance (Collaboration) (England) Regulations 2003 set out how schools collaborate under section 26 of the Act. In short—back to the interesting stuff—the primary difference is that a hard federation operates under a single governing body, whereas soft federations keep independent governing bodies, but share a joint committee to which powers can be delegated.
Federations provide a form of structural collaboration similar to what multi-academy trusts do for academies, allowing maintained schools to support one another and share resources. In Hackney, for example, the Primary Advantage federation has considerable experience of working in partnership with schools in challenging circumstances and has been able to develop a strong teaching cadre across the federation. There are, however, important differences. Multi-academy trusts have more flexibility and freedom over their budgets, curriculum and staff than maintained schools have in a federation that remains within local authority control. The multi-academy trust structure also accompanies these freedoms with stronger accountability. Multi-academy trusts are one legal entity and are held to account rigorously for their collective educational and financial performance.
Leaders of outstanding multi-academy trusts are keen to share their views of the benefits. Stephen Moon is the executive principal of Tollbar Academy, which has been graded by Ofsted as outstanding for the past five years. He has said:
“Academy status has given me far greater flexibility and the independence to utilise staff in a way that best meets the needs of the students…Being a member of the MAT has financial benefits too, because as a large institution we can demand better value for money from contractors allowing our resources to go that bit further.”
Sir Dan Moynihan, who is chief executive of the Harris Federation and gave evidence to our Committee on Tuesday, has said that multi-academy trusts ensure there is a
“strong strategic steer from the centre, but our local governing bodies are still responsible for making decisions about their schools and they are very effective.”
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful for the Minister’s quotes, but why does he not have any quotes from headteachers about what they feel are the benefits of being involved in a federation?
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that helpful intervention. She is a champion of education in Portsmouth. I have visited schools with her and seen her dedication and determination to help schools raise their standards. I pay tribute to her work in Portsmouth, not only on education but more generally too.
Amendment 29 seeks to expand clause 4(1)(d), which gives regional schools commissioners the power to require a school’s governing body to create or join a federation of schools as a way of improving standards. The amendment seeks to introduce an additional power to require a governing body to leave a federation, perhaps so that a regional schools commissioner or local authority can direct a governing body to leave an ineffective federation and join another if that is seen as appropriate. If an underperforming school were part of an ineffective soft federation, there are sufficient powers elsewhere in the Bill to enable the regional schools commissioner to require the school to leave the federation. If a school’s continued membership of a hard federation were likely to prevent improvements, the commissioner could issue an academy order on behalf of the Secretary of State.
Amendment 30 seeks to introduce a new specific section to the power. That new section appears to introduce a new solution for an underperforming school, allowing the school to remain a maintained school but collaborate with an academy by becoming a member of an academy trust but not an academy itself. We do not think that is the right approach because it would lead to an unsatisfactory compromise. Simply being a member of an academy trust would not allow the maintained school to benefit from the strong governance structure of a multi-academy trust, from shared staffing or funding, or from being part of a robust line of accountability, which is a critical element of the academy programme. Maintained schools would be denied those benefits if we accepted the proposition in amendment 30 that maintained schools could simply become a member of an academy trust rather than securing enduring structural change. Given those explanations, I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West will not press his amendments.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. As I indicated in my remarks, the purpose of the amendments is to probe the Government’s thinking a little further. I note the helpful and knowledgeable remarks of the hon. Member for Portsmouth South about clusters. She made an important and pertinent point.
Once again, I urge the Minister not to give the impression that only academy schools and academy chains can deliver excellent education, because it sometimes results in a view among headteachers, schoolteachers and parents that the Government do not believe that maintained schools and academies have an equal status. I am grateful to him for putting on the record that he does not hold that view, but it would be useful if he included schools other than academies and academy chains when giving examples of excellent performance.
Mr Gibb
I can cite Elmhurst primary school in Newham, an excellent school which has had superb maths and reading results, and St Paul’s Catholic College in Burgess Hill, West Sussex—my area—which I visited a couple of years ago and which is absolutely brilliant. I could cite other examples too.
Kevin Brennan
We really welcome that from the Minister. Perhaps we can have a one in, one out policy in future when he praises schools, so that he will take the trouble, every time he praises an academy or an academy chain, to take the trouble to praise a maintained school. We will have achieved something by our amendments, even if we are not going to press them to a vote, if they result in that new approach. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 31, in clause 4, page 4, line 26, at end insert—
‘( ) the local authority,”
The amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult with the local authority prior to giving the governing body a notice under new section 66A.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 32, in clause 4, page 4, line 26, at end insert—
‘( ) the parent council established under section 23A (Parent councils) of the Education Act 2002,”
The amendment requires the Secretary of State to consult with the Parent Council prior to giving the governing body a notice under new section 66A.
Kevin Brennan
Amendment 31 requires the Secretary of State to consult the local authority prior to giving a governing body a notice under new section 66A. Amendment 32 requires the Secretary of State to consult the parent council prior to giving the governing body a notice under new section 66A. The amendments illustrate, in a way, the problems that arise when Bills are drafted using the cut-and-paste approach to education legislation that I described earlier. That is the tendency these days. It must have something to do with the availability of modern technology and the ability to do control-C on your computer, lift something and put it into another piece of legislation. It has made things far too easy for Governments—probably all Governments—to take this cut-and-paste approach to education.
It is barely credible that even this Government would require a maintained school to enter into collaborative arrangements without even consulting the local authority or a formally constituted parent council of that school. I would like to be charitable, as we are reaching the latter stages of the afternoon and a cup of tea beckons, and suggest that this is perhaps just sloppy drafting and Ministers will not have any problem in accepting the amendments.
Just to reinforce the proposal, it is very probable in this kind of situation that the local authority will have undertaken, at the least, a range of formal interventions and will have supported the school’s efforts to improve. It may also be responsible for schools that are involved in providing support and will have a view of that school’s capacity, what risks there might be to its own performance, what support is available and how effective it is likely to be. Surely, therefore, it would be wise for the Department to acknowledge that it needs to listen to the expertise that is available locally, on the ground, about schools, that it needs to take account of those things that have happened before—it is unlikely that nothing will have happened at this stage—and that it needs to ensure that what it does is consistent with the overall strategy in the area, rather than undermining a strategy for improvement if there is a good one in place.
This kind of intervention, in other words, does not happen in isolation from everything else that is going on. Proper consultation is essential. That means listening and occasionally being prepared to think again, if necessary, on the basis of what has been heard. Will the Minister clarify whether it is his intention not to require any consultation of the kind mentioned in our amendments? If not, is he prepared to accept our amendments or table his own later if there is something defective or unacceptable in the wording but he understands the gist of what we are saying and what we are trying to achieve here? If he intends not to require any consultation, will he give a full explanation as to why?
Mr Gibb
Amendments 31 and 32 both relate to clause 4. As the hon. Gentleman explained, they raise the issue of consultation in decisions about the future of the school, specifically relating to the new power that clause 4 gives to the Secretary of State. This is an identical power to that which local authorities already have. He might call that cut and paste, but it is about replicating those powers to require a governing body to enter into arrangements with a view to securing improvement in the school’s performance, and giving them to the regional schools commissioners.
Clause 4 would give the Secretary of State the same power that local authorities already have to require a school’s governing body to take action to improve their performance. It would give regional schools commissioners the power to require a school to take certain measures rather than having to rely on the local authority to use its power. This would only apply to schools that were already eligible for intervention. Regional schools commissioners could require a school to contract with another party—for example, the governing body of another school—to provide advisory services, to collaborate with a maintained school or further education college, or to federate with another maintained school or schools.
Clause 4 includes requirements for regional schools commissioners to consult prior to using this power. This is a different position from that in clause 7, which makes it clear that for all failing schools an academy order must be made in respect of that school. In those circumstances, there would be no further debate about what must happen to failing schools, to ensure that action can be taken from day one. For schools that have become eligible for intervention other than by being found to be inadequate, it is appropriate to give the governing body the opportunity to respond and take action before intervening. That is why there are provisions in the Bill for consultation, such as in proposed new section 66A inserted by clause 4, which states:
“(2) Before exercising the power conferred by subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consult—
(a) the governing body of the school,
(b) in the case of a foundation or voluntary school which is a Church of England school or a Roman Catholic Church school, the appropriate diocesan authority, and
(c) in the case of any other foundation or voluntary school, the person or persons by whom the foundation governors are appointed.”
So there will be consultation with those bodies.
Mr Gibb
I was not aware that the amendments suggested that, but amendment 31 proposes that the local authority should be consulted before regional schools commissioners use this power. Clause 6 introduces section 70A into the Education and Inspections Act 2006. One effect of that is that the Secretary of State must notify the relevant local authority before exercising certain intervention powers, including this power in clause 4 to require the governing body to enter into arrangements. We inserted this new requirement to notify local authorities because it is important that local authorities are aware of any proposed interventions in schools in their areas. I take the hon. Gentleman’s point. We want collaboration. In the majority of cases, we hope that the regional schools commissioners and local authorities will be working well together to agree on suitable interventions, but given that RSCs may often be intervening because local authorities have failed to do so, we do not think it is necessary for the local authority to be formally consulted by the Secretary of State.
Amendment 32 proposes that where a foundation school has been required to establish a parent council then that council must be consulted before regional schools commissioners use this interventionist power. Parent councils are advisory bodies which must be established by the governors of foundation schools in which the majority of governors are appointed by the foundation trust. Other maintained schools may choose to establish a parent council, but this amendment would not require those to be consulted. Clause 4 as it stands already requires that the regional schools commissioners must consult the governing body of the school, which will include parent representatives, before the power can be exercised. In the case of a foundation or voluntary school, the appropriate diocese of a Church of England school or a Roman Catholic school must be consulted, as must the trust or foundation that appoints foundation governors in any voluntary or foundation school. The clause already ensures proper consultation with representatives of the school before the power can be used. On that basis, I urge the hon. Members to withdraw their amendments.
Kevin Brennan
It is not my intention to divide the Committee but it is important to outline the distinction between notifying someone and consulting someone. The Minister said that there is a requirement in the Bill to notify people of the Government’s decision to use the powers. I might notify him that I have brought him a cup of tea with milk and sugar, but if I had consulted him I might have found out that he wanted a cup of black coffee. There is a big difference between consulting and notifying, and we should not confuse the two.
The Opposition are of the opinion that, in general, it is better to have consultation with local bodies rather than simply notification or diktat from Ministers of their intentions. A consultation need not be burdensome, bureaucratic or a nature that would hold up school improvement—unnecessary measures—but it might well, as I said in my initial remarks, bring forward information that would assist the Government or regional schools commissioners in the type of intervention under consideration. I will not press the amendment to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Kevin Brennan
I congratulate my hon. Friend, particularly as someone so new to this House, for showing initiative in tabling her own amendment to the Bill and for giving my throat a rest while she did so. I am sure that during the course of the Bill we will see similar initiative taken by Government Back Benchers and I look forward to debating their amendments, as I am sure they are equally keen to scrutinise and probe the Government’s intentions on the Bill properly. We obviously have a treat in store for us in our remaining debates.
Of course, national pay and conditions are effectively disapplied in academies and free schools and all this is having an impact. My hon. Friend is right to suggest that the Government should consider having a proper look at the longer-term impact of this on the pay and conditions of teachers and support staff, and on staff morale, and at the long-term impact on recruitment and retention. We know and have given warning that we feel that recruitment and retention of teachers is going to be a real issue during the course of this Parliament. I emphasise that we would like to lay down a marker that we think we see a bad moon rising, to coin a phrase, in this area. The Minister should listen very carefully to what my hon. Friend has to say. She put her amendment very coherently and cogently and therefore deserves a proper response. I am sure that she will get one.
Mr Gibb
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley for tabling her amendment and enabling us to have this short debate. The issue about legislation is that one only legislates when one needs to. The issues that she raises are of course important but we are taking measure to deal with them. The workload challenge is an issue very dear to the Secretary of State’s heart; we are determined to reduce teachers’ workloads and that is why we conducted that survey, to which 44,000 teachers responded. It made it very clear where the problems lie, particularly in areas such as data collection or how people perceive that Ofsted requires teachers to conduct their marking—we are addressing those issues with the working parties that I said we had established.
The Bill enables us to deal with poorly performing schools; that is why it is a limited Bill with only 15 or 16 clauses. The hon. Member, however, is also wrong to talk about there being a crisis in the retention or recruitment of teachers. There are of course challenges with recruitment—graduates leaving university are at a premium in terms of firms wanting to recruit them. When there is a strong economy, which is often the case under a Conservative Government, there will be competition for graduates—
The Chair
Just to let you all into a little secret, the Committee was supposed to end at about 5 pm today, but as we have had a Division we are allowed to go on for a little longer. We can discuss another two amendments in the time allotted if we have some brevity.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 33, in clause 4, page 4, line 39, at end insert—
‘(5) Any expenditure incurred by the local authority under this section shall be met by the Secretary of State.”
The clause leaves open how expenditure incurred by the local authority directly or indirectly (as the body which maintains a maintained school) by a Secretary of State notice. This amendment requires the Secretary of State to pay.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 35, in clause 5, page 5, line 2, at end insert
“and any term which requires the local authority to expend additional resources than it had budgeted for will be met by the Secretary of State”
The clause leaves open the possibility that the Secretary of State could pay unreasonable amounts of money to Interim executive Board members she appoints. This amendment requires the Secretary of State to pay.
Kevin Brennan
I think there has been some discussion through the usual channels that we might knock off these amendment and clause 4 stand part. That would be deemed to be acceptable progress on all sides.
The purpose of amendments 33 and 35 is to ensure that any financial expenditure incurred by a local authority is rightly covered by the Department for Education. There must be control over decisions of the Secretary of State that require additional expenditure by the local authority or the school governing body. The amendment would require that the Secretary of State pays if the cost is more than what the local authority would have paid.
The very simple principle is that if the Secretary of State wants something done, resources should be provided. It cannot be right that the Department for Education can impose unlimited costs on local authorities when local authorities have no way of controlling that expenditure. Councils, like all organisations, plan their expenditure, and cannot be expected to pick up the tab just because the DFE wants something done. I would welcome the Minister’s response to these probing amendments.
Mr Gibb
Amendment 33 seeks to require the Secretary of State to reimburse local authorities where they incur any costs resulting from an RSC using the powers in the clause. Where a school is in need of support to improve, it should generally be funded from within the school’s existing budget. For instance, they could bring in a national leader of education, collaborate or set up school-to-school support.
Research by Sheffield Hallam University for the National College for Teaching and Leadership showed that 89% of schools supported through the NLE programme had seen an improvement in their leadership and management skills, their knowledge of practice and the quality of their teaching. Where there is a cost involved when a school has become eligible for intervention while under the control of the local authority, it will be right in some circumstances to expect the local authority or the school to meet the costs associated with any necessary intervention. It is unlikely that any costs associated with the regional schools commissioner requiring schools to enter arrangements to improve would be any higher than if a local authority required the same action of its schools. Local authorities already receive funding from the Department to support their central responsibilities, including school improvement.
The Government recognise that ensuring schools have access to the best possible support and advice, along with capable leadership in a strong accountability framework, will help standards to improve across the board. For example, in the spring term of 2013, Gawthorpe academy in Wakefield worked with Ash Grove junior and infant community school, which was judged by Ofsted to require improvement. A specialist leader of education was provided by the academy to support the development of teaching across the school, with the aim of teachers sustaining momentum and continuing to improve their teaching after the specialist leader left. In June 2014, Ash Grove received a further inspection and was rated as “good”. The Ofsted report commented on the significant improvement in teaching quality since the previous inspection. That example of one school supporting another through the SLE programme is relatively low-cost, but the results can be significant.
Clause 5 is about the appointment of interim executive board members. An IEB is a governing body appointed for a temporary period with the specific task of ensuring school improvement when there has been a decline in standards or a serious breakdown of working relationships in the governing body. If used effectively, IEBs can provide a challenge to the school’s leadership and secure rapid improvement.
Amendment 35 would require the Secretary of State to pay the local authority any costs—over and above any costs it had budgeted for—incurred as a result of the Secretary of State directing a local authority as to the terms of appointment of members of a local authority-appointed interim executive board. Such terms of appointment could include setting out the roles and responsibilities of members or details for any remuneration and expenses. I reassure Members that we do not expect local authorities to face increased costs due to regional schools commissioners exercising that power on behalf of the Secretary of State. Currently, the Secretary of State and the local authority can choose to make a payment to IEB members to cover allowances as they consider appropriate. Any costs associated with the terms of employment for an IEB established by the Secretary of State should not be higher than those usually incurred by a local authority, and should certainly be reasonable given that we only expect IEBs to be in operation on a short-term basis.
The Bill is about ensuring that intervention in underperforming schools is fast, effective and deliverable. The clause as it stands will help to achieve that. In view of that, I hope the hon. Member for Cardiff West will withdraw his amendment.
Kevin Brennan
I suspect that we will not agree on what the Minister just said, but I am grateful to him for putting the Government’s position on the record. These probing amendments were intended to find out more about the Government’s thinking. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Mr Gibb
The clause would give the Secretary of State, via the regional schools commissioners, a power similar to the one that local authorities already have to require a school’s governing body to take action to improve its performance. The Government recognise that ensuring schools have access to the best possible support and advice, along with capable leadership in a strong accountability framework, will help to ensure that standards improve across the board.
The clause would give regional schools commissioners the power to require a school to take certain action, rather than having to rely on the local authority to do so. It would only apply to schools that are already eligible for intervention. Regional schools commissioners would be required to consult first. They could then require a school to contract with another party—for example, another school—to provide advisory services, to collaborate with a maintained school or further education college, or to federate with another maintained school.
The value of schools coming together to pool expertise and resources is that they can achieve collectively what could not necessarily be achieved by an individual school. The power to direct schools to take advice and collaborate would sit alongside other measures in the Bill and would form part of our new array of intervention measures to help ensure that schools improve and that children get the education they deserve.
Kevin Brennan
I shall make only a few observations in the few moments left today. The clause would be of limited significance were it not for clause 1 of the Bill, which we will come to later in our discussions. However, there is an initial confusion between this clause and clause 7, because this clause empowers the Secretary of State to take a range of action in relation to schools eligible for intervention. This category includes schools in special measures, but clause 7 states that the only action to be taken in relation to a school in special measures is academisation. We discussed that earlier on, and it was a welcome admission that methods other than academisation can actually lead to school improvements. I will not pursue that point much further in the clause stand part debate.
Clause 1 will change everything, because it reinforces our argument that it was quite wrong to take the clauses out of order. Making a judgment on clause 4, on which we are now having a stand part debate, depends on whether or not clause 1 is accepted and certainly on what the regulations on coasting schools actually say. We have draft regulations from the Government, but that is going to be a very significant factor. However, we are where we are.
Education Datalab stated in evidence to us that 1,179 schools will be classed as coasting under the definition put forward by Ministers. This is not the place to debate the rights and wrongs of this definition, but it has certainly been rubbished by quite a number of commentators. This is the place to recognise that this is the clause that will enable the Secretary of State to intervene in all of those schools. We know from the press release what the Government think will happen next. It states:
“The government’s regional schools commissioners—8 education experts with in-depth local insight supported by elected head teacher boards from the local community—will then assess whether or not the school has a credible plan to improve and ensure all children make the required progress. Those that can improve will be supported to do so by our team of expert heads, and those that cannot will be turned into academies under the leadership of our expert school sponsors—one of the best ways of improving underperforming schools”.
Of course, as we found out in the oral evidence session, regional schools commissioners themselves have a conflict of interest here, in that they have key performance indicators which include the percentage of schools to be academised. Again, I will not labour this point here, but we should also pause to consider the workload on regional schools commissioners. We once again raise the point as to whether or not they have adequate resources to do the job that they are being asked to do as a result of the Bill. I will not go into great detail about what that involves, but there is a huge amount of work to be done. Schools are not random pieces to be moved around the chessboard, and I do not think that even Garry Kasparov could move 1,000 pieces around a chessboard. We are asking eight regional schools commissioners to take on an awful lot here, and we know that even the Department for Education is not coping with its current responsibilities. As the National Audit Office pointed out:
“The Department does not yet know why some academy sponsors are more successful than others”.
In conclusion, of course we can pass this particular clause. We are probably about to do so—I am glancing around the Committee Room to check the strength of the Opposition against the Government. We can pass this clause, but if we do, we should not imagine that it will have anything like the impact that Ministers are claiming. Nevertheless, the press release has been issued and headlines have been gained as a result. By the time everyone notices that not a lot has changed, it will all be forgotten and I suspect that it might be time for another ministerial initiative.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
The Chair
That concludes today’s business.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Margot James.)
Education and Adoption Bill (Fifth sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 2 months ago)
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The Chair
Before we start, I remind Members that the sitting will run to 11.25 when we will rise for Question Time. We will resume at 2 pm. Members have requested to dispense with their jackets, and I have agreed to that.
Clause 2
Performance standards and safety warning notices
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I beg to move amendment 14, in clause 2, page 2, line 9, after “period of compliance” insert “, which shall not be less than 15 working days,”
This amendment sets a minimum period—15 working days—within which the governing body must respond to a warning notice before the schools becomes eligible for intervention.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 15, in clause 2, page 2, line 19, at end insert—
“(ba) in subsection (4) for paragraph (b) substitute—
“(b) the reasonable action which they require the governing body to take in order to remedy those matters within the compliance period””
This amendment ensures that any actions which the governing body is required to take can reasonably be undertaken within the compliance period.
Amendment 21, in clause 2, page 3, leave out line 10
This amendment restores the definition of “working day” to section 60.
Kevin Brennan
I understand that we will have the pleasure of your company all day today, Sir Alan. We are very happy to serve under your experienced chairmanship.
This morning we continue the process of steadily reversing towards the beginning of the Bill, having disposed of clause 13 last Thursday. We are now considering clause 2. Clause 13 was about the adoption part of the Bill. We now move to the element that deals with schools. As we consider amendments 14, 15 and 21, I want to observe what the House of Lords Constitution Committee said last week about the Childcare Bill that is progressing through Parliament. I have a copy of the Constitution Committee’s report on that measure, and it is apposite to the amendments to the Education and Adoption Bill. At first I thought the report had nothing to say about the Childcare Bill, because when we open it, the pages are blank, but if we look carefully, on the first page there are three short paragraphs about it. These words are relevant to the Education and Adoption Bill and the amendments:
“In our last report, published in June 2015, we drew attention to a concerning trend—a tendency by the Government to introduce vaguely worded legislation that leaves much to the discretion of ministers.”
That might describe the provisions that we are discussing today. It goes on to describe the Childcare Bill as
“a particularly egregious example of this development.”
That is why that Bill is now in a little trouble in the other place.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
This Bill is very specific. The hon. Gentleman will have had details of the regulations that we intend to table on the definition of “coasting” schools. The clauses that we will debate are very specific and do not leave much discretion to Ministers. As for the definition of “coasting”, detailed regulations will be scrutinised by a Committee of this House.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention. I understand why he felt the need to put that on the record. When this Bill makes its short journey through Central Lobby to the other end of the building, I am sure their lordships’ Constitution Committee will look carefully at our deliberations and at the content and detail of this Bill. They will also note the way in which we have been conducting our business here.
We are on clause 2, having completed clause 13. Detailed regulations were not available in time for Second Reading or the beginning of Committee stage but were published at 10 pm on the evening before evidence sessions began. Our witnesses did not have the opportunity to look at the draft regulations before giving evidence, other than the one who stayed up for hours in the night to study and attempt to make sense of them. Those witnesses might have views about the constitutional propriety and legislative sense of doing business in that way, but we shall have to wait and see.
The amendments look at the period within which a governing body must issue warning notices, with the purpose of probing Ministers’ intentions. A warning notice is currently issued by a local authority to tell a governing body that it must take specific action, or further intervention will occur. The Bill provides that the Secretary of State can issue a warning notice to a maintained school directly. That notice will give the governing body roughly three weeks—15 working days, in effect—to take the action specified. The Bill does not set a time limit, and Ministers’ intentions are therefore not entirely clear. I hope that the Minister will be able to clear that up in his response to the amendments.
For example, Ministers might envisage much more significant actions being required during the period of a warning notice. If so, warning notices might be in place for much longer than currently envisaged. If that is the Government’s intention, will the Schools Minister elucidate the maximum time he envisages a warning notice lasting? We would like to have a reasonable idea of what period we are talking about. Is it four weeks, rather than the current three weeks? Is it six weeks, 12 weeks, six months, a year or years? As the Bill is drafted, we simply do not know what Ministers’ intentions are. Can the Minister give some examples of why it might be necessary to have lengthier warning notices than are currently issued? If that is Ministers’ intention, why is it necessary?
On the other hand, it is possible that the opposite is true. With the Bill effectively removing the right to object or appeal against warning notices, we want to be sure that the warning notice system is used fairly and transparently. In other words, do Ministers envisage a shorter period than 15 working days for a warning notice? Again, as the Bill is drafted, we do not know.
To probe that, amendment 14 proposes that the minimum period of compliance be restored, so that we can at least know Ministers’ intentions. If a longer period is appropriate, we would want the flexibility to achieve it, provided that we have the clarity I mentioned from Ministers about their intentions. If governing bodies are to engage seriously with the process of warning notices, they need assurance that they have the appropriate amount of time to do so properly.
There is only so much a school can do in 15 working days. Simple changes of rules or procedures could be possible within that period, but developing a complex action plan takes time, and implementing it takes even longer, as does negotiating with potential partners. It cannot be done quickly. That is why the requirements of a warning notice need to be reasonable, though no doubt Ministers always believe that they are reasonable in their actions. That is why amendment 15 would introduce reasonableness.
An example of a warning notice from Ministers is that sent by Lord Nash to the Gloucester academy on 16 December 2013. Hon. Members might be surprised that Ministers occasionally send warning notices to academies. Ministers usually say that academies are the answer to everything and that academising schools will solve all the problems of the education system. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that academies are also schools and just as likely to fall into problems as any other school, because they are institutions made up of human beings. They are not infallible and changing the name on the front of the institution from school to academy does not guarantee that they will not have to be subject to an intervention.
Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)
My hon. Friend’s point about academisation being the only solution was also raised in the evidence session. I point him to the response from Sir Daniel to my question. I asked,
“And you think that academisation is the only response to coasting…?
Sir Daniel Moynihan: No”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 14, Q26.]
He then gave a list of other measures that can tackle coasting. Does my hon. Friend think that that relates to his point?
Kevin Brennan
It does, although we will deal with that in more detail when we get to the part of the Bill that relates to coasting schools. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend is anxious to reach that element since it is clause 1 and he might reasonably expect that by now we would have reached it. We are in a curious time warp, which the Government introduced, whereby we have travelled forward in time to clause 13, are now back to clause 2, will gradually move through clauses 2 to 12 and eventually re-enter the time machine to go back to clause 1 next week.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister is keen on science and I am sure his purpose is to remind the Committee that time is relative. That is why we are enjoying time being shifted around by the Minister rather like in “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” where a time-turner is given to Hermione so that she can attend more than one lesson at once. That is another proposal that the Minister might possibly be considering.
Before we get too confused about where we are, I referred to the intervention that Lord Nash issued to an academy, because currently Ministers can issue warning notices to academies. The clause would give them the ability to issue warning notices to maintained schools directly.
Here is that example of the warning notice. The school in question, the Gloucester academy, had one month to respond to it. The Committee might think that sounds rather generous, compared with the 15 working days that I mentioned earlier as the period in the amendment and in current legislation. In fairness, the Minister gave that academy one month, although that included Christmas and new year. Perhaps it was not quite as generous as it first sounded.
Under that warning notice the requirements were:
“Implementing the necessary strategies to (1) improve the quality of teaching and learning, including the quality of feedback and assessment and the use of teaching spaces in the new building, (2) improve the attitudes of a significant proportion of students towards their learning, (3) improve the knowledge of faculty leaders about appropriate use of additional funding to support those relevant groups of students, (4) improve staff morale”.
These could all be said to be reasonable things to expect a school to undertake under a warning notice. I have no objection to any of those proposals—they all seem eminently sensible—but a new timetable also had to be written by the beginning of the January term. Anybody who has, like myself, been involved in timetabling —albeit my experience was in an analogue age—knows how complicated that is. It is not just a case of drawing numbers on squares on a board in the senior staff room; it involves having the right staff for the right lessons at the right time and not clashing with anybody else. The timetable had to be written by the beginning of the January term and specialist teachers found for every class in every year group, all within the period of the warning notice.
Nowhere does it say what level of progress would need to be made within the one-month compliance period. There is no indication of the expectation of the level of progress that could reasonably be made within this period. Neither does the warning notice offer, as one might expect that it would, any support or advice as to how all these things might be achieved in a school that, we must assume, already lacks capacity to improve itself; otherwise, it would already have been in a position to have done so. It seems to me that it is necessary for a warning notice to set reasonable targets, as we have set out in amendment 15. By requiring actions that are reasonable, schools can be given targets that are precise and genuinely achievable within the compliance period.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
Does my hon. Friend share my concern that the type of warning notice that Lord Nash used for an academy, as he just described, with the items he listed and the ability to deliver on them within the timeframe he gave, might be what the Government have in mind for maintained schools? How would the 15 days that my hon. Friend is envisaging enable these things to happen? Things such as staff morale take an awful lot longer than 15 days, as he said. How will his amendment help to deliver if this is the kind of warning notice the Government have in mind?
Kevin Brennan
As I explained at the outset, my amendment is an attempt to probe the Minister’s thinking by putting the 15 days back in, although I acknowledge that it can take considerably longer than 15 days for the sorts of actions outlined in a warning notice to take place. The Minister may be able to give more detail about the period he envisages, whether he thinks the interventions should be reasonable and whether a reasonable length of time should be allowed for making the interventions.
Kevin Brennan
I suspect that the Minister might not be surprised if I say I beg to differ about exactly how precise this Bill is in what it does. I suspect that will form some part of our exchanges in the next few days.
Returning to the power that was taken in 2011 by the Secretary of State, ably represented in Committee at that time, as now, by his Schools Minister, presumably there has been a pressing need which explains why that power is no longer sufficient and why the Secretary of State now needs to take the power directly to issue the warning notices. If there was something terribly wrong about the way that local authorities work—issuing warning notices or failing to issue warning notices—Ministers would presumably have had to use the power that they took in the 2011 Act a lot; perhaps to issue dozens, maybe hundreds of warning notices since taking that power to direct local authorities to issue those notices.
What is the actual number of occasions that the Secretary of State has issued such directions since that power became available in November 2011? According to a written answer from the Minister for Children to my hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) on 16 June this year, the Secretary of State has issued directions not on hundreds, or dozens of occasions or even double figures; the Secretary of State has issued directions to local authorities to issue warning notices on precisely four occasions in the last four years.
How can the Minister argue that there is a need so pressing for the Secretary of State to have to lay down primary legislation in order to issue orders directly herself when the Government are struggling to average one direction per year to local authorities since they took the power to direct local authorities to issue those warning notices?
The Opposition believe that Ministers should have to demonstrate that they need to acquire more power and are not just doing it to sound tough. If they really needed this power, surely there would have been many more occasions on which they would have chosen to direct local authorities to issue warning notices than there have been in the past four years since they took that power under the 2011 Act, which amended the Education and Inspections Act 2006. We will listen with interest to the Minister’s justification for taking that approach in the light of the coasting attitude to the need to issue directions to local authorities over the past four years.
Even if the Minister is unable to accept amendment 15 as we have drafted it—I understand that Ministers generally have an aversion to accepting any wording proposed by the Opposition—will he assure the Committee that any actions set out in warning notices by Ministers will be reasonable? What is his assessment of the example I gave of an academy warning notice required by Ministers? I do not argue with the prescriptions within that warning notice—they seem to be fairly standard proposals. Do Ministers seriously put forward the idea that they are the sorts of things that could reasonably be achieved in full during a one-month warning notice period?
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Would it be helpful if the Minister told us how many warning notices—over and above four—have been given to academies?
Kevin Brennan
Yes. I apologise for not having that answer to hand myself. I am sure that if the Minister does not have that number before him or in his mind, he will—through the well-established process of parliamentary in-flight refuelling—be able to obtain that information by the time he gets to his feet.
Kevin Brennan
We are, as ever, mightily grateful to the Minister for his remarkable memory. I thank him for the almost magical way in which he brought that figure to mind for us.
Will the Schools Minister explain what capacity there will be within the offices of regional schools commissioners to have the ability to issue and carry through warning notices if, indeed, that is how he envisages the process? Would he elucidate a little more the process and the involvement of regional schools commissioners in the ministerial issuing of warning notices? In the oral evidence session, we heard about the capacity constraints on regional schools commissioners. Is the Minister able to tell us more about that? I look forward to his responses and to any other contributions from members of the Committee. Does he agree with us that in clause 2 it might be reasonable to set out the minimum reasonable requirements?
Mr Gibb
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Alan, as we begin the clause-by-clause scrutiny of the schools elements of the Bill following thorough scrutiny of clause 13 last week. The Bill gives regional schools commissioners and local authorities the power to intervene to secure swift action in schools that are not providing children with the quality of education that will enable them to meet their potential. There are several ways that underperformance manifests itself in our schools and the Bill ensures a strong strategy for dealing with each of the situations that can affect schools and lead them to underperform.
The key legislation is the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which gives local authorities, and in some circumstances the Secretary of State, the power to intervene when schools are underperforming. The Committee will remember that this legislation, introduced by the last Labour Government, only found its way on to the statute book because the Conservative Opposition voted for it. Had we not done so—had we abstained or voted against the Bill—it would have fallen. It was a piece of principled opposition, under the leadership of the then newly elected Leader of the Opposition, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr Cameron). In my judgment, it was a key decision that led to the election of the Conservative-led coalition in 2010. If I were giving advice to the Labour Party to help it win an election in the future, I would say that it needs to look at the lessons that we learned after 2005 and to adopt that approach to opposition. Though, of course, I am not here to give such advice to the Labour Party.
Clause 2 amends section 60 of the 2006 Act. As currently drafted, that section gives power to local authorities to issue a warning notice to schools when there is a real concern about standards, or the safety of pupils or staff at a school is threatened, or there has been serious breakdown in the way that the school is managed or governed. This is what section 60 is designed to address, but the grounds for intervention are different from those for failing schools—those judged inadequate by Ofsted—which are set out in sections 61 and 62 of the 2006 Act. They are also different from the powers that we are seeking in order to tackle coasting schools, which have been touched on briefly in this debate and which would appear in proposed new section 60B of the 2006 Act, introduced in clause 1 of the Bill. Coasting schools are automatically eligible for intervention.
The purpose of clause 2, which allows for the issuing of warning notices where there is concern about the performance of a school, is to give the same power to the Secretary of State that currently exists only for local authorities. The clause thus changes the words “local authority” in section 60 to “relevant authority”, which is defined as including the Secretary of State as well as the local authority. This relevant authority would be able to issue a warning notice to the governing body of a school. Critically, the clause allows regional schools commissioners, on behalf of the Secretary of State, to issue such a warning notice rather than having to wait for the local authority to do so.
Despite the existence of these powers, 51 local authorities have never issued a warning notice to any of their schools. Where action is needed, because a local authority has failed to act or has acted ineffectively, it will now be possible for regional schools commissioners to move quickly and directly. A warning notice gives a school the opportunity to show that they can make the necessary changes but, if they cannot, regional schools commissioners and local authorities can take further steps.
Kevin Brennan
I am sure that the Minister has anticipated what I will ask. If his concern is that 51 local authorities have not issued warning notices to any of their schools, yet he took the power in the 2011 Act, which amended the 2006 Act, to enable the Secretary of State to direct them to do so, why has it happened on only four occasions?
Mr Gibb
The power to direct a local authority to issue a warning notice was included because a high number of local authorities—51, as I said—have never issued warning notices. The power is complex and time-consuming, because we have first to direct a local authority to consider issuing a warning notice and we can only do so where it refuses. Also, the local authority is still able to make a judgment on its compliance with a warning notice, even when directed to do so by the Secretary of State. There have been circumstances in which an obstructive local authority that does not want to intervene can block the process. That is why we are introducing these powers for the Secretary of State to intervene directly without having to go through the indirect process of directing a local authority.
Kevin Brennan
The Minister says that local authorities have obstructed that process on occasions. Will he give us some examples, so that we understand why the position is so pressing that the Minister has to legislate in this way?
Mr Gibb
I was giving a hypothetical example of where a local authority could obstruct—[Interruption.] I understand that there may be circumstances where a local authority can obstruct and will endeavour to find specific examples to give to the Committee.
It is clear from the way that the Bill is drafted what has to happen when the Secretary of State issues a direction to a local authority to issue a warning notice: the secondary process has to be gone through. Of course, the key issue is that the local authority then judges whether a school’s governing body has complied sufficiently with that warning notice. We want to sweep away those intermediary steps so that we can take swifter action to deal with underperformance of schools.
I understood from the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Cardiff West that there was agreement in the Committee and that the Labour Opposition wanted to take swift action to deal with underperformance. If, as it appears, there is no desire by the Labour Opposition to intervene swiftly in schools that are not providing the quality of education that a young person needs, it would be good to get that on the record.
Kevin Brennan
As the Minister has directly challenged me, let me say that, of course, we want swift and appropriate action to be taken: that is our position. He has to explain to us why the clause is necessary, but as yet Committee members—certainly, Labour members—have not been convinced by his arguments, not least because he is unable to give us any examples of obstructionism under the current process, and because the powers to direct local authorities to issue notices already exist. We are yet to be convinced.
Mr Gibb
I am sure there are plenty of examples of underperforming schools where this provision would have been helpful. We are trying to avoid the situation in schools such as Downhills, where assiduous campaigning prevented standards from being improved and tried to prevent academisation. As a consequence of introducing measures, there has been a huge improvement in the quality of education that young people there receive. We are taking these powers to deal with those kinds of issues, to act directly, not indirectly, and ensure that we can take action swiftly.
Let me deal with the amendments. Amendment 14 would amend clause 2 by introducing a minimum compliance period of 15 days for a warning notice. Under current legislation, there is a fixed 15-day period within which governing bodies are required to comply with a warning notice, regardless of why it was issued. This restricts the use of notices in many cases, so it makes sense to give schools more time, in certain circumstances, to bring about the necessary change. In other instances, of course, more urgent action is needed.
Under the changes that the Bill proposes, we will remove the requirement for compliance with a warning notice within 15 days. Regional school commissioners and local authorities will be able to set timescales for compliance on a case by case basis. We expect that flexibility to be supported by local authorities as well as regional school commissioners, given that these changes will undoubtedly make warning notices a more effective tool and therefore more likely to be used.
There is a need for flexibility in setting a compliance period in some cases. Local authorities and regional school commissioners might want to allow more time for improvements to show up—for example, in exam results. That could be when a school was on a downward trajectory but new leadership had been brought in, or where a national leader of education is working with a school. In those cases, regional school commissioners and local authorities would have greater confidence and would want to review the impact before any further action was considered. On the other hand, regional school commissioners or local authorities might in some cases want to set the compliance period at less than 15 days—for example, to address a breakdown in leadership and governance or a threat to the safety of pupils and staff. Here there may well be circumstances where a local authority or a regional schools commissioner cannot wait 15 days to see whether a governing body will act to address an issue. Amendment 14 would take away the flexibility for regional school commissioners or local authorities to act swiftly in some of the most urgent cases.
Kevin Brennan
I appreciate the clarification about both the longer and shorter period. One of my questions was whether the Minister envisages any maximum length of time during which a warning notice could be hanging over a school. By the same token, does he envisage a minimum period in which it will be reasonable to comply, even in the instances that he has outlined of an emergency?
Mr Gibb
We do not envisage a maximum period. There are certain powers in the 2006 Act, for example, the power of the Secretary of State to direct a governing body to enter into arrangements or the power to suspend delegated budgets. There is a two month period within which the powers can be used if there has been a failure to comply with a warning notice, but that is not quite the same thing as a period in which to comply with a warning notice. We want flexibility for local authorities and regional school commissioners to act more swiftly than within 15 days—or, in terms of compliance, less swiftly, when a longer period is needed to demonstrate that standards have improved.
Amendment 15 would amend clause 2 to state specifically that governing bodies can be required to take only reasonable action to remedy matters identified in a warning notice. I can understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern that regional school commissioners and local authorities should act reasonably when issuing warning notices. However, I can reassure him that the Secretary of State is reasonable and always acts reasonably. I understand the hon. Gentleman’s point that we cannot assume that every future Secretary of State will be as reasonable as my right hon. Friend. We have to prepare for the worst, such as the prospect—unlikely though it is—of a Labour Secretary of State. Let me reassure Opposition Members that the Secretary of State and the regional school commissioners acting on her behalf have a common law duty to act rationally and reasonably—the same common law duty that applies to local authorities. It would be unlawful for them to require a governing body to take any action that a governing body could not reasonably be expected to carry out.
Kevin Brennan
Am I right that the Minister is proposing to the Committee that, rather than ensure that the test of reasonableness is contained in the Bill, he would prefer that this was fought out in the courts, perhaps in some sort of lengthy dispute about whether the Secretary of State or regional school commissioners had acted reasonably? That is the very thing I thought he was trying to avoid with this Bill.
Mr Gibb
It would not make any difference whether the phrase was in the legislation or we were relying on common law. This is a long-established common law principle, on which there is a whole raft of case law. It is not necessary for it to be in the Bill because it applies to all legislation on the operation by public sector bodies of these kinds of powers and duties. It should also be borne in mind that regional schools commissioners are exercising the Secretary of State’s powers and the Secretary of State is accountable to Parliament for any decisions that regional schools commissioners make.
Amendment 21 aims to restore the definition of the term “working day” to the Bill. The reference to working days in current legislation exists only to help with the interpretation of the fixed compliance period of 15 working days. As the Bill proposes to remove this fixed period, there is no need to define working days. Regional schools commissioners and local authorities will now be able to define their compliance period in terms of months or end date, for example, as well as days, whichever is clearest and most relevant to the circumstances. On the basis of those explanations of the purpose of this part of clause 2, and our response to the amendments, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel that he does not need to press them.
Kevin Brennan
I thank the Schools Minister for his response. I should have mentioned, as he rightly did, that amendment 21 is purely a technical amendment that it was necessary to table because of our proposal to restore the minimum time period for complying with a warning notice.
In some ways, the Minister’s contribution raises more questions than answers, and we need to ponder those further. He said that we were considering the Secretary of State’s acquisition of this particular power because local authorities had been obstructing the current process. As I said, that process was introduced by the amendments to the 2006 Act that the Schools Minister made in 2011 to enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to issue notices. It would be concerning if local authorities were deliberately obstructing the law passed through Parliament in 2011 so, perfectly reasonably, I asked the Minister for examples of when and how local authorities had carried out obstructionist tactics to try to get in the way of the Secretary of State exercising her lawful power of instructing local authorities to issue warning notices. He was not able to give us an example.
We are legislating here. This is the law of the land we are creating, so we ought to be able to say to Ministers, “If this is your justification, show us the practical real-world examples of where there has been genuine obstruction of Ministers exercising their lawful power.” If that were demonstrable in any serious manner, we would, as reasonable people, have to take that very seriously indeed when taking our views on the clause and the Bill. However, he was not able to give us an example, even after a reasonable pause for in-flight refuelling, so I am concerned by the justification that the Minister has for the clause. Can he provide compelling evidence that what he said is correct—that there is genuine, systematic obstructionism that prevents the Secretary of State from being able to exercise her lawful power in this area?
The Minister alleged that local authorities were obstructing the Secretary of State’s power to instruct them to issue warning notices. Following that, he perhaps slightly gave the game away about whole swathes of what the Bill is about when he expanded further and remarked—I think that this is an accurate quote, but I am sure that Hansard will check—that the intention was to “sweep away…intermediary steps.” What that actually means is to wipe out locally and democratically elected voices and institutions from the whole process. That is not because there is any systematic evidence of obstructionism in the process by those locally and democratically elected institution because, despite the Minister’s allegations, he could not provide us with a single example of that happening, let alone any systematic evidence.
Mr Gibb
Clause 2 also enables local authorities to issue warning notices more efficiently and quickly, so it does not sweep away the involvement of local authorities in dealing with underperforming schools. It helps local authorities to act more swiftly, and it also enables the Secretary of State to do that more swiftly, through the regional schools commissioners.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister for that intervention, but “sweep away intermediary steps” were his words, not mine. It was he who made the allegation that local authorities—to which he now says he is keen to give more power—were actually an obstruction in this process, and that that was why the Secretary of State needed to take further powers. The picture becomes even more confused as a result of what the Minister says.
Mr Gibb
Let me help the hon. Gentleman. Section 60(1)(c) of the 2006 Act assumes that, in relation to the powers of local authorities, the governing body could make representations to the chief inspector of Ofsted
“against the warning notice during the initial period”.
That is an intermediate step, and we are sweeping it away for local authorities just as much as for the Secretary of State.
Kevin Brennan
I have a feeling that we will return to that, perhaps when we discuss the next group of amendments or others down the line, but the Minister’s statement about the reason why the Government are taking these powers for the Secretary of State to be able to issue warning notices directly, albeit by using regional schools commissioners, still stands on the record. Incidentally, regional schools commissioners are individuals or bodies that have no description in statute, as far as I am aware. They were invented without the then Secretary of State feeling a need to put the proposal in legislation and to bring it before Parliament. Nevertheless, the power to issue these warning notices, as envisaged in the clause, will be devolved on behalf of the Secretary of State.
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend mentions regional schools commissioners. During our evidence sessions, a regional schools commissioner said that he had a very small number of staff and that commissioners oversee an average of 500 schools. That number is growing and, if the Minister gets his way, I suspect that it will grow rapidly. Does my hon. Friend agree that that commissioner’s very small number of staff raises interesting questions about how the provisions of this clause will be fulfilled, if that is to be done by the commissioners?
Kevin Brennan
I agree with my hon. Friend—I think that I alluded to that point earlier. I asked the Minister to indicate his view of regional schools commissioners’ current capacity to cope with directly issuing these warning notices, in addition to all the other responsibilities being placed on them by the Bill and other Government actions. The Minister did not say anything about that, but perhaps he will be able to give us more information when we get to the clause stand part debate. How does he envisage regional schools commissioners coping with the extra responsibilities that are given to them through the clause, albeit indirectly through the Secretary of State? Does the Minister think that a significant resource issue will need to be dealt with as a result of the changes in the Bill? My hon. Friend makes a valid point that could be dealt with in more detail during the clause stand part debate.
The Minister did not deal satisfactorily with my observation about the power taken in the 2011 Act to allow the Secretary of State to direct local authorities to issue warning notices. The Minister said that the power was not being used because of obstructionism by local authorities and because the current process is too cumbersome. Perhaps that is why only four such notices have been issued—it is so cumbersome that Ministers have only managed one a year since 2011.
My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak asked the Minister for examples of how the process is too cumbersome to be carried out by Ministers, but I did not hear an adequate response to that point. The fact that Ministers have not used the power does not mean that it is unusable. It is up to the Minister to demonstrate why they have met this alleged roadblock in exercising powers that they themselves took in 2011. That point is relevant to some of our later groups of amendments, so I might come back to it.
It was perfectly reasonable for us to table the amendments. At this point, I do not intend to press them to a Division, but they raise issues that we need to explore further, perhaps in the clause stand part debate, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Mr Gibb
We have had quite an instructive debate. It is clear from the tone and nature of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments, and how he introduced them, that there is not the same determination among Opposition Members to tackle underperformance in our schools as there is among Government Members. What drives this Government—indeed, what drove the previous coalition Government—is a determination to raise education standards in every school, so that every local school is a good school, which means taking powers to tackle underperformance wherever it exists. When we talk about social justice, we mean ensuring that every young person has the best education that they deserve. That is what the powers are about; that was what the whole of the previous Government’s reform programme was about; and it is what this Government’s reform programme is about.
This is also about one nation. There are pockets around the country where some local authorities are presiding over schools that are letting young people down year after year. We want to ensure that we tackle schools in those local authority areas, which is why the Secretary of State is taking the powers through the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
It really does not do the Minister any credit to characterise the proper scrutiny of the powers that he and the Secretary of State have taken as in some way suggesting that the Opposition have any less concern than him about raising standards or, indeed, social justice. It would probably make a lot more sense and save us a lot of time if he were to acknowledge that we are all sincerely trying to raise standards and to promote social justice, and that it is perfectly legitimate to ask probing and detailed questions about whether Ministers’ powers will be effective in that mission.
Mr Gibb
I am pleased to have elicited that response. We do need to work together to ensure that there are high standards for all our young people in our schools.
In his careful scrutiny of the clause, the hon. Gentleman raised the question of cases in which there has been obstruction by local authorities. There have been very few cases, as we have issued only four notices. In the case of Henry Green school in Coventry, we directed the local authority to give a warning notice. Not only did it refuse, but it launched a judicial review against the direction from the Secretary of State. Over time, the school’s results improved, so we agreed not to continue with that direction. However, we maintain that the action was lawful and justified at the time. It is a relief that the school’s standards improved as a consequence of what happened.
The process has been cumbersome. We have first to direct a local authority to consider issuing a warning notice. We can direct the local authority only when it refuses, so that is a step that delays matters. The local authority is then responsible for judging whether the school has complied with the warning notice, even when it has been directed to do so by the Secretary of State.
Mr Gibb
I am not sure that I have understood the hon. Gentleman correctly. I wonder whether he would reiterate that. I do not think that anybody is in a weaker position than before. Section 60 is about issuing a warning notice to a school. It is not the same provision as clauses 1, or clause 7, under which an academy order is issued automatically for schools in Ofsted’s category 4. This is about schools that are not in category 4, but about which there is concern on the part of the local authority or the Secretary of State, or the regional schools commissioners. The provision enables them to take action that may lead to discussions with the school. We hope that everyone will work together with local authorities and the regional schools commissioners, and with the school’s governing body, to try to bring about rapid improvement of the problems causing underperformance.
If there are no further interventions, I hope that the hon. Member for Cardiff West asks leave to withdraw the amendment.
Kevin Brennan
As I mentioned, we do not intend to press the amendments to a Division. At some point, I suppose that we should explore a little bit further the single example that the Minister has given of obstructionism by a local authority. Although I understand that the school in question improved without the warning notice coming into effect, it will be interesting to find out more details about that case. I am sure that, during the Committee’s proceedings, the Minister will provide all the other examples that have led him to think it necessary to legislate in this way, rather than providing just one example of a local authority’s thinking that a warning notice was not necessary. Perhaps it had already taken action or thought that the Secretary of State was exercising their power incorrectly. Judicial review exists so that individuals and corporate bodies may challenge the Executive if they think powers are being used inappropriately, and it is then for the law to decide whether they are correct.
We are not, thank goodness, in a country where Ministers can simply direct people on any matter in a way that they see fit, with no legal challenge available for people if they think that the Executive’s power is being used inappropriately. I should hope that, in this anniversary year of Magna Carta, all Committee members from all parties subscribe to that principle; otherwise, we are all in trouble.
The Minister made a rather political point—I do not object to his making political points: we all do—claiming that Labour Committee members do not have the same objectives and do not want social justice and school improvement. I spent 10 years teaching and was privileged to work with young people, trying to do exactly that. That remark is unworthy of the Schools Minister. I hope that he accepts that, even if we disagree sometimes about how that should be achieved, all of us are trying to enable young people and children to fulfil their potential and play a full part in our society.
The objectives may be the same, but it is up to the Government to justify their solution and to argue for and prove to the Committee and Parliament, and the country, that their proposed solution is best. That is why we are here and why the Minister is here. He must continue to do that throughout our proceedings.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
Before we debate the next group of amendments, I remind Members that we had a full and frank debate earlier when amendments were presented and we had the ministerial response, with comments from both sides. We then had an indication that the amendment was to be withdrawn. We spent considerable time discussing other matters connected to other clauses. I remind Members that at the end of this series of amendments, there will be an opportunity in the stand part debate to raise and discuss matters, and not to spend time on amendments that have clearly been indicated for withdrawal. That would save the Committee an immense amount of time and make progress to the end of the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
I beg to move amendment 16, in clause 2, page 2, line 28, after “warning notice” insert
“, except a warning notice give under s.60A,”
This amendment clarifies that a local authority may give a warning notice under section 60A (teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice), to be inserted by this Bill, even though the Secretary of State has given one.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 17, in clause 2, page 2, line 31, after “warning notice” insert
“, except a warning notice give under s.60A,”
This amendment would enable a local authority warning notice under section 60A to remain in force even though the Secretary of State has given one.
Amendment 18, in clause 2, page 2, leave out lines 30 to 34 and insert—
‘(4B) If the local authority informs the Secretary of State that the local authority has given a warning notice to the governing body of a maintained school, then the Secretary of State may not give a warning notice to the governing body.”
This amendment would ensure that a governing body could not have two different warning notices in quick succession.
Amendment 20, in clause 2, page 3, leave out lines 8 and 9
This amendment restores section 69A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 which allows the Secretary of State to require a local authority to issue a warning notice.
Amendment 22, in clause 2, page 3, line 10, at end insert—
‘(7A) In section 62 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, for subsection (2) substitute—
(2) The circumstances are that—
(a) in the opinion of the authority—
(i) the standards of performance or progress of pupils at the school are unacceptably low, and are likely to remain so; or
(ii) there has been a serious breakdown in the way the school is managed or governed which is prejudicing, or likely to prejudice, such standards of performance; or
(iii) the safety of pupils or staff of the school is threatened (whether by a breakdown of discipline or otherwise).
(b) for the purpose of subsection (2)(a)(i), the standards of performance or progress of pupils at a school are low if they are low by reference to any one or more of the following—
(i) the standards that the pupils might in all the circumstances reasonably be expected to attain,
(ii) where relevant, the standards previously attained by them, or
(iii) the standards attained by pupils at comparable schools,
(c) the governing body have been informed in writing of the authority’s opinion.””
Section 62 under the School Standards and Framework Act gives a local authority power to take immediate action against a maintained school when there was a serious risk to pupils at the school. This amendment is aimed at probing the likely use of section 62 powers in the light of Clause 2.
Amendment 23, in clause 3, page 3, leave out lines 33 and 34
This amendment removes the requirement that the Secretary of State be informed about a local authority use of a section 60A warning notice.
Kevin Brennan
Thank you for your guidance, Sir Alan. You have just indicated the amendments we are to consider. Amendment 16 would clarify that a local authority may give a warning notice under section 60A (teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice), even if the Secretary of State has given one. Amendment 18 would ensure that a governing body could not have two different warning notices in quick succession. Amendment 17 would enable a local authority warning notice under section 60A to remain in force, even though the Secretary of State had given one.
Amendment 20 would restore section 69A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which allows the Secretary of State to require a local authority to issue a warning notice. Amendment 22 refers to section 62 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which gives a local authority power to take immediate action against a maintained school when there is a serious risk to pupils at the school. The amendment is aimed at probing the likely use of section 62 powers in the light of clause 2.
The amendments are designed to bring a degree of sense and order to the warning notice process or, if that is an over-ambitious aim, at least to understand how the Government intend to do that. We would like clarity on that from Ministers. It is clearly unreasonable for a school to receive two different—or indeed two similar—warning notices in quick succession. As ever, in drawing up policies, Ministers seem to have great problems in seeing matters from the viewpoint of a school and the impact of Government policies on schools. That is especially the case when we are presumably talking of schools that are in some way already short of capacity. The possibility that the school might be asked to begin to deal with requirements under a warning notice and then have them replaced by something different is clearly unsatisfactory, if that is what is envisaged in the clause.
Amendment 16 probes whether the term “warning notice” in new subsection (4A) refers to both types of warning notices: the section 60 performance standards and safety warning notices and the 60A teacher pay and conditions warning notices. In other words, a local authority can issue a section 60A warning notice if the Secretary of State has issued a section 60 one, and so on. Amendment 17 also relates to that.
Amendment 18 further explores whether the legislation is in danger of making matters even more complex. It will be highly confusing for a school, if it is trying to make rapid progress, to work to a local authority section 60 warning notice only to find that work on that must come to an abrupt end when the Secretary of State imposes a section 60 notice and stops the local authority notice that the school was already working on. Where is the evidence that, when imposing a warning notice, a local authority asks for the wrong kind of action?
Presumably, when a local authority has imposed a warning notice on a school it has done so for a reason and has not done so lightly, imposing actions that it believes will help to turn that school around or will improve the situation that triggered the warning notice. Where is the evidence that a local authority notice is likely to include the wrong actions and that a regional schools commissioner—who will have to keep an eye on a much greater number of schools than any local authority and with very limited resources, as we heard in the oral evidence before the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill commenced—will have greater local knowledge or capacity to understand what needs to be done in relation to those warning notices?
Why does the Minister think that a regional schools commissioner, with a small number of support staff, will have better capacity to pick the right kinds of action in a warning notice than a local authority, which has, potentially, greater capacity and deals with a smaller number of schools about which it, presumably, and historically, already has more intimate knowledge?
Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)
I believe that we heard from Ministers last Tuesday that they would be providing extra resources to regional schools commissioners. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if they confirmed exactly what resources they will provide, and does he further agree that it would also be helpful for them to confirm how regional schools commissioners will work with local authorities? At present, as I understand it, they only work with headteachers of academy schools.
Kevin Brennan
Yes, I think that would be extremely helpful. I remember the days when Ministers were concerned about the growth of quangos, as they used to be called—bodies appointed by Ministers but without any direct accountability to the public. It seems to me that we need to understand whether the Minister is growing a whole new series of quangos around the country in creating—by stealth, in effect, and without use of legislation—the office of regional schools commissioners. Currently, as we found out from the oral evidence sessions, the commissioners have relatively small operations, namely half a dozen or so staff, but are now being given all these extra responsibilities. Who knows what other responsibilities are to be placed upon them in the future? It is inevitable that questions about accountability will grow as these institutions become more and more significant in the educational landscape and, potentially, as more and more Government resources are given to them to carry out the additional duties that the Government place upon them in this legislation and elsewhere.
The second point that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley made in relation to headteacher boards—which is what I think she was referring to—was a question that I raised with Lord Nash during the oral evidence session. I asked him whether it was time for headteachers of maintained schools to be treated as equal to headteachers of academy schools by allowing their participation in headteacher panels, not least because of the expansion of the regional schools commissioners’ duties to have more and more responsibility for maintained schools.
How can the regional schools commissioners be properly advised by a headteacher panel that does not contain any maintained school headteachers, especially if they are dispassionately, properly and neutrally to deal with the problems faced by maintained schools? We have not yet even got to the question of key performance indicators of the regional schools commissioners in relation to targets for academisation. All sorts of problems are contained in my hon. Friend’s intervention, which I am sure the Minister will refer to.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
If a school has been failing so badly, does it not suggest that the local authority is failing because it should have kept an eye on the school in the first place?
Kevin Brennan
I am making the point that local authorities are complaining that the current system restricts them from taking that action even more quickly. Through the amendments, we envisage that local authorities could act more swiftly. I will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say.
Bill Esterson
Did my hon. Friend think that the previous intervention was odd as a criticism of local authorities? If the criticism applies to local authorities, could it not also apply to chains and, ultimately, to regional schools commissioners if we have stand-alone academies in serious difficulty? It struck me as a rather strange comment.
Kevin Brennan
I would not accuse the hon. Member for Portsmouth South of making a strange comment, but my hon. Friend is right; we could ponder whether a double standard is applied to local authorities and academy chains. There is certainly a double standard with regard to inspection, but we will come back to that. Alternatively, it might be an illogicality in the observation.
Mrs Drummond
We have already discussed the fact that 131 academies have been put into special measures. If we have managed to do that, local authorities have surely been failing if they have not been looking after their failing schools.
Kevin Brennan
We should all be concerned to ensure that any school, whatever its character, delivers on behalf of its pupils, and that these interventions take place. We support academisation as one means of school improvement, but we simply say that it should not be used exclusively as the only way to bring about school improvement.
I would welcome a much more level playing field in the debate on this. Now that 60% of secondary schools are academies—the Minister has pointed that out several times—the whole issue of school improvement in academies will become bigger and bigger. If the answer to a failing school is to academise it, we need to know in much greater detail what the answer ultimately is to a failing academy. That is going to be a live debate during the passage of the Bill and in this Parliament.
Amendment 23 relates to clause 3. New Members may be surprised to know that the way we do things in this place means that from time to time we debate amendments to other clauses if they relate to the amendments contained within a previous clause, but we may decide upon them at a later stage. At this point we are debating clause 3; although, technically speaking, it occurred slightly later in the Bill, it has been grouped here. It removes the requirement that the Secretary of State must be informed about a section 60A warning notice in order to probe why the Government think it necessary to legislate that the Secretary of State should be informed.
The National Audit Office report of 30 October 2014, “Academies and maintained schools: Oversight and intervention”, made it clear that the Department for Education does not know in any detail what is happening in schools. Perhaps there are times when it needs to get out of the way a bit and allow others who do know what is going on in local schools to do a proper job—that was the view expressed in the NAO report. That view is shared not only by Labour Members but by Conservative representatives at a local level, so it would be extremely useful to hear the Minister’s response to that and to our amendments.
Mr Gibb
One aim of the Bill is to simplify the complex process of warning notices. The current process for performance standards and safety warning notices is set out in section 60 of the 2006 Act, which is the section that clause 2 of the Bill amends. The current process for teachers’ pay and conditions warning notices, to which some of the hon. Gentleman’s amendments apply, is set out in section 60A of the 2006 Act. That is the section that clause 3 seeks to amend. The Bill seeks to improve the effectiveness of both types of warning notices by freeing up the time scale for compliance, as we discussed when we debated the previous group of amendments. It enables the Secretary of State to give performance standards and safety warning notices and it removes the process by which governing bodies could make representations against the warning notice, which had drawn out the process in the past.
The changes to the time scale for compliance are being made both to performance standards and safety notices and to teachers’ pay and conditions notices. The Bill sets out in clause 2(2)(e) that where the Secretary of State has issued a performance standards and safety warning notice, the local authority cannot then issue one of its own to the school in question. That change is not about preventing local authorities from issuing warning notices. In fact, this legislation deliberately retains the power for local authorities to issue warning notices. As I said when we debated the previous group of amendments, it improves the flexibility and efficiency of the process for local authorities as well as for regional schools commissioners. We know that 51 local authorities have never issued a warning notice. Where local authorities have been inactive or less effective than we would wish, we want regional schools commissioners to be able to step in quickly. In cases where that is necessary, it is right for a local authority’s power to issue a warning notice to that school to be frozen, preventing the school from being subject to potentially conflicting requests from two different statutory bodies.
Kevin Brennan
I apologise to my hon. Friend the Member for Sefton Central. I did not realise that he was seeking to intervene again. I am sure he will do so in a moment.
I wanted to clarify what the Minister just said. Exactly what happens to a local authority warning notice when the Secretary of State, through the regional schools commissioner, issues one as well?
Mr Gibb
Clause 2(2)(e) is very clear. It says:
“(4A) If a local authority are notified that the Secretary of State has given a warning notice to the governing body of a maintained school the local authority may not give a warning notice unless or until the Secretary of State informs them that they may.”
It goes on to say:
“(4B) If the Secretary of State gives a warning notice to the governing body of a maintained school, any earlier warning notice given to the maintained school by the local authority ceases to have effect from that time.”
It is very clear in the Bill, which should please the hon. Gentleman. He is keen for these things to be in the Bill and those provisions are explicitly stated with admirable clarity.
Mr Gibb
That is an assertion that the hon. Gentleman is making. What I do know is that in a number of local authorities, the overall level of educational attainment and progress is significantly lower in those local authorities than it is in others. That is the problem that we are seeking to address.
I return to the amendments tabled by the hon. Member for Cardiff West. The changes to clause 2 would mean that regional schools commissioners could begin to tackle underperformance or serious concerns about the issue of management or tackle issues that relate to safety swiftly, without having to rely on the local authority to act. That also means that regional schools commissioners would be able to act without having to go through the complex process of directing the local authority to consider and then to issue a notice. These processes have such uncertain outcomes that they have been used on just four occasions, as we have debated in the last group, with little success in driving improvements or bringing schools into eligibility for intervention where necessary.
Amendments 16 and 17 seek to ensure that teachers’ pay and conditions warning notices are unaffected by the changes we wish to make to the performance standards and safety warning notices. The amendments proposed say expressly that a pay and conditions warning notice already in force would remain in force despite the regional schools commissioner having issued a performance standards and safety warning notice.
The amendments also propose that a local authority that is prevented from giving a performance standards and safety warning notice by virtue of the RSC having issued one, could still give a pay and conditions warning notice. I hope that I can reassure Opposition Members that it is not necessary to make such changes, because the Bill already does what the amendments purport to do. The type of warning notice that clause 2 applies to is clearly identified in the first sentence of clause 2, which says:
“The Education and Inspections Act 2006 is amended as follows”.
It talks about the performance standards and safety warning notice in the next subsection. Nothing in the Bill therefore removes the effect of a previously issued teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice, nor does it stop a local authority from subsequently issuing one, even where the regional schools commissioner goes on to give a performance standards and safety warning notice to the school. They are separate issues under separate sections of the 2006 Act.
Turning to amendment 18, I believe that the hon. Members for Cardiff West and for Birmingham, Selly Oak, are seeking to ensure that a school is not subject to simultaneous warning notices, which may be conflicting and will certainly be confusing. I understand that intention, which is why the Bill already proposes to suspend a local authority’s power to give a school a warning notice where the RSC, the regional schools commissioner, has notified the local authority that it has given such a notice. However, the Bill does not propose to provide for a corresponding suspension of the regional schools commissioner’s new powers, as drafted in the Bill, to give a warning notice where a local authority has already given one, as amendment 18 proposes. That is because the new power for the regional schools commissioners to act and give warning themselves is intended for where local authorities have failed to act, or there are delays putting at risk plans for swift school improvements.
We want local authorities to be able to continue to give their own warning notices and to do so effectively. If they did so effectively, there would be no reason for the regional schools commissioners to take action themselves and no need to prevent them from doing so. But recent experience shows that there are too many examples where local authorities have been too reticent to issue warning notices. I cited the 51 local authorities, but there are 28 local authorities that have never issued a warning notice or installed an interim executive board.
Kevin Brennan
Rather than local authorities failing to issue warning notices, which we have already discussed, surely what the Minister is saying is that the regional schools commissioner’s warning notice would trump the local authority’s warning notice, because it was deemed to be inadequate. Can he give us some examples of local authority warning notices that are deemed to be inadequate where the power for the regional schools commissioner to trump those warning notices would be appropriate?
Mr Gibb
If the hon. Gentleman got out a little more, he would know that there are local authorities around the country that have standards that are clearly lower than those of other local authorities serving the same demographics as those local authorities. That is what we are trying to tackle in this Bill—giving the regional schools commissioner power to deal with local authorities that have over a period of years failed to provide the quality of education that we want for our young people.
Kevin Brennan
I shall have to give up my hermit’s lifestyle and get out a little bit more often than I do.
The Minister avoided my point by having his little dig at me. My point was about the examples he will cite. Where are the examples of where local authorities have issued warning notices, where it would be necessary for the regional schools commissioner to step in and trump them with their own warning notices? I do not dispute that there might be examples of where that is necessary; I simply ask the Minister to provide some for the benefit of the Committee, some of whom may not get out as much as he does.
Mr Gibb
I will endeavour to do so during the debates. From looking at the performance tables and the performance of various local authorities, it is clear that some are not issuing warning notices, and many local authorities are not providing the same quality of education that we see in the best-performing local authorities serving similar demographics.
Amendment 20 seeks to retain the power of the Secretary of State to direct a local authority to issue a performance standards and safety warning notice, a power that we propose to remove. If, as the clause is currently drafted, the regional schools commissioners are able to give the performance standards and safety warning notice themselves, the need for them to direct the local authority to act is no longer needed, so the new arrangements will be a more streamlined and efficient way of securing improvements. The Bill takes away a power that the Secretary of State had and no longer needs.
Amendment 22 seeks to change specific provisions in section 62 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which enables a local authority to take immediate action to prevent or end a breakdown of discipline in a school. The amendment expands the grounds on which local authorities can take action to include educational performance, leadership and governance and wider safety concerns: the same grounds on which they can already use their powers to give warning notices. Those are two separate pieces of legislation. The first, in the 1998 Act, is a long-standing provision that enables local authorities to respond immediately where there are serious issues of safety and discipline that demand urgent attention. That should not be diluted.
The second, which is in the spirit of the Bill and improves the warning notice regime, is about ensuring that schools can be required to demonstrate robust action to improve performance in a school where there are wider concerns. It surely cannot be right to blur the lines between the two pieces of legislation with different aims, as the amendment would appear to do. We want to ensure that the powers available to both local authorities and regional schools commissioners are clear and proportionate to bring about improvement. I therefore urge the hon. Gentleman not to conflate two distinct but equally important issues.
Amendment 23 proposes to remove the requirement in the Bill that the Secretary of State be informed about a local authority’s use of a teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice. We propose to amend the process for issuing performance standards and safety warning notices to schools as part of a wider package of improvements to the intervention system for underperforming schools. We are also making amendments to teachers’ pay and conditions warning notices to maintain some consistency between the two processes and to make improvements where they are appropriate. We consider that requiring a local authority to inform the Secretary of State about the issue of teachers’ pay and conditions warning notices ensures that any action that the regional schools commissioners might wish to take in an underperforming school—to issue a warning notice to tackle serious concerns about governance—is consistent with any action that the local authority was already taking on pay and conditions. In view of those comments, I urge the hon. Members for Cardiff West and for Birmingham, Selly Oak not to press their amendments.
Kevin Brennan
We have had an interesting and informative discussion on the amendments. Again, it raises interesting questions. On the academisation issue, we are interested to find out how many schools fail only after they become academies. We may explore that later. The Minister has made it clear that the regional schools commissioner is being given the power effectively to trump any warning notice issued by a local authority. Again, we are not given a tremendous amount of compelling detailed evidence of the need for this power.
Mr Gibb
No inspiration from this Minister at this moment. However, the hon. Gentleman might like to visit Blackpool or Suffolk. Those are two of 12 local authorities that have been judged ineffective by Ofsted. Those two local authorities were criticised for the lack of pace in securing Ofsted’s required improvements. Those are two places he could visit.
I would say to the hon. Gentleman that in most cases we do expect local authorities to work well with regional schools commissioners to agree the action needed. It is only sometimes that some local authorities will be too slow and it is those examples that we want to use these powers to tackle.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful to the Minister, though disappointed as we were hoping for a moment of inspiration and an example of the sort of warning notice issued by a local authority that would be so inadequate that it would be necessary for a regional schools commissioner to come in and trump it. There are no doubt examples of this; the Minister would not be legislating unless there were. I am not saying that there are no examples. I am just saying that the Committee is entitled to have one or two laid before it in order to consider whether this is the right way to deal with a problem the Minister has identified but for which he has not provided the practical evidence. That is rather disappointing because we would like to see the evidence.
The Minister once again cited the fact that 51 local authorities have never issued a warning notice. That is a perfectly valid observation, but the Minister ought to be able to demonstrate to the Committee that, in taking that approach, those are the local authorities that have a far worse record than those that have issued many warning notices. I do not know the reason; the Minister has the full panoply of the civil service to advise him. It may be that those local authorities that have not issued warning notices have very good schools and have not had to do so, or they may have taken a different approach to school improvement which has borne fruit in a way as productive as the route of issuing a warning notice.
Simply saying that there are 51 local authorities that have not issued warning notices does not demonstrate anything, unless the Minister can tell us that when the numbers have been crunched, the statistics show that those 51 local authorities are clearly performing more poorly than the average of all the other local authorities that issue warning notices or, indeed, than the 51 top local authorities that issue warning notices.
Bill Esterson
As my hon. Friend is talking about the use or lack of use of warning notices by local authorities, it strikes me that we have not actually heard from the Minister a justification of why warning notices are such an effective tool of school improvement. I would have expected to have already heard that during this debate. I wonder whether my hon. Friend would agree that perhaps we should expect to hear a justification of that from the Minister, alongside an analysis of the 51 local authorities and whether they are right or otherwise not to have used these notices.
Kevin Brennan
Yes, I agree that that is exactly the sort of thing that we should be able to expect from the Minister, to justify the actions that he is taking. As I said, where is the evidence that not issuing warning notices is the problem? Has he calculated the performance of those local authorities that do not issue warning notices against those that issue lots of them? Where is the evidence that not issuing warning notices is a sure sign of underperformance? That is a legitimate question to ask, and the Minister ought to be able to answer it.
Notwithstanding that, I recognise that the debate we have had on this group of amendments raises a number of interesting questions. I also acknowledge that some of the amendments within the grouping were intended to probe the Government’s intentions, and the Minister sought to answer on those in his response. I note the points that he made about not wanting to conflate two different pieces of legislation. I simply observe that the way in which the Government go about education legislation these days—not writing new Bills but effectively only amending existing legislation—makes confusion between different pieces of education legislation more and more likely. Indeed, that also makes it more and more difficult for those charged with doing so to understand exactly where education law stands in relation to many of these matters.
It is difficult for the Minister legitimately to criticise us for seeking to table an amendment to change an earlier piece of legislation, which appears to provide the potential to make a lot of the improvements that we might want to make to the Bill. It is difficult for the Minister to criticise us for doing so, given that that is the method which the Government use to make education legislation these days. Notwithstanding that, and notwithstanding the fact that the Minister has not provided all the evidence that we would like to see, we will not seek to press our amendments to a vote in Committee.
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
The Chair
Colleagues, it is very rapidly approaching the hour when we have to leave. There is less than a minute to go. I suspect that we should suspend now, and then return to this place at 2 o’clock when we will proceed. I remind Members that at 11.30 today the House will observe a minute’s silence in memory of 7/7. Perhaps they could try their utmost to fulfil that obligation.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Margot James.)
Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Steve McCabe
Yes, the Minister certainly has foiled them again—that is good. I wish him well and hope that he will continue in his post for quite some time. As we all know, reshuffles are fickle affairs, a bit like a Boris bus—one can never be too sure when the next one will turn up.
I tabled the amendment for two reasons. First, it provides me with the opportunity to query whether it is right that the Minister should have such unconstrained power as back-up, after setting out to convince us that it is not necessary and that he hopes never to use it. Mr Chope, in another parliamentary guise you are only too aware of the dangers of too much unnecessary legislation. Many is the Friday I have listened to you wax lyrical on such dangers, warning us that we have far too much legislation and should only legislate when it is absolutely necessary. That is the situation today with clause 13 and the power that would be afforded to the Minister to give directions under proposed new section 3ZA(1).
If the situation changed and if the Minister’s optimism and persuasive charm relating to achieving consensus evaporated, and he or a successor found himself or herself driven to use coercive powers to make changes in our adoption system, those powers should have been acquired by parliamentary order, subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
My hon. Friend is reaching the nub of the argument and the essence of the amendment. Unless the amendment is agreed to, we will be legislating and putting this measure into the Bill—not writing an instruction for the Minister for his term of office—where it will remain unaltered unless altered by further legislation. Should not we always bear in mind at all times that it is not a matter of good will towards a particular Minister, but about legislation that will sit there unaltered unless we amend it?
Steve McCabe
My hon. Friend is right. This is a decision for the foreseeable future and once put in place it will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, which is the whole purpose of our being here today. Since the Minister and his officials and advisers believe that such an order, or powers of direction, would be used very sparingly indeed, altering it would hardly be likely to take up a great deal of parliamentary time. We have to assume, judging by the Minister’s reasoning, that any orders to be decided on in the House would be remarkably sparse. In fact, it is fair to say that it would be merely a guarantee or a backstop for Parliament, and a chance for Parliament, rather than a Minister or his officials, to have the final say on changes that were about to be imposed. Such changes could not possibly be consensual: indeed, they would be controversial and objected to in some quarters; otherwise, the Minister clearly would not have resorted to parliamentary powers to impose them. Is not that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West says, the very reason we are here? We are here to scrutinise legislation, safeguard against excesses on the part of the Executive and ensure that Parliament, not Ministers, provides the checks and balances on excessive use of power.
Secondly, discussing the amendment provides the Minister with the opportunity to explain the manner and circumstances in which he might the use the powers he is seeking. During the witness session, I drew his attention to a remarkably similar situation in the other place during discussion of clause 3 of the Children and Families Act 2014. On that occasion, his noble Friend Lord Nash accepted that a power to require all local authorities to undertake joint arrangements would need to be subject to “full and rigorous scrutiny” by Parliament.
Kevin Brennan
Is not the point that—[Interruption.] I am sorry, I cannot take an intervention from the Minister for Schools during an intervention. Is not the point that the Minister using the orders in this way might be subject to judicial review, which would delay matters even further, at great expense and time? If there were a parliamentary process by which such rare decisions could be scrutinised, it would be much more efficient.
Steve McCabe
I cannot believe that any of us would want unreasonable delay or the incurring of unreasonable expense. We want to be sure that the powers secured by the Minister are fair, reasonable and adequate for the required purpose, but also subject to sufficient scrutiny, so that they are not open to misuse or abuse.
Kevin Brennan
I hope that the Minister will accept the amendment, because it is sensible, but if he does not, should he not at the very least be prepared to replicate in his response Lord Nash’s remarks in the other place, which my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak quoted? Should he ensure that there has been proper information, consultation and so on before he issues such draconian orders?
Bill Esterson
My hon. Friend is right. Every effort should be made to ensure that existing good arrangements are kept in place and are not disturbed, that any changes are an improvement on existing arrangements and in particular that good practice—there is much good practice around the country and internationally—is shared so far as is possible. Through that, we can keep in mind what I am sure everyone on the Committee and in the sector is committed to: doing the right thing for the children who come into the care system, whether that is adoption or other forms of permanence.
Edward Timpson
This is not the forum for naming individual local authorities that wish to co-operate or otherwise. To do so would damage the negotiations that are taking place. It is clear that where arrangements have been made to bring together local authorities’ adoption services and voluntary adoption agencies, there have been different levels of interest, intent and commitment. That is why we cannot be totally sure, despite the strong, positive signals from the sector and the work of the Adoption Leadership Board, that every one of the 152 local authorities will be involved in some way, shape or form within our timeframe for regional adoption agencies to be up and running across the country.
I can see what Opposition Members are driving at with their amendments, and I sympathise with their desire to ensure that decisions, particularly ones of this importance, are transparent and scrutinised properly. However, I am concerned about the suggestion that all proposals for joint arrangements should be approved by both Houses of Parliament. Before I explain why, I assure hon. Members that our decision making on this matter will be open, the process will be fair and we will involve all interested parties in the right way. The hon. Members for Birmingham, Selly Oak and for Cardiff West both made a challenge about transparency and scrutiny.
The Secretary of State’s decision to use the power will be made following extensive discussions with all the agencies involved, and it will be proportionate and reasonable. Agencies will have ample opportunity to design their own arrangements before any directions are considered. That is one of the reasons why we made it clear in the clause that local authorities could, through a direction, determine the shape of their regional adoption agency.
The Secretary of State does not need the permission of Parliament when she exercises her powers of intervention in respect of failure in local authorities’ children’s social care services. When the Doncaster trust and the Slough trust were created recently, the whole of those authorities’ children’s services were moved to a trust model without the permission of Parliament being sought in the way that the amendments set out. Those powers would sit legally uncomfortably with the group of amendments, should they be accepted.
A more appropriate and proportionate approach than returning to Parliament is to work closely with all those involved—the individual local authority and voluntary agencies, the Adoption Leadership Board and the regional adoption boards. This collaborative way of doing things is crucial, and it is a core tenet of our approach. The sector has the expertise and the local knowledge required to inform the decision.
I will reflect on the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak that we should be required to send a letter to any local authorities we are minded to direct with an invitation to respond. I will come back to him on Report with my decision.
Kevin Brennan
I am grateful for the Minister’s remarks, and I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak is, too. A letter would be a useful addition to what is on offer. The Minister said that our proposal would sit legally uncomfortably, but is it not different to the Secretary of State’s other powers, to which the Minister referred? Those powers are used where children are genuinely at risk. Does he envisage that he will introduce such arrangements because children are at risk, and therefore, in an emergency situation, or because it would be a better administrative arrangement? That would make a difference to the way in which the power could be exercised by the Secretary of State.
Kevin Brennan
On a point of order, Mr Chope, it is quite hard to follow proceedings when the Minister for Schools and the Whip are having a private conversation. If it is necessary, could they do it outside the Committee room?
The Chair
That is a good point. Committee proceedings should not be disturbed by people being noisy. We are not prohibiting people from having discussions but I would prefer long discussions to take place outside of the Committee Room.
Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Edward Timpson
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the role that mental health plays in the lives of many children, not only those who are adopted but in the care system. I was struck when growing up by how many children, sometimes very young, were displaying what I now know to be the impact of mental health problems. The role of mental health in the therapeutic support that the adoptive families will need through the fund is very much part of what is on offer. We have a list of different therapies that are available through the fund, and that is kept under review to ensure that we have the right mix of therapies to meet the demand from applications to the fund. The greatest need and the main source of applications has been post-adoption therapeutic support.
We are struggling to see each other through the hon. Gentleman’s head.
Edward Timpson
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could lean to the right. If he leant to the right, he could come and join us.
Kevin Brennan
It is quite hard for me to see the Minister, too, because of the halo around him, which is the result not only of the praise that has been heaped on him during the debate, but of the light behind him. He has characterised the situation as though the duty and the fund were mutually exclusive. Is it not possible that the duty might complement the fund?
Bill Esterson
That is absolutely right. Whether it is about adoption or other forms of permanence, we have to find more people to come forward to look after children. In my experience, there are many things we could do to make it easier and more attractive. The issue of support came up in the evidence, for example. We need to improve support for adopters or others who care for the children who end up in the care system.
Kevin Brennan
Would my hon. Friend care to commend the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which dealt with measures to improve adoption, but also took the trouble to introduce—by amending the Children Act 1989—special guardianship orders? They should surely be included in any debate or legislation about adoption in order to get a proper picture of all the permanency options available.
Bill Esterson
Yes. We heard evidence from Andy Elvin about the increase in the number of children who are subject to special guardianship orders, so something is clearly working for those children, and he said that the outcomes were just as good.
We have 65,000 children in the care system, and we might have a piece of legislation that deals only with 3,000 or 4,000 children a year. Although it is important and right that we do as well as we can by those 3,000 or 4,000, we must do something for the other 61,000 or 62,000 as well. My worry is that this is a missed opportunity. It is a second missed opportunity, as my hon. Friend has reminded us. Perhaps the Minister will tell us when the Government will introduce equivalent proposals to address the support for the much larger group of children and young people—the 61,000 or 62,000—who are not covered by the provisions in the Bill.
Kevin Brennan
I do not want to detain the Committee for long, but it is important to note briefly, in view of what was said earlier, that these amendments are very much in the spirit of the Adoption and Children Act 2002, which I mentioned. The hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton should realise that these vehicles do not come along very often and that it is important, when legislating, to look at an issue comprehensively, rather than pick out one part of a problem. The problem that we are addressing is that of permanency for children in this situation.
The 2002 Act was groundbreaking in many ways, because it attempted to widen the number of prospective adopters. For example, my hon. Friends and I introduced amendments that, on a free vote on the Labour side, granted for the first time the right for unmarried couples, including same-sex couples, to apply to adopt. There is a small but interesting piece of history: the then Leader of the Opposition—now the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions—whipped his troops to vote against that proposal, and it ended with the resignation from the Front Bench of the right hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow). That was the start of his pathway into the speakership, so these things sometimes have a strange impact.
The other thing that that Bill did was not just to look at adoption, but to try to look at alternative permanency arrangements, in recognition of the fact that the popular perception of adoption, even back then, was very different from the reality. The popular perception is that it is always about young babies being given up for adoption. Although that was very much the case in decades past, things have changed significantly. That is not really the picture that we see when we look at what kinds of children are adopted and at their ages. That is why the introduction in that Bill, through the amendment to the Children Act 1989, of special guardianship orders was a groundbreaking step. It is unfortunate that we have not taken the trouble to revisit that—I would be grateful to the Minister if he explained why when he winds up—and looked at how we can strengthen other kinds of arrangements for permanency, given how important they are within the system.
Edward Timpson
I should like to speak to amendments 11, 25 and 26, which have been tabled by Opposition Members. I will come on to some of the matters raised towards the end of the debate, such as other routes to permanence. It is important to remember that clause 13 deals with the point at which the court has already made a decision to place a child for adoption, so we are not looking at whether that decision is right; we are accepting the fact that that decision has been made, but looking at what we need to do to improve the prospects of that adoptive placement being successful.
The amendments raise the important question how regional adoption agencies link to, impact on and work with other parts of the children’s social care system, including other types of permanent placement such as long-term foster care, special guardianship and kinship care, as well as the provision of mental health services. Amendment 26 would require the Secretary of State to commission and publish an independent evaluation on, in effect, alternative options to a regional adoption agency that capture all permanency options and approaches to prevent children from having to be taken into care in the first place.
I will speak about this in a bit more detail later, but I agree with much of what the hon. Member for South Shields said about the early interaction of children and families with children’s services and about making sure that from the earliest opportunity, the work that is done with them enables the child, if at all possible, to continue living with their birth family. That is clear not only in legislation—it was reiterated in the Children and Families Act 2014, which is underpinned by the Children Act 1989—but in the approach that we have taken through the innovation programme, which I will talk about in a little more detail later. In that programme, we seek to encourage much more work with families through family group conferences, the expansion of the family drug and alcohol court and other innovative programmes, to increase the prospect of children being able to stay with their birth family.
I thank hon. Members for raising the important issue of how we are reforming the care system and improving outcomes for all children. We share a determination to ensure that all children in or on the edge of care get the right support and decisions for them and their families and that, when children need to come into care, they are placed in strong, stable placements as quickly as possible, with the support that they need to thrive. It would be hard to argue against that approach.
I understand the desire for all permanency placements to be captured by the new regional agencies. The new agencies will have to work with other parts of the system to be successful. I assure hon. Members that our intention with this legislation is to bring down barriers to effective working, not to create new ones. However, there are clear reasons why we are proposing the power to direct regionalisation for adoption services specifically and why that is not necessarily the best approach or the priority for other parts of the system when the decision has been made on where the child’s future lies.
It is often noted that the number of children in the care system who go forward for adoption is small—a point that was made by the hon. Member for Sefton Central—relative to the number of looked-after children, which is why regionalisation is particularly appropriate for adoption services. The fact is that the adoption system remains highly fragmented relative to the number of children and adopters involved. As I said earlier, we have about 180 different agencies recruiting and matching adopters for approximately 5,000 adoptions a year, so the agencies are not benefiting from economies of scale; but worse, the localised nature of the system acts as a barrier to effective recruitment, matching and support. That is starkly illustrated by the fact that 3,000 children are still waiting for forever families.
Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
I beg to move a manuscript amendment, in the table, delete “9.40 am” and insert “9.50 am”.
We will move clause 1 later in our deliberations to enable Committee members to table amendments regarding the definition of a coasting school. Draft regulations were sent to all Committee members last night at 10 pm and are available in hard copy this morning. That should give all Members sufficient time to look at the regulations and table amendments to clause 1, should they wish to do so.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
May I put on the record—although not at great length, given the delay already this morning—the concern I expressed informally at the Programming Sub-Committee about the manner in which the programming for the Bill has been handled? The Bill has been put together in a rushed way, and the draft regulations were not thought through and ready in time. We received them only at 10 pm last night, which is why the Government are taking clause 13 first, then clauses 2 to 12, then clause 1 later on. It is emblematic of the fact that the Bill is an undercooked piece of legislation that should have been more carefully thought through before being brought to us for consideration. However, the Government get their way on these matters. I have had my say, and we should get on with it.
Mr Gibb
Briefly, the Government are determined to ensure that no child is in an underperforming or coasting school. We are acting rapidly to tackle those problems swiftly. Within two months of the general election, we have a Bill available for scrutiny and ready to go through the system. We want to get the regulations right. We believe they are right, so we do not apologise for the swiftness with which we are acting to tackle coasting and failing schools.
Kevin Brennan
And we do not apologise for objecting to the manner in which the Bill has been introduced. If the Government were concerned about all children, all children would be covered by the Bill, but they are not.
Amendment agreed to.
Main Question, as amended, put and agreed to.
Ordered,
That—
(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 8.55 am on Tuesday 30 June meet—
(a) at 2.00 pm on Tuesday 30 June;
(b) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 2 July;
(c) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 7 July;
(d) at 11.30 am and 2.00 pm on Thursday 9 July;
(e) at 9.25 am and 2.00 pm on Tuesday 14 July;
(2) the Committee shall hear oral evidence in accordance with the following table:
Date | Time | Witness |
|---|---|---|
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 9.50 am | Dr Rebecca Allen, Reader in Economics of Education at the Department of Quantitative Social Science, University College London Professor Becky Francis, Professor of Education and Social Justice, King’s College London Robert Hill, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King’s College London |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 10.40 am | Association of School and College Leaders Harris Federation Local Government Association National Governors’ Association |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 11.25 am | Dr Tim Coulson, Regional Schools Commissioner, East of England and North-East London WISE Academies The Education Endowment Foundation |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 2.45 pm | The Adoption Leadership Board Coram Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 3.15 pm | Adoption UK Adoption Link |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 4.00 pm | The Adolescent and Children’s Trust (TACT) Association of Directors of Children’s Services Ltd Adoption Focus |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 4.15 pm | National Association of Head Teachers |
Tuesday 30 June | Until no later than 5.00pm | Department for Education |
(3) proceedings on consideration of the Bill in Committee shall be taken in the following order: Clause 13; Clauses 2 to 12; Clause 1; Clauses 14 to 18; new Clauses; new Schedules; remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(4) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 5.00 pm on Tuesday 14 July.
The Chair
Because the deadline for tabling amendments for Thursday’s line-by-line consideration has expired, I am prepared to consider late amendments that would otherwise not be debatable, on the basis that they might arise from evidence given today. I hope that is helpful.
Resolved,
That, subject to the discretion of the Chair, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.—(Mr Gibb.)
Kevin Brennan
Q 2 I thank our witnesses for coming this morning and for their patience. The Bill is not ready; the room was not ready, so we are going on as we started.
Because of the truncated time available, could you be as pithy as possible? I am afraid this session is a bit like “Just a Minute”, rather than an opportunity to expand at great length. You have all had a chance to look at the draft regulations the Government published last night. What do you make of them?
Professor Francis: You go, because I haven’t.
Dr Allen: My concern relates to whether we will be able to identify schools that are truly coasting. I think we all agree that there are schools that provide a perfectly adequate education for their children, but could do a great deal better for the children they educate. My reason for concern is that I believe those schools are much more likely to be serving more affluent communities. I think that these schools are not currently being judged as inadequate by Ofsted. That is because Ofsted inspectors judges what they see—the lessons and the practices—relative to the typical school that they visit, rather than relative to schools that operate in similar circumstances. The consequence of thisis that if a school serves an affluent community, the chances that Ofsted will deem it to be inadequate are extremely low indeed.
This underlies our need for another piece of the accountability mechanism, which judges whether schools are underperforming by a different metric. My concern about the metrics that have been chosen to define coasting schools is that they display exactly the same type of what I call a social gradient. By that I mean that if a school serves an affluent community then it will not be judged to be coasting using these metrics. So we continue to perpetuate the problem that, on the one hand, schools which serve deprived communities are subject to multiple accountability mechanisms, all of which they have a relatively high chance of falling below. However, even more importantly, schools which serve more affluent communities will escape all of the different threshold measures which we set up.
Kevin Brennan
Q 3 What would you do to identify and deal with coasting schools?
Dr Allen: First, I would prefer that we did not have this legislation. I would prefer that we redefined the terms of Ofsted. I do not believe that what Ofsted does in judging schools is wrong given its current remit, which is just to say whether or not the quality of the teaching, learning and practices within the school are good when compared to the average school. In the new remit I would ask Ofsted explicitly to judge schools relative to schools that serve similar communities.
Kevin Brennan
Q 4 There is no need for legislation, in your view, to create a separate definition of coasting schools and set it out on the face of a Bill. What you could do is change the remit of Osted in order to identify these schools.
Dr Allen: I would prefer that approach, because I worry about having multiple accountability mechanisms. There would be a significant possibility that schools, on the one hand, are judged by Ofsted to be good or, indeed, outstanding, and on the other hand we deem them to be coasting. That creates a confusing accountability regime for schools. I would prefer that we maintain the current accountability regime, in which Ofsted has the last say on whether or not a school is underperforming.
Kevin Brennan
Q 5 Do you think it would be possible under these regulations for a school to be deemed not to be coasting, and yet to be inadequate or requiring improvement?
Dr Allen: It would.
Kevin Brennan
Q 6 In that case, what should a school do if it is not coasting but requires improvement or is inadequate?
Dr Allen: It is very difficult. That situation will arise where schools serve more deprived communities and have very high levels of free school meals. They risk falling below the bar for the definition of coasting schools as it is currently proposed. What can we ask those schools to do? The problem with data is of course that we cannot tell whether a school is coasting. In data, coasting looks exactly the same as paddling very hard to keep your head above water. It is extremely difficult for a number of reasons to run schools that serve deprived communities. Of course, schools must compensate for any significant social dysfunction in the families of the children who attend. They experience higher teacher turnover. Because they are at significant risk of being deemed inadequate by Ofsted, they find it more difficult to recruit outstanding leaders.
Kevin Brennan
Q 7 May I ask Professor Francis to respond to some of those issues?
Professor Francis: I think that that was a very good summary. I am afraid that I did not receive the email this morning and I have not managed to get to my emails yet. I was interested to hear about the definition from colleagues. I think that there is a massive risk of confusion here. To respond to a question raised by Kevin, of course if a school is judged to be inadequate and it falls below floor targets, it may become sponsored in any case. We already have actions and measures to respond to those schools in those situations.
Regarding the scale-up to include this new group of schools, I think that Dr Allen is exactly right to suggest that there may be a situation where a school is judged by Ofsted to be outstanding, but is judged to be coasting against a range of other performance indicators, and that could be extremely confusing both for schools and also for parents. We already have a somewhat paralysing climate of fear where schools are trying to play every measure. I worry that this risks exacerbating that. Clarity is really important. When I did my original report on unsatisfactory schools for the RSA, we purely looked at Ofsted judgments and schools that had been stuck at satisfactory. I therefore think that it is very important to have clear messaging for schools about what a coasting school is.
Kevin Brennan
Q 8 Would you also be of a view that in order to avoid that confusion rather than to legislate separately in this way, it would be better if the concept of coasting is incorporated in Ofsted assessments and judged through inspection?
Professor Francis: Yes, or that perhaps the very term “coasting” is re-examined and we think, “What is that we are trying to get at there?” Is it schools that are not improving, in which case, what is it that we are looking to improve and what is it that is not happening? I think that would be helpful.
Kevin Brennan
Q 9 Could I ask Robert to respond?
Robert Hill: It seems to me that the regulations on coasting are a redefinition of the floor standards in a new form. To come back to the Minister’s starting point of not wanting to have children in underperforming or coasting schools, it will mean that we will still have pupils in quite a lot of schools or in parts of schools—because there is a lot of variation within schools—that will be let off the hook by this. It will not really search out or find underperformance with these definitions.
I understand the intention behind this bit of the Bill and the regulations, but I think it is a very blunt instrument. There are two other concerns. One is what Dr Allen referred to as the layers of multi-accountability. We almost have a teetering accountability system. It is getting heavier and weightier and weightier, layer upon layer. I think it will become increasingly difficult to provide any sort of incentive for people to go into a lead—even good schools—because of the risk of them being done-to and intervened on. We already have problems with recruiting for many positions and the field for candidates is small.
My other concern is that the Committee should be focusing on what are we going to do about it. The definitions are only a means to an end to identify. The question is what is the resource to solve the problem? Suddenly putting considerable numbers of schools, RI schools, inadequate schools, and now coasting schools into an ever larger pot, and loading that on to a regional commissioner system that is in its infancy and is already very stretched and ensuring that we have an integrated way of supporting that have not been thought through.
Kevin Brennan
Q 10 I will be brief because I want to hand over and let the Minister also speak while we are on coasting schools. Do the witnesses envisage that under the regulations as defined and from the Government’s intentions we are going to have a situation where heads and governors and so on are going to have to deal with the concept of being an outstanding school but also deemed to be coasting; a good school but also deemed to be coasting; a school that requires improvement deemed to be not coasting; and an inadequate school deemed to be not coasting? Is that possible under the regulations as far as we have seen them? I am aware that they were only released to us in the usual manner after they had been released to the press. The Government briefed this to the press all through yesterday, but we eventually got it at 10 o’clock last night. Are all those scenarios possible?
Robert Hill: I do not think quite all those scenarios are possible. It is technically possible, but I think it is unlikely that an inadequate school—
Kevin Brennan
Q 11 So that is not possible under the regulations as defined? That is what I am asking you?
Robert Hill: Well, Dr Allen may be able to answer. I think some of the other scenarios would be possible.
Dr Allen: We have not crunched the data yet, because we received it at 10.30 last night, which is a shame. In 24 hours we will be able to tell you. By our judgments on various different types of scenarios of progress and value added measures, there are, indeed, schools in most of those categories. For example, some schools that have very negative progress or value added measures in 2014 are judged to be outstanding, and some schools with superb value added measures are judged to be inadequate.
Mr Gibb
Q 12 Is not the point of the legislation to try to weed out the schools that are judged to be good or outstanding but that have been concealing poor progress? Is not that what we are trying to tackle? Would you support that?
Dr Allen: Perhaps, but I would ask why Ofsted has walked into those schools, given what we know about the quality of the education that they provide, and judged them to be good or outstanding. I come back to the question of whether we need to change the remit of Ofsted.
I reiterate the more important point, which is little understood, about the social gradient of progress 8. I will give you some examples from 2014 data. Just 42 out of 380 schools with less than 10% of pupils on free school meals had a negative progress 8 score, whereas 191 out of 347 schools with more than 50% on free school meals had a negative progress 8 score. It is not always obvious why that should be that case. The idea of progress 8 is that we judge children from the starting point of their test scores at the age of 11 and we expect children with the same starting point to make the same amount of progress.
That social gradient emerges for a number of reasons. The most important is just that there is clustering of social circumstances within schools. For example, take two children who performed equally poorly on their key stage 2 tests and, at the age of 11, we say are low-attaining children. One of them attends a relatively affluent school. The very fact that they are attending a relatively affluent school means that they are more likely to have a supportive home environment, which means that regardless of what happens in the school—the thing that we want to influence—that child is more likely to do well at GCSE. I am concerned that that social gradient is letting schools that serve affluent communities off the hook on this definition. I would prefer schools to be judged relative to schools like them and, unfortunately, progress 8 does not quite do that.
The Chair
Q 20 Good morning. Thank you for coming. Will you briefly introduce yourselves?
Malcolm Trobe: I am Malcolm Trobe. I am a former secondary school headteacher and I am currently Deputy General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: I am Daniel Moynihan, chief executive for the Harris Federation, a group of 36 academies in and around London. I was previously the head of two secondary schools.
Emma Knights: Emma Knights, chief executive of the National Governors’ Association. We are the membership organisation for governing boards of both maintained schools and academies and we exist to improve the effectiveness of governance in schools.
Richard Watts: I am Richard Watts. I am the leader of Islington Council, speaking on behalf of the Local Government Association.
Kevin Brennan
Q 21 I will ask one question and then pass it over to colleagues, as they will not otherwise get a chance to ask questions. In dealing with an inadequate school, is academisation the only way to bring about satisfactory improvement—why is it that the Bill says that Ministers must, when they find an inadequate school, organise its academisation? Could you each offer a short, “Just a Minute” type answer—in fact, one word will do. Start with one word each.
Malcolm Trobe: No.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: Yes.
Emma Knights: No.
Richard Watts: No.
Kevin Brennan
Q 22 Three noes and one yes. Could Sir Daniel perhaps explain why it is the only way?
Sir Daniel Moynihan: Maintained schools are under the remit of their local authority and the local authority has responsibility for their improvement and their monitoring. If a school fails, it will not normally be because of something that has happened overnight; it will be because of a gradual decline in performance over a period of time. The local authority should have picked up on that and used its resources to do so and my view is, therefore, that somebody else should be allowed to take on that school and improve it under the guise of an academy.
Malcolm Trobe: We clearly want all pupils to be in a good school. We want all local schools to be good schools. What we would say, however, is that changing the status of a school, in itself, will not necessarily change and improve the quality of the education in the school. What is required is a detailed, well thought out plan and a support system to go into the school. You need to understand the context of the school. One must understand resources; one of the critical things happening in a lot of schools that are in significant difficulties at the moment is that they are having major problems with teacher recruitment. One thing that we believe the Government need to tackle very urgently is ensuring that there are high-quality teachers available for these schools.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
I am interested in this definition of coasting. My daughter is six and goes to a primary school. It is self-evident to me and my constituents that the differential between some schools is often the amount of time that is allocated to children out of school. There are the parental and social contributions and networks that children attend in some of the more affluent areas. How are they measured in this coasting measurement? Clearly, the same amount of time is not allocated in some of my poorer areas. There are challenges in life. How is that not part of the school day?
Richard Watts: Islington, which I represent, has a fair number of affluent people and we have more than our fair share of poor people. We see enormous differences in our schools, depending on people’s home circumstances. It is really important that schools do their best to compensate for that, but that is not wholly possible. No one should make excuses—
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Q 33 This legislation, through guidance, aims to address the problem of latent stagnation in schools. It does that by identifying the standard for coasting and raising standards by offering those coasting schools the opportunity to work with some of the best experts in education to design a path to improvement. What should those plans include? What programme of improvement measures should there be for schools of that type?
Emma Knights: I think that, actually, pretty much every school in the country has a school improvement plan—it is part of what we do. It might be called something else, such as a school development plan, but that is actually what the governing board of the school is doing. I would not want the Committee to think that some schools are just bimbling along, not thinking about how they improve teaching and learning and outcomes for children. A huge change has taken place in schools over the last 10 years in terms of schools actually taking responsibility for that. We see, in fact, that a lot of schools do manage to improve without having to have what is called formal intervention.
I do not want to leave this room without mentioning interim executive boards, because there is more than one type of formal intervention and so far the Committee has asked only about sponsored academisation. We actually have very little evidence about which different types of formal intervention work best and that is a bit of a worry for me. This whole Bill has come into place when actually we are guessing.
The main bit of evidence was produced by the National Audit Office last year and it showed that 60% of schools deemed inadequate did improve without any sort of formal intervention because they had exactly that: a school improvement plan, and that worked in 60% of cases. Sponsored academisation worked in 44% of cases and IEBs worked in 72% of cases, so I really think the Committee needs to think about other interventions and please do not overlook interim executive boards.
You may think it is slightly funny that I am saying that as the National Governors’ Association, because obviously an IEB is put in place when the governance fails. But, if the school is failing, that is needed and we should be doing that.
Kevin Brennan
Q 34 If I may say so, that observation seems to be in direct contrast to what Sir Daniel said earlier. Sir Daniel, would you care to come back, rebut and destroy the points made by the representative of the National Governors’ Association?
Sir Daniel Moynihan: IEBs are an effective solution and in many cases IEBs precede academy conversion. In a number of the schools that we have taken on which have been—
Kevin Brennan
Q 35 I apologise for stopping you, but briefly, the Bill says “must” and that was the question I asked you earlier. It does not envisage an IEB as a possible tool to be used in those circumstances.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: No, but IEBs have often been used in those circumstances, so part of the success of the figures that we have just heard is that of IEBs on their way to delivering an academy solution. I know all academies are not successful and I am not claiming that they are, but not all treatments for any problem are successful and it does not mean that you should not have the treatment. In many cases, sponsored academies are doing an amazing job.
Richard Watts: One thing I would add is that local authorities face some bureaucratic hurdles in trying to place IEBs on schools that we think need some intervention. One of the changes to the Bill that we would like to see is to give local authorities the power to introduce IEBs without having to go through the process of applying to the Secretary of State, as that allows us to tackle problems more quickly.
Malcolm Trobe: Coming back to the original question, I would urge members of the Committee to look at the ASCL blueprint for a self-improving school system. We believe that school leaders are very committed to having a system in which there is school to school support, whether that be through federations, schools working together or through multi-academy trusts. The expertise to improve schools is within the profession itself and we believe that it is by schools working together that we will see a continuing improvement in our education system.
John Pugh (Southport) (LD)
Q 36 Following on from that, clearly the problem is coasting. Everybody wants the problem of coasting addressed. The only solution in the legislation is academisation. Apart from changing governance and headteacher, which often follows with academisation, what do academies have in their toolkit to address the problem of coasting that an LEA does not, and vice-versa? Councillor Watts, could you begin?
Richard Watts: My take is that actually governance status is not a very good indicator of any organisation’s capacity to change. There are some very good academy conversions—Harris is an extremely good chain—and there are some very poor academy conversions. Governance status is to my mind a distraction in all of this. There is a set of toolkits which are about getting outstanding leadership and teaching into schools, and any middle-tier organisation, be it an academy chain or a local authority, should have the powers to do that quickly and decisively. Primarily, good schools are made up of outstanding leaders, good teachers and a capacity to improve internally, working with partners. That is the only proven record across the piece of driving up schools.
Mr Gibb
Q 44 Did Downhills not have governors?
Emma Knights: Their governing body was not a member of ours. We checked at the time to see whether they were, and they were not.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: It is true that we could be talking about academy chains that have had schools taken off them, but the point is that where schools—whether they are academies or local authority schools—are inadequate, a change is being made. For generations, that has not happened. It is not a bad thing for academy chains that do badly to lose schools—so they should, and someone else should have the opportunity to fix them. That is right.
Kevin Brennan
Can we put on the record, Mr Chope, that that is a point of agreement, I think, across the Committee? Where schools are inadequate, action should be taken.
Richard Watts: Two points—the danger of policy making by anecdote is that it leads you down a whole range of dangerous roads. I could cite two or three examples in my own borough where fantastic conversion journeys—improvement journeys similar to Downhills—have been taken within the family of local authority schools. I do not think that governance status is the defining thing here. It is about decisive change to a school.
The danger of education statistics is that education is such a data-rich environment that you can essentially find a statistic to prove any point you wish to make within the education system. The danger is a reliance on individual, selectively chosen statistics.
Mr Gibb
Q 45 So you are saying, “Don’t use data and don’t use anecdotes.” What would you use?
Richard Watts: No, I am saying, “Do use data,” but I think one has to be very—I have a number of bits of data here showing, for example, that sponsored academies are twice as likely to stay inadequate as maintained schools. One can pick and choose data. I am saying that one has to use a whole range of different bits of evidence.
Kevin Brennan
Q 46 On that point, Councillor Watts, the Minister used a piece of data at the beginning. He said that sponsored academies have improved more quickly over the past four years than all local authority schools, which is hardly surprising, is it?
Richard Watts: I am sure it is not. Some of the most interesting comparisons are like-for-like ones. Putting to one side the politics of this, I urge the Committee to consider the Sutton Trust report on this, which looked at the capacity of schools. It found that of the 20 academy chains considered, three produced above-average results, including Harris—on which, enormous congratulations to Daniel—and that of 100 local authority schools, 44 produced above-average results. As I say, you can pick data that show any point you wish. I do not think there is any overwhelming data that show the governance model to be the defining thing in the quality of a school.
Bill Esterson
Q 47 Should high-performing local authorities be allowed to take over coasting academies?
Richard Watts: There is a real challenge that the Government will face in pushing through this legislation: the capacity of high-quality sponsors to take on more schools. There are some excellent sponsors and there are some not so good sponsors. We have seen that capacity problems can develop where sponsor chains expand very quickly. The Department for Education has rightly intervened in a number of those rapidly expanding chains. If you are going to expand the pool of high-quality sponsors, it is common sense that good quality local authorities, or even outstanding maintained schools, should be able to become sponsors.
Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)
Q 54 You have commented a bit, but I ask each member of the panel: which criteria would you use to identify a coasting school?
Richard Watts: I would be happy with an Ofsted measure. If we have Ofsted for a reason, we should respect its judgments. If we are saying that Ofsted needs serious reform, let us get on and reform it. If we have a schools inspectorate, it should be respected to some extent. It has to be about more than just progress. My borough is traditionally a highly deprived area that has seen very high levels of progress, but we are still not getting the final results. Employees never ask what your progress measure is; they ask what your GCSEs are. We need some measure of final result.
Emma Knights: I think we are in huge danger of over-complicating our accountability system. Schools are held accountable in so many different ways. I agree that layering this on top of Ofsted seems the wrong solution. We need to sort out Ofsted if we do not think that it is telling us what we need.
The real thing that will improve schools regards capacity in the system. Those of us who want to improve schools should all be worried about that. We have not talked about the regional schools commissioners and their capacity. At a time when the Department is having to undertake cuts, is there enough capacity in the system to identify these schools and work with them to improve? That is the real problem that we all face.
I cannot tell you how much governing boards want to recruit fantastic headteachers. That is what we want to do and that is what will change our schools. We are not getting applications from fantastic candidates in a lot of parts of the country. That is the real problem that we need to worry about, rather than layering measure upon measure and increasing the fear in schools. We think that one reason that some school leaders are not coming forward for headship is because they are already scared and drowning under the accountability system. We need to seriously change the culture.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: Going back to Richard’s point, there clearly are schools that are judged to be outstanding and have parents queuing round the block. The problem is, that if the children in them are not making the amount of progress that similarly good schools elsewhere are making, it is not wrong to jolt the school and possibly upset parents by saying, “Hang on a minute, these children are being short-changed. In other places—look at those—they are doing much better.”
Kevin Brennan
Q 55 But does not that tell you that the school is not outstanding in the first place?
Sir Daniel Moynihan: It could well do. Some 80% of schools are judged to be good and outstanding. What is intriguing is that, in some of those judgments, there are schools with enormous gaps between pupil premium and non-pupil premium children. That cannot be right. How can a school be outstanding with an enormous gap there? A number of schools with those judgments from the past have very low value added, so there are issues to be looked at.
Progress has to be the driver. Progress alerts you to a school; you have to look at it in a bit more detail to judge whether it is coasting or not. You would have to look at destinations to find out where those children are going: what kinds of universities, apprenticeships and jobs they are going to, and what attendance is like. Progress is the first stop but you have to look at other things to get the picture.
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
Q 56 I have two brief questions. First, Councillor Watts, you mentioned a concern you had about the capacity of high-performing academy chains to take over coasting schools. Earlier, we heard that, in a lot of cases, a school once defined as coasting will, in fact, be able to put its own house in order. Does that not alleviate your concerns about the capacity of these academy chains and high-performing groups?
My second question is to Sir Daniel. When you were answering the point about the measures that the Harris chain put in place to improve schools, you mentioned pupil tracking and discipline. Do you have your own pupil referral unit within your group? Could you comment on the issue of recycling disruptive pupils from school to school? To my mind, that is a real issue among the underperforming schools, particularly in areas of lower socio-economic status.
Richard Watts: However you cut it, the Bill envisages quite a significant increase in the number of schools that are converted to academy status to address performance problems, whether they are failing or coasting. If there are ways that we can address coasting schools without relying on high-performing sponsors, great. I still think there is an issue that the Committee needs to consider about whether there is the capacity in the sponsors’ market to take on the kind of increase in sponsored academies that the Bill envisages.
Sir Daniel Moynihan: To answer the question on PRUs—pupil referral units—we do have our own pupil referral unit called Harris Aspire. It has roughly an equal number of Harris students and non-Harris students. It is available for everybody. Our rationale for starting it was that sometimes a student does unfortunately have to be excluded. Sometimes it has to happen.
We would rather be responsible for them into the future than just unload and forget about them. If parents are content, after an exclusion has happened, students will go to Harris Aspire. There are other times when a student needs a respite period to overcome a problem. They might go there for six weeks and then return very happily into a school. It has both those types of provision. There is a definite need for more of those. We have opened that as a free school, and that is great route to introduce more PRUs and introduce a market and have some competition. Existing PRUs sometimes have a monopoly locally and the provision is quite poor, and heads do not have a great deal of choice sometimes.
The Chair
Good morning. Thank you for coming along. Please introduce yourselves, starting with Dr Coulson.
Dr Coulson: Good morning. I am Tim Coulson; I work for the Department for Education as regional schools commissioner for the East of England and North-East London.
Zoe Carr: Morning. I am Zoe Carr, CEO of a multi-academy trust in Tyne and Wear. We have four primary academies. I also sit on the Headteacher Board for the North of the regional schools commissioner.
Lee Elliot Major: Hello. I am Dr Lee Elliot Major; I am chief executive of the Sutton Trust and a trustee of the Education Endowment Foundation, two foundations dedicated to improving the outcomes of disadvantaged pupils in particular, and spreading good evidence of what works in the education system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 57 I welcome everybody to the Committee. I ask Dr Coulson, as a regional schools commissioner, to describe for the Committee your operation: what your office is like and what you do. How will you use the capacity you have to deal with all the schools that will be deemed “coasting” in your area as a result of this Bill?
Dr Coulson: We have an office in Cambridge in the centre of the East of England region. We have a small office of half a dozen civil servants and we have education advisers who are experienced in school improvement. They work with us on schools that are thinking about becoming an academy, and we visit academies where performance does not look good. We spend our time looking to do three things. We forge as many partnerships as possible to address the issue of capacity—we work extensively with the local authorities, teaching schools and significant academy trusts in the area. Secondly, we spend significant time looking to be very clear about addressing failure in academies and calling academy trusts to account for where they are not ensuring success. Thirdly, we look to the best schools in the system to form multi-academy trusts. You have just heard about the Harris trust, one of the large and famous trusts. The huge growth in our region, as across the country, is in trusts, which you will probably hear about from Zoe. There are excellent schools and relatively small multi-academy trusts. The very best school helps the failing—or in future coasting—school that requires improvement and really needs support.
Kevin Brennan
Q 58 Just to be clear, the operation consists of you and six civil servants. How many advisers?
Dr Coulson: We have four advisers.
Kevin Brennan
Q 60 To finish, because I want others to get in, do you think you would need extra resources to deal with the extra responsibilities being given to you in relation to the coasting schools in the Bill? Or is your current operation adequate to take on and deal with the new responsibilities in an outstanding way?
Dr Coulson: The bit of capacity that I did not refer to is the wider DFE resource. Within the DFE is the academies group that manages and administers the academies system for Ministers. We draw significantly on their capacity. In the coming few years, when the Bill comes into operation—assuming it goes through and we plan for 2016 and the increase in looking at coasting schools—we will need to look carefully at our capacity to understand schools. In terms of coasting schools, we are not expecting all of them to become academies, but we are expecting to look at whether all of them have a strong plan. The bit of capacity that we are particularly looking to increase is the national leader of education capacity. So, before thinking about whether schools need an academy trust, we need the support of national leaders of education. The Government have recently announced that they expect a further increase in capacity in that area.
Kevin Brennan
So to do an outstanding job you will need a little more extra resource is what you are telling us.
Peter Kyle
Q 61 May I also place it on the record—I should have done it before—that I am chair of governors of an academy?
Zoe Carr, based on your extensive experience, how important is parental involvement and community engagement to the long-term improvement of a school?
Zoe Carr: I think it is absolutely vital. The four schools that we serve are all in areas of very high deprivation, ranging from double to three times the national average. We have had success for a number of years and have employed our own staff to work specifically with parents. If you engage parents appropriately and get them involved and interested and upskill their knowledge and understanding of the education their child is having, that absolutely pays dividends in supporting the child. It is vital, particularly in areas of high deprivation, to break down the barriers. Often parents themselves have had a negative experience of schools, and the thought of going into a headteacher’s office can be daunting. We have staff to go between the parents and the headteacher, who the parents see as being on their side and wanting to get them into the school.
Mr Gibb
Q 82 A thought has just occurred to me. I do not know if you heard the evidence from the first session when he heard Dr Allen talking about the problems of running a school in an area of deprivation. She said that is was very difficult to run a school in such an area. Her implication was that somehow a lower standard should be applied to those schools than to schools in more affluent areas. Do you reject that view as much as I do?
Lee Elliot Major: I would be very uncomfortable with that. I did not hear that evidence, but we have to have very high aspirations for all our children. The Sutton Trust and the Education Endowment Foundation have found many times that if you give them opportunities, they will fly. We have many examples of children—some of them are now MPs, in fact, among many other great professions—whom we have helped in our programmes. No, I would counter that, although I did not hear the evidence.
Kevin Brennan
Q 83 There was a call to name names over here, but we will not hold you to it. Tim, do you have key performance indicators in your job relating to the percentage of schools becoming academies?
Dr Coulson: We have a range of measures that we look at. One of them is schools becoming academies, principally because we want to encourage them to move, once they become academies, as Zoe said of her experience, to contributing as part of a multi-academy trust system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 84 Do you see any problem at all with balancing the new powers that you are being given on coasting schools with having performance indicators relating to the number of academies within your area?
Dr Coulson: No, I do not, because I think the most important measures that we have got are to see improvements in the system. For me, the crucial bit about coasting schools is having a whole new way of looking at those schools. I come most recently from working in a local authority. In the region where I work, extremely good relationships have been established between the work that I do and the local authorities. One of your colleagues asked me about capacity. There is something in there about how we need to pull together all the different aspects to really check that every school that we want to improve does improve.
The coasting schools regulations bring into focus another group of schools whose improvement we can definitely check. I would love for those regulations to be much more ambitious and tackle a whole load of schools. I think that there is another group of schools we can really focus on.
Kevin Brennan
Q 85 Do accountability measures for schools ever drive schools to teach to the test? That has been alleged. Do you think that that ever happens with schools?
Dr Coulson: Inevitably. I think accountability measures are extremely influential.
Kevin Brennan
Q 86 If accountability measures are influential for schools, why are they not influential for you in relation to coasting schools and your accountability measures relating to the academisation of schools? Why are you immune to the very thing you say schools suffer from?
Dr Coulson: Part of what the Sutton Trust evidence argues for is a subtler use of measures. On the question you are asking about my own performance measures, the performance measure you talked about is one of nine different performance measures that are there to balance things out. In terms of the contribution of one particular performance measure and the extent to which that pushes behaviour, which I think is your point—I understand the point you are making—for me, the whole basket of performance indicators is designed to make sure that we use most judiciously the different paths that we have to try to get schools to be better schools.
Kevin Brennan
Q 87 But you understand why some people might see a potential conflict of interest in those two objectives?
Dr Coulson: I suppose my argument would be that in terms of the range of those performance indicators, I hope that the whole set of those indicators would drive our behaviour in terms of getting the region better.
Kevin Brennan
Q 88 Interim executive boards were discussed earlier. In your opinion, through your long experience in education, are IEBs ever a way to deal with an inadequate school? Can that be the right solution sometimes?
Dr Coulson: My experience of IEBs in inadequate schools is that they have been extremely useful transition tools to move schools to an academy trust. In terms of coasting schools, there could be IEBs that do a different job.
Kevin Brennan
Q 89 Before you move on to that, can I make the point that I am trying to get to? Are IEBs ever a valuable way to deal with an inadequate school that is not on a pathway to academisation, but is nevertheless on a pathway to improvement within the maintained sector?
Dr Coulson: I have not experienced it.
Suella Fernandes
Q 90 I am a chair of governors at a free school. I want to build on the Minister’s point about the measure used to identify standards in schools and the move to Progress 8. We heard evidence from Dr Allen, who did not really think that Progress 8 was a suitable standard because it did not capture data for the requisite amount of time and displayed the same social gradient. She also said that the assessment of coasting would add an extra layer of accountability, which schools would find confusing. Could you all say a bit about what you think of those comments and opinions?
Dr Coulson: I think that the definition of coasting is a measured increase in ambition. What you heard earlier was about whether the threshold of 60% under the current measures and then 85% for primary schools gives a ceiling for the number of schools that would come into the scope of being addressed. I would love to address every single school. The draft regulations give a significant increase in ambition to schools that really need a focus, while managing the capacity question that I have been asked several times about how much we can grow the system in order for schools to come into it.
The points we heard about tweaking the measures were all really well made. There is a balance in terms of what the increase of ambition means at this stage in the draft regulations. As crafted now, they show a significant increase in ambition, even if they do not address every single school that people would like to have focused attention on.
Zoe Carr: I would like to pick this up from the primary angle, if I may. The 85% attainment measure—which all aspire to, so we will live up to it and do everything that we can—is more challenging for disadvantaged schools. However, the biggest thing for me is whether affluent schools will be identified under this coasting definition if they achieve the 85% measure but their progress continues to be poor. We must not miss that really important aspect when the Bill passes through Parliament, because we still need ways to identify those sorts of schools. I think that is the reason for the Bill being here in the first place—to try to address the coasting schools in our education system.
If those schools’ progress measures are not above the median for a number of years, yet their attainment is above 85%, it is right that we look at those elements. That is where schools in disadvantaged areas will feel that they are being hit twice by these accountability measures, whereas schools in affluent areas will have a much greater chance of attaining the 85% and their progress will not then really be looked at.
Lee Elliot Major: I was going to make exactly the same point. I worry—for me, it always goes back to the disadvantaged children—about the progress of children in high-attaining schools. I would love the Bill and the discussion to think about those schools in very advantaged areas. A lot of children coming into those schools are already high attaining, therefore the school’s results will generally be higher. My worry is: what about the sometimes small number of children—it is a significant number across the nation if you add them all up—who are not succeeding in those schools? You are then looking at progress measures in both primary and secondary schools. That would be my worry—that we miss out on those hundreds of thousands of children.
One final point—I was not here for Dr Allen’s evidence, but year groups come and go and can be very different in a school, so I like the fact that this will be triggered by a three-year passage of time. That is a sensible approach.
Education and Adoption Bill (Second sitting)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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The Chair
Thank you very much. I will call the last Member to ask questions in a minute. What you are telling us is very informative, but can you be slightly more concise? We have very few minutes left.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
Q 29 Thank you, Sir Alan. There is only one clause in the Bill about adoption. In theory, what should happen after this session is that we look at your evidence and then think of any further amendment or improvements that might be made to the Bill. Unfortunately, because clause 13 is being debated on Thursday, we are out of time for that, but the Chairs have indicated that they will look favourably on any amendments that we might submit, even at this late stage, before Thursday. Is there anything that you think should be added to the Bill to improve it by way of an amendment or new clause?
Hugh Thornbery: The two things that I have mentioned: the duty to provide adoption support on the basis of an assessment of need and the extension of virtual schools to cover children adopted from care as well as looked-after children.
Andy Leary-May: For me, it would be an extension of what the Bill focuses on to cover other forms of permanence. Also, is there any way to inject some degree of required caution about how the power might be used? Rather than having a blanket movement and assuming that it will create improvement in all areas, maybe it could start a little more cautiously and take it step by step.
Edward Timpson
Q 30 In the Children and Families Act 2014, we took a backstop power in relation to the recruitment of adopters, so we could ensure that enough came forward who could be assessed and approved for the children still waiting to be placed for adoption. We have not had to use that power, and we have been successful in increasing recruitment by, I think, more than 27% in the past 18 months to two years.
This power widens it out to include matching and support, which we have discussed in this session. Based on the fact that there are already good working relationships between local authorities and consortia, which often include voluntary adoption agencies, and based on our statement on page 12 that, as we articulate in our paper “Regionalising adoption”, we need to harness the important role of voluntary adoption agencies in forming regional adoption agencies, how confident are you that in the next few years, through the work of the Department, yourselves and others with an interest in getting it right, we can ensure that we scale up services in all those areas so that we do not need to use the power on recruitment, as we have not yet had to do?
Hugh Thornbery: I am confident in the sector’s ability to improve. The examples that you have given have demonstrated that with the right degree of encouragement, and sometimes financial support, the system has been able to transform itself in terms of reducing delay, increasing the supply of adopters, improving adoption support and so on.
I think that there are systemic and cultural barriers to moving from those single entities working in partnership with each other to entities coming together to form a new entity. There are issues of governance and accountability. I think that we have seen some progress toward consortia working well. The progress that has been made toward a more formal consolidation has, in most cases, got quite close to achieving it and then stepped back. We need to understand why that is happening. I think it has to do with some of those issues that I have just mentioned.
Andy Leary-May: Within matching, in some ways we are already there, in that a local authority’s ability to have visibility of available adopters is already there. That was why we built our system, and it is there. It is about the decisions made as to which placements they go for. I do not think that those problems will be solved by regionalising agencies and it is important that they are addressed. If there were regions that for whatever reason do not come together as a regional agency, those other problems would still need to be addressed. But in either case I think there will be problems.
I think it is important to remember that a local authority may be willing to look widely when it is looking for a match for children, but local authorities do often hold on to their adopters. They need to be making adopters available from the earliest point, because otherwise the pool of adopters will never be big. I think that could be changed in other ways.
Peter Kyle
Q 38 I have other questions, but would the other witnesses like to comment on either the failure aspect or the contribution aspect?
Anna Sharkey: Obviously, what we are discussing is the adoption clause and the multiple placement changes in fostering. Having managed a fostering service for some time and knowing the sorts of complex areas being dealt with, I accept that adoption constitutes a very small proportion of the population of looked-after children, and it has had a huge amount of focus. There has been a lot of attention on adoption, but part of the reason is that the outcomes for adopted children tend to be good. The disruption rate is still very low. We know from Julie Selwyn’s research that there are families that clearly continue to have difficulties in their adoptive placements, but most of them hang on in there.
The outcomes for children are very good, and we know that the children involved will be those who have had the most trauma, because if they had not had the most trauma, more would be being done to try to maintain them in their family of origin. These are the ones where there is often absolutely no hope of achieving that within their family. Therefore, by definition, they are going to be the little people who have experienced the most difficult things. Adoption, by achieving what it does for them, is hugely significant. The fostering bit, and the whole role of public care, is another whole area and while I am not saying that it is muddying the water, I think it will get very complicated if we discuss it here.
Alison O'Sullivan: I would agree with the general direction of those comments. I have nothing to urge specifically for legislation, but perhaps for guidance and the manner of implementation. First, it is really helpful to have a spotlight on adoption, but we can do more than one thing at a time. We need to keep the spotlight on adoption, but also look more closely at permanency, as has been urged by the other witnesses—I absolutely agree with that. The second thing I would urge is that we make real the spirit of local determination, because there will not be one solution. It is important that as we do that, we keep a very close eye, collaboratively, on the impacts on the whole system.
This is quite a volatile, fluid market in some places and having an overview of that and how we manage collaboratively the dynamics in that market will be key to its success. Otherwise, we will have unintended consequences in creating something strong in this bit of the system washing back into another bit of the system. That is not what any of us want. It will be an art rather than a science, but I think if we work collaboratively we can do that.
My third point would be to build on the arrangements for collaboration. We have local adoption boards coming into place. I have been visiting the regions over recent weeks, and the boards are starting to gain traction. Many of them are looking broadly at permanence. They are keeping their eye firmly on adoption but looking at it within that broader context. By tying those together with national oversight we will be able to keep in view the important dynamics in the system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 39 It strikes me that given that improved quality of parenting, higher aspiration, more stability and a better voice for young people who are looked after in care should, as ever, be our principles, we should have had some young people giving evidence to our session today. It is all of our faults for not making sure that that happened, as it would have been useful. If there is any written evidence, we should take very close account of it.
While you are here, Alison, I wonder if I might ask you as a director of children’s services who also has some responsibility for education—the Bill includes clauses on education—whether you think the regional schools commissioner in your area has the capacity to increase their oversight of schools as envisaged in the Bill, from 500 academies or so in your area to about 2,500 schools under their new responsibilities for issuing warning notices and, on top of that, having responsibility for dealing with coasting schools? Do you think they have the capacity to do that with a maximum of about seven staff?
Alison O'Sullivan: I do not imagine that the existing level of resource into that part of the system would be able to cope without some additional investment. It is not for the local authority to determine the support to the academy part of the system. What I would say is that there is an untapped resource of collaboration at a local level. If we look at the shared ambition that we have to drive up standards in all schools in all categories, we should be exploiting the potential to collaborate more closely across the wider system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 40 On that point, do you think that DCSs should be members of the teacher advisory boards, given that they are now taking over responsibility around maintained schools as well?
Alison O'Sullivan: I think we need the right people in the room to have the right oversight of those systems on the right scale. There are some difficulties with geography which I think would bear examination: the oversight of the academy part of the system does not sit easily in terms of coterminous boundaries with other administrative boundaries. That creates complexity that we could perhaps design out of the system to good effect. I personally feel that there is a great untapped resource of collaboration, because the expertise for improvement sits very largely within schools, but we need to be able to join that up across the whole of the system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 41 Could I ask finally whether you think it will be necessary for the things contained in the Bill to be achieved on the school side for the staff to be transferred from local authorities to the regional schools commissioners?
Alison O'Sullivan: No, I do not think that structural change is the answer to those challenges. It is certainly something that could be considered but why would you put time and energy into structural change if you could achieve that without it?
Suella Fernandes (Fareham) (Con)
Q 42 The provision on adoption aims to try and solve the problem of long-term decline in adoption. At the moment, as we all know, it is happening at too small and too localised a scale. It is hoped that the attempt to regionalise agencies and bring them together will encourage agencies to cast their net more widely, reduce the problems of delay, and encourage local authorities to look outside their immediate local area. We have heard a lot about this today. One problem which has been cited is the reluctance of local authorities to place children outside a particular area. What appetite do you think there is for looking further afield geographically?
Anna Sharkey: I think that there is an appetite. Local authorities met the requirement to up the game when it came to recruitment, and they were very successful. Local authority social workers work hard to do the best they can for the children they are responsible for, and that is what they aim to do. There are difficulties in the system as it exists at the moment, and I think that, because clearly there are children waiting in the system. I have adopters who have been approved and are waiting—it is not happening. Adoption Link has achieved a huge amount by getting adopters much more involved in the adopter-led linking process, and that has been very positive.
There some things that still prevent movement out of a local authority region. These are often to do with budget constraints, because local authorities are completely stuck financially. There is an historical sense that buying a placement from outside is very costly. Andy talked about children who sit in the care system and experience multiple placement moves, and who are then over-represented in mental ill health, the criminal justice system and underperformance at school. The cost to all of us of not getting it right at a much earlier stage is absolutely phenomenal, not least of which is the impact on that individual child and the rest of their family.
Getting it right is very important. At the moment the structure includes an inter-agency fee budget, an adoption budget, a fostering budget, a budget that does something else relating to supporting kinship care arrangements, and so on, which can make it very difficult to be child-focused, and to look at the best option in the most timely way to meet the needs of the child as soon as possible. Anything that tries to sort that out can only be a good thing.
I have some caution about the criteria on which that regionalisation would happen and how big a region would be. There is talk in the paper of it being around the 200 mark in respect of children. We are dealing with a very personal aspect of public care, and adopters need to feel that the people they are working with know them individually. We want those children to be known individually by the social worker who is advocating on their behalf, so getting lost in numbers is a real concern. We also know that where people are stuck with chunks of money that do something or boundaries that do something else, or if social workers are not prepared to go outside because someone else is saying “We have run out of money” or “It has got to be in-house” or “We have a family coming through in four months’ time who might be okay”, that will build delay into the system. If we can improve that, it has got to be better.
Alison O'Sullivan: It is really important that we do not build new barriers. If we are widening the scope of the way in which people collaborate to make things more effective and more efficient, then we must not have another set of boundaries that are just on a slightly bigger scale. It is not only how we create those collaborative arrangements, but how they interface and interrelate with each other as we go forward. That is one aspect that will need to be managed.
Andy Elvin: I would go back a step regarding the decline of adoption numbers. If your measure of success is an increase in adoption, then you are asking the wrong questions. That is not what we are after; we are after an increase in permanence and an increase in better outcomes for children. As the adoption numbers have fallen slightly, we have seen special guardianship orders rise. SGOs, in particular those for children under five, are largely made to extended family members to care for their relatives. That was exactly why SGOs were introduced. It is not a bad thing that they are now being used where there used to be intra-family adoptions, because they take some of the heat out of that conflict between different generations of a family.
We have a group of experts which was set up by the Department for Education, which will start meeting to discuss the rise in special guardianships. It will also look at the appropriate use and the assessments behind SGOs. Until that finishes in the autumn, we do not really know what the story is behind the rise in special guardianship, particularly for the under-fives.
The other side is that there is a huge rise in surrogacy in this country that is completely unknown and completely unreported. People who used to come forward for adoption are choosing international surrogacy, because it is available and affordable and more assured in terms of getting a younger child—a baby—than adoption. There are all these threats to adoption out there, but simply taking adoption numbers as your measure of success is to look at entirely the wrong thing. It is outcomes for children as a whole that we are after, and success comes in many forms. I know many complex children we look after in long-term foster care who have absolutely fantastic outcomes.
Foster care does not stop at 18; it will not stop at 21, when they are staying put. Our foster parents are godparents to their foster children’s children; they give them away at their weddings. It very often lasts for life in the same way that adoption does.
The Chair
Q 48 Mr Hobby, I am pleased that you have been able to come to give evidence to the Committee. May I ask you a couple of favours? First, before we open the question and answer period, would you present yourself and your CV? Secondly, because this is a terrible room for acoustics—you are not supposed to admit to things like that in Parliament, but it really is not very good at all—would you raise your voice a little bit? It would help the Members. We will not be in this room in future—you have been unfortunate, as we have, to land here today. Without further ado, will you present yourself to the Committee?
Russell Hobby: Good afternoon and thank you for inviting me to give evidence. I am Russell Hobby, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. We represent 29,000 school leaders in all phases of education.
Kevin Brennan
Q 49 Since time is very short and we do not have the pleasure of your company for long, can you tell us, as succinctly as possible, what you think about the Bill and what you would do to amend or improve it?
Russell Hobby: Okay. In a spirit of constructive criticism, the first issue is whether the Bill genuinely defines what we would normally regard as coasting schools. I think there is potential within the definition for some schools at the secondary level that we would normally regard as fitting the definition of coasting: those with affluent or privileged intakes who manage to achieve over the 60% hurdle but do not make adequate progress on that. It seems to me a better definition of schools that have been average for a long period of time rather than what we would normally define as coasting.
There is an issue in that we are already raising the performance standards while we are still waiting for new standards to be implemented. There is a risk of that being perceived by headteachers as more pressure being added to that. That is magnified by the fact that two of the years over which this is measured are retrospective—they have already delivered their performance for those two years. People complain a lot about not being able to predict what is around the corner in education and they also cannot predict what has happened in the past, to a degree, as a result of this.
We reckon that there are about 700 primary schools and perhaps 400 secondary schools that would fall within the definition of coasting and probably 60% of those—certainly at the primary level—have got a good inspection rating. They will have thought that they had done everything that had been set for them, but now they have a new bar to climb over.
Kevin Brennan
Q 50 Do you think that the Government sometimes think it is ultimately possible for all schools to be above average?
Russell Hobby: Not if the definition of average keeps shifting as schools improve themselves over time. It is particularly hard at secondary level, where the exam results are re-normed year on year to ensure that a similar balance of results comes out, so secondary schools can find themselves in a bit of a rat race on that front.
It is right that we should raise our standards from time to time and we should reset that bar. The difficulty is, if the level of pressure on schools is too high—let us face it, they have dealt with five years of quite extreme pressure on that front—some of the effects on education can be negative. Rather than just raising standards, you get narrowed curricula, teaching to the test and people leaving the environment, so you find it harder to recruit headteachers to work in the most challenging schools.
Kevin Brennan
Q 51 A final question. Could the whole issue of coasting schools be dealt with in the inspection regime? Is there a danger that there could be confusion about accountability if we have two separate regimes running side by side?
Russell Hobby: That danger does exist. We now have two separate systems with no read-across between the Ofsted categories of “requires improvement”, “good” and “inadequate” and the new definition of coasting. You will find schools in every Ofsted grade that will fit that definition—in fact, I think you will find slightly more “good” schools than schools in “requires improvement” meeting the definition.
There is a risk that schools will feel that they are working towards two distinct and different sets of criteria. We have always thought that schools should be accountable, but it is helpful if they are accountable in one direction and have one set of standards so that they can focus their efforts on that.
Bill Esterson
Q 52 If having a good headteacher is the best indicator of success in a school, what would you like to see in the legislation to increase the numbers of good headteachers?
Russell Hobby: We have taken the first step, which is to move away from vague generalisations of what a coasting school is to start to define what coasting schools are. One of the risks was that a lot of schools were looking over their shoulders, wondering whether they were coasting and, therefore, a lot of people were thinking, “That’s not the sort of school that I would want to go and work in” if there were extra pressures arising.
In favour of the legislation and the regulations being provided, although I have my concerns around the definition, we have now got a more graduated response to those schools that are judged as coasting. Rather than the default assumption being that you will sack the headteacher and academise the school, it is now proposed—at least as written—that you will look for a credible plan of improvement within the school and look to partner the school with other good local schools or national leaders of education. Only then will you move down into forced academisation. I am not sure that that message has reached many school leaders yet. If it does, that might reassure some of the people working in these coasting and challenging schools.
At the same time, some of the checks and balances have been removed or are proposed to be removed. The regional schools commissioners now have a great deal of discretion in determining whether the plan of improvement is credible and who the school should be paired up with. A school’s ability to represent and defend itself is not particularly enshrined within the regulations. School leaders will be wondering, “It’s all very well having the challenge, but do I have the chance to make my case or will I be rushed through a change?” I would look at strengthening those aspects, if possible.
The Chair
Q 60 You know the drill, Ministers. We would be pleased if you presented yourselves, your areas of responsibility and your approach to the Bill. Questions will then come from the Committee.
Lord Nash: I am Lord Nash, the Under-Secretary of State for Schools. I am responsible, among other things, for academies and free schools.
Mr Gibb: I am the Minister of State for Schools. I have responsibility for school standards, issues such as Ofsted, Ofqual, qualifications, the curriculum and behaviour.
Edward Timpson: I am Edward Timpson, Minister of State for Children and Families, which includes: child protection; adoption, which is relevant to the Bill; fostering; special educational needs; character and resilience; school sport; and a whole host of other important portfolio areas.
Kevin Brennan
Q 61 Nick, why do you have such a low regard for Ofsted inspections?
Mr Gibb: We do not have a low regard for Ofsted inspections. In fact, the Bill makes it clear that as soon as a school goes into Ofsted category 4, the Secretary of State will have a duty to issue an academy order based on that Ofsted judgment alone.
With coasting schools, we wanted to have a range of metrics, rather than the Ofsted judgment, to determine what is or is not a coasting school. The other principle that the Secretary of State set out on Second Reading, and is reflected in the regulations that you saw last night, is that the judgment should be over a period of years. In most cases, it is difficult to have an Ofsted judgment over a period of years. There will be one Ofsted judgment, almost certainly, during that three-year period. Here we have three years of metrics and a school is regarded as coasting if it falls below the bar in all three years.
Kevin Brennan
Q 62 Do you envisage that any outstanding schools will be rated as coasting under the definition that you released at 10 o’clock last night?
Mr Gibb: It is certainly possible that a school could be graded as good or outstanding. Thanks to many of the reforms and the hard work of the teaching profession, 80% of schools up and down the country are now graded as good or outstanding. We are trying to ensure that every school is delivering the sort of education that means that every pupil will be making progress to fulfil their potential. That is a new ambition that we are bringing to the education system.
Kevin Brennan
Q 63 One of our witnesses this morning has done a bit of number crunching since then. Apparently there are schools that are currently rated outstanding but will be deemed to be coasting under the definition you released. Does it not make a bit of a mockery of an Ofsted inspection if a group of inspectors goes into a school, judges it to be outstanding and, yet, separately the school is then deemed to be coasting? Why should they get an outstanding rating if it is so obvious that they are coasting?
Mr Gibb: We do not know for certain whether those numbers are correct, because until we have the 2016 results we will not know—
Kevin Brennan
You said you envisage that it is perfectly possible.
Mr Gibb: It is quite possible.
Kevin Brennan
So the question stands.
Mr Gibb: Yes, but, taking the first point first, we will not know precisely how many schools fall into this category until we have had the 2016 results. We will then be able to define precisely what the progress measure is for 2016.
In terms of outstanding and Ofsted, I suspect that we will not find that many. I do not know and I cannot predict that, but we are determined in this Parliament to address the issue of coasting schools to ensure that every child is making the maximum progress they can, and we want to ensure that schools do that. It may be that judgments Ofsted made in a different era—in the previous Parliament, two or three years ago—do not reflect that new ambition.
Kevin Brennan
Q 64 Perhaps they should be inspected more frequently.
Lord Nash, how many academies does a regional schools commissioner tend to be responsible for? How will that change under the Bill?
Lord Nash: In total, each regional schools commissioner is responsible for 600 or 700 academies, although they will be focusing only on those that are underperforming. If a school is doing well, they—
Kevin Brennan
Q 65 Will they not have to monitor all schools to check whether they are underperforming under the Bill’s provisions?
Lord Nash: The accountability provisions in the Bill are pretty clear, so, if they fall foul of the coasting schools definition, that will be a statistical analysis. They will not have to do any—
Kevin Brennan
Q 66 Given their extra responsibility to issue directions, they have a responsibility to monitor all schools to see whether it is necessary to issue a direction as well as to improve schools.
Lord Nash: I am saying that monitoring to work out which school is coasting is not onerous; that is purely a statistical consequence of the accountability measures.
Kevin Brennan
Q 67 How much extra resource will they require to perform those new functions?
Lord Nash: They will require extra resources and we will give those to them gradually.
Kevin Brennan
Q 68 Can you give us an idea of what you have in mind?
Lord Nash: I expect in time we may need more regional schools commissioners—they will certainly need more people. They are heavily supported from the centre—the Department for Education—which runs very tight teams of six, seven or eight people. They will certainly need an increase in capacity, but we do not want them to become another arm of the DFE; we want them to be fairly tight-run organisations. I have to say that, having visited all of them and sat in all eight of the headteacher boards, they are performing extremely well.
Kevin Brennan
Q 69 Are any of the regional schools commissioners coasting?
Lord Nash: I would say not. I have been involved in starting new organisations for 40 years and an early indication of success is early momentum. Frankly, I have never seen a new set of organisations start as well as this, which is not surprising given that they are all experienced professionals who know their regions well.
Kevin Brennan
Q 70 Is there a method by which that judgment could be independently verified?
Lord Nash: I am sure there is. We have clear accountability measures set on the RSCs from the Department, but the ultimate test will be the performance of the academies and schools in their region.
Kevin Brennan
Q 71 May I ask you a couple of other brief questions? I am looking for short answers. Should membership of headteacher boards be opened up now to headteachers of all schools rather than just academies, or do you regard headteachers of maintained schools as inferior in some way?
Lord Nash: We definitely do not regard them as inferior in any way, but the headteacher boards and regional schools commissioners are responsible for monitoring academies.
Kevin Brennan
That is being extended under the Bill—that is the reason for my question.
Lord Nash: It is not our current intention to open them up. Most of them are elected by their peers and we think that that is a healthy approach.
Kevin Brennan
Q 72 So you would maintain the ban on maintained school heads being on the board?
Lord Nash: We have no plans at the moment to change that, but you make a point that we will keep under consideration.
Peter Kyle
Q 81 Perhaps I could ask Mr Gibb. You were here during the evidence sessions today and there was a clear consensus that the Bill was too narrowly focused. That was accepted, and I accept it. I am the chair of governors at an academy school that was a converter. It was a failing school and has seen spectacular results in the four years that it has been in existence. But there was a clear consensus that conversion is one tool, not the tool. Do you not think that the Bill is too narrow and should take account of what all our witnesses said?
Mr Gibb: No, because academisation is only one tool. If you look at the Bill, it has all kinds of other powers. We are asking for the regional schools commissioners to require that a school that is not performing well enough, for example, collaborate with another school or enter into contractual arrangements with somebody who can improve their school. They might join a federation or use the national leaders of education, thousands of whom are doing a fantastic job up and down the country. We want to increase that number to 1,400 and then to 2,000 by the end of the Parliament. Academisation is a backstop if those other interventions, which the regional schools commissioners will be arranging, brokering and discussing with coasting schools, fail. I expect a lot of schools that fall within the definition will have their own plans in place. There may be a recently appointed head with a range of plans to implement. She or he will find themselves below the measure of what counts as a coasting school, but they will discuss those plans with the regional schools commissioner, who will be absolutely convinced that the plan will succeed. That will be the end of the matter and the RSC can move on to another school.
Kevin Brennan
Q 82 Following on from what Peter said, he referred to clause 7 of the Bill where the Secretary of State “must”, where a school is eligible for intervention, make an academy order. That is an assumption that will not even be considered for any other method of school improvement. Does that not fetter the ability of Ministers to take a decision based on evidence?
Mr Gibb: No. This is about schools that Ofsted has judged to be in category 4, either requiring significant improvement or requiring special measures, so those schools have had that time. They have had that discussion.
Kevin Brennan
Q 83 The Secretary of State already “may” do that. Why “must” they do it?
Mr Gibb: Because we made it very clear before the election and in our manifesto that we wanted to intervene in failing schools from day one.
Kevin Brennan
Q 84 But you can do that already.
Mr Gibb: This is delivering that manifesto commitment to intervene in failing schools from day one. This is what will happen now. It will be automatic that an academy order will be issued for schools that are put into category 4 by Ofsted. We do not apologise for that. We are determined to tackle failing schools.
Kevin Brennan
Q 85 It is just tough talk, isn’t it?
Mr Gibb: It may be tough talk, but it is tough talk that has delivered. As a consequence of tackling failing schools in the previous Parliament, we now have more than 1 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools than in 2010. That is a remarkable achievement, and we want to build on that now by speeding up the process. Sometimes it can take more than a year to convert a failing school to an academy. We want to build on that further and tackle coasting schools where pupils are not being delivered their full potential. We want to make sure that every child, regardless of background or ability, is fulfilling their potential.
Lord Nash: It is more than tough talk. The regime we have at the moment is basically tough talk. As Minister Gibb says, it means that the average time a school takes to become an academy after being in special measures is more than a year. That is not acceptable. Often the delays are caused by adults putting their priorities ahead of children. We have taken these powers to make it absolutely clear that delaying tactics cannot be used.
Peter Kyle
Q 86 To be clear, you are talking about failing schools, but it is also about coasting schools.
Lord Nash: We are talking here about—
Peter Kyle
Q 106 My point is that we cannot use that as an excuse to shut out parents. I understand about people making broad political points, but parents of students who are going to the school and the school community are actively engaged. We do not want to push them to one side for fear of a group that is somewhere else.
Mr Gibb: I do not disagree with you on that. It is about the legal process of converting a school into an academy. We do not want that process being delayed by a group of people who are being driven by politics and ideology. Regarding the parents who want the best for the school, are involved with the PTA, are governors and are involved with their children’s education, a good school will always want to embrace and involve them in the running of the school and the school community. Nothing in the Bill prevents that from happening.
Kevin Brennan
Q 107 We have talked about reasons for delays around academisation. Is it not the case that delays are more often due to departmental incompetence, PFI deals and lawyers arguing about public land, or does that never happen, Lord Nash?
Lord Nash: The answer to your question is that is does happen sometimes. Lawyers do argue on those issues, but they are not issues that result in extensive delays.
Kevin Brennan
Q 108 Have you witnessed many lengthy delays, none at all or small delays for those reasons?
Lord Nash: Sometimes, the legal process on land can take a bit of time, particularly if the information forthcoming from the local authority is slow, but generally it is the other delays that we talked about.
Kevin Brennan
Q 109 Tim Coulson acknowledged earlier that having a key performance indicator relating to the percentage of academies that should be converted in an area could be perceived as a conflict of interest when dealing with coasting schools, in relation to how to approach them. Do you see any conflict of interest being possible there?
Lord Nash: We make sure that all our accountability measures and all the ways in which we asses the performance of regional schools commissioners are based on the principle of putting children first. There are no hidden agendas as you imply.
The Chair
That brings us to the end of the time allotted. We are grateful to the Ministers. This is undoubtedly only the opening foray of a period of time that I am sure we will all enjoy. We will examine everything that has been said today by witnesses and the Ministers, and we may come back with some further requests for information. The next meeting of the Committee will be on Thursday 2 July at 11.30 am in Committee Room 12.
English as an additional language (Pupil Support)
Kevin Brennan Excerpts(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Jackson
Thank you, Mr Hollobone. After that alarm, I trust that there will be no incendiary activity in the next 90 minutes.
On that occasion in 2011, I argued—evidently, it transpired, not that persuasively—that although the pupil premium was indeed an excellent idea and a useful tool to assist the most deserving pupils by the deployment of scarce resources, it was nevertheless a blunt instrument. That was because it only related to deprivation as measured by the sole indicator of access to free school meals. It was perfectly possible to nuance and finesse that criterion to drive up education standards in discrete circumstances.
That proved to be the case: in the last Parliament, the coalition Government extended the provision of the flat-rate pupil premium to looked-after children—it was called “pupil premium plus”—and later to the children of service personnel, quite rightly. The deprivation indicator and eligibility criteria were also broadened, as were the differential payment rates between deprived pupils in primary schools and secondary schools. Between 2011 and 2015, per capita funding rose from £430 to £935 for deprived pupils in secondary schools, to £1,100 for deprived pupils in primary schools and to £1,900 for looked-after children. It was £300 for service children.
I am proud to be associated with the Government that did that, and they did it for the right reason, because there is plenty of evidence that the pupil premium has had considerable impact cumulatively across a wide range of LEAs in supporting disadvantaged children and improving their educational attainment. The Department for Education report published in July 2013 under the auspices of TNS BMRB, Tecis, the Centre for Equity in Education, and the Universities of Manchester and Newcastle demonstrated such positive outcomes, as did Ofsted’s pupil premium update, which was published last July.
Naturally, I am delighted not only that the pupil premium worked but that the new Conservative Government remain committed to maintaining it. For the current financial year, it will be £2.545 billion in total. Indeed, one in six children in the Peterborough LEA were in receipt of free school meals in 2013-14.
I accept the central premise that Ministers have prayed in aid of the pupil premium, namely that the link between free school meal eligibility and underachievement is strong. That is undoubtedly the case, but must we accept that the pupil premium cannot be a more flexible vehicle in resource allocation? Let us be clear about what the pupil premium has not addressed historically, and still does not address. There is now no de facto targeted funding for those LEAs that, by dint of their economic profile or geographical circumstances, have to accommodate and deliver the best educational outcomes on an equal statutory footing with all other LEAs to students whose principal language is not English.
The pupil premium has been reconfigured, rebooted, nuanced, reset and expanded, but regrettably it still fails to take account of the real impact of large numbers of English as an additional language pupils. With the demise of the ethnic minority achievement grant, dedicated funding has effectively been removed for EAL pupils. Such funding was rolled up into the dedicated schools grant in 2011-12 and effectively subsumed into mainstream schools funding.
Current LEA funding formulae allow for support for LEA pupils only for a maximum of three years, and the bulk of LEAs elect to fund pupils for less time than that, either 12 or 24 months. That is despite the fact that research indicates that it will take between five and seven years for EAL pupils to match the performance of peers whose first language is English.
There are national initiatives, such as the British Council’s EU-funded Nexus programme. That is good as far as it goes, but it is a national programme that cannot provide bespoke local solutions that reflect the knowledge, skills and experience of teachers, governors, parents and LEAs to deliver the most appropriate local education service.
Each LEA and each school has its own priorities. For instance, if a school was seeking to get the best outcomes for a Somali or west African child in Southwark, that would be a completely different challenge from the challenge of dealing with a Slovak or Lithuanian child in Peterborough, Boston, Wisbech or other parts of eastern England.
It is disappointing that the strong advocacy and campaigning by Westminster City Council for a cash passport system for new entrant EAL pupils has yet to result in any Government action or even, as I understand it, a commitment to investigate the efficacy of such a system in a pilot scheme. I am at a loss to understand why EAL has not featured more prominently in the analysis of the impact on results of the pupil premium by both the DFE and Ofsted since 2011.
This is not a generalist complaint about schools funding, as I am well aware that the Government are committed to rebalancing historical anomalies and unfair funding allocations by providing an extra £390 million for the least well funded education authorities in the current year, 2015-16. Also, in the interests of transparency and lest I be accused by the Minister of being churlish or ungrateful, I concede that he himself committed to Peterborough LEA an exceptional circumstances grant of £1.5 million in 2010-11 to deal with the EAL-related pressures, for which we were extremely grateful. However, that does not negate my case for a strategic and systematic appraisal of such challenges over the medium and long term, and for a focus on those LEAs that are most seriously affected by these unprecedented population pressures. The fact remains that there is effectively no provision for EAL support in pupil premium funding. EAL is only one of a number of pupil-led factors used by local authorities to top up their basic allocation per pupil within the schools block grant funding. In practical terms, such considerations are effectively crowded out by other factors, such as deprivation and prior attainment.
For a small group of LEAs, the pupil premium therefore goes only part of the way in dealing with the huge societal and demographic changes and, indeed, massive challenges they face, centred on EAL issues. Peterborough is encumbered by a vast array of such challenges. It has been described as being like a ‘London Borough without the funding largesse’. Although the number of EAL pupils in England has risen by 21% since 2011, to 1.19 million, in Peterborough it has risen by 46%, from 7,100 pupils to 10,395 pupils—the equivalent of eight new two-form entry primary schools. The largest rise in Peterborough is in primary schools in years 1, 2 and 3, where over 40% of pupils are EAL. The number has risen by 34% across the city. Nearly 70% of pupils are EAL in the primary schools in my constituency.
Two Peterborough schools, Gladstone Primary and Beeches Primary, both in the Central ward, have more than 90% of EAL pupils. In one Peterborough school, 192 pupils speak a language that is called “other than English.” The biggest increase is among Lithuanian speakers, with 410 extra pupils: a 63% increase since 2012. Change is rapid. At one secondary school in Peterborough, two years ago, 40% of year 7 pupils were EAL; the figure is now 70%.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. Given that it was based on the numbers of pupils involved, is he making a case for the reinstatement of the ethnic minority achievement grant as a way of solving the problem that he outlines?
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I will talk a bit about my experience of pupils with EAL needs in my previous job as a teacher.
Scotland has a long and rich history of multilingualism. Throughout the ages, we have had various languages running through our culture—Scots, Gaelic, Irish and English.
Kevin Brennan
I could not let that pass without pointing out to the hon. Lady that one of the finest poems in the Welsh language, “Y Gododdin”, was written in the south of Scotland in the early medieval period.
Carol Monaghan
I thank the hon. Gentleman; I will add Welsh to that list.
Over the past 20 years, we have seen an influx of people with different languages and cultures. EAL pupils have had a huge, positive impact on our schools in Glasgow. I taught in an inner-city comprehensive in Glasgow where asylum seekers and refugees were housed in the late ’90s. We had a huge number of EAL pupils, and attainment levels increased almost instantly—not only were those pupils delighted to be in school, but they had a positive effect on the native Glaswegian pupils. Throughout the school, we saw a huge benefit from EAL pupils.
The hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) talked about the impact on primary schools of large-scale immigration, in terms of teacher recruitment and attainment. I fundamentally disagree with him about attainment and I will talk more about why attainment levels benefit when there are pupils with different languages, but I agree that there is an issue with teacher recruitment. We need to be training and recruiting more teachers to support pupils with additional needs.
The Scottish Government are following the European Union with the “one plus two” languages learning policy. The “one” refers to pupils’ native tongue and the “two” to the additional languages, which could be English, French or Spanish. More and more we are seeing a rise in Gaelic-medium education; for some of those pupils, English is not their first language, so they are also getting English support. In Scotland, a lot of parents now want to send their children to Gaelic schools, and attainment levels are increasing hugely. Such pupils do not learn English until the age of seven, and by eight they have overtaken their peers in English-speaking schools.
There are huge benefits to learning two languages, and the Polish children that the hon. Member for Peterborough mentioned will have those benefits. My children attend Gaelic-medium education. Unfortunately, I have no more than pidgin Gaelic, so I cannot support them with their Gaelic education, and they speak only their native language at home, as the Polish children do. However, they are fluent in Gaelic and in English. I suggest to the hon. Gentleman that Polish pupils who go home and speak only Polish will be getting two languages, so they are being further challenged and will develop far more skills.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
It is extremely pleasant to serve under your chairmanship once again, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) again on securing the debate. He set it on fire when he spoke—at least, the fire alarm went off when he started speaking. It might be a good idea if you made representations to the House authorities and pointed out that, if they want to carry out a routine fire alarm test, they should perhaps do so when we are not debating in this Chamber. The interruption did not, however, prevent the hon. Gentleman from making a compelling case about the issues raised in his part of the country by the numbers of schoolchildren with English as an additional language.
I would like to say from the outset—this is the tone that hon. Members have adopted—that we should celebrate the diversity and cultural richness that result from immigration to the UK, as well as the undoubted benefits to education from having such a diverse population. Yes, there are obviously challenges, which we are debating, but we should not let this moment pass without celebrating the cultural diversity and richness that immigration has brought to this country for many hundreds of years.
The hon. Gentleman talked about the pupil premium. He described the practical challenges that the abolition of the ethnic minority achievement grant is beginning to cause in the system—the pressures that are coming about as a result of getting rid of that ring-fenced, pupil numbers-based approach to provision for pupils with English as an additional language. The grant might not have been perfect or perfectly targeted, but that does not take away from the fact that it was the right approach in principle to offer additional support based on pupil numbers and the challenges faced by schools in different parts of the country.
Roger Mullin (Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath) (SNP)
It has been interesting, given my background—I had some interest in doing educational research—that everyone has talked eloquently about the need for teachers and teachers’ development, with teachers being able to support pupils. Does the hon. Gentleman agree, however, that this goes beyond even the teaching profession? In Scotland, for example, we are blessed with a range of well-qualified speech and language therapists, many of whom have specialisms in dealing with pupils, particularly at the primary stages, who have multilingual assets. If we are going to support those pupils, we need to look beyond simply the teaching profession, at the specialists who surround it, who can give further support.
Kevin Brennan
I agree with the hon. Gentleman’s remarks. Of course, speech and language therapists also play a very important role in other parts of the United Kingdom. I have always believed strongly in providing services around the child, beyond the school. That was part of the children’s plan, which I was involved in drawing up under the previous Government. I recommend it to the hon. Gentleman for when he has some spare time to do some additional research, which is his background. As a researcher, he will be aware—bearing in mind some of the other comments in our debate—of Professor Steve Strand and Professor Victoria Murphy of the University of Oxford. They have done extensive research on the impact of English as an additional language in classrooms that shows that some of the lurid stories in the popular press about its having a negative impact on other children’s education are completely wrong. When we look at the evidence, we see that the contrary is the case.
The hon. Member for Peterborough made the case strongly for looking again at the need for a ring-fenced budget for EAL. I know that the Minister has a pathological dislike of anything that is ring-fenced or that directs schools to act in a particular manner, and an almost religious faith that they will always do the right thing in any circumstances, but there is a case, which the hon. Gentleman made out, to look at the matter again. I hope that the Minister will set aside his usual dislike of these things and look at it with an open mind. The hon. Gentleman quoted the Minister’s words at the end of last night’s debate. Fine words are all very well, but ultimately we have to will the means in order for a policy to have an impact. There must be a transmission mechanism for a policy to translate into action on the ground. Unless we will the means and unless the Government take a lead, the problem will continue to grow, because the budget system in place does not give an incentive or the necessary direction to ensure that resources are spent in this area.
The hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) spoke today, and I again congratulate her on her maiden speech last night. I am sorry that the early hour at which the winding-up speeches started meant that I was not able to do so with her present. That was not her fault. It was an entirely unexpected development.
Carol Monaghan
Actually, I was there. It was my hon. Friend the Member for Kilmarnock and Loudoun (Alan Brown) who was not. I enjoyed the hon. Gentleman’s winding-up speech.
Kevin Brennan
I apologise to the hon. Lady. Clearly, my memory is going if I cannot even remember what happened last evening. I do remember her very fine maiden speech and I again congratulate her on it. She pointed out today the benefits to attainment of having more than one language. I completely agree, not least as my own daughter attended a Welsh medium school and benefited greatly, as I did; my Welsh improved greatly as a result of her attendance at that school. The hon. Lady pointed out that the Gaelic language is predominant in parts of Scotland, including the constituency of her hon. Friend the Member for Na h-Eileanan an Iar (Mr MacNeil), who often reminds us of that in the main Chamber. As she pointed out, English as an additional language need be no hindrance; in fact, it can be the opposite and be of great benefit to educational attainment.
As of June 2015, 1.2 million children in England—17.2% of all pupils—had a first language other than English. Until April 2011, as we have heard, the ethnic minority achievement grant, which was set up originally in 1999, provided funding based on the numbers of children from underachieving ethnic minority groups and of pupils with English as an additional language. In 2011, that grant amounted to about £200 million of support across the country. Now, that has been absorbed into the school grant; and as ever when these things are absorbed, somehow or other some money falls from the table. Ultimately, the amount of money in the direct schools grant may or may not reflect that funding, but certainly schools can now receive additional money for pupils with English as an additional language from their local authority and school forums. School forums decide at local level whether any school receives an EAL factor to its funding because of the number of those pupils. The minimum funding from the Government in the 2015-16 school year was £466 for primary and £1,130 for secondary. That is what they have identified would need to be spent.
The problem is that there is no compulsion for local authorities to include an EAL factor in their funding, nor for the value of that to be at the minimum level or above. The Government’s funding rules stipulate that a factor can be paid only for the first three years of compulsory schooling with respect to the pupil with English as an additional language. That is an odd stipulation, given the Government’s professed desire to allow schools to decide at local level what the best thing to do is. I hope that the Minister can explain why that rule is still in place.
Academy schools, of course, receive their funding via the Education Funding Agency, which uses the same funding formula as the local authority, so funding levels for children mirror those for neighbouring maintained schools. However, there is considerable variation among local authorities when it comes to EAL funding. Under this system, if we can call it a system, there is no accountability mechanism whatever for schools’ use of that funding, which essentially means that schools are not obliged to use the funding to meet the needs of pupils with English as an additional language.
There is a very interesting report by the Education Endowment Foundation, and this is a point of agreement between me and the Minister for Schools, although with regard to last night’s debate, perhaps he should be renamed the Academies Minister, as maintained schools never get a mention or any praise whatever from the Government in speeches in the House. Perhaps he will correct that in the future. There is one point of agreement between us, which is that the Education Endowment Foundation is a very good initiative. The Government have provided support to it, and we support that provision because in a sense the foundation is the beginnings of what I talked about last night—a NICE for education, a national institute of clear evidence, as I called it.
The Education Endowment Foundation looks at the research evidence on what works in education policy. That is extremely welcome, as so much of education policy seems to be based on think-tank quackery. The foundation’s report on English as an additional language is very interesting. One of its key findings was that the attainment of pupils with English as an additional language varies widely. At the end of reception, only 44% of EAL pupils are recorded as having achieved a good level of development, compared with 54% of non-EAL pupils. The gap narrows considerably, as we would expect, by the age of 16, when 58.3% of EAL pupils achieve five A* to C GCSEs, compared with 60.9% of non-EAL pupils; by some measures, EAL pupils do better, particularly in mathematics. However, that masks, as the report interestingly points out, the huge range of outcomes within that for different groups of EAL pupils. That makes sense, because there will be a very big difference between an EAL pupil who is the son or daughter of a French banker living in London and some of the pupils whom the hon. Member for Peterborough described, who do not have the same sorts of advantages when they go to school for the first time in this country.
In addition, the report points out that certain factors determine whether pupils are significantly more likely to underachieve. One is entry to England from abroad during a key stage at school. Such EAL pupils tend to be about a year behind their non-EAL peers. Changing school during a key stage is a significant factor. The report says:
“Students joining their primary school in Y5/6 have lower achievement than those joining in Y3/4.”
Being from particular ethnic minority groups also has an impact on pupil outcomes, with a particular impact on speakers of Somali, Lingala and Lithuanian at the age of 16. The report also finds:
“Almost half of schools with a majority of EAL pupils are located outside London.”
That emphasises the hon. Gentleman’s point that we should not simply think of this as an issue affecting London. The report also points out:
“High proportions of EAL pupils in a school do not have a negative impact on the attainment and progress of other pupils.”
It is useful to have research evidence, and the other evidence I quoted earlier, confirming that that myth is incorrect.
Carol Monaghan
The hon. Gentleman says that the presence of a high proportion of EAL pupils does not have a negative impact on other pupils, but my experience is that it has an extremely positive impact on other pupils. In fact, the presence of such pupils in their class gives other students something to aim for because they can see a different way of working, which is a huge advantage.
Kevin Brennan
That is my experience, but I am quoting the academic research to get us into the habit of using evidence to make education policy, which is something that has disappeared in recent years. The Education Endowment Foundation report backs up the research I quoted earlier from the University of Oxford. It says:
“the percentage of EAL students in the school had minimal association with student attainment or progress when controls for student background were included.”
EAL students obviously bring richness and cultural diversity, and they do so without affecting attainment.
As a result of its research, the Education Endowment Foundation makes certain recommendations. The Minister will be intimately aware of the details of the research, being briefed so well by his excellent civil servants and, as he is likely to have a bit of time, I hope that he will respond to those recommendations. The first recommendation is that schools should be accountable for showing attainment impact. It says:
“Schools should be held accountable for how their EAL funding contributes to improving pupil attainment”.
Schools are held accountable for the pupil premium in the same way, as the hon. Member for Peterborough said earlier. If schools are to be held accountable for how they spend the pupil premium, surely there should be a way to hold them accountable for how they use public money provided for the specific purpose of helping pupils with English as an additional language. Even if schools are not told exactly how many pennies they have to spend in their particular location, surely there should be some way in which they can be held accountable for whether they are doing what that public money is intended for. The recommendation continues:
“Although the report finds that where EAL pupils have attended English schools for the whole of a key stage they make greater progress than non-EAL pupils, and indeed that by age 16 they have caught up…this reflects a long history of considerable additional funding being directed to address language learning needs.”
Considerable under-attainment by specific groups might be masked by that general finding, so the Government need to listen to that recommendation.
The report’s second recommendation clearly follows from the first. It is that:
“EAL funding should be targeted at those most at risk of under-attainment.”
Again, the problem is that the current definition of EAL does not reflect a student’s proficiency in the English language or their exposure to it at home. Schools need to hone how they identify the language and learning needs of children within the EAL category to ensure that funds are targeted at those who most need them, and the Government should do the same because they are able to identify those parts of the country where that is a particular problem. The Minister should reflect on that and consider what action should be taken.
Obviously, the three-year cap on the availability of additional support might be more than some pupils need because of the factors associated with how proficient they are likely to become in the English language, including their home life and background, whereas other pupils are likely to need considerably more than three years. The research evidence clearly shows that it will take longer than the three years of allocated funding for some pupils, which is why I do not understand the Government’s rigidity about the three-year rule when, philosophically, they seem to be in favour of being more flexible about funding. There is a strong case for additional funding to be made available to schools with such EAL pupils to ensure that they are able to achieve their full potential. Professor Strand’s report states:
“Fluency in English is…the biggest factor influencing the degree of support an individual student will require, and schools need to be able to assess this need accurately using their own procedures and expertise.”
The third major finding of the Education Endowment Foundation report is that:
“More research is needed into the best strategies to improve outcomes for EAL pupils… there is a lack of robust research evidence on effective approaches and interventions to raise the attainment of EAL pupils. There were no…randomised controlled trials or studies where the effectiveness of the intervention was evaluated by an independent review team.”
More research certainly needs to be done, and I hope that the Minister will tell us his view on that. Is the Department helping to facilitate, undertake or fund research to ensure that such public resources as are being allocated to this are getting to the right pupils and are having the correct impact?
Mr Jackson
I have no wish to be disobliging towards the hon. Gentleman, but he says that there is not enough research into the impact of EAL on educational attainment, yet earlier he blithely agreed with the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) that EAL pupils, of themselves, are a good thing vis-à-vis the educational attainment of non-EAL children. He cannot have it both ways. Either there is robust, empirical evidence to support the former or he is right on the latter. It cannot be both.
Kevin Brennan
The hon. Gentleman is never disobliging. I will examine the record very carefully. I think what I have said throughout this debate has been internally consistent, but I will check my earlier comments in case I have contradicted myself. If I have done so, I will give myself a good talking to later on, but I think I have been consistent in saying that such research as there is indicates that EAL pupils do not have a negative impact on others in the classroom. The third conclusion, which he attributed to me but is actually the conclusion of the Education Endowment Foundation—a body funded by the Government to provide us with such research—is that more research is needed into the best strategies to improve outcomes for pupils with EAL.
What assessment have the Government made of the disparities in EAL pupil achievement, and what are they doing to help such at-risk children? What are the Government doing to address the facts that EAL pupils entering school in years 5 and 6 do not achieve as well as EAL pupils entering school in years 3 and 4, and that children entering school from abroad during a key stage are, on average, 12 months behind their non-EAL peers? What are the Government doing to encourage and support better research into these issues, which affect more than 1 million children? Will the Government consider more generally the impact of bilingual education? The hon. Member for Glasgow North West mentioned the experience from across the United Kingdom. There is obviously experience in Scotland and Wales, and there are the beginnings of such education in Northern Ireland, too. Given the Minister’s support for free schools and so on, is he still rigidly opposed to bilingualism in schools? That has been the Government’s position until now, but I understand that that opposition may be decreasing, provided that it is one of their favoured free schools advocating bilingual education. What is the Government’s current position on bilingual education, and has it changed?
Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I gently remind him that under the new rules, Mr Jackson gets a second go, so will he be kind enough to conclude his remarks no later than 10.57 am.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve again under you, although even your powerful chairmanship was unable to stop a disembodied voice from engaging in our debate; I will be interested to see how Hansard reports an unelected person taking part. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough (Mr Jackson) on securing this important debate and on his excellent speech. As always, he campaigns effectively and argues coherently and persuasively for the interests of his constituency and constituents.
The Government are committed to social justice, as my hon. Friend, who supports and campaigns for it himself, acknowledges. That means that we want all pupils to achieve their full potential, including those with English as an additional language. However, I understand the challenges faced by local authorities such as Peterborough in delivering that objective.
The definition of English as an additional language is broad. It reflects pupils’ exposure to a language other than English at home, but it gives no indication of their proficiency in English. Some may use English as their everyday language and be fluent in it, while others may be new to Britain and speak very little English. The percentage of pupils in England recorded as having English as an additional language more than doubled between 1997 and 2013, from 7.6% to 16.2%, with enormous variation across the country. In the south-west, only 6% of pupils have EAL, compared with 56% in inner London.
There is also a great deal of variation between individual schools. At more than half of schools, fewer than 5% of pupils have EAL, but 8% of schools have a majority of such pupils. The evidence shows, as other hon. Members have said, that although pupils with EAL face disadvantages early in their school careers, they are not at a significant long-term disadvantage on average. Again, however, attainment levels vary. As the hon. Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) pointed out, swift on the heels of her excellent maiden speech last night, learning two or three languages aids educational attainment—not just in languages, but in other subjects too. We must ensure that we support all children to achieve their full potential and overcome barriers to success, whatever those barriers are. We must also recognise that some communities with high numbers of pupils with EAL face particular challenges. I welcome my hon. Friend’s focus on the issue.
At the beginning of schooling, the average performance of pupils who speak English as a second language is significantly lower than the average for all pupils, but it significantly improves by the end of key stage 4. The latest data show that about 67% of EAL pupils achieved five or more good GCSE grades A* to C, compared with about 66% of all pupils. There are examples of local authorities with very high proportions of EAL pupils that perform well against national averages for attainment. In Newham, for example, where 76% of pupils at KS2 have EAL, 83% of pupils achieved the expected levels in reading, writing and maths at that stage. That exceeds the national average of 79% for all KS2 pupils. In fact, in 2013-14, of the 18 local authorities where more than half of pupils at key stage 2 had EAL, all but two had attainment levels above the national average for all pupils.
I remember visiting Fulbridge academy in 2011; I have remembered it ever since. I was struck by the fact that it was the first school that I had visited that year where all the primary school pupils whom I tested on their multiplication tables knew them. The rate has increased steadily over the years since then, but I was struck by that particular primary school visit, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Peterborough for taking me there.
Unfortunately, EAL pupils do not perform that well across the whole country. Although 79% of EAL pupils in Westminster achieve five or more good GCSE grades A* to C, only 50% of EAL pupils in Bradford achieve the same. The disparity in the quality of education available to pupils in different parts of the country has driven us to reform the school system. We have taken steps to ensure that every child, regardless of their particular needs or background, has a greater opportunity of attaining well at school than before 2010. There are now more than 1 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools. We have intervened in more than 1,000 weak and failing schools and are delivering improvements in performance by matching them with academy sponsors. Those academies have transformed the life chances of thousands of pupils.
King Solomon academy is one example. It is an all-through school sponsored by Ark Schools. More than half the pupils are eligible for free school meals, and 65% do not have English as a first language. In its report last year, Ofsted found the school to be outstanding, stating:
“Achievement is outstanding at all key stages. All groups of pupils, including those who have special educational needs, make excellent progress. The academy is working to provide even greater challenge to the most-able pupils.”
Kevin Brennan
I join the Minister in congratulating the academy on that achievement. Can he bring himself, for once, to praise a maintained school that has improved its performance?
Mr Gibb
I will come to that in my own good time. We are unapologetic about taking Labour policy by turning underperforming schools into sponsored academies. What I cannot understand is the ambiguity of Labour’s current position on the academies programme. It has proven highly effective in raising standards, and all we hear from the Labour party is carping and criticism of the policy, which began life under Lord Adonis during the last Labour Government.
Mr Gibb
There are many maintained schools. I hesitate because 60% of secondary schools are now academies, so schools that I remember as maintained schools may well have converted. Good and outstanding schools throughout the country are rushing to convert to academy status. Many of them performed extremely well as maintained schools run by local authorities, and they are performing well now as academies.