Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Davies of Brixton Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 27th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath (Lab)]

My Lords, I have two amendments in this group and support my noble friends Lady Chapman and Lady Morris in their Amendments 171H and 171U. I have seen at first hand the huge value of the Birmingham Education Partnership, which my noble friend Lady Morris has led, and the impact that it has had on schools. On this issue of who in education can talk to some of the other sectors, the Minister will know that my principal interest is in health. I have mentioned a couple of times, particularly in relation to mental health, the need for the education sector to have a strong voice around the table of the new integrated care partnerships and integrated care boards that the health service has now established. I do not know who in education in Birmingham will do that, unless we have my noble friend, and have the Government recognising that it has a very valuable role to play. I hope that the Minister will consider this between now and Report, whenever that is—perhaps she will say when Report will be, though I am not hopeful of that.

Turning to my Amendments 171T and 171W, earlier in Committee we had a lot of debate about academisation and the role of parents in schools. Many noble Lords referred to what I can only describe as the chaotic nature of the admissions system to secondary schools, particularly when it comes to academies, where parents are faced with multiple application forms and details of schools. This is bewildering to them and not in the best interests of children. My amendments are an opportunity to strengthen the rights of parents and to increase the public accountability of schools by setting out straightforward, practical changes, to simplify the confusing system of redress that is currently faced by parents and carers if they raise concerns about their child’s education. I am very grateful to my noble friends Lord Davies and Lady Blower for their support, and to my noble friend Lady Chapman for what she said in her introductory remarks, particularly in relation to the admissions system.

The changes that I am proposing can be delivered easily and at low cost, through the logical extensions to the existing remit of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman. My noble friend Lady Morris has said that the principle is important and that who does it is a secondary consideration. I accept that, but the Local Government Ombudsman has an important role to play, having had a tried and tested mechanism to remedy public complaints and to improve local services for nearly 50 years. The ombudsman’s remit already includes many education and school-related matters.

My Amendment 171T would enable parents to seek an independent investigation into complaints about admissions to academies if they think that their child has been wrongly denied access to their preferred choice of school. Prior to the introduction of academies, parents had the right to bring complaints about defects in school admissions processes to the local ombudsman. Over many years, this has been a robust system. Indeed, the ombudsman published one of its regular reports just last week, highlighting shortcomings in the admissions process at a popular and oversubscribed school in Surrey. Its intervention resulted in a fresh appeal for the pupil involved and an undertaking from the school to review and improve its system for others in future. It is a practical, transparent and proportionate system that has been proven to work well for parents, pupils, and schools.

However, since the introduction of academies—and we are on a pathway to full academisation by 2030—the complaints process for school admissions has become increasingly disjointed. Although complaints about admissions to maintained and voluntary-aided schools continue to be investigated by the ombudsman, complaints about academy admissions must be addressed to the Education and Skills Funding Agency, a body which does not have the same powers, purpose or independence as the ombudsman. This means that, in practice, parents with concerns about one of their most important decisions regarding their child’s education are potentially faced with navigating two entirely different complaints systems through two entirely different bodies. This amendment will remove this needless complexity by bringing academy and free-school admissions within the single scope of the ombudsman, and we can restore the previous one-stop arrangements for parents and carers.

Amendment 171W proposes an equally practical but perhaps an even more important extension to the rights of parents and pupils: the right to complain about what goes on within the school itself. It is remarkable that schools are one of the only public services in this country for which there is no completely independent right of complaint and redress. People have a statutory right of access to an independent investigation into complaints about their local council, the police, the Armed Forces, the health service, universities, and central government departments, but not about schools.

There is an in-house schools investigation service that operates within the Minister’s department, and which looks at complaints about local authority-maintained schools. There is also a separate academy complaints service run by the ESFA. However, these services are limited in their scope. They are mainly responsible for checking whether schools have followed the required complaints procedure. They do not carry out a fresh investigation into the substance of the issue that was complained about. They do not come to an independent view on whether there has been fault, and they cannot provide a remedy for parents or pupils.

I am not critical of the staff who carry out the current arrangements. However, those arrangements fall a long way short of the rights and redress available in most comparable sectors. My amendment would provide a comprehensive and genuinely independent schools complaints service simply by extending the functions of the ombudsman. It is important to note that this is not a novel or untried proposition. This is a role that the Northern Ireland Public Services Ombudsman already performs with great success. It is a duty that was previously piloted by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman in England under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. Unfortunately, the 2010 election intervened, and the function was not implemented, but it was thoroughly tested at that time in schools across 14 local authority areas.

There is support from the Commons Education Committee for an extension to the ombudsman’s remit so that it might look more effectively at the support given in schools to children with special educational needs. If that is right, and if the committee is right, if it makes sense to extend that to SEND children, then surely it makes sense to extend it to all children in all schools, whatever category. I very much hope that the Minister can consider this.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I support these amendments, particularly Amendments 171T and 171W, to which I have added my name. The case has been set out extremely clearly by my noble friend Lord Hunt, but it is worth emphasising the logic of the proposed change.

To a parent faced with one of the most difficult decisions in relation to their child—choosing a secondary school—it is incumbent on us to make that process as simple and as clear as possible. Unfortunately, because of how the system has developed, that is currently not the case. We have the extraordinary circumstances that in some local authorities the appeals system for academies is run jointly with the local authority. A parent may have applied to a maintained school and to an academy and been dissatisfied with the result but then discover that there is one system of appeal for the maintained school and another system of appeal for the academy, which cannot make sense.

It is reasonable to propose that the ombudsman has considerable experience in the tried and tested process of reviewing problems with school choice. My noble friend said that who should do the job is not an issue of principle, but the ombudsman is there and has been doing this work. It would be wrong to make the system of appealing against school decisions out of line with the generality. If people have a complaint, they should know where to go and should not have the barrier of figuring out which is the appropriate appeal body. There is considerable justification for allocating it to the ombudsman but, if another proposal were to come forward from the Government, we would have to consider it seriously.

The point has been made that the ombudsman currently cannot make judgments on issues within the school gates: it can if it is a local authority issue but, if it is within the school gates, it has no right to pursue an issue on behalf of concerned parents. Again, this cannot make sense. This is a public service. We need a proper system of review by an independent body.

I spent a bit of time trying to discover the argument behind dropping the provision in the 2009 Act, which provided for the ombudsman. Could the Minister enlighten us and explain why it was taken out in the Education Act 2011? It appeared to be a case of the Minister wanting not to lose power to an ombudsman. On balance, I think that the Committee would prefer the ombudsman to make this sort of decision as opposed to it being a matter for the Minister. I am sure that parents would prefer to have an independent expert body looking at the issue, whether the ombudsman or some other body.

I strongly support the amendments and hope that the Minister can give a helpful response.

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a brief intervention. I agree with what the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Davies, said about the ombudsman. A process is being proposed; if you extend the ombudsman’s remit, you have the advantage of a process that is understandable to those who might wish to make a complaint. I very much hope that the Minister might be willing to look at how an amendment could be phrased, perhaps by the Government or by all-party agreement, on Report. That might bring us to a solution on how those who want to make a complaint can be assisted because, as the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, just said, it would be better if this were done by someone who is perceived to be independent than by the Minister.

The other half of the group relates to partnership boards. Noble Lords explained why there are two amendments, Amendments 171H and 171U. When I read the amendments, I much preferred the one from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, partly because it is quicker: it would force the Government to do something practical very quickly, which is to produce the guidance. The truth is that the two amendments could be brought together. As the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, said, we should have a culture of partnership rather than competition and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, we need a one-stop shop to fill the gap between the groups of schools. All that seems eminently logical and would therefore have my support.

Previously in Committee, I talked about partnerships between schools and FE. Of course, there is the potential for greater partnership working with the independent sector as well. How all that is brought together seems to be of fundamental importance. The whole concept of working education partnership boards is very important to a local area. Again, I hope that the Minister will be agreeable to finding ways in which this could all be brought together through all-party agreement to ensure that there is this local focus created by education partnership boards.