Education Bill

Lord Elton Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief comment and ask a question. I have some sympathy with the amendment. When I first saw it I thought that it was perhaps overprescriptive, but having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Low, I have sympathy with it. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill we have understandably heard a lot from the Government about not putting heavy regulatory burdens on schools. Given that that is the direction in which we are going, it is obvious that at some point in the system there should be a fair amount of regulation—otherwise the system collapses and no-one would know what is going on. My understanding from the teaching schools—of which I am a great supporter and I hope that they do very well—is that this is one of those areas where the Government have accepted that there will have to be a lot of monitoring and a fair amount of regulation. You can see that by looking at the criteria for a teaching school. For instance, a head has to have been in post for three years—a matter with which I have always quibbled in my mind. However, I am not going to quibble with it because I accept that this is one of those bits of the education system that the Government really will have to keep their eyes on.

I can therefore see the argument, given that one of the great weaknesses in our education system is the quality of training for SEN that teachers get, that there is never enough time in initial teacher training to do that adequately. It is not properly covered in the induction year—it did not happen when I was in power and there has not been much improvement since. There is a genuine problem and I am persuaded by what the noble Lord says—these are the areas where these institutions need to be properly regulated. Losing this opportunity, which we should seize to raise the standards of teaching those with special needs, would be again to commit the mistake that we have all committed through the years, which is to pass legislation and then in future years see how we can tag SEN on to it. That has been a huge fault of government for decades. We put something in place and a few months later think, “Ah, how can we make this relate to SEN?”.

My question is this—how many schools designated teaching schools have not been awarded an “outstanding” category by Ofsted? What is that overlap, and how many schools not in that category have applied to become teaching schools? Perhaps the Minister can provide a little analysis of the comparison between schools which have been awarded the “outstanding” category as a result of inspections and those that are “outstanding” in SEN.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, regarding the legislation passed in the previous Session, which enabled and made necessary the identification of people suffering from dyslexia and that group of disabilities, it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us to what extent the number presenting themselves as suffering from these disabilities has increased. That would give us an idea of the workload.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, again, I rise briefly to support the noble Lord’s amendment. Like my noble friend, when I originally read the amendment, I thought that it was self-evident. However, the more I have looked at it and listened to the debate this afternoon, the more it seems to me that, once all the other elements have been stripped out of the legislation and the provisions, we increasingly rely on Ofsted as the final fallback to guarantee standards.

The noble Lord, Lord Low, is right to say that if we are not careful SEN provision will be swept under the carpet and will not be seen as a major factor in provision within schools. Looking at this issue in the context of some of the other amendments that we will debate this afternoon, with the new emphasis on PRUs and alternative academy provision, if we are not careful there will, whether the Government had intended it or not, be a move to take a lot of pupils with specialist needs out of mainstream education into other provision, and the expertise that goes with it will be lost.

Therefore, the noble Lord’s amendment is helpful. It would be reassuring to have it in the Bill, and it would reassure people who see mainstream schools as having an essential responsibility to provide SEN provision and to make sure that it is high quality and high class. It would also reassure people about the intent in the other sections of the Bill.

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[Lord Elton]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness press the Minister a little more on the necessity of having two different sorts of people doing that kind of inspection?

[Baroness Brinton]

I am grateful for the intervention of my noble friend Lord Elton. The key point that I was trying to make earlier is that inspections under CSCI were clearly about welfare, as opposed those of the old-style Ofsted—if I can call it that—which were clearly about education. They require different professionals with different attitudes. It might be possible in some circumstances to run the inspections side by side, as has happened in local government, where there has been a plethora of inspections. However, the inspections are not the same, because they look at different things with different people. I should be grateful if the Minister would write to me on that point as well. I shall not continue my opposition to Clause 42 standing part at this stage, but will look forward to the Minister’s responses before Report.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Low. Indeed, it is strongly reinforced by other experts in the field. It is clearly unacceptable for there not to be any method of redress for parents of children who are not having their needs met. Children taken into care have been given a lot of attention and it very much looks as though they will be a high priority for school placements and so on. That is right and proper because they are firmly the responsibility of the state. However, that does not mean that there should not be an equal method of appeal for those who fall into a lesser category of concern.

I am very impressed by the Local Government Ombudsman, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has clearly been. I am certainly not going to complain because it is part of a government department, but it is equally important that it has local knowledge and can understand local situations.

Therefore, I hope that we shall hear that the Minister has a very definite concern about what he has heard and that he will be taking away the whole matter and coming back with something more positive on Report.

[Lord Elton]

Because my noble friend Lord Lucas is praying in aid, I think I should say that I found his speech persuasive. I was expecting the Minister to remind us that in effect the Secretary of State is no such person and that, when a complaint is made to him, someone quite different, more junior and perhaps more approachable manifests himself or herself. However, if that is not how the system works and if the only way to get a personal, sympathetic hearing is through the local ombudsman, I am very interested in hearing it.

For years I have been concerned about bullying in schools and about the extent to which the psychology of it is not understood. I know of children who do not feel that they can report that they are being bullied for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they think they should not be in that position. They think that they will be letting their parents down and they do not tell them about it at all. So when they go to the parent and the parent cannot get an answer, and the great strong arm of mother or father is unable to protect the child, a further blow is given to that child’s confidence and its very home base is under threat. I was somewhat moved by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Low, and was greatly concerned by what my noble friend said. I hope that the Minister will be able to give substantial reassurance on this issue before we get to Report.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I should like to bring in the point of view of parents because many of them do not know who to complain to. I recently came across a case of a mother whose son was excluded. He was bullied at school and the SEN provision at that school was not particularly good, but because he was bullied he responded and got excluded. The mother thought that he was being treated unfairly but did not know who she should complain to. She wrote to her MP and me, and I could not tell her the best route to take. We therefore have to consider educating parents on who they need to complain to, and I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Low.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, we know that at any one time around 40,000 to 70,000 pupils are in some form of alternative provision. We know that there is an iron-clad correlation between those who are excluded, those who attend alternative provision, those who come into the youth justice system and those who go on to offend and reoffend in their adult lives. No one here accepts that it has to be like that. Alternative provision should provide an opportunity to support more young people to turn their lives around. That is why we are taking a number of steps to help to achieve this, including the changes in Clause 49. The Secretary of State has asked the department’s behaviour adviser, Charlie Taylor, to conduct a review to identify what further changes may be needed.

We are keen to give PRUs more of the freedoms that other schools enjoy to allow the professionals who run them to drive their own improvement. This clause will allow PRUs to manage their own budgets in a similar way to mainstream schools. Through regulations we are also giving PRU management committees powers over staffing similar to those that school governing bodies already have. Professionals working in PRUs have welcomed these changes.

In addition to these freedoms, our exclusions trials, in which schools will retain responsibility for excluded pupils, will assess how a new approach to managing exclusions could contribute to improving standards in alternative provision. I hope that this point answers a number of concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. If schools retain responsibility for the education and outcomes of excluded pupils, PRUs and AP providers will need to be more responsive to demand from schools for high-quality education. That should help to deal with the perception, raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that there are perverse incentives. We do not want perverse incentives for schools to exclude. We want, as I know she does, the right kind of provision to be made in a way that is suitable for individual children. By allowing for the creation of alternative provision academies and free schools, we also aim to bring the benefits of the academies and free schools programmes to the alternative provision sector.

Turning to Amendment 124A, I agree with the noble Baroness that returning a child to a mainstream school as soon as possible is, in most cases, the best thing for a pupil attending alternative provision. Like her, I do not want alternative provision to be seen as a dumping ground where children are put out of sight and out of mind. We know that some of the best PRUs have a strong focus on reintegration. They constantly monitor and review when it is appropriate for a pupil to be supported to return to mainstream education. We want to see all AP providers, including alternative provision academies and free schools, learning from this kind of good practice. However, in some cases it is possible that a longer period in alternative provision may be appropriate. For example, continuity can be important at key stage 4. A young person whose education has been disrupted or who has become disengaged might benefit from a longer period in AP, especially if they are responding well to this provision. Therefore, we argue, as the noble Baroness predicted, that professionals managing and delivering alternative provision, including in AP academies and free schools, are best placed to make judgments about the best time for a pupil to return to mainstream education. There should not be an arbitrary cut-off date that cannot take account of individual circumstances or that would trump the judgment of professionals who know the needs of pupils in their care.

My noble friend raised points about funding and her desire to make sure that academies and free schools are funded on a comparable basis. As she pointed out, PRUs are centrally funded within the local authority’s dedicated schools grant. When a maintained school converts to academy status, no funding for PRUs is taken from the local authority’s DSG and the academy receives no additional funding for this function. Therefore, maintained schools and academies are on the same footing in this respect. If a pupil is excluded permanently from a maintained school or an academy, the local authority is responsible for securing suitable education for them. Schools—maintained schools and academies—are responsible for securing full-time education for a pupil from the sixth day of a fixed-term exclusion. Some providers of alternative provision also provide early intervention places for pupils with behavioural issues. Local authorities and schools can agree between them how places in PRUs may be made available for pupils who are the responsibility of schools. This would include if and how the authority would charge schools for places, and we would expect them to do that on an equitable basis for all schools. With regard to safeguards on referrals by schools, I set out the position in detail in my letter of 8 September.

On the government amendments, I recognise the concerns that the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, raised about the powers contained in Clause 53. They allow us to make changes to primary and secondary legislation that we think are needed in consequence of the creation of new types of academy under Clause 52. In the light of the concerns expressed in the other place, we have drafted and tabled as many of the amendments to primary legislation as we can, and I have written to try to explain those amendments in detail.

These are complex legislative issues and I concede that we have not resolved them all. We think that we need to take a residual power to amend primary and secondary legislation by order. The exercise of that power is subject to the affirmative procedure, so both Houses of Parliament would have the chance to debate the legislation when an order was laid. There is a precedent for taking this approach—there is a much broader power to make consequential amendments in Section 265 of the previous Government’s Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009.

In addition, we have tabled minor amendments to Clause 52 of the Bill. Amendments 123A and 123B amend new Section 1A so that an academy school cannot be an alternative provision academy. Further amendments give the Secretary of State flexibility to apply legislation to this diverse sector.

Overall, as is the case for the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, we are keen to ensure that alternative provision meets the needs of the vulnerable children that it serves. It is important that funding should be on an equitable basis. With some of the assurances that I have given about the changes we are making, the funding and the Government’s intentions, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Elton]

I ask my noble friend for a little footnote to history. In checking the affirmative order provided for in Clause 74(4), I see that, whereas we have only an affirmative procedure for statutory instruments affecting these changes, the Welsh have opted for their equivalent for the negative procedure. I wondered what the history to that was. I do not want an answer now but, if there is anything of interest in it, I should like to know what it is.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister briefly for his clear recognition of what happens if we do not get this right: we have children whose parents have not been able to care for them properly, for whatever reason, feeling unwanted in their schools, being put in a place that they feel is like some sort of bin and then ending up in the secure estate. There is a great deal at stake here and getting it right is very complex. Some children benefit from a smaller environment.

One does not want all the worst children in one place; some of them need to be a bit healthier. The last time that I visited a pupil referral unit, there was a fire alarm and we all had to file out to stand outside. It was the third time that day that this had happened, and it was chaos. The staff were good but it was a very difficult environment to work in. I welcome the Minister’s action on this.

I am very pleased that Charlie Taylor, whom we have met and in whom we all have confidence, is taking charge in this area. I wonder whether any noble Lords might be interested in visiting a pupil referral unit with him soon to see what is going on. I certainly would be, and I will get in touch with him about that.