Cadet Units in Schools
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(11 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Lingfield
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to promote more cadet units in schools.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, will Members making speeches limited to four minutes please sit down as soon as the Clock reads four, and preferably a few seconds before. Thank you.
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I begin by declaring an interest as the chairman of a charity, CVQO, the Cadet Vocational Qualification Organisation, an appointment in which I was proud to succeed Admiral West—the noble Lord, Lord West of Spithead. The Combined Cadet Force has a long and honourable history. It finds its roots in the rifle volunteer battalions for home defence which, in the early 1860s, acquired some school units. They numbered 90 by the beginning of the Great War. By 1938, that number had doubled. During the Second World War, Royal Navy and RAF sections were added, and shortly after the war they were combined into the Combined Cadet Force. Her Majesty the Queen became its Captain General early in her reign. Today, we have about 46,000 cadets in 260 schools and there are about 2,800 adult instructors and officers
In 2008, I and other supporters of cadets—I was an honorary colonel at the time—were very pleased indeed when Gordon Brown revealed his plans to increase the number of cadet units in state secondary schools. In May last year, David Cameron announced the cadet expansion programme, which was planned to deliver another 100 cadet school units by September this year. It was with dismay, therefore, that we received the news in July that the MoD proposed that funding as it currently happens should cease and that, indeed—presumably to pay for those new units to be created—the cadet grant should end next September; that the year after that, remuneration for cadet officers and other adults should end; and that the year after that, a government charge of £75 per cadet should be made and should double the year after that.
The consultation which followed suggested that about 60% of schools with cadet corps would not be able to continue them, leading to a loss of probably half to two-thirds of the current number of cadets. It was clear that the department had failed to take into account the fact that schools already contribute considerable resources to cadets and that further funds from their general expenditure would not be possible. That was not where the Prime Minister’s initiative was meant to lead.
It was with pleasure, therefore, that I received a letter on 10 December from the noble Lord, Lord Astor of Hever, from the MoD, which said that those proposals would not go forward and that funding as currently conceived would continue and would extend to the new school cadets. That was very good news indeed, as was the news that I heard later that the schools expansion programme was on time and back on track and that we have about 60 new schools ready to open their cadet corps in September, with another 50-odd in the pipeline. That was good news, as was the cadet bursary fund, of which I know that the Minister is himself a great supporter. That is meant to support the expansion of cadets, and to raise £8 million over the next four years. I would be grateful if the Minister would indicate, when he replies, where that fund is and the prognosis for the future.
If last July’s proposals were indeed misconceived, the MoD was right to subject cadet funding to some scrutiny. That was absolutely proper. Cadets cost annually about £160 million, of which £28 million is spent on school cadets, with the rest going on cadets in the community—the Army Cadet Force, the Air Training Corps and the Sea Cadets. We have to ask ourselves: are they worth it? Are those sums of money justified? In my view, they certainly are.
Not very long ago, I was speaking at a national competition to a young man from one of our northern cities. He was badged as a guardsman and dressed in the scarlet of a drum major. It became clear during our conversation that he had left school with just one poor GCSE and had had a little intermittent work since, cleaning cars. It was also clear that his cadet unit—with its regular attendance, discipline, uniform, and its opportunity for leadership skills and for taking BTEC and other qualifications, which he had started to do—was the only way that he could show any self-worth at all and gain any self-esteem. He said to me, “If it hadn’t been for the cadets, it would be drugs and trouble for me”, and he was beginning to do well.
Stories such as that are legion, and they tend to suggest that every penny we spend on cadets is worth while and could save money in other areas of public expenditure. My own organisation, the CVQO, puts thousands of cadets each year through BTECs and other similar diplomas. They acquire at the same time those life competences of punctuality and a can-do attitude. They are most likely then to go into work and on to higher vocational qualifications. They are less likely to be NEETs or benefit claimants, or indeed to encounter the youth justice system. It is also not too far-fetched to say that the NHS saves money from cadets, because they tend to be healthier, fitter and less obese. Certainly, they make good recruits to the Armed Forces, in both the Regular Forces and the Reserve Forces. There is also some indication that in later lives they are more inclined towards volunteering in their communities. However, all that is anecdotal. We seriously require a study of the social impact of cadets and of their value for money. I very much hope that the Minister will indicate whether such a study might be possible.
Finally, I mention another excellent government scheme, the military ethos in schools programme, in which my own organisation, among many others, takes part. Typically, some dozen young pupils are selected in each school. They tend to be those who are having problems with discipline and have low achievement. They benefit enormously from the cadet-type work that they do, supervised by cadet instructors, which is usually part-time. Their schools are hugely supportive of this and report better attendance among those pupils, improved self-worth and an increase in levels of literacy and numeracy.
Finally, cadets were created some 150 years ago with the object of making better soldiers. Today, the object is to make them better citizens, and long may they be enabled to do so.
Education: Social Mobility
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for choosing this important subject for debate and refer noble Lords to my education interests in the register. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me for straying out of the realms of primary and secondary schools into an area of education which, if it were more successful than it is at the moment, could practically guarantee an increase in social mobility in this country. I refer, of course, to the further education sector.
In 2012, the Government’s own statistics show that, of 16 year-old school leavers, an incredible 28% were functionally innumerate, at best with the arithmetical accomplishments normally associated with a nine year-old, and just under 15% were functionally illiterate, using much the same criteria. These young people cannot even enter the gateway of social mobility unless further education providers pick up the pieces and teach them skills that should have been dealt with at primary school. It is an appalling indictment of our teaching system that this should be so, and that so many pupils have been let down by it. One sincerely hopes that the reforms which the Government are carrying out, and which the Minister mentioned today, will help to alleviate this serious problem in the future.
I pay tribute to the dedicated teachers in our FE colleges who attempt to remediate underachievement in these subjects, although for many of their students, it is almost too late. The huge task of teaching what are often kindergarten skills to these young people, also, in my view, has a profound effect on FE providers and too often distracts them from their primary mission, which should be to teach vocational subjects to those who, we hope, will be the technically accomplished workforce of the future that will enable this country to outperform its competitors in a difficult economic climate.
I have in the past couple of years had the privilege of visiting many excellent further education providers, and yet I am also aware of many that are mediocre and, indeed, a small minority that are, frankly, of extraordinarily poor quality. One of the ways in which the Government hope to improve quality across the sector is gradually to identify the very best providers, to give the professionals who run them and those who govern them as much autonomy and freedom from government control as possible, and to allow them to flourish and spread best practice throughout further education.
To this end I have accepted the challenge of creating a new body that will receive into membership only the most distinguished providers. This will be known as the Institution for Further Education and I have petitioned the Privy Council for a royal charter, which will give this group of colleges, whether public, charitable or private, a collective status akin to that which a university has. Although the new body is being created with seed-corn funding from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, to perform its task properly it must be authoritative and entirely independent of government. The petition makes it clear that, like the other royal chartered institutions, it will be governed by professionals from the sector itself.
Prospective member colleges and private and charitable providers will have to demonstrate high-quality provision, including consistently good teaching, learning and assessment. They must: provide direct routes to higher education; have strong leadership, management and governance; and provide first-class professional development. They must show a culture of innovation and high levels of satisfaction from students. Most importantly, as my noble friend Lady Garden of Frognal reminded us, they must have effective involvement with employers and a strong contribution to economic well-being and growth in their areas. They also must have a high commitment to transparency. Evidence will include Ofsted grades, robust self-assessment reports, an inspection regime, rigorous peer review, and references from a range of employers.
There are some 1,100 providers within the sector, serving more than 4 million learners. One of their strengths is that they are a mixed economy, dealing with further education, full-cost work for United Kingdom and foreign customers, and, in the case of most colleges, higher education. As Ofsted deals with only a part of these providers’ work, and the Quality Assurance Agency only their degree courses, there is at the moment no single quality-assurance association for them, and the new royal chartered institution will endeavour to be that.
It is our hope that a significant number of providers will aspire to membership during our first years and that the institution’s device, which it will be entitled to display, will be a mark of the highest quality for students and employers alike. In the fullness of time there is no reason, in principle, why every FE institution should not qualify for membership. As with other such bodies, any that are seen to be diminishing in quality could be asked, of course, to demit their membership.
We hope that opportunities will be given for collaborative work and the spreading of the tradition of a high-quality service to students throughout the sector, thereby driving up vocational standards nationally. I hope very much also that in time the new institution will help bring some rationality to the plethora of vocational awards that bewilders employers and students alike. In 2012 there were 164 national vocational awarding institutions and many thousands of vocational qualifications. The Government have in the past two years, as the Minister told us, bravely set about rationalising the approved list and have cut it considerably. However, the time is long overdue for the establishment of a simple set of benchmark qualifications for the sector that are easily understandable by all and guaranteed to be of high quality. In higher education, bachelor’s and master’s degrees are easily recognisable by employers; there should be parallels at FE level.
There is no doubt that the gaining of a valuable vocational qualification by a young person not only leads to a greater sense of self worth, to far more opportunities for gainful employment, to the possibility of entry to higher education and to the respect that professional skills bring in our society, but enhances immeasurably his or her chances of social mobility.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(12 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Lingfield
“( ) Regulations shall make provision to specify those sections of an EHC plan prepared for a young person that must be transferred into—
(a) a needs assessment for disabled students’ allowances for that young person; or(b) any other assessment of need concerning the access of that young person to higher education.”
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I put down a probing amendment in Committee which was meant to draw attention to the position of young people with EHC plans at school when they enter university. Your Lordships will remember why we welcomed the EHC plan carrying on to age 25 for those engaged in further education and other courses, but the process seems—illogically—to start again for those entering higher education. During the debate there was a general view, with which I concurred, especially from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and my noble friends Lord Addington and Lord Lucas, that regulation and guidance should focus on making the transitional arrangements between school or college and higher education as easy as possible for the students concerned. The point was made that it was not clear how the Bill would improve the current imperfect arrangements.
The Minister’s reply was encouraging; she agreed with this aim but stated that universities, not local authorities, were the best places to support young people at this transition period. She also said that local authorities should encourage young people to make an early claim for disabled student’s allowance so that support is in place when their courses begin. No one could disagree with this.
However, not all local authorities are good in their communications with young people with disabilities and, of course, the earliest that a student usually can begin these negotiations with universities is at the end of August, when A-level results lead to the confirmation of the offer of a course to begin some seven or eight weeks afterwards. Whereas universities—as the Minister pointed out—have a good record of publishing their objectives for the disabled, their record in achieving them is patchy throughout the system. We are told this by parents and students.
Section 7.19 of the code of practice sets out the Government’s expectations on transition and, although it is limited to four paragraphs, it contains some positive elements. For instance, it states:
“Where a young person with an EHC plan makes a claim for DSA, local authorities must (with the young person’s permission) pass a copy of their Plan to the relevant DSA assessor, to support and inform the application”.
However, it is not clear what “support and inform” will mean in practice. At best it could mean that the EHC plan is accepted in full as part of the DSA assessment, but the wording is too vague for us to be confident about this.
My amendment, which is a probing amendment, would add further subsections to Clause 47 which would require regulations to be made to specify those sections of an EHC plan that must be transferred into the needs assessment for the disabled student’s allowance—or, indeed, into any other formal assessment of need for other sources of funding which might become subsequently available. Obviously, the needs of young people with disabilities can change at university: what might be appropriate provision, for instance, for someone with profound hearing difficulties in the school classroom may not necessarily be suitable for a large lecture theatre at university.
My point is that a student entering university should have the same continuity of protection via the contents of his or her EHC plan as a student entering further education. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that the regulations will be strengthened, even if not necessarily in the way that the amendment suggests, in order to ensure that this is so, and to give comfort to many young people and parents who are very concerned about this. I beg to move.
Baroness Northover
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Lingfield for his amendment and for the eloquent way in which he put his important case. As my noble friend will know, we very much share his ambition to support young people with SEN and disabilities into university. We must have high expectations for these young people and provide the right provision and support through EHC plans to help them achieve their goals.
My noble friend pointed to the value of the disabled student’s allowance. DSAs, of course, are not means tested but are awarded in addition to the standard package of support and do not have to be repaid, and it is encouraging to see the take-up of DSA in this area. He is also right that we should do everything we can to ensure that young people get the support that they need and that the assessments for the new types of support build on what they had before rather than starting from square one—that was his key point.
Following debate on the issue during earlier stages of the Bill, we made some important improvements to the draft assessment and plan regulations, and to the draft code of practice. I hope that my noble friend will be reassured by those. The changes make it clear that local authorities must share a copy of the EHC plan with the relevant higher educational institution and with the DSA assessor—with the young person’s consent, of course—and that local authorities should make young people aware of the support available to them in higher education through their local offer, including the disabled student’s allowance, and how they can make an early claim so that support is in place when they start their course.
Our intention here is very similar to that of my noble friend. We want the valuable information contained within an EHC assessment to be shared both with the person assessing them for the disabled student’s allowance and with the institution they are planning to attend so that other provision may be made, as appropriate, in line with the institution’s own policies. I hope my noble friend will agree that creating further regulation in this area is unnecessary. I appreciate the flexibility of approach in his amendment.
The information within an EHC assessment is extremely valuable, but it will be only a starting point. When young people take up a place in higher education, they are starting a new phase of their education in which they will be expected to develop a different approach to learning. My noble friend recognised this. Higher education courses vary greatly in terms of content, delivery and assessment across institutions and subjects. It is therefore appropriate for a new assessment to be conducted to ensure that young persons get the support that they need in their new environment.
We are happy to look at the detail of the revised code of practice to ensure that we get the balance right, and we would be happy to receive any further advice from my noble friend in that respect. I hope that I have reassured him that we agree with what he is seeking to do, and I hope that he will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lingfield
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her reply, which gives me much reassurance. The tightening of the code of practice will lead to better legislation than that which we faced in Committee. I look forward to hearing more and possibly discussing this with the noble Baroness. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)
My Lords, I wish to speak to Amendments 129, 131, 133, 136, 139, 140, 141 and 142 standing in my name. These amendments focus on the mechanics of the process for determining education, health and care needs, the rights of appeal and the support for families which need to be factored in during the assessment process.
First, Amendment 131 specifies that, when making a decision as to whether special educational provision should be made for a child or young person, the local authority should have,
“regard to the competencies and needs of the child or young person’s parents and immediate family”.
This whole-family approach is an essential feature of the Bill. It should place the child’s or young person’s family at the heart of the assessment process. This is important in informing the provision to be specified in an EHC plan and would provide a much more rounded and personalised programme of support. This is consistent with our approach to previous parts of the Bill which sought to involve families more in the process. I know, from discussions we have had about young carers, that the Minister is sympathetic to this approach.
It is important that family life and home life are considered as part of a support package. Families are key to the well-being of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and to ensuring that they have every help to achieve their potential. The draft code of practice is very light on the scope to include families in assessments. The emphasis is on parental involvement in discussions and decisions, which is fine, but we are making a different point: families do not just need to be consulted; their own needs for help and support also need to be assessed. This whole-family approach is a fundamental principle which should thread through the clauses and be spelled out in the Bill. I hope noble Lords will support this amendment.
Amendments 129, 140, 141 and 142 deal with timescales in decision-making. Clause 36 specifies that parents, young people or educational establishments can request an EHC assessment. Our amendments would add a six-week time limit for responding to such requests. We feel that this is a reasonable timeframe, given that such requests would not be made unless there was a view that a child’s education was suffering in some way, so early intervention and action for the sake of the child are obviously important at that point.
We are aware that this requirement is included in the draft code of practice, but we feel that these rights are so fundamental that they should be spelt out clearly in the Bill. We feel that clear timescales would give added reassurance to parents and children alike, and would ensure that local authorities had clear and responsive processes in place to comply with the Act from its commencement, which would make these timescales a reality.
Amendments 133 and 136 deal with the right of appeal. As it stands, Clause 36(5) states that where a decision is taken by a local authority that no special education provision will be made, the local authority must notify the child’s parent or the young person of the reasons for that decision. So far so good, but our amendment would go one step further and ensure that parents are informed of their right to take the decision to appeal as a matter of course. This matter is covered in the code of practice, but we feel that it is better placed as an absolute right in the Bill.
We would go one stage further and argue that all appeal rights should be brought together as one single seamless set of rights spelt out in the Bill. We have separate amendments in a later group that address that point. We believe that a robust appeals process will ultimately be a guarantor of quality and will help to make the EHC system a success. I hope noble Lords will listen carefully to the points that I have made and will feel able to support the amendments.
Lord Lingfield (Con)
My Lords, I, too, have amendments in this group, to which I will speak briefly. In a similar way to the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to which she has just spoken, my first amendment, which is to Clause 36(5), seeks to place in the Bill a specified time limit for a local authority to act. In this case, it is to notify a parent or young person that the authority has determined that special education provision is not necessary.
Although the Bill does provide in Clause 36(11)(c) the regulations to be made concerning the giving of notice, for reasons of transparency it is important that this should be placed here in primary legislation. It is important to realise that the suggested time limit of 15 days reflects the current practice under existing legislation. Such transparency of time limits is important for parents and ought to be in the Bill, in order that they are informed promptly if a local authority determines that special education provision is not necessary, so that parents can, without delay, decide on any processes of appeal that they may wish to follow.
My second amendment, to Clause 36(11), strengthens the wording from “the regulations may make” to “regulations shall make”, so that we can be absolutely clear that regulations will be produced to this end.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I speak to this group of amendments on assessment tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and my noble friend Lord Lingfield. Before I do so, I should say that my noble friend Lady Northover has had a bereavement and my noble friend Lord Attlee will be standing in for her at very short notice on a couple of the groups this afternoon.
The overarching theme of this group is clarity and timeliness in communications. Getting this right is absolutely vital in creating a system where children, families and young people feel that they are being treated fairly. I thank noble Lords for the opportunity to discuss this matter.
On Amendment 128A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Patel, it is a key part of the reforms that anybody working with a child or young person who thinks that they may need an EHC plan can refer them to the local authority. This includes providers of alternative provision, so that a child or young person’s needs can be met. I reassure the noble Lord that Clause 23 will enable providers of alternative provision, and anyone else working with children and young people, to make a referral. The local authority must then determine whether an EHC assessment is necessary, as it would following a request under Clause 36.
Lord Lingfield
My Lords, I have one amendment in this group, which is to Clause 37(5). It is to provide a standard form of education, health and care plan rather than use the more discretionary wording of the Bill. At the moment—and this touches on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, concerning passports for special educational needs—statements are in a standard form. If there is no similar standard form for education, health and care plans they will surely be subject to each local authority’s drafting preferences. As a result, EHC plans may not be in a consistent format and may vary widely in their level of detail. This could cause confusion and difficulty for parents and young people, especially if they move from one local authority to another. Relocation of this kind, under current economic circumstances, is becoming extremely common.
Your Lordships will have noticed, in relation to Clause 30, and the local offer, that there are strong arguments for a consistent national framework for the key tenets of the new system of assessment and provision brought in by the Bill. In addition—as the Minister reminded us when we debated Amendment 71—in his appearance before the Education Select Committee on 6 November last year my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families stated:
“The first thing I want to be absolutely clear about is that the current protections that parents and young people have in the current statementing system are intended to be carried forward into the new system”.
In the spirit of this, and as I sought to express in this amendment, I believe that these key duties relating to statements should remain the same for EHC plans, and that, in particular, the requirement for a standard form, and the duty to be specific about provision, should remain. I hope that the Minister will be sympathetic to this.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, my name is added to that of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for Amendment 147 and I endorse what she has said on this issue. Statements for special educational needs require an educational psychologist to endorse them and it is obviously sensible and important that this should be extended to the post-18 age group. I probably also should have put my name to Amendment 168 because the argument there is just as cogent and important.
While I am on my feet, I should say that I have a lot of sympathy with the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield. As he said, as we have a set format for statements of special educational needs, it would seem sensible for it to be carried forward in relation to the EHC plans.
Children and Families Bill
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(12 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Lingfield
My Lords, my comments today are concerned only with those aspects of the Bill, mainly in Part 3, that deal with children and young people with special educational needs.
Some 35 years ago the report of the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, whom I am delighted to see in her seat today, paved the way for wide-ranging changes in the way that the state education system deals with children with special needs and disabilities. It is more than 30 years since the Education Act 1981 put in place many of the tenets of the current legislation and the system of statements of special needs. It is some six years since the publication of the second report of my Commission on Special Needs in Education, which I was asked to chair by the then leader of the Opposition, who is now the Prime Minister.
In the course of that commission, we noted that the extraordinary advances in medicine since the Warnock report and the 1981 Act mean that many more children, often with the most serious, multiple disabilities, now not only survive birth but can find much contentment in much longer lives with the proper attention, therapy, medication and—very importantly—education. During the commission we also heard from a large number of dedicated professionals and devoted parents, whose work on behalf of children with special needs is both heartening and humbling. Virtually every submission noted, and almost every witness from whom we took evidence believed, that radical revision of the provision for special education needs was long overdue. It is for this reason that I welcome the aim to create through this Bill a new legislative framework that better reflects the different circumstances that the decades since 1981 have brought.
In particular, I commend the Bill’s focus on extending the coverage of legislation from birth to 25 years of age, unlike the current system that applies only to the end of school-based education, at which point, to quote a parent giving evidence to us, the child will,
“fall off an educational cliff”.
It is particularly important that those in this older age group with profound and complex needs are eligible for the continuation of their plans, for there are few clear-cut educational opportunities for them and they are the ones most likely to benefit from the continued protection of their plans.
I very much welcome the Bill’s new provisions, mentioned by the Minister, to place a legal duty on health services to make the healthcare provisions specified in the proposed education, health and care plan. I believe—but I stand to be corrected—that in Scotland social care is also included.
I firmly support the provision for personal budgets and direct payments. I note with concern, however, that last month’s evaluation of the pathfinder local authorities carrying out this work at the moment reported that,
“many areas had found it difficult to develop personal budgets”,
and referred to the “limited take-up” of direct payments. In light of these assessments, I am sure that Ministers will be able to reassure your Lordships that they will redouble their efforts to address these concerns.
In his Written Statement to mark the launch of the Green Paper that preceded this Bill, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education set out his aspiration for,
“a radically different system to support better life outcomes for young people; give parents confidence by giving them more control; and transfer power to professionals on the front line and to local communities”.—[Official Report, Commons, 9/3/11; col. 64WS.]
The expectations from the new legislation will therefore be very high among families and professionals working in this area, and among all those who seek to ensure that some of our most vulnerable young citizens are adequately supported. If they are not to be disappointed, we must satisfy ourselves that the legislation before us and the regulations and guidance that will follow it will allow these laudable aims for change fully to be met.
It is with this in mind that I want to highlight one of the main challenges I believe the Government will face in moving from what are commitments to actually implementing the legislation. I referred a moment ago to the recent evaluation report of the pathfinder local authorities. It is encouraging to note in it the efforts made by pathfinders to test the new processes provided for in the Bill, and to read that they,
“appear to recognise the advantages of working differently, and are positive about the impact of … changes”.
However, it is clear that pathfinder authorities have had to devote considerable time and resources to developing these new processes and that while there have been some encouraging findings from them, the pathfinders themselves encompass only a small minority of authorities—fewer than a quarter of those in England. As a result, even where pathfinders are able to make progress in putting in place elements of the proposed system, there is still a huge task ahead for these lessons to be communicated, understood and implemented across the vast majority of local authorities and, just as importantly, for these lessons to inform the regulations and guidance that will follow this Bill. I do not need to spell out the consequences of this being done inadequately. Experience suggests, I fear, that in many areas these reforms will be very slow indeed to take effect.
My final point today is that we must absolutely ensure, as we seek to put in place this radically different new system to which the legislation aspires, that we do not remove the current rights for parents and children under existing legislation. This is a point to which I will wish to return, as I suspect others of your Lordships will, as the Bill progresses through your Lordships’ House.
Education: Development of Excellence
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(13 years, 5 months ago)
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Lord Lingfield
My Lords, I, too, thank my noble friend Lady Perry for instigating this important debate. She has, of course, spent a considerable part of her life helping to improve education standards.
I want to talk about a sector of education which is too often the Cinderella of our education services—further education. I declare an interest in that I am currently chairing a government review into certain aspects of further education. Its initial report came out—not without controversy—earlier this year and I hope that the final report will come out by the end of this month. It would be wrong of me, therefore, to pre-empt the conclusions and aspirations of that report. However, there are a couple of important matters which struck me forcefully during our work which I want to mention today.
During the past nine months I have visited many outstanding further education institutions, both in the private and public sector. I have seen much to enthuse me and I have met many wonderful practitioners who are inspiring and work extraordinarily hard. I pay tribute to them. I pay tribute, too, to my honourable friend John Hayes, who was until recently the Minister of State for Further Education. He was much admired in that role and, of course, in his previous shadow role.
Further education has one extraordinarily important and worrying task. Colleges and other providers tell me that government statistics suggest that some 28% of young people who were 16 or 17 when they left school are functionally innumerate. This means that they have the arithmetical skills of the average nine year-old. Some 15% also are illiterate. This means that too often colleges of further education have to be the remedial department of their local primary and secondary schools. This is a shocking circumstance and FE has to pick up the pieces far too often. Too often also it diverts them from their primary task of equipping young people with the workplace skills which will enable them to found their careers.
This is not for one moment to denigrate the enormously important work which goes on in the teaching of basic skills in our further education colleges but merely to hope that the reforms which the Government are putting into place, and which my noble friend Lady Perry has described extraordinarily well, will in the end make it unnecessary for further education lecturers in further education colleges to teach what are basically kindergarten skills to 16 year-olds. We seriously need to improve upon that.
Schools have to play their part—and, as we have heard from my noble friend Lady Perry, some of them do not do very well at the moment—if we are to provide this country with the technically accomplished workforce which will enable it to outperform its competitors in a deep and difficult economic environment.
Office of Qualifications and Examinations Regulation (Determination of Turnover for Monetary Penalties) Order 2012
Lord Lingfield Excerpts(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, I support the order and commend the Government for bringing such a sensible conclusion to a complex inquiry. In doing so, I declare an interest as being currently and for the next month chair of one of the bodies mentioned in the supporting papers, the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music. I mention that body also to illustrate how complex the measure is, because it probably means that the department, or certainly Ofqual, would have to check reasonably regularly that the way in which it had constructed the annual turnover figure was accurate. The figures for ABRSM given in the supporting paper show the turnover as being just over £31 million, which was probably the figure for two years ago. That turnover is based not simply on the 300,000 candidates in this country but on 300,000 candidates overseas and shows the complexity involved in determining turnover for activity in the UK. I know that it is simply an illustrative figure in an illustrative paper, but it makes the point that there would have to be accurate checks and agreement with the organisations in question. I do not think that the eventuality will arise, but, if it did, one would need to know in advance on what figure the 10% cap was based. Another slight complexity, again illustrated by the case of ABRSM, is that the figures are to be examined in Scotland as well as in the other three jurisdictions named in the paper. I am not sure whether that makes a difference, but it is the kind of detail that should be checked out. However, I support warmly the direction in which we are now moving.
Lord Lingfield
As noble Lords will remember, I brought up this issue during the passage of the Education Bill, so I shall not rehearse the list of difficulties that we all saw in the newspapers during 2011 and in previous years—the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, told us a lot about those, too. The principle of giving Ofqual powers to fine awarding bodies that have been in dereliction of their duty seems entirely proper and necessary, which is why I support the Government. Their proposals seem entirely fair. The awarding bodies are a disparate group and it was always going to be difficult to devise a scheme that coped with all the differences, but the decision to limit turnover for the purposes of Ofqual regulation to all activity within the UK seems appropriate. Sufficient safeguards are built in: there will be an appeal mechanism; Ofqual will be required to state its reasons for using its powers, as the Minister has told us; and there will be a review of the order and Ofqual’s activities. Those are enough. A great deal of needless distress was caused to pupils and their parents, and a lot of difficulties were created for colleges, schools and universities. I hope that the order will be used to alleviate those problems. We shall see whether it does, because it can be reviewed.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his explanation of the reasoning behind the order and for his earlier letter to the noble Lord, Lord Lingfield, providing an update on the steps taken since we last discussed this matter during scrutiny of the Education Bill.
We share the Government’s determination to drive up standards in the conduct of examinations and to ensure that Ofqual has the suite of tools necessary to hold awarding organisations to account for any mistakes made, particularly if they have a wider impact on overall public confidence in the exam system. We therefore approach scrutiny of this order with the positive view that it is in our interests for Ofqual to demand, and ensure, the highest possible standards in the administration of the exam system.
I could of course begin by questioning whether this order is already out of date given the Secretary of State’s apparent decision, leaked last week, that from autumn 2014 O-levels will be revived and the current exam board free-for-all replaced by a single exam board for each subject. Yet I realise that however short-lived this order turns out to be, we have a responsibility to deal with it as best we can. However, in one sense the Secretary of State’s announcement has a common cause with the order here today because the fact that there are so many different awarding organisations of every shape, size and constitution, as we have heard, is the central cause of the headache for Ofqual about how to regulate them fairly and consistently. I suppose that it begs the question as to whether we have allowed too many bodies to spring up to enable consistent marking and proper qualification comparisons to be achieved. In this context, however, I have a few specific questions.
Education Bill
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Lord Touhig
My Lords, by introducing these new clauses into the Bill the Government will allow local councils to test the use of direct payments for meeting special educational needs. I certainly welcome and support the greater personalisation of educational provision for young people as does the noble Lord, Lord Low, and the noble Lord, Lord Rix, who I know had some very fruitful and useful meetings with the Minister and his officials. Both noble Lords wished to be here this evening, but are unavoidably unable to be with us; they have asked me to mention to the Minister how much they appreciate the courtesy and the assistance he and his officials have given.
Direct payments have played an important role in allowing disabled people to have choice and control over the services they receive. Nevertheless, there are some significant risks in the use of direct payments in education, particularly in schools. The Department for Education has been working closely with the Special Education Consortium to mitigate these risks, and I know that the Special Education Consortium has certainly welcomed that collaboration and consideration. The matters they are still concerned about include ensuring that the pilot schemes must be set up by an order by the Secretary of State. Establishing the details of the pilot scheme within the legislative framework is a necessary safeguard if these significant changes to the way education is delivered are to be properly scrutinised by Parliament.
The order which establishes the pilots was originally to be the subject of a negative resolution. The noble Lord, Lord Low, and I tabled amendments to ensure these important changes were properly debated through an affirmative resolution procedure. We have withdrawn these amendments because the government amendment means the pilot schemes will be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure as the Minister told us this evening. This is very welcome, and we are grateful to the Government, particularly as the initial amendment on direct payments in education was tabled at such a late stage, as the noble Lord has explained.
The noble Lord, Lord Low, and I also tabled further amendments concerning the details of the scheme. However, as the order will now be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, we believe these concerns might be more usefully spelt out and discussed in detail during that debate. These too have been withdrawn. Nevertheless, we would still like to put on record some of the issues we hope will be addressed by the order.
We need to know how to measure the reaction of education providers to individuals holding direct payments for special educational provision. This may interact with school and college finances and employment policies, and will affect the ability of schools to plan for all children with special educational needs. Perhaps the Minister will say what steps will be taken to ensure that the viability of specialist SEN services is not threatened where direct payments are taking money out of the system. We also need to know how decisions about the amount of direct payments will be made, particularly if statements are poorly written—there are examples of that as I am sure we all know—and how parents can appeal those poorly written statements. Finally, we need to know whether there will be a thorough evaluation of direct payments in education in particular before Parliament is asked to renew the order in two years’ time.
The noble Lords, Lord Low and Lord Rix, and I welcome the Government’s new position, but we urge the Minister to make debating this order a priority in the parliamentary timetable so that these proposals, which are rightly being tested, can be given the fullest opportunity to show their worth. Great progress has been made, and I have been asked by my colleagues—who are not able to be with us this evening—to say to the Minister in particular how much they and I and especially the Special Education Consortium have appreciated the fact that he has genuinely worked with us to try to resolve our concerns. This seems to be a better way to make law.
Lord Lingfield
My Lords, I particularly welcome this new clause because one of the most important items in it allows a continuation of funding post-16 and 18 to the age of 25. Many parents are dismayed that their “special education offspring”—as one put it to me—fall off the end of a funding cliff when they reach early adulthood, and this pilot will help us see much more accurately how this can be done. I hope, however, with the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that the Government will set out very clearly how these experiments are to be monitored, so that best practice may be observed and reported. It is also important for the Government to make clear to parents what they should do if they want to challenge the amount of payments, and contend that the health or social service elements are too little. My view is that the clauses are necessarily restrictive, in that as I understand it parents frequently agree part-funding with local authorities, but are not to be allowed to supplement the amount of the direct payment to purchase the provision set out in a beneficiary statement. Perhaps the Minister would look at this again. However, I welcome this step in the right direction—albeit it is a small, pilot step—to alleviate the great problems that there are in the special needs sector. I look forward eventually to seeing the careful evaluation when it is published.
Education Bill
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Lord Clarke of Hampstead
My Lords, I hope that, at this late hour, the Government will firmly reject this amendment. I have no reason to quarrel with the integrity of the people who have proposed it, some of whom I have known for many years. I believe that they are blessed with the intelligence to put forward what they think is the right thing. Like wider roads, stronger beer, motherhood and apple pie, you could say snap to most of the amendment. What has been said about bullying and civic learning is absolutely clear. However, I have been here long enough to know that when someone says that something should be included in a Bill you have to be careful.
The amendment is actually saying that a school inspector “must”, not “could” look at the type of school and what its policies are. That is where we have a problem. There will be some schools that do not have a policy on the subject that has exercised us for most of this debate. Most schools make up their minds through the governors and parents, or through whatever consultation they have, and they make their decisions. If the amendment is carried, the chief inspector must ask those schools the questions and will have to report on them. In most areas the report would be clear.
The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ripon and Leeds referred to the Government’s intention. However, it was only two days ago that the Minister was able to tell the House, at col. 543 of the Official Report, that the Government had no intention of changing the policy on sex education. I thought to myself, “That is good. There is no need for the proposed new paragraph because we have heard a clear statement from the Government”. I welcomed that at the time.
I am not influenced by hundreds of letters. I was not influenced by them on fox hunting and all the other issues that attract a deluge of correspondence. I admit that I did not receive much teaching because I left school at the age of 14, but I was taught to think for myself. It is wrong to put words in the Bill that could force people in certain circumstances to do things that they do not want to do. Therefore, in the event of a Division, I shall vote against the amendment—although reluctantly, because I recognise the integrity of those who are proposing it.
Lord Lingfield
My Lords, all of us sympathise with the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, regarding the appalling letters she and others of us have received from time to time and which completely miss the point of this debate. I do not think that any Member of your Lordships' House would think that a school ought not to have clear policies on bullying, the aspects of life dealt with in citizenship education, personal social, health and sex education, and even healthy eating. However, where I part company with the noble Baroness is that if these issues are a matter for close inspection by Ofsted, then the global views of that organisation—it has global views, although that may alter—become written in stone. Once these policies are apparent, schools often are scared to deviate in any way from what they come to believe is the letter of the law. The grades given by Ofsted to schools are very talismanic. The school is outstanding, satisfactory or merely good. Heads and governors become hugely anxious that an Ofsted report will say something detrimental and, if the buzz from other local schools already inspected is that it is important to tick the right boxes by adopting certain policies on sex education, certain aspects of discipline, citizenship education or even on the consumption of hamburgers and chips, sadly they will have those policies. We have seen far too much evidence of that.
We should leave these decisions entirely to individual schools. We should not want to take from the hands of heads, teachers and governors the right to make professional decisions in these areas of school life. Of course, every one of the items mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in her amendment is absolutely important, but we should trust the staff on the spot to deal with them and not impose upon the staff, as inevitably this amendment would, an Ofsted view—and that, sadly, means a government view—about these matters.
Professional teachers and their governors are best equipped to know of the appropriateness of, say, certain aspects of sex education, certain specifics for bullying, and dietary needs in their own schools, and it is the whole thrust of the coalition's schools policy that schools should be free to take the decisions that the situation demands. I ought to add that Ofsted entirely lost its way by trying to inspect—and, therefore, inevitably setting into concrete—so many areas of school life, with something like two dozen criteria. I welcome the Government’s new view that schools should concentrate broadly on teaching, learning, discipline and leadership. If you get those right, everything else falls into place.
I should like to leave noble Lords with one thought. A paragraph or two that is passed by your Lordships can quite literally lead to 1,000 pages of bumph for an individual school. That is true. It is not necessary for Ofsted to inspect all these matters. I therefore oppose the amendment.
Education Bill
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
Amendments 56A and 56B are in my name and both are amendments to Amendment 56. I tabled them because we, and I suspect other noble Lords, have received a fair amount of correspondence about this provision. Two issues arise from it. One, which is the subject of my amendments, relates to a very narrow issue—the 10 per cent of turnover to which the fine should be related and the question of whether that is the total turnover of the organisation or just that part of the organisation’s turnover that relates to its United Kingdom activities. As the Minister has made clear, the Government have effectively accepted these amendments, and I gather that the turnover will relate only to United Kingdom activities.
The other issue goes somewhat wider and relates to the whole process of consultation that took place. I understand that, as the Minister explained, the Government were anxious to get these powers on to the statute book because Ofqual had the choice of only either a fairly gentle reprimand or the nuclear option of withdrawing recognition of the examining board, and it wanted a further range of sanctions to apply, as is the case with other regulators. However, it is very unfortunate that the period of consultation was reduced to as little as 10 days and that the examination boards did not have a chance to respond to these proposals as fully as they would have liked. It is also unfortunate that a wider consultation with other people affected by the knock-on effects of this provision did not take place. Some of them may also have received a letter from the ASCL pointing out that a fine imposed on the examining boards is quite likely to be passed on to the schools, which pay considerable fees for their pupils to sit these examinations.
I recognise that we do not want our examining boards to make the serious errors in examinations that occurred this summer and that sanctions of some sort are not a bad idea. Nevertheless, the fact remains that an inquiry was set up to examine those errors and it is not going to report until the end of the year. Normally, one would expect to see some action taken after the inquiry reports, and I therefore ask the Minister whether it was really necessary to act as quickly as he did. Furthermore, I hope that full consultation will now take place with the examination boards. As the Government put flesh on the bones of the sanctions in this amendment, I hope that they will have proper discussions and consultations with all those concerned about how the sanctions should be imposed and implemented. This is not good practice and I hope that the coalition Government will not continue with the rapid pursuit of issues in the same way.
Lord Lingfield
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister that, following my remarks, these clauses are to be inserted.
It is worth reminding noble Lords of the unedifying accounts in the newspapers a short time ago, when we saw complaints from parents, teachers and schools. A printing mistake by the AQA board led to some schools receiving GCSE maths papers, taken by 32,000 pupils, which included questions from a previous version of the examination. The OCR maths AS-level paper, with nearly 7,000 candidates, featured an impossible question worth a whole 11 per cent of the marks. OCR’s Latin paper mixed up a passage by Cicero and attributed it to Tacitus, and two characters were mixed up. Edexcel’s AS-level biology paper offered a selection of wrong answers to a multiple choice question, but the correct answer was not included. The OCR guide issued to staff marking the AS-level information communication and technology paper contained four errors—staff were required to mark down students who gave the correct answer. AQA’s AS-level business studies examination, taken by 41,000 students, asked about a fictitious company’s factory profits, but the adjoining profile information failed to show the profits, making the question completely unanswerable. Of course, there were other examples in earlier years. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, who is in his place, carried out, as I am sure he will mention, a review that suggested that QCA was responsible for massive failures resulting in tens of thousands of children getting their SATs results late.
That is why I support these extra powers for Ofqual boards. I believe the penalties that are outlined seem a fair and useful way ahead, with the appropriate safeguards of notice and appeal that the Bill sets out. I hope that noble Lords will support them and they will lead to a diminution in the angst and difficulty caused earlier this year to pupils, parents and teachers after the examinations.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
I warmly welcome the government amendment, and not only for the reason it means that one’s words do not always disappear into the ether for ever, although it is nice to see a bit of thought being given to them. Examining boards do an extremely difficult and complex job. Over the years, we have built for them a system that requires too much, and too much complexity. We are now rolling back from this, and that is the right direction. However, examination boards which, for the most part, have done this very well, do fail from time to time. They fail in ways that are serious and, as we have heard, are deeply upsetting to schools and candidates. It is therefore right that Ofqual should have the capacity to assert some discipline over them.
As has been suggested, I have seen in great detail—more than I ever want to see again—the complexity of the procurement process for a national set of examinations. If Ofqual were committed to its only sanction being to reset the process in motion, we would have the wrong system. Under this amendment, Ofqual will have different alternatives. I say to my noble friend Lady Sharp that this should have been in the original powers of Ofqual rather than being put through at this stage. I welcome the amendments and hope that the House will support them.