Education Bill

Lord Lucas Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Lucas]

113: Clause 37, page 34, line 22, at end insert—
“( ) in the case of a primary school, a person nominated by the parishes (if any) from which the school draws significant numbers of pupils,”

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, in the Localism Bill we have been setting out to create neighbourhoods that are involved, vibrant and powerful. If you do that you will create a band of people whose first care is the education and well-being of their children. They deserve to be connected with primary schools, particularly ones that serve their children, and that is what this amendment does. I beg to move.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 113ZA in my name and that of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, who mentioned to the Committee on Monday that she is not able to be in her place today. I assume, therefore, that she will not be speaking to Amendments 113A and 113B, but I do not have my name to either of those.

First, I thank the Minister for his amendments in this group and pay tribute to my honourable friend Dan Rogerson MP, the Member for North Cornwall, whose powers of persuasion in another place were so great that he managed to convince the Minister for Schools, Mr Nick Gibb MP, that we need the government amendments that we find in this group. The amendments ensure that school governing bodies are more representative of school communities. However, students play a central role in these communities but at present cannot become school governors. We have put down this amendment to try to ensure that students can serve as full members of school governing bodies.

Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child ensures that children are involved in all decisions that affect them and that their views are given due weight in accordance with their age and maturity. I very much welcomed the statement by the Minister for Children, my honourable friend Sarah Teather, in December 2010, that the convention would be given due consideration when making new law and policy. I now urge the Committee to consider how students’ rights to participate in decision-making can be strengthening through their involvement in school governing bodies. In 2009 the Committee on the Rights of the Child said:

“Respect for the right of the child to be heard within education is fundamental to the realization of the right to education … Steady participation of children in decision-making processes should be achieved through, inter alia, class councils, student councils and student representation on school boards and committees, where they can freely express their views on the development and implementation of school policies and codes of behaviour. These rights need to be enshrined in legislation, rather than relying on the goodwill of authorities, schools and head teachers to implement them”.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I accept that, my Lords. There are ways of dealing with that, but there are a range of other practical issues that one would need to think through. I would be very happy to explore some of them with my noble friend and others who have an interest and see where we end up.

On head-teacher governors, I again understand the arguments that have been put by both sides. That is probably why the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, having had both these opposing views, concentrated on other issues. I understand the argument both for their inclusion on boards, in the same way as a chief executive of a company might serve on a board, and against in the case of the voluntary sector and other charities, where the chief executive is often not on the board.

We know that there are issues, but overall the system is operating. We are working with the National College to develop training for chairs of governing bodies to assist them in the role of holding head teachers to account. Head teachers can choose to remove themselves from governing bodies. If individual governing bodies wish to move to the position suggested, they can do so and the head teacher can resign from the governing body. The thought of removing head teachers from every governing body in the land, from 25,000-odd schools, seems quite courageous, but, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, these are issues on which we need to continue to reflect.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked me a specific question about governors. Governors are not there to represent a particular group and should act in the best interests of the school, having formed their own opinion.

I therefore commend my amendments and ask my noble friend to withdraw his amendment, which he moved some time ago before we had many Divisions in the House.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his comprehensive reply. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 113 withdrawn.

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[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I speak to Amendment 114. I entirely support Clause 39. It is absolutely right that academies and other schools that are exempt should be given freedom from full Ofsted inspection. I have severe reservations about whether Ofsted’s regime in the past has been proven to do anything to improve standards in schools. In fact, the contrary appears to have been the case. We have to hope, of course, that Ofsted in its revised form will be a more positive experience. Nevertheless, it is right that these schools should be exempt from routine Ofsted inspection. However, as my noble friend has already said, academic standards can slip, but long before academic standards begin to show a decline in a way that can be identified, it is possible for a school to begin—usually because there is a change of head—to decline in terms of standards of discipline and staff morale. Therefore, the overall ethos of the school begins to change and, within two or three years, that will certainly begin to be reflected in the academic results and standards.

The proposal in Amendment 114 may be a little leftfield. It proposes that, instead of having a full inspection regularly, a school should have somebody assigned to it who just keeps an eye on it. The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, suggested that this amendment brought about something like a school improvement partner, but that is not what is envisaged at all. This person would not have a role in helping the school to improve or develop; they would simply be a friendly eye, popping in two or three times over the year—at least once a term—just to ensure that the high standards that had been present before were maintained. If there is any question or doubt, this would be the early warning system; if the “visitor”, as the amendment calls this person, had reason to believe that things were beginning to go wrong, he or she would be able to trigger a full inspection by Ofsted.

I am sure that all of us in this Room with our tremendous experience of schools have seen schools change very quickly when there is a change of head. I have certainly seen schools that were very good begin to deteriorate in a couple of terms, when a weak head moved in—and, vice versa, a school that has been weak in the past can suddenly begin to pick up very fast when a good head moves in. Assuming that it is the case in some schools that they go down in standards, I believe that it would be very important to have someone keep an eye on that, rather than wait the two or three years before it begins to appear in the standards of achievement. I do not need to remind the Committee that these are children’s lives; they do not have a second chance. If the school’s standards begin to decline, down the line their success and achievements will also go down. So I very much hope that my noble friend will at least look sympathetically on this idea.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I take a more radical view than my noble friend, although if her amendment was accepted a lot of my worries would be dealt with. The Government are making a great mistake in going down this route. It is not that I like Ofsted—I do not like the old-style Ofsted; a lot needs to be improved about it. But going in this direction is going to cause considerable problems down the road.

Schools that are rated outstanding often do not stay outstanding. Quite a high proportion of them drift downwards. This is entirely natural, with changes in the staff and in tempo and other changes that mean that a school loses its grip on the excellence that it once had. Perhaps it was lucky to get a grade 1 in the first place and has just slipped back to its natural place in grade 2. Unless you have some contact with the school, you absolutely do not know that that is happening.

One of the main grouses that I have with Ofsted at the moment is that it is very late to pick up changes. Ofsted will pile into a school and put it in special measures when, if it had caught it a couple of years earlier, it would have meant a minor change of course. I can think of an excellent secondary school in Manchester that was dumped into special measures when it got a head who was being experimental and trying all sorts of things and forgetting to look after the basic management of the school. It was a very easy thing for an experienced head to pick up; if someone had just come in, as my noble friend Lady Perry suggests, and had a look at the school, they would have sensed that immediately.

I do not share the confidence of my colleagues on the Liberal Democrat Benches that these things get picked up by parents, since parents are by and large terribly loyal to their schools. They do not talk to outside people or to Ofsted. There may be a flow of information round the local circuit, but it does not get out of that; no one complains. Often, there will be a flow of propaganda from the school that what it is doing is right and that the course it is taking is the best one. Even if it is experimental and there are some worries about it at the moment, it will all work out. Parents are inclined to accept that and an outside expert eye can make all the difference. At the moment, Ofsted is deficient in that it does not look at schools often enough and this causes much greater problems than there ought to be. If we get to a position where Ofsted does not see schools at all, we will start to have serious problems going unchecked, to the point where the rot is so bad that the fruit falls off the tree and the educational lives of a great many pupils are seriously damaged.

Beyond that, we are considering opening up the curriculum so that a great deal of what a secondary school, in particular, does will be down to that school. So we will start not to know what a school is doing and whether it is doing well unless someone tells us what is going on. How will we know that PSHE in a school is being done properly, or what is being done, or what is being taught? We will rely entirely on what the school chooses to tell us. If it is a good school doing the right thing, fine—that will be all right—but how will we know if that is the case?

The proposals in this clause, as they are now, will fail schools, fail children and fail parents and the information they should have. We should seriously look to do something about this.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, the clause is very radical in its consequences. Amendments 113D, 114 and 114A are all firefighting amendments and I support them as such, particularly with regard to the importance of safeguarding. However, I agree with my colleague and friend, the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, that, if we move away from requiring inspection of a whole range of schools, danger lies down the road and that we may be in a different position when debating this issue in five or 10 years’ time.

I was involved when Ofsted was established—I am sorry to be historical but this is relevant—and one of the earliest things I did was to go to a meeting with private school head teachers. I was wise to go to girls’ schools where they were mostly lady head teachers, who were much more reasonable. I challenged them and said, “If the state system can put up with this, what about you”? Much to their credit, they began to create an inspection system of their own and compared notes with Ofsted all the way down the line and found it beneficial.

On another bit of relevant history, five years ago during debates on the Education and Inspections Bill, a major issue about faith schools arose. Indeed, after re-reading Hansard and as I look around, it is like being back there—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley, Lady Sharpe, Lady Perry and Lady Howarth, were all there when we debated it at some length. They may recall—I certainly do, as I tabled one or two crucial amendments—that there was an immense degree of what I can only call aggression. Except for the issue of assisted dying, I have not seen the House of Lords quite as split right down the middle as on the question of the future of faith schools.

We have had a sensation of that in this Committee but we have held back, I am happy to say. However, that could be recreated because the exemptions proposed include a number of faith schools that cause severe worries for Members of the House. This may reopen the whole issue of whether there should be any at all, let alone, as the question was, any new ones. I see, for example, Amendment 114 as a step towards this. There could be other ways in which one might take a step towards obviating the possibility of a certain kind of curriculum, the way in which it is taught and a lack of attention to community cohesion—which I believe were the words on which the amendments at that time focused.

The crucial issue was that there would be a backstop, and Ofsted would inspect all schools on the basis of their capacity to create cohesion in the community. That provided a net within which many of the worries of Members of the House were resolved sufficiently for them not to move down the much more radical secular path. I put it to the Minister that a number of us would be minded to introduce further amendment at the next stage if Clause 39 stands in its current form without these issues being dealt with.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I will get some clever person to write me something that will explain why that is the case.

The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, raised important points about faith schools. He will know better than me that it is a separate inspection process. Faith schools, including exempt schools, would continue to be subject under Section 48 of the Education Act 2005 to a separate inspection into their religious education. This can also cover spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and reports will be published. That is not a complete answer to the noble Lord’s concerns but it is another part of a possible reassurance.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, asked me whether a cohort could pass through an outstanding school without any inspection. The absence of inspection does not mean that Ofsted will fail to pay attention to exempt schools. Currently outstanding schools have five years between inspections. The risk assessment would start at three years and be done annually but, if there were concerns before then, the whole point of the triggering process is that Ofsted would be able to look into them.

Overall, we think that a lot has changed in the past 20 years in terms of transparency and accountability. There is more information and the inspection system over those years has become increasingly proportionate. We have a large number of schools that are capable of evaluating their own performance and identifying and responding to their own improvement priorities. We are keen to focus inspection on those that need it most— underperforming and inadequate schools. I recognise the strength of feeling that has been raised.

There were a number of thoughtful suggestions, particular around the important question of the rigour of the risk assessment. I understand that Ofsted is due to publish its approach to risk assessment and I would like to use that as an opportunity to discuss these concerns further, to reflect on what has been said to me today and to raise them with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton. I hope that through that process—I will be happy to discuss it with noble Lords who have particular concerns and who have contributed to this debate—I can address some of the concerns that have been raised, reflect on them and then report back to noble Lords. I will certainly reflect on the mood of the Committee. I will listen to the advice that I have been given but in the mean time I ask my noble friend Lady Walmsley to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am grateful for what my noble friend has said. I do not really think that saying that the system at the moment has its defects is a good reason for adding to them. I very much hope that, in what happens between now and Report stage in terms of an understanding of the Ofsted mechanisms and in discussions between ourselves, we can firm this up. It seems to me to be a serious disaster in the making and a very wrong step the Government are looking at.

I want to pick up on a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. Clause 40(2) removes the compromise that we reached at the end of that long and, as he says, acrimonious debate. I very much hope the Minister will take the time to read that debate and to understand why that clause got into the 2006 Act. It was a compromise, carefully worked out by the then Government, to deal with questions about the way in which faith schools fit into the system. By removing that compromise you are reopening the whole argument as to that relationship and inviting a repeat on Report of the experience of 2006. I hope the noble Lord, if only in preparation for that, will read through that debate. I am sure we will revisit this in October. I hope that between now and then we will have made some progress.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, this has been a very thorough and rigorous debate and I do not intend to summarise the whole of it. I will respond only on my own amendment as the Minister has been intervened upon a number of times. My understanding of what the Minister said in response to my amendment was that there is no reason to believe that outstanding schools will not take safeguarding seriously. Without intending to be rude to the Minister, I wrote in my notes, “Well, we are hoping for the best then”. Frankly, I do not agree that if somebody is good at one thing they are necessarily good at another. Only on Monday I talked about my own grandsons, one of whom is brilliant at maths and the other is brilliant at English. I think the same applies to schools.

The Minister said that Ofsted will now carry out a survey, but I understand that there are currently no plans whatever to inspect safeguarding regularly in schools that are regarded as exempt—and therefore will not be regularly inspected—unless, of course, the Ofsted survey advises the Government that there is no correlation between a school being good academically and being good at safeguarding. Can the Minister just nod if I am correct in that understanding of his reply?

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[Lord Ouseley]

Thank you very much. I acknowledge what the noble Baroness has said, and I am about to conclude. However, I have not made many interventions in Committee and I intend to speak as fully as I can while being as brief as I think is reasonable.

The protected characteristics under the Education Act 2000 provide us with a basis to enable some of the other amendments in this area to address this issue. The amendments will need to remain as explicit as they are here if we are to do justice to what we want to see achieved, through inspection reports, in addressing the range of educational needs across all different groups of children. It is particularly important that we include those characteristics and enable, as part of any follow up, the guidance that the chief inspector should have.

When we consider groups on the basis of race, it is easy enough for a report to be blunt in the way in which it states that it has dealt with the issue of race and ethnicity. However, if you look across the whole range, groups such as Traveller and Gypsy children are very often excluded when inspections are taking place and the report does not relate explicitly and specifically to those groups which are underachieving, and the quality of education that is being inspected in the school tends not to address those particular needs.

Bearing in mind the time factor, I conclude by asking the Minister to explain why, when looking at the range of needs, the sharp focus is restricted to only two categories. Why is not this comprehensive amendment—which enables a broadening of the categories while maintaining a sharp focus—an appropriate way forward?

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and I hope that she brings her amendment back on Report.

As we discussed on the previous group of amendments, the research I have been doing for the Localism Bill about how neighbourhood planning works within cities, and mostly within London, has drawn the comment from a number of the people involved that one of the principal problems they face is the actions of faith schools, in this case the very small ones—I am certainly not referring to the favourite cause of the noble Lord, Lord McAvoy—both Christian and other denominations, which seem intent on focusing communities around themselves rather than reaching out more widely. That certainly relates to the point about community cohesion which the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, raised and which was the subject of long debates in 2006.

On the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Boswell of Aynho, I merely say that it is a well known problem that secondary schools take the prospectuses of FE colleges and others, lock them in the head’s cupboard and say that that is their duty to their pupils. This needs to be looked at, at least occasionally.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I will ask a brief but important question in relation to the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. I should have stood up and asked her, but I have been told off before for standing up too soon, so I thought that I would wait.

I was unable to be present for the Statement yesterday about buildings, and I am sure that this might have been raised then. The question is whether or not a building should be a limiting factor in an Ofsted inspection’s outcome. Many schools now have huge problems with their standards, and I speak as a trustee of a college where the premises are totally inappropriate for the work that we are trying to do. This means that we can never get a good Ofsted inspection, despite the fact that the teaching is good and the pupils like going there. There would be nowhere else for these disabled young people to go if it did not exist. In the present economic climate, is this limiting factor appropriate when we know that it is not going to change? This school would have been redeveloped under the previous programme, which, of course, was abandoned.