Free Schools: Educational Standards
Lord Nash Excerpts(5 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, it gives me great pleasure to open this debate on free schools and the programme of this Government and the previous coalition Government, which I think I can safely say has been an unqualified success. It has been a success on many fronts: on quality and on bringing capacity, choice, innovation and competition to the system.
I will deal firstly with quality. Some 32% of free schools inspected have been judged outstanding by Ofsted, compared with 21% of all other schools, and 86% have been judged good or outstanding. This is truly remarkable, considering how early in their life free schools are inspected, when they have little if any test data to show and Ofsted inspectors generally are not rushing to award outstanding ratings to schools with few or no results. It shows that the pupils in these schools must be making good progress and that the schools must be demonstrating this to Ofsted.
It really is striking that free schools are 50% more likely to be rated outstanding than other schools. Last year, for the fourth year running, primary free schools were among the top-performing schools in the year 1 phonics screening check and key stage 1 SATs tests. Last year, for the second year running, secondary free schools were the highest performers at Progress 8, with an average score of +0.24. Indeed, four out of the top 10 performers at Progress 8 last year were free schools: Dixons Trinity Bradford, Eden Girls, William Perkin Church of England and Tauheedul Boys. At key stage 5 we have the London Academy of Excellence in Newham sending many of its pupils to Russell group universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, clearly raising the game of other sixth forms in Newham. At King’s maths school last year, 99% of students achieved an A or A* in maths A-level.
On capacity, 442 free schools have been opened, providing nearly 300,000 new school places. Adding those approved and in the pipeline but not yet open brings the total to more than 700. Half have been opened in the 30% most deprived areas of the country, and 83% address a need for places.
I must pay tribute to the free schools team at the Department for Education, headed by Mela Watts. You do not normally become a civil servant expecting to find yourself as a kind of venture capitalist opining on the merits of new organisations, but the people in the free schools team have adapted brilliantly to that challenge. I must also recognise the very significant role now played by regional schools commissioners in assessing free schools proposals.
On costs, free schools have been brought in at a cost one-third lower than under the preceding Labour Government’s BSF programme. Finding sites for these schools obviously is not easy, particularly in inner cities. I must also pay tribute in this regard to the Department for Education’s property arm, LocatED, very ably run by Lara Newman, which has been particularly effective and imaginative in this regard. Free schools have been opened not just in former offices and factories but in former police stations, a church, on top of a supermarket and in one case in a former fire station. I remember visiting that school. The planners had insisted for some reason that the pole that the firemen used to slide down had to be kept in place. I was particularly upset that, for health and safety reasons, I was not allowed to slide down it. I am delighted that 34 specialist free schools have been opened and 41 AP free schools, with more to come.
On innovation, the Sutton Trust has found that one-third of free schools have been shown to demonstrate a genuinely innovative approach to ethos and curriculum. Unfortunately, a limited number of schools have engaged with the knowledge-rich curriculum and teacher-led instructional approach now shown to be the most successful compared with the now debunked more progressive approach followed in this country for the past 30 years. As that approach is favoured by the Government, with hindsight it might have been better if the Government had been more prescriptive in this regard and aligned their policies more. I exhort them to do that in future.
However, there has been innovation in other areas. Dixons Trinity Academy, Bradford, follows Carol Dweck’s “growth mindset” approach. There is innovation at the four maths schools at King’s College London, in Exeter, in Cambridge and at the University of Liverpool—the latter two are in pre-opening—at Saracens High School, Barnet, which is supported by Saracens rugby club, and at Bolder Academy in Hounslow, which has teamed up with Sky—to name but a few.
Of course, the free schools programme has provided much-needed competition for the state school sector, as has the academy programme. All monopolies suffer from a lack of competition, which breeds inefficiency and complacency—a point that Marxists always seem to miss when they are keen to create yet more monopolies. The free schools programme has been particularly effective at providing competition and creating an environment in which a rising tide lifts all boats.
In conclusion, I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Michael Gove, my noble friend Lord Hill—I see that he is in his place—who started the programme, my noble friend the Minister, who continues it so well, and my noble friend Lord Baker, who has been involved in it so much. I also pay tribute to my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy—I see that he is also in his place—who invented the programme with his 2005 paper, More Good School Places. I particularly want to mention the teachers, school leaders, MATs and sponsors who have supported the programme since its early days, when it often faced significant opposition. In this regard, I will mention in particular Katharine Birbalsingh at Michaela Community School, Ed Vainker at Reach Academy, Feltham, Hamid Patel at Tauheedul and Luke Sparkes at Dixons Trinity, Bradford—but there are many more. Those of us who have been involved in starting new ventures, organisations and schools know how challenging it is; we should be extremely grateful to these social entrepreneurs and pioneers.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I cannot speak in the debate, unfortunately, as I must be in the Chamber because I will be the last speaker on Monday night. I want to place on record the educational world’s thanks to my noble friend Lord Nash for his enthusiasm in creating the free schools movement. Without him and my noble friend Lord Hill, we would not be where we are.
I was a bit disappointed that my noble friend Lord Nash did not mention UTCs, which are a form of free school too. They are funded in the same way, are independent of local authorities and have some of the best results in the country, which we are proud of. We produce 30% of apprentices compared with 7% from other sectors, and 47% of our students go to university, three-quarters of whom do so to study STEM subjects. My noble friend supported us strongly in that, for which I thank him. Indeed, the UTC in Pimlico will join my noble friend’s MAT in Westminster later this year.
Lord Nash
My Lords, I have greatly enjoyed today’s debate. As always, I found myself agreeing with much of what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, although I struggle to accept criticism about costs—the same applies to the noble Lord, Lord Watson—bearing in mind the many examples of profligacy that we found in the education system when we took over in 2010, including the Building Schools for the Future programme, which ran, by some estimates, £10 billion over budget. People in glass houses, as the saying goes.
On the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about changes to the free schools programme, new products and new ideas evolve and change. As she said, the key is to create good schools. As she also said, perhaps the programme should evolve further to be, in some cases, more prescriptive. I agree entirely with her and my noble friend Lord Hill that sometimes we are far too focused on structures. However, I think that structures are important. As I think Tony Blair said, unless you get the structure right, you cannot move on. However, I think that the noble Baroness missed off her list of what makes a good school two very important points: what is taught and how it is taught—which leads me back to my point about prescription.
It was very good to hear from my noble friend Lord Harris. As my noble friend Lord Hill said, his role in education in this country has been truly transformational. I was very glad to hear him mention Sir Dan Moynihan, who runs the Harris Federation extremely well. He also mentioned the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, without whose help none of us involved in schools in this way could be here. I was interested to hear from my noble friend Lord Kirkham about his involvement with the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and the Outward Bound Trust—organisations that schools in my academy group engage with actively. Evidence from the United States is quite clear that the single most important experience for raising pupils’ confidence and self-esteem is Outward Bound trips.
It was kind of the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to say what he did about staying-put arrangements for children or young people in fostering after the age of 18, because that was in fact entirely thanks to him and his perseverance. He badgered the Government endlessly on this point and that resulted in my going to see Michael Gove. This was at a time when we were trying to recover from the dreadful economic mess we had inherited, saving money wherever we could. I explained to Michael Gove why I thought this was a good idea but said that it would cost £25 million a year. However, it took him less than a minute to see the sense of it and he agreed to it. My noble friends Lord Polak and Lord Hill paid tribute to my right honourable friend Michael Gove. In this instance, he again showed that he is a truly principled politician who is also prepared to be highly action-orientated.
The noble Lord, Lord Winston, referred to Imperial College’s outreach programme, which I know from personal experience does great work. I thought that his point about the importance of non-scientists understanding science was extremely well made—and I say that as someone who went through his entire education studying no biology at all.
A number of noble Lords opposite mentioned failure. Perhaps I may split the programme between free schools, pure free schools, UTCs and studio schools. In free schools there have been very few failures—although, as the Minister said, we are keen to learn from those there have been—and a great many successes. It is true that there have been many closures of UTCs and, in particular, studio schools—but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said to me when we took T-levels through your Lordships’ House, we desperately need to improve technical education in this country. That is a very difficult challenge. Successive Governments on both sides have tried and failed. We need to persevere and learn from our mistakes but stick at it.
My noble friend Lord Polak mentioned his involvement in a number of free schools. I know from personal experience that his help has been invaluable. I was very glad to hear my noble friend Lord Popat mention my noble friend Baroness Evans’s and the New Schools Network’s central and very important involvement in the free schools programme.
It was very good to see the noble Lord, Lord Watson, on such good form. I too always enjoy our contests. I was a little disappointed to hear how negative he is about the ideology of the free schools programme, including the statement that free schools have driven a coach and horses through the sensible planning of new school places. At least we have a policy on this. As my noble friend Lord O’Shaughnessy pointed out, the Labour Government had no policy whatever for new places, despite presiding over 13 years of uncontrolled immigration. In fact, they cut the number of places. I will forgive him for his comments, as he is a Marxist by his own admission. He invited me to read up a bit more on Marxism. I would be very grateful, in a spirit of mutual open-mindedness, if he could send me a reading list.
I greatly enjoyed today’s debate and I thank all noble Lords for their contributions.
Boarding School Partnerships
Lord Nash Excerpts(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Agnew of Oulton
I thank the noble Lord for his question. It is extremely important. Indeed, in the study that was recently carried out by Norfolk County Council, a third of the children were placed in state boarding schools. Boarding schools can offer a holistic environment in which to grow and develop, and it is this stability that can have long-lasting, positive effects on children’s outcomes. We are open to proposals from the state system to consider more boarding facilities. From my own experience in a boarding school, I can say they are very important, particularly if one comes from a broken family.
Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, can my noble friend say how many of the 52 young people funded in boarding schools by Norfolk County Council were able to be taken off the local authority’s risk register completely, as a result of their experience and the benefits of attending a boarding school?
Lord Agnew of Oulton
I thank my noble friend for this question and pay tribute to the important role that he played in setting up Boarding School Partnerships last year. Almost three-quarters, 37 of the children, showed a reduced level of risk and nearly two-thirds moved out of a high-risk category into universal services. Overall, 33 children were taken off the council’s risk register. These outcomes can only be described as very encouraging. For the right child, at the right time and in the right school, boarding can present an excellent opportunity.
A Manifesto to Strengthen Families
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Nash (Con)
My Lords, I warmly welcome my noble friend the Minister to your Lordships’ House. He has worked tirelessly for the communities of Norfolk for many years, and I worked closely with him as a non-executive director of the Department for Education and in his capacity as chair of the academies board. He is particularly committed to improving the life chances of young people. He is someone of very sound judgment, with a very fine mind, and I am absolutely delighted that he has taken up this position. I am sure that he will be an outstanding Minister and—this is probably the only time I could ever say this without upsetting someone—far better than the previous incumbent.
I also thank my noble friend Lord Farmer for bringing forward this debate on such an important issue. As he said, so many of our children and young people suffer from unstructured home lives, poor parenting, family breakdown and absent fathers, and they are at risk from gangs. At one charity in which I am involved, we surveyed the parents and asked how many of them had any kind of structured environment at home. Nearly 90% said that they had no such structure or routine system at home, but a similar number said that they would like to hear about one if someone would describe it to them. Increasingly, we are seeing children enter primary school with inadequate toilet training and some with black teeth from too much sugar. At one school with which I am involved, one of our five year-olds had to have all his teeth removed.
As the academy movement has progressed, we have seen many academy groups which started with secondaries move into primaries and then into nurseries, as have many free school primaries. One particularly successful free school—Reach Academy Feltham—engages with parents when their children are babies, and I am delighted that it has been approved for a second free school, where it will seek to have a range of services on site for families.
Overlaid on this issue of parenting is the problem of children and young people’s overexposure and addiction to computers and smartphones. This can affect the development of a child’s brain and lead to poor ability to concentrate, scatty behaviour and severely disrupted sleep patterns. Many schools are now exhorting parents to ensure that children do not have their smartphones with them after, say, nine o’clock at night or to consider using one of the apps available to control access time and content. All this, however, requires discipline and structure from the parents. One school in California, where many parents who work for social media and other IT companies send their children, severely limits the use of computers and smartphones.
We want our children and young people to grow up and become good parents themselves. Most pupil surveys show that the majority of school pupils aspire to finish up in a permanent, long-term relationship. Sadly, so many of them have no experience of having seen what that looks like at close range. This is why relationship education, which is now compulsory in all schools under the recent Children and Social Work Act, is so important.
I strongly support any initiative that can help deal with these issues and welcome the manifesto. I am particularly attracted to the idea of family hubs and hope that the Government will consider piloting at least some of these. I am sure that the benefits and payback, in every sense, would be substantial.
English Baccalaureate: Creative and Technical Subjects
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott for calling this debate, and to all noble Lords who have contributed to this lively discussion.
I am sure everyone agrees that we need an education system that ensures all our young people have a fair chance to go as far as their talents and hard work will take them, regardless of their circumstances. An important part of that will be ensuring that children have the opportunity to study the core academic subjects at GCSE: English; maths; science, which could include computer science; history or geography; and a language. That is the EBacc.
From international studies, it is clear that there is a strong correlation between high-performing educational jurisdictions and EBacc-type content in their curriculum. Many studies have shown, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, that it is pupils from a disadvantaged background, who may suffer from not having that core cultural capital at home and who particularly benefit from gaining a high cultural capital from academic and arts subjects.
I begin by reminding noble Lords of the facts surrounding the recent history of our education system. Schools previously entered many more pupils in EBacc subjects, but those figures slumped under the Labour Government. For example, the number of pupils studying geography fell from 44% to 26%, the number studying history from 35% to 31% and the number studying science from 81% to 63%. As a result, in 2010, only 22% of state school pupils were studying a course of those academic subjects, which we call the EBacc and which will be regarded as minimum basic fare in any private school and in most successful educational jurisdictions. The fact is that during that slump in the EBacc, we also slumped down the international league tables for education. I am afraid it gives the lie to my noble friend Lord Baker’s point that these academic subjects are not connected to educational performance. Happily, thanks to our EBacc, the number of pupils now entering these academic subjects has nearly doubled in the last six or seven years.
We know why the Labour Government introduced a broad range of vocational subjects—I am sure it was a genuine attempt to improve vocational standards and the range of available opportunities for pupils. Their mistake, which is probably the most polite way I can describe it, was their use of the concept of equivalence, so that many subjects that were not GCSEs were ranked as GCSEs in the league tables. My favourite—I have mentioned it to noble Lords before—is the higher-level BTEC diploma in fish husbandry, a subject in which there were no formal exams, only coursework, but which counted for four GCSEs. Other favourites of mine include cake decorating and hazard control; sadly, there are many other examples. Head teachers and teachers inevitably respond to the incentives that are put on them; those were the wrong incentives. We believe the EBacc is the right incentive and they have responded well to it.
My noble friend Baroness Stedman-Scott spoke about the case for broadening the 14 to 19 curriculum. That is exactly what was tried, and I am afraid the result was that too many young people from the most disadvantaged backgrounds were told that academic qualifications were not for them and that they should study these subjects. During that period, among the OECD countries, we fell from seventh to 25th in reading, from eighth to 28th in maths and from fourth to 16th in science. Happily, the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, helped us reform these vocational subjects from 14 to 16, and from 16 to 19.
The OECD’s adult skills survey found that the level of maths ability in England is no different among school leavers than among retirees, unlike in most other countries where school leavers perform at a higher standard than older generations. In fact, our youngest adults, aged 16 to 24, are amongst the OECD’s lowest scoring countries, alongside their peers in Turkey, Chile, Israel, Greece, Italy and Spain. That is why we are building an education system where pupils master the basics in primary school, study common core subjects up to the age of 16, and then start to specialise after that through high-quality academic, technical and apprenticeship routes.
My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott talked about UTCs and studio schools. We have removed them from the target of the percentage of pupils that will study EBacc, but while we continue to keep this matter under review, we have not exempted them from the performance measures. It is for UTCs and studio schools to demonstrate progress to Ofsted by baseline testing their students as they enter to show Ofsted that they have made significant progress under their management.
My noble friend and many other noble Lords referred to a decline in entry in many subjects. Some of the confusion here is caused by a substantial decline in the secondary school population—approaching 10% over the last six to seven years. I will therefore veer more helpfully here to facts relating to percentages. It is also relevant and undoubtedly the case that some pupils in the recent past, as I have alluded to, have been encouraged to take some of these subjects because, bluntly, they were seen to be easier. As I said, we have reformed the subjects to make them more rigorous and more internationally competitive.
I turn first to design and technology. A number of noble Lords referred to the decline in this. Indeed, the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, talked about a torrent. He is quite right; there was a torrent. There was a decline from 40% in 2010 to 28% in 2016, but from 1998—we do not have figures for 1997—to 2010 there was a fall from 65% to 40%. A number of noble Lords have spoken about the huge importance of music. Since 2010, in percentage terms, those taking music has stayed static at 7%. For art and design, the figures since 2010 have gone up slightly from 26% to 27%, but in the years prior to that from 1997 to 2010 they fell from a third of pupils to just over a quarter. Drama has declined a little from 13% to 11% since 2010. Business studies has gone up somewhat. Lastly, on computer studies and IT, it may be relevant—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the importance of not letting our school system become obsolete—that more pupils are interested in taking these subjects. The number of pupils taking computer studies and IT since 2010 has gone up from 7% to 23%—it has more than trebled.
The Government are in no doubt that studying EBacc subjects up to the age of 16 is right for most pupils. We are committed to unlocking their potential. That is why we would like to see 90% of year 10 pupils studying GCSEs in EBacc by 2025. I thank my noble friend Lord Lucas for his support in this matter.
Research shows that there are big differences in A-level subject choices depending on social background, and a major reason for this is that the GCSE subjects studied by pupils still differ depending on their background. Disadvantaged pupils remain half as likely to be entered for the EBacc combination of subjects as their peers. The Sutton Trust has found that this gap persists even among the most academically able pupils. We must therefore encourage more pupils to take the EBacc. The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked for a broader church of research than the New Schools Network. Research was published last month by the Centre for Longitudinal Studies at the IoE which shows that studying the EBacc combination of GCSE subjects increases the likelihood that a pupil will stay on in full-time education.
Contrary to the arguments of those who think that many pupils cannot study the EBacc, Sutton Trust research has found that when schools move to a core EBacc curriculum at GCSE, pupil attainment improves. In fact, pupils in these schools are more likely to achieve good GCSEs in English and maths, refuting claims that a more academic curriculum would distract them from these subjects. In 2016, the Ark King Solomon Academy, which has a high proportion of pupils eligible for free school meals, entered 80% of pupils for the EBacc and 76% achieved it. We have many more examples of successful schools. Some of our free schools have just reported some really quite stellar results in the EBacc. These are schools designed to promote the EBacc, particularly in areas of disadvantage. Taking the EBacc is important not only for those who want to pursue A-levels but for those who want to go into technical education. As I am sure noble Lords are aware, we have reformed GCSEs, AS and A-levels to be internationally competitive.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, talked about university not being right for all pupils. I am delighted that he has accepted that his Government’s desire for many, many pupils to go to university was rather misguided. For too long, however, pupils from a disadvantaged background with the potential to study at our world-class universities missed out on that opportunity, simply because they never thought of applying or never knew that they could. In recent years, we have seen that the number of pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds going to university has gone up substantially.
Through our consultation on implementing the EBacc, we wanted to understand the barriers that schools face in increasing EBacc entry. We do not believe that it needs to be the case that studying the EBacc will deter pupils from studying the arts and creative subjects. We have always said that the EBacc should be studied as part of a broad and balanced curriculum. In fact, the EBacc was designed to be limited in size to enable pupils to do that. On average, pupils in state-funded schools do nine GCSEs, rising to 10 or more for more able pupils. The EBacc covers seven GCSEs, or eight for those pupils taking triple science, which leaves room for other choices. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott spoke about the fact that the lowest quartile of attainers take an average of six or seven GCSEs. In fact, in 2016, the Progress 8 measure showed that the number of GCSEs taken by this cohort has risen to seven or eight.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about not all young people thriving on an academic curriculum. It is of course for schools to decide about that. My noble friend Lady Stedman-Scott referred to an informal group of people who are focused on this and I would be absolutely delighted to meet them whenever suits them.
The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, talked about the importance of arts-based subjects and a broad and balanced curriculum, and I entirely agree with her. She also raised the question of how it is possible for a school or academy to be deemed outstanding when many of them do not even offer the full range of arts subjects and talked about the narrowness of curriculum. I also particularly enjoyed the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Bird. I am personally concerned about the narrowness of curriculum at key stage 3 and about the narrowness of curriculum in many of our primary schools. I know that Her Majesty’s chief inspector, Amanda Spielman, sees a broad, rich and deep curriculum as of vital importance to all pupils. I entirely agree with that. She has commissioned a major Ofsted study of the curriculum, which is currently under way. The outcome of this will inform Ofsted’s approach to school inspections, and will inform the Government’s approach.
The noble Lord, Lord Watson, talked about the evidence to support the position advanced that entries to arts subjects have fallen as a result of the introduction of the EBacc. As we say in our response, we carried out an analysis of the trend in arts uptake in schools that had increased EBacc entry. This analysis was published. It showed that in the nearly 300 schools that increased their EBacc entry rates by 40% or more between 2011 and 2016, on average 49% of their pupils took at least one arts subject. This is the same as in other state-funded schools. Furthermore, we found there to be a small positive correlation between schools’ EBacc entries and arts entries, suggesting that schools where EBacc entry has increased tend to have also seen an increase in their arts uptake. I agree that there should be space in the curriculum for the arts, and good schools, such as the King John School in Benfleet, show that there does not need to be such a false choice. Between 2011 and 2016, it increased its EBacc entry rate by almost 50%, and during the same period the percentage of its pupils who took at least one arts subject increased by nearly 50%.
My noble friend Lord Lucas expressed concern about comparable outcomes, an approach that has been used by Ofqual since 2011 and is designed to ensure that the grading system is consistent and fairly reflects the ability of the cohort of pupils each year.
We should also remember that GCSE statistics do not tell the whole story. Many students take part in dramatic societies, choirs, orchestras and bands. A number of noble Lords were concerned about music—the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, the noble Lords, Lord Aberdare and Lord Berkeley, and my noble friend Lord Sherbourne. I entirely agree about the very great importance of music. My noble friend Lord Sherbourne referred to our music hubs and a number of our other initiatives that benefit many pupils. My noble friend Lord Baker suggested that there should be encouragement and bursaries for design and technology teachers. In fact, we have a bursary of £12,000 if you have a first or a PhD, and £9,000 for a 2.1. He also talked, as I have done, about the fact that computing counts towards the EBacc.
My noble friend Lord Lucas made a very good point about making sure that we study what works in schools and build on good practice. He referred to the Michaela free school’s approach to marking. We intend to look closely at those schools, including free schools, which have had remarkable success. We have funded the Education Endowment Foundation with £137 million to look at just this sort of thing.
Alongside reforming GCSEs, AS and A-levels, we are undertaking a programme of reform to technical education, which we debated in your Lordships’ House recently, and which I believe received fairly broad support. We will invest £2.5 billion by 2020 in apprenticeships. We are introducing the apprenticeship levy and raising the quality of apprenticeships. This will result in new, high-quality apprenticeships in many occupations, including creative and design—for example, junior journalist and broadcast production assistant, with standards for fashion studio assistant and live event technician in development.
Reforming technical education will help meet the needs of our growing and changing economy. It will have 15 different routes, each grouping together occupations where there are shared training requirements. Within these will sit our new two-year T- level programmes. We want T-levels to have real labour-market value and credibility, so we will work closely with employers to define the standards and the content. The T-level certificate, awarded on successful completion of the overall programme, will capture the technical qualification achieved, the work placement and attainment in English and maths. These reforms will ensure a consistent technical education system, raising its prestige and ensuring that it is a sought-after option. They will help young people and adults to achieve their potential, as we hope that T-levels will become a gold standard for technical excellence.
We do not expect that a technical education at 16 will close down to 18 year-olds options such as pursuing a degree. High-quality careers advice will of course help in this regard. We are confident that enabling pupils to progress from the core academic subjects that all pupils study up to the age of 16 to our reformed post-16 technical education routes will provide the skills and knowledge that we need for our growing and rapidly changing economy.
Again, I thank all noble Lords for debating such an important issue. Ensuring that every young person is allowed to achieve their full potential is of course vital. Our reforms to the curriculum and qualifications are aimed at just that. Our ambition for the majority of pupils to take the EBacc subjects as part of a broad and balanced curriculum is central to ensuring that every young person has the best preparation for life in modern Britain.
Schools Update: National Funding Formula
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I shall now repeat a Statement made by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education in the other place earlier today.
“In my Statement to the House on 17 July, I set out my department’s plans to increase spending on schools by £1.3 billion over the next two years, on top of our existing plans. I informed the House that this would mean that we could press ahead with introducing a national funding formula for schools and high needs from April 2018 that would provide a per pupil cash increase in respect of every school and every local area, and maintain the overall budget in real terms per pupil. And I promised to return to the House in September to set out the Government’s final decisions on introducing fairer funding in full. Today I am doing just that.
This is an historic reform. It means, for the first time, the resources that the Government are investing in our schools will be distributed according to a formula based on the individual needs and characteristics of every school in the country. Not only will the national funding formula direct resources where they are most needed, helping to ensure that every child can get the high quality education that they deserve, wherever they live, it will also provide that money through a transparent formula, providing greater predictability. And, by clearly setting out the sums that we are directing to different aspects of the formula—to the basic amount per pupil, or to children with additional needs—for the first time it allows for properly informed debate on this vital topic: something the existing, opaque system has held back.
The need for reform has been widely recognised across this House, and beyond. The National Association of Head Teachers says, ‘a revised funding formula for schools is essential’. The Association of School and College Leaders believes that ‘the way in which funding has been distributed to schools has been flawed for many years … Reform of the school funding system is vital’. The case is so strong because of the manifest unfairness when Coventry receives £510 more per pupil than Plymouth despite having equal proportions of pupils eligible for free school meals; or Nottingham similarly attracts £555 more than Halton, near Liverpool, in Cheshire. Addressing these simple but damaging inequalities will represent the biggest improvement in the school funding system for decades. It is a step that previous Governments have failed to take for far too long.
In making such a significant reform, it has been vital to take account of a broad range of views. Our wide-ranging consultations, in both 2016 and earlier this year, allowed us to hear from over 26,000 individual respondents and representative organisations. I am grateful to everyone who took the time to share their views and to respond to the consultations, including many Members across the House. We have carefully considered them all.
As I said to the House in July, I am putting an additional £1.3 billion into core funding for schools and high needs so that the overall budget will now rise by around £2.6 billion from almost £41 billion in 2017-18 to £42.4 billion in 2018-19 and £43.5 billion in 2019-20. Building on this firm foundation, I can today set out the final funding formulae we will introduce, which, over the next two years, will mean we will deliver on our manifesto pledge to make school funding fairer and ensure that we deliver higher funding in respect of every area and school.
Building on our consultation proposals, as I set out in the House prior to the summer recess, I am increasing the basic amount of funding that every pupil will attract. We recognise the challenge of the very lowest funded schools so we will introduce a minimum per pupil funding level. Under the national funding formula, in 2019-20 all secondary schools will attract at least £4,800 per pupil. Today I can announce that all primary schools will attract at least £3,500 per pupil through the formula in 2019-20, and the formula will provide these levels of funding quickly: secondary schools will attract at least £4,600, and primary schools £3,300 in 2018-19; and then the full amounts the following year. I will also provide a cash increase in respect of every school. Final decisions on local distribution will be taken by local authorities, but under the national funding formula every school will attract at least 0.5% more per pupil in 2018-19, and 1% more in 2019-20, compared to its baseline.
Many schools will, of course, attract significantly larger increases under the formula—up to 3% per pupil in 2018-19 and a further 3% per pupil in 2019-20. And the minimum per pupil funding level will not be subject to this gains cap—delivering particularly fast gains in respect of the very lowest funded schools.
Our consultation confirmed the importance of funding for additional needs, deprivation and low prior attainment. We know that these factors are the best way to identify those children who are most likely to fall behind, and to remain behind, their peers, and it is only right that we provide the greatest resources to the schools that face the greatest challenges. As I said in July, we will protect the funding that the formula will direct towards additional needs at the level proposed in our consultation, and I can therefore confirm today that the total spend on additional needs will be £5.9 billion. As we proposed in December, we will distribute that funding more fairly, in line with the best available evidence. We will use a broad measure of deprivation to include all those who are likely to need extra help, and we will increase the proportion of additional needs spending allocated on the basis of low prior attainment to give additional support to those who may not be economically deprived, but who still need help to catch up.
I can also confirm today that, as we proposed in December, the national funding formula will allocate a lump sum of £110,000 for every school. For the smallest and most remote schools, we will distribute a further £26 million in dedicated sparsity funding. Only 47% of eligible schools received sparsity funding in 2017-18 because some local authorities chose not to use this factor. Our national funding formula will recognise all eligible schools.
Our formula will rightly result in a significant boost directed towards those schools that are currently the least well funded. Secondary schools, which would have been the lowest funded under our December proposals, will now gain on average 4.7%. Rural schools will gain on average 3.9%, with those schools in the most remote locations gaining 5.0%. Schools with high numbers of pupils starting with low attainment will gain on average 3.8%.
As I set out in my Statement in July, to provide stability for schools through the transition to the national funding formula, each local authority will continue to set a local formula which will determine individual schools’ budgets in their areas for 2018-19 and 2019-20 in consultation with local schools. This means that the school-level allocations from the Government that I am publishing today, alongside this announcement, are notional allocations which we will use to set the total funding available for schools in each area. As I set out, schools’ final actual funding allocations for 2018-19 and 2019-20 will be based on the local formula agreed in their area by the local authority, and schools will receive their allocation ahead of the new financial year as normal. I will place copies of both documents in the Library of the House.
Our objective to provide the best education for every child places a particular focus on the support we offer to those children who face the greatest barriers to success, and on the high needs budget which provides for that support. The case for reform of high needs funding is every bit as strong as the case for school funding reform, and therefore the move to a national funding formula is every bit as important.
We set out the full proposals for the introduction of a high needs national funding formula last December, alongside our schools formula. I am today confirming that we will proceed with the proposals. Moreover, thanks to the additional investment that I announced in July, I can increase funding for high needs so that I will also be able to raise the funding floor to provide a minimum increase of 0.5% per head in 2018-19 and 1% per head in 2019-20 for every local authority. Underfunded local authorities will receive up to 3% per head gains a year for the next two years. That is a more generous protection than we proposed in December in order to help every local authority maintain and improve the support it offers to some of our most vulnerable children. It means that local authorities will see on average a 4.6% increase in their high needs budgets.
The additional £1.3 billion we are investing in schools and high needs means that all local authorities will receive an increase in 2018-19 over the amount they plan to spend in 2017-18. Local authorities will take the final decisions on distributing funding to schools within local areas, but the formula will provide for all schools to see an increase in funding compared to their baseline.
In conclusion, the new national funding formulae will redress historic inequities in funding that have existed for too long while maintaining stability so that schools and local areas are not disadvantaged in the process. After too many years in which the funding system has placed our schools on an unfair playing field, we are finally making the decisive and historic move towards fair funding.
The national funding formulae for schools and high needs and the increased investment we are making in schools will help us to continue improving standards and create a world-class education system. No one in this House should accept the system as it has been. It has perpetuated inequality and that is unacceptable. I am proud that a Conservative Government are now putting this right. On this firm foundation, we will all—government and schools, teachers and parents—be able to build a system that finally allows every child to achieve their potential, no matter what their background or where they are growing up”.
My Lords, that concludes the Statement.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for repeating the Statement, which on the face of it sounds extraordinarily good news. However, we have concerns that none of this money is actually new and is being taken from efficiencies and savings in the DfE budget. We have £420 million taken out of the capital budget, including £315 million from healthy pupils capital funding used to fund improvements in schools’ PE facilities. Surely, at a time when we hear of the concerns about children’s obesity, that is not a terribly wise transfer of money.
The free schools budget is also being cut. Three of the 14 planned new free schools will now be funded by local authorities. There is a sense about this Statement of robbing Peter to pay Paul. The National Audit Office estimates that it will cost £6.7 billion to return all school buildings to a satisfactory condition. Why is the Secretary of State pilfering from the capital budget to pay for the increase in core schools budget? If the Tories can find £1 billion for the DUP, can the Treasury please find some more money for schools?
The Government broke the pay cap on police and public sector pay, and yesterday they were unable to defend the cap on NHS staff pay. Will they now look again at giving teachers a pay rise above the 1% too, with the Secretary of State increasing the schools budget accordingly? The teaching profession faces a number of crises and shortages and, surely, a long-overdue pay increase would be most welcome to try to redress some of the iniquities in the system.
The Government have scrapped their plans to make private schools help out neighbouring state schools or lose their charitable status, which is particularly worrying at a time when we see state schools unable to afford building repairs and forced to cut back on resources for their students. In our earlier debate, we heard how there was much advantage to the independent sector in creative studies. Will the Education Secretary urge the Prime Minister to rethink her broken election promise as a matter of urgency? Does the Education Secretary not also think it deeply short-sighted to fund the core schools budget by cutting the capital funding for PE facilities? I have already mentioned this, I think: we know childhood obesity rates continue to rise.
The per-pupil funding for 16 to 19 year-olds in sixth forms and FE colleges has been frozen since the 2015 spending review. Now that the Government are pledging that per-pupil funding for schools will increase with inflation, will the Secretary of State make the same commitment to 16 to 19 year-olds? I repeat that we welcome anything which causes funding for schools to be fairer, particularly if it focuses on the more deprived children and areas, but I would be grateful for the Minister’s reply.
Lord Nash
I am grateful for the general tenor of support for our proposals. It may not surprise the noble Lord, Lord Watson, if I do not go quite so far as he wished in his dreams that I would but I will write to him in more detail about his points. The £5.9 billion is for additional needs, not high needs, and we have maintained the existing total that authorities are currently allocated. This funding will be maintained in 2018-19 and 2019-20, and rise in line with pupil numbers, but I will write to him with a more detailed figure.
There is a lot of talk about cuts but, as I think everybody knows, they are not actually cuts. They are cost pressures, which everybody has suffered from in the private sector and business. Schools are more than half way through those cost pressures, caused by things such as pensions. Well-managed schools do their budgeting extremely well and are managing to improve this.
We have a huge amount of advice available to schools—I have referred to our website before—with a lot of resources such as toolkits, benchmarks and comparators for them to look at. We have a buying strategy in place, as £10 billion of schools’ spend is on buying services. This is a bit theoretical and top level but our analysis reveals that if all schools bought at the cheapest prices available there would be considerable savings, probably over £1 billion. We have a big programme in place on that and it is true that our best-performing school groups on finance, the MATs, are also often our best performers educationally—and, sadly, vice versa—because those school groups have learned how to focus their resources on exactly the areas they want. They have thought through where they want to spend their money and drive efficiencies so that there is much more available for the front line. If I have not covered any other points and noble Lords feel that they would like me to, I will write to them.
Lord Lucas (Con)
My Lords, would my noble friend not agree that what the Opposition Front Benches meant to say was that they are immensely grateful to this strong and stable Government for grasping the nettle and making a reform that they jolly well should have made when they were in power?
Lord Nash
Well, it is true that we are the first Government who have actually done this. It is not easy and I pay tribute to the officials in the Department for Education. They tell me that they have been working on this for at least 10 years, as I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Knight, knows, and are personally delighted that it has happened.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I congratulate the Government and particularly the officials on bringing this forward. I certainly remember commissioning a review of the funding formula back when I announced one, about 10 years ago. Unfortunately it felt as if politics, with things such as general elections and changes in government, got in the way of implementing the outcome of that review. These things happen. I am particularly pleased to see sparsity issues recognised in this announcement.
My question relates to a welcome guarantee, if I heard the Minister correctly, of a real-terms, per-head increase of at least 0.5% next year and 1% the year after. That is important. However, I am also mindful of this week’s report from the National Audit Office regarding the recruitment and retention of teachers—and I remind the House of my interest in respect of my work at TES. At paragraph 2.2, the report states:
“To meet the increasing need for teachers, particularly in secondary schools, the Department for Education … and schools will need to improve teacher recruitment and retention. We reported in February 2016 that the Department has not met its overall target for filling teacher training places in each of the past four years. It has since missed the target for a fifth year”.
As the department reflects on that, particularly given that this week we have seen the pay cap go for the police, is it possible that it might reflect that the pay cap for teachers needs to be lifted? If so, will the department then ensure that the Treasury funds that rather than it coming out of the money announced in this funding formula? I would hate to campaign to raise the pay cap for teachers but then see the ensuing problems as schools scramble to try to fund 0.5% from what, certainly in some of the urban areas, will be quite a limited extra amount of money.
Lord Nash
The noble Lord makes some very good points about teacher recruitment and retention. Of course we have a strong economy with very high levels of employment and very low levels of unemployment which impacts on the ability to recruit teachers. We are doing a huge amount of work on improving our recruitment approach, which is a much more regionally focused approach to look at where we particularly need to recruit teachers. There is no doubt that the work of a number of our multi-academy trusts in career development, CPD and teacher retention will help teacher retention.
The independent School Teachers’ Review Body has recommended teacher pay increases. We have listened carefully to what it recommended and accepted the recommendations. We continue to work closely with schools to help them manage their finances.
Lord Storey (LD)
I think we all welcome this, and the Government are to be congratulated on bringing a fair funding formula forward—four Fs, such alliteration. I have a number of questions. Schools will still face financial difficulties because the problem for school budgeting has been oncosts, such as national insurance and the costs of buying in services, which vary dramatically, and we will not know the full financial impact until we see the figures working in schools. In terms of primary schools and £3,500 per pupil, will that be the same for each key stage—that is, foundation, key stage 1 and key stage 2—or will it vary between the stages? I am fascinated by the fact that we are gradually bringing local authorities back into the frame. Who would have thought that the archenemies, local authorities, are now going to have a little role in terms of the distribution of funds in their areas? In terms of schools in remote areas, what is the definition of a small school which would be eligible for this extra funding?
Lord Nash
The noble Lord is absolutely right about the oncosts, which is what I was referring to, and them actually being cost pressures rather than cuts. But as I say, we have very sophisticated work under way in the department looking at school finances. We have something called a RAT—a risk assessment tool, which is slightly easier to say than a fair funding formula. We are working with local authorities and with academy trusts to ensure that their financial planning is good. I do not really recognise the expression “archenemy” as applied to local authorities. We are working very closely with local authorities on a number of fronts, including the free schools programme and our basic needs school place planning. We have increased the number of school places by three-quarters of a million in the last six years. We now have the strategic improvement boards, on which local authority representatives and regional schools commissioners sit, among others. I am confident that this will improve relationships even further. But, as I think I have said, the relationships with local authorities are generally extremely good. The noble Lord may be very pleased to hear that.
Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)
My Lords, it would be churlish not to congratulate the Government on a fairer formula, although we will need to look at the repercussions. I still meet head teachers who are having to reduce the number of teachers and are under pressure as a result of national insurance, pensions and things like that. There is concern on that front. I have two other points to make. I presume, as we have not heard any reference to it, that the £50 million or so of funding for the extension of grammar schools has disappeared. I hope that will not be a further oncost, as I share the view of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on that. I read the couple of paragraphs in the document, but does this sustain the existing pupil premium or slightly increase it? Can the Minister just confirm that? It certainly makes a significant difference in my primary school budget. I have already declared an interest in a previous debate as chair of the governing body.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Will Members of Parliament receive a briefing from the Department for Education about the implications, constituency by constituency, of this remarkable announcement today and the good news that it brings to every constituency in the country? I also want to ask my noble friend about independent schools, which the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, touched on. Will my noble friend confirm that the Government remain as fully committed now as they ever have been to securing the closer involvement of independent schools in co-operation with schools in the maintained sector? What individual independent schools can do varies so much depending on their size, their resources and the facilities that they have to share with the state sector. It also all has to be on a reciprocal basis. Is this not the underlying intention and aim of the Government today, just as it has been in the past? Finally, would my noble friend agree that it is always worth noting, when charitable status is mentioned, that independent schools give more in means-tested bursaries than they receive in benefit from their charitable status?
Lord Nash
The answer to my noble friend’s first question is yes, there will be detail by school and by constituency. I entirely agree with what he says about independent schools. We had of course an event yesterday about independent and state schools working more closely together. Interestingly, that afternoon I went to visit an independent school close to one of my academies and was struck by the willingness of the head teacher there—who himself was state-educated, and the first in his family to go to university—and his school to engage with our state school.
There has been some lack of awareness in the past, which I hope has been partially solved by the Schools Together website, which now has more than 1,000 examples of schools and the independent sector working together. Fantastic examples include both King’s, Wimbledon and the York Independent State School Partnership, where all schools in York—I think it is three independents and 10 state schools—work closely together. We are dedicated to ensuring that every part of our school system, whether independent or state, works quite closely together and it is clear to me, having had detailed discussions with the Independent Schools Council, that it is determined to do that.
Schools: Children in Care
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Lord Lexden
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have plans to enable more children in care to obtain places in state and independent boarding schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for this Question, as it is a subject close to my heart. We are very keen to encourage more local authorities to consider boarding for vulnerable children. This summer we launched the Boarding School Partnerships service, very ably chaired by Colin Morrison, the former chair of the Royal National Children’s Foundation, and this service operates jointly with the boarding schools sector and charities to help local authorities collaborate with charities to place vulnerable children in state and independent boarding schools.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Does my noble friend agree that children in care can benefit greatly from a boarding education where they are suited to it? Is it not the case that many local councils once recognised this, with some 10,000 placements being arranged in the late 1960s?
Lord Nash
I agree entirely with my noble friend that boarding can have great benefits for the right children, and we want to see more vulnerable children able to access it. My noble friend is quite right that boarding was more common at one time. Boarding school, with its 24/7 level of pastoral care, can be particularly suitable for vulnerable children, and that is why we are encouraging its use more widely and why we have set up the Boarding School Partnerships.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, has this scheme been evaluated, and, if so, how? Have children been asked about the success of the scheme?
Lord Nash
That is a very good question from the noble Baroness. The scheme was launched only a few months ago and we will be concentrating initially on promoting it with local authorities. The department recently had a very successful event with local authorities to launch it with a number of people who had been in care and at boarding school speaking passionately about it. Our first step is to promote it with local authorities, but we will, when appropriate, evaluate it.
Lord Laming (CB)
My Lords, does the noble Lord agree that it is easy to say that this facility should be for children when it is appropriate for them? But please let us not gloss over what happened in the 1960s. Many children were sent to boarding schools where, frankly, they were out of sight, out of mind and they had some terrible experiences. Let us go for a wide range, but make sure the placement is appropriate to the child’s needs.
The Lord Bishop of Southwark
My Lords, as the Minister is aware, those who live in tied accommodation as part of their employment or the holding of an office have an unintentional structural disadvantage when it comes to their children’s schooling. This is ameliorated in the case of military families but not in the case of others, such as clergy and their children. Will Her Majesty’s Government now act to address this disadvantage by amending the code?
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, the appropriate word is “appropriate”, and we must do what is right for the individual child in care. It might be that boarding school provision is correct, but would the Minister agree that, where boarding school provision is provided, we must have the most vigorous safeguarding assessment of that provision?
Lord Nash
I agree with the noble Lord that that is essential, but we have moved a long way from the 1960s. It may have been, as a reaction to some of the points the noble Lord, Lord Laming, made, that we have moved too far in the other direction and there is a certain overreluctance by some local authorities. We have definitely seen that local authorities are now better informed and visit schools. If noble Lords visit the Boarding School Partnerships website— at boardingschoolpartnerships.org.uk—they will be impressed, as there is a lot of information there to help local authorities on which schools are providing this and how they might assess whether it is appropriate for a particular child.
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, will local authorities retain their duty of care during term time, and what arrangements will be made during holidays to see that the children’s educational interests are not neglected during that time?
Lord Nash
My noble friend makes a very good point, as local authorities do remain responsible. In holidays there are some facilities that may be able to keep children and we have initiatives to try to extend such arrangements, but it is certainly the case that local authorities continue to be responsible.
Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)
My Lords, is it true that this whole programme is being driven by the need to save money, as against placing children in foster care? In so far as we know that only 100 children nationally are now in such placements, surely we should fully evaluate the effect on those children before we proceed further down this route.
Lord Nash
It is not driven by money at all; it is driven by a passionate belief by a number of people, including the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, and others who have been to boarding school that it can help and that we had lurched into a certain prejudice against boarding schools. We are just inviting local authorities to look more widely at the options and making much more information available to allow them to evaluate those options.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, while acknowledging the potential benefits of the Boarding School Partnerships, the noble Lord will be aware that most children in care will have experienced some kind of trauma and a high proportion have unmet mental health needs. Extending the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, I think that it is questionable whether boarding schools are equipped to provide the sort of wraparound support that these children may need. Indeed, such a placement does not necessarily address the reasons a child was taken into care in the first place. For many of the children being placed at a state or independent boarding school, that will be outside their local authority. Research by the Children’s Society demonstrates that the further children are placed from home, the more likely they are to go missing from care. Will the Minister give an assurance that, when children in care are placed in boarding schools outside their home local authorities, the placing local authority will share appropriate information with the host authority to ensure that these children are appropriately safeguarded and have their particular needs met?
Free Childcare Entitlements
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 8 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families.
“Thank you very much indeed, Mr Speaker, for allowing this Urgent Question, which gives me the opportunity to highlight this Conservative Government’s determination to support as many families as possible with access to high-quality, affordable childcare and early years education. We are investing a record amount. Our support will total £6 billion per year by 2020.
My department is committed to ensuring that all three and four year-olds have access to free childcare. All parents—regardless of income and employment status—are entitled to 15 hours of free childcare for their three and four year-olds. Take-up of this universal entitlement is 95%. In addition, take-up of 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds is rising, and it is fantastic that over 70% of eligible two year-olds are benefiting from this.
On 1 September 2017, the Government reached a major milestone in delivering their key manifesto pledge to double the free childcare entitlements for working parents of three and four year-olds from 15 to 30 hours. Today I have laid a Written Ministerial Statement updating the House on delivery of the 30 hours offer. By 31 August, more than our target of 200,000 30-hour codes had been issued to eligible parents wishing to take up a place this autumn. Indeed, the actual figure, I can update the House, is 216,384 codes issued.
These families starting their places join the existing 15,000 families who are already benefiting from 30 hours of free childcare in our 12 early delivery pilot areas. Independent evaluations of these areas were encouraging, showing that over three-quarters of parents reported greater flexibility in their working life as a result of 30 hours, and more than eight out of 10 childcare providers who were offering the existing 15-hour entitlement went on to offer 30 hours. During the autumn I will closely monitor the delivery of all free childcare entitlements to ensure continued improvements to all our offers for parents and providers. I will continue to work closely with Ministers at HM Treasury to ensure that parents are able to access the HMRC-run childcare service smoothly.
The majority of parents have successfully applied using the childcare service, but some parents experienced difficulties accessing the service through the system by the 31 August application deadline. However, those parents who are eligible and applied before the deadline will have a code to allow them to access our 30 hours of free childcare. They will not lose out. I am pleased to report that this is yet another key manifesto pledge delivered for working families”.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating that Statement as well as for his Statement on the same subject on 18 July. The Government then responded to an Urgent Question on the process of applying for the 30 free childcare hours. The Minister’s response included the admission that the childcare service is a complex IT system which had “experienced technical issues”. He went on to state that:
“HMRC, which developed the service, has been working hard to resolve these issues and as a result the customer experience has improved”.—[Official Report, 18/7/17; col. 1525.]
I have to say that it has not improved enough in the intervening seven weeks to avoid many parents being unable to get their code to access the 30-hour entitlement. None the less, I note what the Statement says in respect of no one losing out. However, according to figures given by the Minister in another place today, six days after the new entitlement began, only 152,000 out of 390,000 eligible parents have been able both to get a code and to find a place for their children. That represents a success rate of under 40%. What plans do the Government have to increase that rate dramatically? I suggest that re-evaluating the policy’s funding would be one means of doing so.
I hope that the Minister will also be in a position to provide an answer to a key question asked earlier by my colleague Tracy Brabin in another place. She did not receive an answer, but three hours have elapsed and I am confident that the Minister’s officials will have ensured that he arrived at the Dispatch Box fully briefed and able to provide an answer. The question was: can the Minister guarantee that he will not allow a two-tier system to emerge whereby parents who can afford to pay extra will have access to the new entitlement and those who cannot pay will not?
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord for his comments. I think it is fair to say that no Government have done as much as this one to develop childcare. We have delivered a massive increase in childcare provision and the sector has handled that well. Our evidence from the 12 live pilot projects—not surveys but live projects—is that they are handling this implementation well. As I said, this is a complicated project, which the noble Lord also referred to, but overall it is going well. Of course there are teething problems, as there always are with a new provision, and we apologise to those parents who may have experienced them. We will do all we can to help them.
The evidence from the 12 pilots, however, is that the vast majority of providers are engaging, parents are happy and, for many of them, this project has had a life-changing impact. We have heard some moving stories of parents who have experienced this. Almost a quarter of mothers have reported that they have been able to increase their working hours, along with a 10th of fathers. The fact that some 150,000 or so places have been taken up reflects that these are very early days. It is inevitable when one has a deadline that there is always quite a rush up to it, and the fact that 70% of these children have already had their codes validated by nurseries is pretty good, given that only a few days have elapsed since the deadline and obviously not all parents will want to take up the offer immediately.
We have no desire to preside over a two-tier system. The Government have done all they can to support less privileged children. We have the early years pupil premium, the free entitlement for two year-olds and tax-free childcare. It is certainly not our intention to preside over that kind of system.
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement. As he rightly said, getting these extra free hours—the 30 hours and the 15 hours—is life changing for many families, particularly working families who perhaps could not afford the extra costs of childcare or did not have the family networks to support them.
I am pleased that the Government have apologised for the problems—the website crashing and the difficulties of the eligibility codes, et cetera. The fact is, mistakes will occur in any new system. The fact that they have resorted to doing some of the eligibility codes by manual means shows the determination to sort this out and ensure that every parent gets the financial support they need.
I have two other issues to raise. The first is not the financial aspect or the application, but whether the places are there to provide for families. I raise the impact of the introduction of free childcare for three and four year-olds on availability of places for one and two year-olds. Two year-olds from the most disadvantaged backgrounds are already struggling to access places in many areas. If we are to create more places for three and four year-olds there is a danger that the places for two and three year-olds will be reduced.
There is also concern about the sector facing quite serious financial problems. The number of nurseries forced to close has almost doubled. The parliamentary Public Accounts Committee found that many private and voluntary providers were finding that the funding they receive does not cover the costs. Are there plans for government to meet with local authorities and the private sector to see what extra support can be provided?
Finally, I would be interested to know what proportion of children eligible for the 30-hour week of free childcare received the eligibility code by 31 August. The Minister might have given that in his reply, but if he could repeat it I would be grateful.
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, for his realistic comments on this complicated but important new provision. As far as availability is concerned, as I said, in the 12 live pilot schemes 80% of existing providers have engaged and another 10% say that they are considering it. Obviously there will be some areas where there may be gaps in provision and we will work with the sector to see that they are filled.
We did a detailed study of the amount of money that should be paid, which the National Audit Office described as thorough and wide-ranging. The recent independent survey from Frontier Economics said that we were more than covering the costs of the extra provision.
So far as support for providers is concerned, the noble Lord makes a very good point that we need to do all we can to help providers develop their businesses. We have a package of support to help providers to ensure that their business remains stable. This includes a document of key insights from successful providers, guidance on marketing, managing finances and business planning, and an online directory of organisations that can provide business and finance support. We have also awarded grants to the National Day Nurseries Association and the Professional Association of Childcare and Early Years to develop new business sustainability resources. We will do whatever else we need to do.
On the percentage, we anticipated on the basis of a 75% take-up that we would get 200,000 applicants at this time. We have had 216,000.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, I pay tribute to the Minister who has taken this policy through from the beginning—he took the Bill through the Lords and has taken pains to listen to concerns from around the House. I think I speak for us all when I say that we are very grateful to him. On the issue of quality, maintained nursery schools, in particular, where the staff are qualified teachers, find that they have higher expenses and overheads than much other provision, because of their highly qualified staff. Will he pay particular attention to concerns raised from that sector as this is rolled out, and be sensitive to its particular needs?
The Minister was good enough to listen to concerns about homeless families and their access to this provision. Will he also keep an eye on how effective we are at reaching out to them and how the pilots have worked in that area? If he could say some more reassuring words about high-quality provision and assure us that the rollout will not lead to a dilution in quality, it would be very welcome.
Lord Nash
I am grateful to the noble Earl for his comments. I should apologise: I promised him a letter last time we discussed this to confirm my point that whether the parents are in temporary accommodation, or even homeless, will have no impact on the provision because it is not based on residence. Perhaps I can save the taxpayer the cost of a stamp by confirming now that that is the case, rather than writing. Of course, we are very keen to preserve the quality of childcare. The figures, as I am sure he knows, are very encouraging. The proportion of children with a good level of development has gone up since 2010 from 56% to 69% and the proportion of childcare providers rated good or outstanding has gone up from 69% to 93%. The gap between disadvantaged children and others has narrowed quite significantly and we have a workforce in which 79% of staff in group-based providers and 69% of childminders are qualified to at least level 3. We are determined to maintain, indeed to increase, the standard of the workforce.
Schools: Recruitment and Retention
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Addington
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the recommendations on pay made by the School Teachers’ Review Body, what action they will take to increase teacher recruitment and retention.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, teaching is and remains an attractive graduate profession. Despite the dramatic improvement in the economy, more teachers are in our schools than ever before, over 15,000 more than in 2010. However, we are not complacent, which is why we continue to invest, including more than £200 million this year, in attracting the brightest and the best into teaching and on tackling the areas that cause teachers to leave the profession, in particular that of workload.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. Figures I have obtained show that between 2010 and 2015 we trained 117,000 teachers and that we have lost 27,000 of them. Does the Minister think that this is due primarily to workload or to pay?
Lord Nash
It is quite clear that teacher retention rates have remained pretty stable over the past 20 years. We live in a world where people do move between jobs a lot, but there is no evidence to suggest that teacher retention has declined in recent years. Moreover, we are doing a great deal of work with teachers, including running an active programme in order to reduce workload.
Baroness Sharples (Con)
My Lords, is not the great increase in the number of pupils with English as a second language making life very difficult for teachers?
Lord Nash
As we have discussed before, there is no doubt that initially pupils who either do not speak English or have poor English do make life difficult for teachers, but the evidence is clear that those pupils, once they can speak the language—which many of them do relatively quickly—can be, to put it bluntly, much more aspirational. As we now all know, although we spend a lot of time compiling statistics on what we call English as additional language pupils, it is in fact white working-class pupils who are falling behind dramatically in our schools. That is why we are making such a substantial investment in coastal towns, former mining villages and other such communities to improve education.
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)
My Lords, I refer the House to my interests relating to teacher recruitment through my work at TES Global. The Minister says that he is not complacent. When I look at the statistics for teacher retention and take out retirement because the number of those retiring has been reducing, I can see that the number leaving the service prematurely has been increasingly significantly every year since 2012. The figure rose from 28,630 in that year to 39,980 in 2016. To repeat the question: is this because of workload pressure or because of pay?
Lord Nash
I know that the noble Lord is very experienced in this area, but he has picked one particular statistic. The fact is that returners to education employment have increased by 8% since 2011 and, as noble Lords will know, this year our recruitment programme has run substantially ahead of last year. We have again recruited 100% of primary teachers and 89%, as opposed to 82%, of secondary teachers.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, will the Minister consider reviewing the system of continuing professional development for teachers with a view to streamlining and strengthening it? Only last week I heard from the leader of a multi-academy trust that he thought that there are too many providers in this area and it is not working efficiently. Does the Minister agree that consistently excellent levels of continuing professional development could have a significant impact on the retention of teachers?
Lord Nash
The noble Earl makes an extremely good point. I think that we are all aware that continuous professional development for teachers is vital. Their initial training may be brief, for nine months, and I think that it is accepted by all in the profession —I have had discussions with the unions as well— that professional development should take place throughout a teacher’s career, particularly in their first three or five years. We know that overseas—for instance, in Shanghai—the programme takes five years. We are seeing many multi-academy trusts developing much more sophisticated continuous professional development for their teachers.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, despite the Minister saying that he is not complacent, I think that noble Lords will agree with me that his answers suggest that he and his department remain in denial about the crisis in teacher retention and recruitment. Just eight months ago, the department confirmed that almost one-third of teachers who joined the profession in 2011 had left it within five years. My noble friend Lord Knight asked a few moments ago whether the cause was workload or pay. In fact, it is a combination of both, particularly below-inflation pay increases. On that specific question, can the Minister reveal to noble Lords whether teachers and teachers’ assistants are among those public servants that the Chancellor of the Exchequer seems to regard as “overpaid”?
Lord Nash
One reason why it has become difficult to recruit teachers is the strength in the economy. The best way to recruit more teachers might be to have a Labour Government, who would wreck the economy and therefore dramatically improve unemployment rates and increase our chances of employing teachers. We live in a highly competitive economy. In many parts of the country, we have full employment. Difficulty in recruitment is not exclusive to teaching or to this country. However, we are not complacent; we are investing a great deal of time in a more regional approach to teacher recruitment and in changing our approaches to advertising and marketing, with schools working together in different regions on a much more sophisticated approach to recruitment.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Are the Government continuing to improve the arrangements under which teachers are initially trained?
Lord Nash
Yes. As I think my noble friend knows, we have substantially increased the proportion of teachers trained in schools—it has now risen to 56% of initial teacher training. As I said in answer to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, we are continuing to look at improving initial teacher training.
Free Childcare Hours
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, with the leave of the House I will now repeat a Statement made in the other place earlier today by my honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families.
“Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and I thank you for allowing this Urgent Question, as it gives me the opportunity to highlight this Government’s determination to invest a record amount in childcare, supporting early education and helping parents financially. Our support will total £6 billion per annum by 2020.
My department is committed to ensuring that all three and four year-olds have access to free early education. All parents, regardless of income and employment status, are entitled to 15 hours of free early education for their three and four year-olds, and for those parents who work we are providing access to an additional 15 hours of free childcare from 2017. Parents who want to take up 30 hours of free childcare can apply through the digital childcare services. They can access the application via the Childcare Choices website, which provides information on all the Government’s childcare offers. The application process takes about 20 minutes. I have recently had a walk-through of the service myself; it is straightforward and the format will be very familiar to parents who have used other government digital services.
The childcare service is a complex IT system, which checks parents’ eligibility in real time by interfacing with the other government IT systems. The vast majority of parents will receive an instant eligibility response. However, there will be a delay for some parents whose eligibility is not immediately clear, for example some self-employed people. The service has also experienced technical issues, which has meant that it has been unavailable to parents on a small number of occasions. HMRC, which developed the service, has been working hard to resolve these issues and as a result the customer experience has improved.
The application has been open to parents of under-fours since 21 April and today my Treasury colleagues will make a Written Ministerial Statement informing the House that the service has been further rolled out to parents of under-fives. Parents whose application is successful receive a 30-hours eligibility code to take to their provider to claim their childcare place. As of today, more than 145,000 codes have been generated from successful applications. This is an increase of almost 5,000 codes since Friday 14 July and an increase of almost 25,000 since Friday 7 July. Increasing numbers of parents are successfully applying. It is great news that so many families will benefit from 30 hours in September because, as we have seen from our early implementer and early rollout areas, this support can make a real positive difference to the lives of hard-working families”.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Government apparently rushed out their revised implementation strategy for the scheme yesterday, less than two months before families are anticipating taking up their additional hours. The pledge that the extra hours would be free seems to be evaporating because it was announced yesterday that providers would be allowed to charge parents for extras on top of those 30 hours. What will happen to those families for whom affording those extras is not possible?
When the then Prime Minister touted the free childcare pledge in the 2015 election campaign, he promised to double the 15 hours available to nearly 1 million children. It was then reduced to 600,000 children, and it has since been admitted that fewer than 400,000 children will be eligible. Will the Minister tell noble Lords the Government’s latest estimate for the figure and how many families are getting the 38 hours that his party originally promised to all?
We know from our newspapers today that there was some kind of IT failure in the system yesterday. Treasury Ministers admitted in response to my colleague in another place Angela Rayner:
“It is not possible to provide a definitive number of applications not completed due to technical issues”.
What is the Minister’s estimate of just how many parents suffered those technical issues? What guarantees can he give to parents that those technical issues will be smoothed out in good time for the system to come into operation as intended?
Lord Nash
I think this is good news. There are some very moving stories around the country and a lot of happy parents emerging from our early implementers. There are examples of couples who are both factory workers who were previously working shifts that did not coincide now managing to coincide those shifts. In answer to the specific points made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, he is quite right that providers can charge parents for meals, consumables, such as nappies and sun cream, and additional activities, such as trips or yoga, but parents must not be required to pay any fee as a condition of taking up a free entitlement place. We have done a great deal since 2010 for disadvantaged families. In additional to the pupil premium we have 15 hours of free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds, tax-free childcare and many other offers.
I am not the most computer-literate person on this planet, but I had officials take me through the process earlier today and I could not see any step in it that was unnecessary. It takes about 20 minutes, and the steps seem absolutely necessary to make sure that the system is secure and that only those who are truly eligible are qualifying.
Baroness Grender (LD)
My Lords, what advice does the Minister have for the following two parents, who are not isolated examples? One parent applied a month ago and received a message that she would get an email “shortly” as to how to apply, but has since received nothing. The other spent an hour on the phone in May and was told that she would be called back—again, nothing. I stress that these are not isolated examples. Perhaps each of them should be assigned an official to walk through it with them. My interest is already declared as a governor for the wonderful Heathbrook primary school. How do I as a governor, along with senior managers, plan in these circumstances for ratios and decent skill levels, given that the scheme appears to be in the hands of people who, frankly, I would not allow to run a certain event in a brewery?
Lord Nash
As I said, the early implementers, which have already been tested with 4,000 parents, seem to be going extremely well. I take the noble Baroness’s point about particular examples and would be very happy for her to share those details with me further so that I can penetrate this to see if there is anything systemic here and if we can help these particular parents.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
My Lords, are there any particular obstacles to accessing the free childcare hours for families living in temporary accommodation? Do they have difficulty getting information about what is on offer? As the Minister knows, 100,000 children are currently in temporary accommodation, 40% of whose families are in employment so many of them will be eligible. Will the Minister write to me on this point if he cannot elucidate now?
Baroness Pinnock (LD)
My Lords, could the Minister give us some more information about the availability of the new 15-hour free places from September? Reports from the Pre-school Learning Alliance in April this year suggest that just 44% of providers were planning to use the 30 hours because they could not afford to provide them at the rates that the Government were offering, and around the same time the National Audit Office said of the implementation that there was a risk that the new entitlement would have a negative impact on the further success of the free entitlement.
Lord Nash
As the noble Baroness knows, we did a great deal of work in our review on ensuring that the pay for this was adequate. Indeed, that has been borne out by a number of independent parties. Some 145,000 people have now received a code. They then have to go to the provider and the provider has to come back to us to verify; 32% of them have done so already, which is well in advance of the September date—if they start in September. As I say, all the indications are that there will be adequate provision.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)
My Lords, will the Minister, who often repeats his acclaim for high-quality education, encourage his colleagues in the Government to stop using “childcare” as an alternative expression for “nursery and early childhood education”? It is not the same. The experience is that good-quality nursery education provides a much better start for young children, particularly those from difficult backgrounds. Will he please encourage people not to use the term coterminously? Referring back to an earlier question about teachers, would he please accept that experience in Lancashire shows that employing bilingual young people to work with children as nursery nurses and teachers helps those for whom English is not their first language or mother tongue? It gives children a better start in their lives in education.
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Baroness. The evidence is clear: although we have had a dramatic increase in the quality of early years provision—it has risen from 69% to 93% rated good or outstanding by Ofsted since 2010—those attached to schools are the best. That is why we have been encouraging primary schools to open nurseries, and we will continue to do so through our free school process. She makes a very good point about bilingual nursery staff. Through our recruitment drive for teachers, we are working with the Spanish Government to recruit teachers from Spain. We are looking at whether we can work with France and Germany, and I will certainly take her point back to the teams.
Lord Lexden (Con)
How are primary schools responding to the Government’s encouragement to open more nurseries?
Lord Nash
Generally, well. It was only a few rounds ago that we allowed primary free school applications to include nurseries, and a considerable proportion of them have now come with nurseries. As I said, that is something that we are keen to encourage: any opening of primary schools should come with nurseries attached.
Children in Need
Lord Nash Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Farmer
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure that local authorities put an action plan in place for all children in need that will improve their family relationships and resolve other difficulties sufficiently for them to be stepped down from that status.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
My Lords, our statutory guidance, Working together to safeguard children, is clear that, where a child is found to be in need, support should be provided to address those needs in order to improve their outcomes. Where the outcome of the assessment is the continued involvement of local authority children’s social care, the social worker and their manager should agree a plan of action with other professionals and discuss this with the child and their family.
Lord Farmer (Con)
I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. At his suggestion, I visited Feltham’s Reach Academy, where staff are working with the local authority to develop a family hub. Parents with children aged nought to 19 will get any early help they need so that they can partner with the school to help deliver outstanding pupil outcomes. This could be transformational for children in need. What are the Government doing to encourage the development of family hubs?
Lord Nash
I am delighted that my noble friend visited Reach Academy in Feltham. It is an outstanding example of the success of the free schools programme, and I am pleased that it has also been approved to open a second free school. I know that my noble friend has done a great deal of excellent work with the Centre for Social Justice on the concept of family hubs. Obviously, the earlier we can help children the better, and this is why we are encouraging so many primary schools to open nursery schools, through the free schools programme and otherwise. A number of local authorities have introduced family hub-type models, and I hope we will see more of them. However, ultimately it is up to local authorities to decide the best local solution.
The Earl of Listowel (CB)
Does the Minister agree that school exclusion can exacerbate the difficult situation of children in need and may put them into care? Will he look at whether the system of continuing professional development for teachers can be strengthened and streamlined so that teachers are better able to manage such children and do not need to exclude them?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Earl that school exclusions are to be avoided at all costs, if possible. Certainly, permanent exclusions are counterproductive and even temporary exclusions are often so, because they amount effectively to the child bunking off for a day. They would be much better off segregated in the school, doing something which encouraged them to behave better in future. Most teachers are very keen to avoid school exclusions. I have just taken over responsibility for attendance and exclusions and will certainly look at this in more detail.
Baroness Benjamin (LD)
My Lords, children with parents in prison are particularly vulnerable and need much consideration. However, under the incentives and privileges scheme, prisoners have to earn the right to see their kids. Barnardo’s has been calling for this to change and for a review of the scheme. It should not be a privilege for parents to see their children, but the right of a child to see their parents. When will a review take place to change this unjust situation? I declare an interest as a vice-president of Barnardo’s.
Lord Nash
I will have to go away and look at this. I am certainly a great believer in earned release schemes, where prisoners earn the right to be released early on the basis that they attend courses in prison. I was not aware of this and it is rather off my brief, but I will go away and come back to the noble Baroness on it.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, the Local Government Association recently highlighted a serious shortfall in local authority budgets to appropriately fund services for children in need and their families. Between 2010 and 2015, high-deprivation local authorities had to endure cuts of 21%, while the figure for low-deprivation authorities was 7%. Perhaps the Minister can help noble Lords make sense of that. I hope that he has been made aware of the research published last year by Professor Paul Bywaters and colleagues at Coventry University, which showed an association between the numbers needing child protection and looked-after children’s services and children living in local authorities with the highest rates of child poverty. Will he now commit to taking steps to ensure that the local authorities with the greatest proportion of children in need receive the funding necessary to ensure that children are not unnecessarily drawn into the child protection and looked-after systems?
Lord Flight (Con)
My Lords, is the Minister aware of the charity Malachi, which has had great success in the West Midlands and Birmingham working with schools where broken families are involved and children are in trouble as a result? It is now in the process of some degree of franchising to other parts of the country.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno (LD)
My Lords, as regards the Government’s promise to accept 3,000 unaccompanied children within the next couple of years, how does this link in with the care that our children are getting?
Lord Elton (Con)
My Lords, both the Question and my noble friend’s Answer refer to the “need” of children. Could he kindly define the Government’s definition of “need” for these purposes?
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)
My Lords, may I ask the noble Lord to go back to the answer that he gave on local authority funding? He made the assertion that it was clear that local authorities were making this issue a priority as they were spending more money on it. That may or may not be true, but what is important is how many children they are having to spend the money on. Can he tell the House what the increase was in numbers of children in care or needing local authority support over that period?
Baroness Lister of Burtersett (Lab)
My Lords, in her recent report on vulnerable children the Children’s Commissioner drew attention to the role of child poverty in that vulnerability. What are the Government doing to reduce child poverty—and will the Minister please not simply say “moving families into paid work”, because we know that that is not necessarily a route out of poverty for low-income families?
Lord Nash
We are certainly very focused on social mobility; I always find the definition of child poverty or of poverty in general quite difficult, because if you define it as being below a certain barrier, there will always be people below it. However, we are determined to improve social mobility—it is what drives all our educational reforms.