Education and Adoption Bill Debate
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Lord Storey
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Education and Adoption Bill
Lord Storey Excerpts(9 years ago)
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Lord Storey
“(d) parents of children registered at the school, and(e) the teaching and support staff at the school.”
Lord Storey (LD)
My Lords, I understand that there are some drafting issues with this amendment, but I will still speak to it and we can perhaps resolve those in later amendments. I have always believed strongly that it is important that every pupil or student should have a qualified teacher. That does not prevent the opportunity for those members of staff who are preparing to become qualified and it does not prevent those teaching assistants who have NVQ level 3 or 4 from teaching.
Sorry, am I on the right amendment here?
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)
I am tempted to say that you might as well keep going.
Lord Storey
As a teacher, it was a fascinating experience to see the students looking quite puzzled, but when I asked whether I was correct, nobody would say “No”—they just looked on. I think that they wanted me to have an even bigger fall than I was already taking.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees
In order that the discussion can continue, would the noble Lord be kind enough to move his amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen (Lab)
My Lords, as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, is not here—it is not a good start—I shall rise to speak to this group of amendments, which follow on in a different way from the concerns about consultation that were raised last week but with the added dimension of consultation on a proposed academy sponsor. I remain astonished at the requirement to consult if a school is undergoing a voluntary conversion but not if it is classed as being eligible for conversion—we discussed that last week—and I also remain astonished that the Government do not see the absolute necessity to consult those people who are most involved in the school, whatever the school’s type.
I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, who is here, thankfully—so she may correct me—previously in Committee raised the issue of what happened to schools in London when comprehensivisation took place. As she pointed out, there were many different types of school in London at that time: there were successful grammar schools and successful secondary modern schools, and there were failing grammar schools and failing secondary modern schools. There were also different ideologies about education and there were immense complications about land transfers. I was a parent and a governor in Inner London at that time, and I remember those battles. I also remember the consultations—with parents, teachers, governors, directors of education and the inspectorate—and I think that that consultation was valued and made for the successful re-establishment of many schools.
I assure the Minister that, like many colleagues, I have fought for high standards in education and for the welfare and rights of children. In this Bill, we are not trying to delay or disrupt; we are seeking the best for children, and I hope that the Minister will respect that. I also know that hurry is often the enemy of satisfactory results and that consultation processes are important. There seems to be some sort of air of desperation—“How dare parents and governors challenge so-called education experts?”. It is not a case of experts against the rest; any expert worth the name will accept that they might not have all the answers and will want to seek a diversity of opinion. Effective experts want to help others to understand their reasoning and proposals. I cannot go along with this hurry here.
The Minister will say, as Nick Gibb has said:
“We want the transformation of a failing school to begin from day one”.—[Official Report, Commons, Education and Adoption Bill Committee, 9/7/15; col. 288.]
Fair enough, but let us not go along the track whereby a pupil who is “languishing” in a failing school even for a day is suddenly whisked away into a different structure. It simply does not, and cannot, happen like that. It takes time—certainly longer than a day—to transform a system. Parents and teachers are very aware that some academy sponsors have actually failed. I argue that there is time for consultation to take place, and it cannot possibly happen in a day.
Moreover, I cannot go along with Nicky Morgan’s argument about sweeping away,
“the bureaucratic and legal loopholes previously exploited by those who put ideological objections above the best interests of children”.
I cannot believe, as Nick Gibb said, that,
“unnecessary debate, delaying tactics and obstruction of the process”—[Official Report, Commons, Education and Adoption Bill Committee, 9/7/15; col. 285.]
is a justification for cutting out consultation. This is a particularly unpleasant and aggressive way of polarising the argument. Everyone, especially parents, seeks the best interests of children. The parents and teachers know the children that we are talking about. They know the school and the community, and they need to be certain of an appropriate academy sponsor. That is what this is about—the appropriateness of the academy sponsor.
Ofsted is the obvious body to give an overall vision or view of an academy chain as well as of individual schools. The Secretary of State should surely listen to Ofsted giving its objective view. Surely the parents, teachers, governors and pupils have the right to know a great deal about a proposed academy sponsor from Ofsted and other reports: the sponsor’s track record, its philosophy, its ethos, and its experience in dealing with all types of pupil, including those with special educational needs. Websites and reports are useful, of course—and I have looked at many websites of academies—but what is more important is face-to-face consultation, where questions can be asked and reports considered. Academy schools and chains can fail, just as any school can fail. Some schools have had to be transferred to a new chain. Parents and governors, quite rightly, do not want to take unnecessary risks. This idea really does need to be looked at again.
Lord Storey
I will try a second time.
The noble Lord, Lord Nash, has a view that he has expressed a number of times: that there is not time for consultation with parents; that if a school is failing, we have to get on with putting it right; and that, the longer we delay doing something, the more effect it will have on the progress of a child and the success of the school. That is a view that I can understand, but I equally understand that parents play a hugely important part in the development of a child’s education. The notion that a school should close down and become an academy without any discussion among those parents is very strange. That does not seem the correct way we have viewed education over the last X number of years. We have always seen parents as pivotal—as part of that partnership.
On my second point, again the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, resonated with me. On Second Reading, he talked about his own experiences in Pimlico, and I think he alluded to some of the abuse that he and his wife received when they were consulting to start up the school. As someone who closed more schools in Liverpool at the time of falling rolls than anyone else, I know those sort of pressures. Yes, some people will use consultation as a means of maintaining the status quo or for political reasons, but that does not make this the right thing to do. Surely we can look at this objectively and say that it can take place at an agreed period of time or if there is an agreed means of doing it. However, the principle of consultation must be enshrined as we go forward on this.
I do not have any objections to academies. I have come to the view, which I have expressed on two or three occasions, that I would rather see all secondary schools become academies than create a whole pattern of different types of schools. Therefore, I do not have any ideological view against academies. We should not be getting to the point where a school is failing and a pupil is languishing in it—we should be in there before that happens. I cannot understand why we get to a point where we suddenly say, “This school is failing, so let us close it down”, with all the trauma that the pupils face when that happens. We should be there before that happens. However, if a school is going to close, an academy is going to be established and an academy is going to be chosen for that school, we should consult with parents. I hope that the Minister will look creatively and objectively at how we might achieve that, with the minimum fuss and the minimum amount of time, but in the interests of that all-important partnership.
Once again, I apologise for getting the amendment wrong.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 24 and 25 in this group and to whether Clause 9 should stand part.
Amendment 24 aims to bring some much-needed transparency to the process of selecting academy sponsors. There is an unanswerable case in general terms for consultation but there is also a case for consultation on this very specific issue. Local communities should not have sponsors imposed on them without having some say in the matter. Sponsors are not just interchangeable. They have particular approaches to managing schools and to the curriculum. They have very different records, in terms of both their effectiveness and their record in managing public money. Again, I urge the Minister to acknowledge the essential fact that public money is involved here—which ought to mean that transparency and accountability are guaranteed. It is public money, yet the Minister wants to cancel the public’s right to have any say locally as to how it is used in educating their children. It is unacceptable that a Minister can come to Parliament, propose such a fundamentally undemocratic measure and hope to get away with it.
Currently, there is absolutely no public quality control of would-be sponsors. On academisation, we know that Ministers are determined to press ahead at full speed and are thus required to find sponsors at all costs. We also know that regional schools commissioners are paid by results—that is, how many academies they can bring into being—and so they need to find sponsors at all costs. That is surely not a healthy situation. Someone, somewhere, needs to have the responsibility to say, “Wait a minute—these people are just not up to the task”. If that means that some schools cannot be converted as quickly as had been intended, surely that is preferable to signing up sponsors who are inadequate. More needs to be done by government—in whose name we are told the regional schools commissioners act—to get the sponsors right, rather than to get them right now.
Lord Nash
If the noble Earl is contemplating making an academy sponsor application, I am sure we would be happy to guide him through the process, but as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, says, if he is serious about restricting play space, we can save him the bother. I believe a visit is being organised shortly to King Solomon Academy, which is a remarkable school. From memory, I think the statistics are that about 60% of children get free school meals, 90%-plus get five A*s in English and maths, and more than 75% get an EBacc. The noble Earl will have formulated his views on academies and we can discuss his pending sponsor application in more detail.
Lord Storey
I shall refer to two comments made by the Minister, if I may. The first was that underperformance should be tackled quickly. We all agree on that. When all the coasting schools are to become academies, we need to have sponsors lined up to take them over. We do not want to wait months for an academy sponsor to be found, in which case the delays that the Minister is concerned about will invariably happen.
On the question of parental consultation, I was taken with the Minister’s comment that we want parents to be engaged. The best way of doing that is at the start by allaying their fears and sharing the vision with them. Maybe in Committee we can have some further discussions on how we might make that a reality. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Storey
“Inspection of Academies
Before section 9 of the Academies Act 2010 insert—“8A Inspection of Academies
Before a coasting school is converted into an Academy by virtue of this Act, and of section 61 or 62 of EIA 2006 (schools requiring significant improvement or schools requiring special measures), the Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills must inspect and report on the person with whom it is anticipated the Secretary of State will enter into an Academy arrangement.””
Lord Storey
My Lords, in our endeavours to ensure that we have the highest standards in our schools, we look at three processes. One, of course, is testing and examinations. When schools are not achieving the level anticipated it is a sign that we need to take action. The second method is inspections when we inspect schools in, I hope, a supportive way, and when there are concerns we are able to act on them. The third area is the quality of the leadership and the teachers in those schools. The amendments in my name—Amendments 30, 31 and 32—are linked to those three areas.
I will deal first with Amendment 31 on teachers. You would not go to your local medical centre to see your doctor and be given an unqualified opinion. You would not go to the dentist and be seen by an unqualified dentist. It is hugely important, not just for the status of teachers and how they are valued by society, that we make it absolutely clear that in whatever type of school—local comprehensive, free school or academy—every pupil has the right to be taught by a qualified teacher. The notion of bringing unqualified people in to teach because they might be enthusiastic beggars belief. That is not to say that there will not be people who have a particular interest and enthusiasm but they will be part of an ongoing project and there would be a qualified teacher with them; nor is it to prevent those people who are aspiring to be teachers from teaching, again alongside a mentor who is a qualified teacher.
The previous Labour Government permitted non-teachers to teach by allowing classroom assistants to teach. I have real reservations about that, I have to say. We allowed NVQ level 3s to teach lessons but not to prepare, plan or mark, and NVQ level 4s to teach, plan and mark lessons. We almost passed the buck when we allowed that to happen. It was interesting when the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said at Second Reading that this present Government and the coalition Government had more unqualified teachers in schools. Actually, that was not correct. There were more unqualified teachers in schools under the previous Labour Government than currently.
I am not trying to score points here. We should not be trying to score points off each other, we should all—Government and Opposition—value the role of teachers, and we should say that every pupil should be taught by a qualified teacher and it is as simple as that. Linked to that should be the quality of the training of teachers, which is not covered by this amendment—
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
I am not going to gainsay what the noble Lord has said. I am sure he has done his homework. But will he accept that there are different categories of unqualified teachers? When Labour was in government, a lot of the teachers involved were from other countries so had gained their qualifications abroad and were in the process of bringing those up to standard here or did not have the appropriate qualifications at that time. Quite often, under the current academy status, we are seeing people move into jobs simply on the grounds of enthusiasm and the ability to communicate, and we need a bit more than that if we want to get people through GCSEs and higher exams.
Lord Storey
I agree with that. Of course, the other reason is, despite what the Minister constantly tells us, that there is a shortage of teachers and we are desperate to find people. Figures published last week suggested that one in six teachers comes from overseas. I do not have any problem with overseas teachers, provided that they are qualified. I come back to the issue that I want to see every pupil in every type of school having a qualified teacher. Linked to that would be the quality of the teacher training and of the professional development while that teacher is in post.
On inspection—and this goes back to the previous debate—it is interesting that some academy chains are now bigger than local authorities. My local authority had 50-odd schools. The Harris academy chain has more than 50 schools. We inspect local education authorities but we do not inspect academies. Amendment 30 suggests that if a school is coasting or failing or going to become an academy, do we not want to know the reasons why that is happening rather than just saying, “It has failed, let’s move on”? Do we not want to understand what has happened in that school so that we can put it right? Do we not also want, when we move that school into an academy, to be absolutely sure that the academy that is chosen is up to inspections and up to the mark, and that we do not move the pupils from one difficult situation to another? I beg to move.
Baroness Perry of Southwark (Con)
My Lords, I respect the noble Lord’s motivation in tabling these amendments. My objection to them does not get into the specifics relating to qualified teachers or whatever, but it is simply that I think that it is wrong for primary legislation to lay down what Ofsted should and should not inspect. The noble Lord suggests a very short list of what should be inspected, and I am sure that Ofsted would have a much wider field of interest in any inspection that it conducted, but I think that he has a focused and almost myopic picture of what Ofsted can and cannot do.
Over the years in which it has worked, Ofsted has built up a comprehensive picture of what is going on in schools and in education. It will undoubtedly have inspected at least one of the schools of most of the chains which might be candidates to sponsor a coasting school. Similarly, I cannot believe that any school would have been classified as coasting over a three-year period without Ofsted having been alerted to that and having gone and had a look at it. So we should have more confidence in what good HMI can do and their knowledge both of the system and of individual schools which are in trouble, rather than trying to lay down specifics such as, “They must inspect to see how many qualified teachers they are going to have, or they must inspect for this, that and t’other”. I therefore ask the noble Lord to think again about the amendments and to have a little more confidence in what HMI within Ofsted would be able to do.
Lord Storey
Does the noble Baroness not agree that the difficulty is that local authorities no longer have the resources to give that support which previously existed? Does she not think that we should ensure that academy chains have the resources to do the very things that she suggests rather than always leave it to Ofsted?
Baroness Perry of Southwark
I have declared my interest as chair of Wandsworth Academies and Free Schools Commission. We interview every prospective sponsor. We look at their track record; we listen to what their aims and objectives are; and we listen to their views of education. We can then offer advice from the local authority to the department. I know that the department’s evaluation of every potential sponsor is very detailed. Of course, local authorities will no longer be asked to comment—so my little commission will disappear—but I know that the regional schools commissions will do an extremely thorough job before they hand over any school to a new sponsor. They will have looked carefully at every aspect of the sponsor: its aims, its objectives, its track record, its vision of education and its proposals for what it will do with a school and so on. We sometimes try a little too hard in this House to nail everything down in legislation instead of having more confidence in what professional people will do.
Lord Nash
I know that the noble Lord is always concerned about this point. Of course every school has to have a SENCO, and every school, particularly if it has high SEN numbers, will have plenty of teachers focused specifically on this area. However, if a person has high academic qualifications and the right other characteristics, as I have already said, we do not see why they would necessarily have to get a particular other qualification.
Lord Storey
If this physics teacher who has deep subject knowledge is taking a class which misbehaves, and he or she cannot control that class even though they have that deep-seated knowledge, does that not suggest that an understanding of behaviour management is important? Or, if there is a child protection issue among those young people which perhaps goes unnoticed by this teacher with deep subject knowledge, does that not suggest that they, too, need some qualification or training in this area?
Lord Nash
I entirely agree with the noble Lord that behaviour management is key, which is why I am surprised that it is not focused on in many qualifications for teaching. That is why we have appointed a behaviour tsar, Tom Bennett, to look at this and why we will ensure that behaviour management is focused on, because you cannot teach if you cannot control your class. I should point out that, according to the latest statistics, 9,900 teachers working in academies and more than 10,000 teachers working in maintained schools do not hold qualified teacher status.
We trust heads to make decisions about getting the best possible teachers to teach in their schools. The funding agreements of many academies give trusts the freedom to employ teachers without reference to standard qualified teacher status. This allows head teachers to exercise their autonomy to bring in appropriately qualified or otherwise eligible people from a range of different backgrounds to enrich the teaching offer available to pupils. Of course, head teachers are held to account for the quality of teaching in their schools through the Ofsted inspection regime, as my noble friend Lady Perry said, and the regular publication of school performance data. As such, I do not think that it is necessary to place a further requirement on Ofsted to report on the required qualifications for teachers.
Amendment 32, proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, seeks to require Ofsted to report on the level of pupil absence over three years in a failing or coasting school before it becomes an academy and on the levels of absence in other schools already part of the trust taking that school on. Noble Lords are right to highlight the importance of pupil absence. We, too, take attendance very seriously. There is clear evidence that absence from school is linked to lower levels of attainment. Pupils with no absence during key stage 2 are over four and a half times more likely to reach level 5 or above at the end of primary school than pupils who missed 15% to 20% of the sessions, and twice as likely to do so than pupils who have missed 5% to 10%. The outcomes at secondary level are similar: pupils with no absence across key stage 4 are nearly three times more likely to achieve five good GCSEs, including English and maths, and around 10 times more likely to achieve the English baccalaureate than pupils missing 15% to 20% of school across key stage 4; for pupils missing 5% to 10%, the figures are 1.4 times and 2.5 times.
That is why we are supporting schools and local authorities to keep absences to a minimum and to develop measures to support and promote good attendance. We do not want children missing their education. That is why we changed the law to tackle the culture of taking holidays during term time. In 2013-14, the latest academic year for which figures are available, overall absence across state-funded primary, secondary and special schools fell to 4.5% from 5.3% the previous academic year, with persistent absence falling from 4.6% to 3.6%. Data on the level of pupil absence are already collected and published annually for all schools as part of the performance tables. Requiring Ofsted to report separately on this would merely duplicate what is already available.
As the noble Lord said, even if these amendments were necessary, which I do not agree they are, Ofsted has a great deal to do and, at the moment, is going through a major restructuring as it brings inspections in house. In my view, these new clauses are all unnecessary and would simply introduce additional bureaucratic processes for Ofsted that would delay regional schools commissioners from making decisions and trusts from beginning to bring about the much-needed swift improvements in the schools concerned. I therefore urge noble Lords not to press their amendments.
Lord Storey
I first want to comment on teaching assistants. I do not want to give the impression that I do not value them. I think that, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly pointed out, they do a fantastic job in supporting classroom teachers. My concern is how they are increasingly being used to cover for sicknesses, shortages and other absences—it has become almost de rigueur to take them on for that role.
Turning to the amendments, I agree with the Minister that it is vital that the person teaching the subject or the class has a deep knowledge and understanding of that subject or, in primary schools, an understanding of child development and behaviour management. However, far too often we see a subject specialist who has an incredibly detailed knowledge of his or her subject but no ability—no flair, imagination or creativity—to put that subject across. Of course, the pupils are then not able to be successful in that subject.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, in moving Amendment 32ZA, I will speak also to Amendment 33. This group focuses on the voluntary adoption agencies, about which quite a bit was heard at Second Reading, but considerable difficulties remain as far as the agencies are concerned. We owe a duty to them to air those views and to seek the Government’s help in prioritising them.
The DfE’s Regionalising Adoption document, published in June this year, was interesting. It devoted two pages to the role of voluntary adoption agencies, beginning with this statement:
“We are particularly keen to consider models that have an element of cross-sector collaboration, bringing together the best of the voluntary and statutory sectors”.
If the DfE had finished the consultation document there, I am sure that the voluntary adoption agencies would have been perfectly happy because that is basically what they seek. The document then proceeds to list three options for local authorities,
“to acknowledge and use the potential of the voluntary sector to provide services at a regional level and have the confidence to take forward these partnerships”.
The first is:
“Involving a voluntary adoption agency in a regional partnership as a specialist adoption support provider”.
The second is:
“A voluntary adoption agency leading a regional partnership, providing adoption management services to a group of local authorities, and working with and through local authority staff in social work positions”.
The third is:
“A voluntary adoption agency providing specialist services to a number of local authorities as part of a formal partnership arrangement”.
I have perhaps been remiss in not welcoming the fact that we are on Clause 13 and now dealing with adoption. I have been slightly thrown because of the way in which the amendments have been grouped, with Amendment 32ZA at the beginning rather than Amendment 33, which I was going to speak to first. This is an important issue. I do not believe it is an afterthought in the Bill, as has been suggested. It is a relatively small but very important part of the Bill and will affect a great deal of people.
The voluntary adoption agencies play a very important role within that. I got the impression from reading the sections I have quoted from Regionalising Adoption that the Government value the role of voluntary adoption agencies. My question stemming from that is: why not formalise that role? Voluntary adoption agencies are seriously concerned at the possible dilution of their role and this would help to allay those fears.
Although the Minister had quite a bit to say about Clause 13 in his opening remarks at Second Reading, in summing up he had very little to say. In fairness, I should remind noble Lords that he revealed that he was extemporising on that occasion. That was perhaps somewhat ill advised because he devoted just five lines in Hansard to the question of voluntary adoption agencies, and what he did say betrayed a misunderstanding of the concerns expressed by the voluntary adoption agencies. When adoption agencies in Wales were reorganised into five regional groupings, smaller voluntary agencies were the casualties. What assurances can the Minister give that the same will not happen in England? That fear was expressed by several witnesses who gave evidence to the committee in another place. That view is also held by the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies and by its biggest member, Barnardo’s.
The key concern here is about accountability and ensuring that the new system results in meaningful improvements for vulnerable children, especially the hard-to-place ones—those in the categories of age four and over; children with a disability; sibling groups; and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. Voluntary adoption agencies have particular expertise in work with hard-to-place children and the danger is that local authorities may look to protect their own interests after the introduction of regional adoption agencies, leading to a squeeze on the smaller but still influential voluntary agencies. As I have said, that concern was raised by several witnesses who gave evidence to the committee in another place.
It was also said at Second Reading that voluntary adoption agencies play a key role and yet, despite government support over the past few years, they are struggling for survival. Many are reducing the size of their social work teams as the proportion of adoption work that was done by the agencies decreases. In some areas, local authorities—despite clear direction from government, which I acknowledge—exclude them from discussions. It is not clear how voluntary adoption agencies will play a part in the proposed new regional structures while retaining their individual independence, or how funding arrangements will support their activity.
Voluntary adoption agencies are concerned about transitional instability because some are losing their relationship with local authorities, which feel that they may not need the voluntary agencies when the local authorities become part of a regional adoption agency. As I have said, voluntary adoption agencies play a key role. However, it is not clear how they will play what they would regard as a meaningful part in the proposed new regional structures while retaining their individual independence. Equally, they are concerned as to how funding arrangements will support their activity.
Amendment 33 would require the Secretary of State to lay an annual report before Parliament containing information about how she has exercised the power given to her in Clause 13 and the safeguards she has put in place to protect the voluntary agencies, other models of care and the provision of post-adoption support. In referring to the power to direct local authorities to come together in regional adoption agencies, the noble Lord, Lord Nash, said at Second Reading:
“I assure your Lordships that we expect to use this power rarely”.—[Official Report, 20/10/15; col. 586.]
That is as it should be. However, if that is the case, an annual report to Parliament would not involve many examples of their use and could hardly be regarded as onerous or particularly bureaucratic by the Government. I trust the Minister will not look for reasons to avoid meeting what I believe is a fairly modest requirement.
The Bill provides the Secretary of State with the power to intervene directly in adoption arrangements. That leads us to believe that in cases where she uses her powers of direction it will be because she has failed to achieve the hoped-for consensus and voluntary arrangements that are clearly the Government’s ambition. In such circumstances, is it not right that Parliament should be told what persuaded the Secretary of State of the need to exercise her powers? Meeting the requirements of Amendment 33 would make that information available to Members of both Houses of Parliament, allowing appropriate scrutiny to be undertaken.
There is clear need for the Secretary of State to report on the impact of voluntary adoption agencies, the whole area of children in care and the question of support for adopted children and their parents, especially concerning mental health issues. Why is it the case that children currently entering the care system are subject to a routine physical health check but, despite the often chaotic, sometimes traumatic lives that led to them being placed in care, they are not automatically given access to a mental health check? For those reasons, it is important that the Government are prepared to report on an annual basis to ensure that that information can be made available to Members of both Houses, and that progress relating to this part of the Bill can be tracked. We all wish it success but we also want to see that that is actually what is happening.
Returning to the question of voluntary adoption agencies, these organisations undertake only about 16% of adoption placements. There is therefore a real danger that they could get lost within the new system when the local authority with which they work becomes part of the regional adoption agency. It would be a great shame, and a real loss, to a sector that has recently seen the demise of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering if they fell by the wayside. I look to the Minister to reassure them that their vital and long-established role will be both recognised and protected. She can meet that hope by accepting our amendment and agreeing to report annually to Parliament. I beg to move.
Lord Storey
I will speak just to Amendment 34 in this group, which seeks to develop the work we did on the Children and Families Bill, where quite important progress was made on the whole issue of adoption. There was an important amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the increasing length of time that children stayed with foster parents.
Let us build on that: Amendment 34 seeks to support that progress by saying that children in the care of local authorities are perhaps the most vulnerable children. Many of them have mental health problems. In fact, the figures—I will not repeat them now—are really alarming. Many local authorities and agencies which carry out the role for local authorities make tremendous progress with those looked-after children. But there are real concerns, and this amendment suggests that we should always have those concerns in the front of our minds through having an annual report on the support we are giving those young people, so that we can adjust our provision and policies where we need to. I hope the Government might consider supporting this amendment.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
My Lords, Amendments 33, 34 and 32ZA raise important issues about ensuring that any use of the power given to the Secretary of State in Clause 13 is transparent and considers the impact on voluntary adoption agencies, other parts of children’s social care and the provision of post-adoption support. The amendments require an annual report to be laid before Parliament and enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to jointly determine who should deliver adoption functions.
I thank noble Lords for raising these issues and I agree that we need to be clear about how this power is used, and what its impact is, so I appreciate the intent behind the amendments. First, I assure both noble Lords that any use of the power will be transparent and fair. Decisions will be informed by input from the affected agencies and other agencies operating in the local area, including voluntary agencies. However, I believe that laying an annual report before Parliament on the use and impact of the power would be disproportionate, and that directing local authorities and voluntary agencies to make decisions jointly will not work in practice. I will go on to explain why.
First, I assure the Committee that we have carefully considered the impact that moving to regional adoption agencies will have on other parts of the care system, and on the provision of post-adoption support. We have been clear that regional adoption agencies need to consider how adoption support functions will be carried out and how links with other parts of children’s social care will be maintained. This includes ensuring that adopted families have access to appropriate mental health support to meet their children’s needs. We will come to that in more detail in the next set of amendments. We see regional adoption agencies as an opportunity to deliver improvements in these areas. We are also encouraging innovation. This may well include broadening the regional approach to include wider permanence services, where this has potential to drive improvement.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for his very detailed speech today. I think that we have become much more knowledgeable and sympathetic about adoption issues. We have had the excellent report from the Select Committee on Adoption Legislation. We have had the report chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, on childcare. To echo what the noble Earl said, this Government have expressed a great deal of concern and work has been done, particularly by Edward Timpson MP, who takes a real interest in this. The last Government also did a great deal of work on adoption. We therefore know what good practice should look like; we also know that the background of some adopted children has been horrendous, quite often from a very early age. We know that children in care are more likely to fail or do badly academically, are more likely to get involved with drugs and alcohol, more likely to become pregnant as teenagers and more likely to fall into a life of crime. This is immensely costly, not only to the welfare of those children, but financially to society. It costs a great deal to pull somebody up from being in the criminal justice system if they got there for one reason or another. I therefore welcome these amendments.
It would be good if the Government could, for example, examine some of the work done by the Thomas Coram Foundation, which I visited recently. It has a programme of working with prospective parents and children, taking on mental health issues on both sides to look at what might best make for a successful adoption. It follows that up with support for mental health and all kinds of other issues for parents and the children themselves.
Lord Storey
I am so pleased that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, managed to get this amendment down. I tried, and could only get the wording to say “report”; he actually got a lot more, and I am very grateful for that. He obviously has charm and persistence that we need to learn from. I very much want to support the amendment.
There are moments in our lives that obviously have a profound effect on us and our personal circumstances. Some of those can be life-changing. I can remember one such occasion when, after being a bit blasé, thinking, “Do I really have to go?”, I went to meet a group of looked-after children in Liverpool. This was about five or six years ago. Liverpool Education Authority was the guardian of these looked-after children, and it had formed a committee that invited me to tea. It was one of the most life-changing moments for me because these young people talked about their problems: how they had been pushed from pillar to post, and how nobody had understood their concerns or needs. It made me realise that looked-after children had so many problems and concerns on their shoulders that you would not expect people of that age to have. We have the duty and responsibility to make sure that we do everything possible to help and support them.
I am glad to say that the whole issue of mental health is now moving much further up the political agenda: that is a good thing. The previous coalition Government, for the first time, made resources available for mental health. The present Government are carrying on with that commitment. I noticed that the Labour Opposition have appointed a shadow Minister for mental health, Luciana Berger, which shows how important mental health is. That is to be praised. Certainly in schools, it goes back—dare I be so bold as to say—to this teacher with incisive knowledge of physics, where the issue with the student in front of him might be a mental health issue. Unless that teacher has that knowledge or understanding, or somebody else in the school is able to pick up on this, it is to nought. Just as my noble friend Lord Addington went on and on and on about dyslexia—and probably all of us were waving the white flag and saying, “We give in”—we need the same focus on issues of mental health. We should keep at it like a dog with a bone. We talked about bullying in schools and the issue shot up the agenda. Many of the bullies have mental health problems. If we were able to identify them and deal with them at an early stage, they would not be bullies and some of the problems and the suffering that they and the people they bully face would not happen.
We also need to learn from others. I read about an interesting mental health project in the United States of America for young children. That is why I was nervous when the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was talking in a previous discussion about play—the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, rightly jumped up and asked about obese children—but this project looks at how you deal with mental health through role-playing. The results have been quite stunning. So we should be learning all the time from different projects as well.
Looked-after children need us to go the extra mile more than anyone else. I hope that we can all get behind and support this amendment.
Lord Watson of Invergowrie
My Lords, I commend the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for tabling Amendments 32A and 34A, for the eloquent manner in which he introduced them and for the eloquent examples he gave of some of the existing stresses relating to adoption.
However, I have a question for him. Given the wording of Amendment 32A, which calls on a local authority or an adoption agency designated by a local authority to act, it might be better to tie the National Health Service into this provision because I wonder whether local authorities have the authority or the power to undertake what he is seeking they should do. I would like to see it done but I am not clear in my mind whether this is the best way to do it.
The issue of support once a child is placed in adoption can be crucial as to whether or not that adoption becomes permanent. Often specialist support is needed to care for a child appropriately. This is because, having experienced abuse or neglect, 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder compared with only 10% of the general child population. However, the mental health needs of children in care often go unidentified and there is a subsequent lack of mental health support. The Government urgently need to provide specific measures and greater resources around mental health assessment and support for the tens of thousands of children entering care, whose welfare must remain a priority concern.
The Department for Education’s document Regionalising Adoption, which I referred to in the debate on the previous group of amendments, stated:
“We still have too few adopters willing and able to adopt harder to place children”.
Harder-to-place children are a particular concern and yet the document does not suggest any solutions for this serious gap in provision. I hope the Minister will be able to say what the Government propose to do in terms of increasing the number of harder-to-place children who find a permanent home. She may well say, “It is out for consultation; let us see”, but this is an urgent matter. The argument advanced by Ministers in terms of the academisation of schools with no day to be lost perhaps applies even more urgently in the case of harder-to-place children.
I am aware that it is only a consultation document but, worryingly, it does not make a single mention of children with mental health problems. In something like—I cannot remember offhand—20 pages there is no mention of that. I wonder whether the Government appreciate the need and fully understand the issue and how it impacts on so many children in care. That is often a significant factor in their being in care in the first place.
The document goes on to say:
“Currently, adoption support services are provided by a mix of local authority provision, the NHS and independent providers”.
But—it was perhaps inevitable that there would be a “but”—
“There are regional gaps, gaps in the types of services on offer, and little evidence of spare capacity”.
We had some gaps a minute ago and here are some more, which are highlighted in the Government’s own document. It is fine to flag them up but we need some suggestion from the Government—the Minister might tell me it is a bit early just now—as to how those gaps are going to be filled because they are pretty glaring and very serious.
Lord Storey
“( ) A statutory instrument under subsection (2) may not be made until the Secretary of State has laid before Parliament a report on the funding of the costs of conversions under this Act.”
Lord Storey
My Lords, I will be brief. I know how important transparency and accountability are to the Minister. This amendment is to do with the cost of conversion to academies. If, as the Prime Minister says, by the end of this Parliament all schools will become academies, it will put an enormous burden on resources to make that happen. Will those resources be available from within the existing budget or will extra resources be needed? Can we be assured that any school that becomes an academy will get the same financial advantages as academies currently do or will there be a reduction in that provision? I beg to move.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, there were some pertinent questions in the noble Lord’s short introduction to his amendment. One might think that the Explanatory Notes to the Bill would provide some helpful information in that respect but I pay tribute to the drafting of officials in the Minister’s department because they elegantly provide no information whatever.
The Explanatory Notes acknowledge, as the Minister has done, that this policy is bound to lead to increased expenditure by the Minister’s department. They say:
“The cost of any additional intervention will be considered as part of the normal Budget and Spending Review process”.
We will know the outcome of that next week. I do not know when we are coming back on Report but I assume that by then the department will have worked out the consequences for its own spending programme over the next three years, and that we might get some reassurance that we will be given some more information on Report. In the expectation that the noble Lord receives no comfort this afternoon, perhaps he will bring this back on Report to probe a little more on it.
Lord Nash
My Lords, Amendment 35, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seeks to require that the Bill cannot be commenced until a report on funding the costs of the academy conversions resulting from this legislation has been laid before Parliament.
In the light of the ongoing spending review it would be inappropriate for me to speculate on the future costs of academy conversions. As I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, the spending review will determine the Department for Education’s total settlement and it will be that which determines the final cost. I will be delighted to comment more on the DfE’s total settlement on Report, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested.
Of course, while I cannot provide specific details of the future funding regime, the existing grant rates for schools converting to academy status are already publicly available and published on GOV.UK.
As the published guidance sets out, there are various types of grants available to schools becoming sponsored academies. There is a grant awarded to all schools prior to opening as an academy to cover costs such as staff recruitment, project management and legal costs. There are three flat-rate amounts for this, depending on the level of transformation the school requires. In the most serious cases of concern, sponsored academies may also receive a small capital grant to improve the school environment and indicate a fresh start for the school. Overall, in the academic year 2014-15, the department paid nearly £20 million to academy trusts in pre-opening grants. We are committed to ensuring that funding for academy conversions results in maximum value for money. Since the days before 2010, we have very substantially reduced the costs involved. Funding amounts are regularly reviewed to ensure that the grant levels are appropriate.
The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that, where a school has failed, there will be swift and decisive action to bring about improvements. We anticipate that this equates to up to 1,000 inadequate schools converting to academy status over the course of this Parliament. The exact number will vary depending on Ofsted judgments, but it is important to emphasise that this number represents a continuation of the trend we have seen over the past five years. When the previous Government came to power in 2010, there were 203 sponsored academies and now there are more than 1,500. Including converter academies, there are now more than 5,000 open academies overall.
I turn to the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the Prime Minister’s vision was that every school would become an academy during this Parliament. In fact, he did not say that he expected that to happen: he said that his vision was for every school to become an academy, but he did not put a timescale on it. As far as coasting schools are concerned, as we have already discussed, that is not a default option.
Alongside failing schools, the Bill also proposes that schools that have been notified that they meet a new coasting definition should become eligible for intervention. When we discussed coasting schools earlier in Committee, I went to some lengths to stress that regional schools commissioners will exercise discretion to decide whether and how to act in coasting schools, and that not all coasting schools will become academies. As noble Lords will be aware, we are currently consulting on our proposed coasting definition and no school will be identified as coasting until after the final 2016 performance data have been published. It is therefore impossible to predict, before the definition has been finalised and the tests have been set, exactly how many schools we expect to be labelled as coasting. We expect, however, to identify hundreds of schools which can be challenged and supported to improve.
In light of the assurances that I have given about the existing costs of conversion and the number of schools we anticipate will become sponsored academies, I hope that the House will agree that a report on the future costs of conversion is not necessary and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Storey
Heaven protect us from speculation. I think that people read very clearly into those comments from the Minister. There was a fear that coasting was the mechanism for ensuring that all schools did become academies by the end of this Parliament. People will look at that very clearly. If there are hundreds of schools that are coasting, and we need to find academy sponsors for them, there will be a cost—
Lord Nash
For some. I do not know if the noble Lord was here last week, but we discussed in some detail the circumstances in which a school might be sponsored if it was coasting, but also there were many circumstances where it may be able to cease coasting on its own or with some limited support.
Lord Storey
My apologies for not having yet been able to read the Hansard of those Committee proceedings. Of course, there will also be costs, presumably, for those academies that are identified as coasting. I take his point about the spending review and obviously we will come back to this issue as well. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.