Education and Adoption Bill

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 15A and I agree with the sentiments espoused by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It is surely sensible that a school should not be the subject of an academy order until or unless a sponsor has been identified as appropriate for that school as an academy. The alternative is for the school to be placed in a form of limbo, which as I see it cannot possibly be of any benefit to the children, parents or teachers or anyone else associated with the school. Can the Minister say, concerning the Bill, how many schools have already been designated as ready to be academised but have not yet been moved to that sector because for whatever reason it has been impossible to find an appropriate sponsor?

It is not clear what the DfE or perhaps the regional schools commissioner would do in such situations. Do they seek a local maintained school to take the failing school under its wing? Does the Minister anticipate that the suggestion made in the amendment relating to a local authority should apply in those situations? It would seem that there are good reasons why it should. I imagine that he will reject the amendment, however, so can he tell us what would happen if in these circumstances a sponsor cannot be found? I will have more to say on the question of sponsors in the sixth group, but for the moment I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I would like to respond to Amendment 15A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Sharp. This amendment concerns whether and how a regional schools commissioner would identify the most suitable sponsor for a maintained school that had failed.

Clause 7 makes it clear, as did our manifesto, that for any school judged inadequate by Ofsted an academy order must be made. The RSC will take responsibility for this, identifying the most suitable sponsor and brokering the new relationship between that sponsor and the school. RSCs are already responsible for approval of sponsors, subjecting prospective sponsors and their trusts to thorough scrutiny before they can be approved to take on sponsored academies. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that they consider all new sponsor applications in their region against robust and uniform criteria which are available, and they approve those which can demonstrate that they have the capacity and expertise to turn underperforming schools around. Through this rigorous assessment process, supported by the advice and challenge of their head teacher boards, RSCs ensure that prospective sponsors have a strong track record in educational improvement and financial management and that their proposed trust has high-quality leadership and appropriate governance.

RSCs are also responsible for monitoring and holding academy trusts and sponsors to account for their educational performance. They do this robustly through Ofsted inspection reports on the schools within a trust and published performance data. Trusts are also held to account for their financial management, governance and compliance by the Education Funding Agency. Information about MATs in these areas is transparent, with academy trust accounts audited and made publicly available. Where it is clear that a trust is not improving a school, the RSC will not hesitate to take action and re-broker it to a stronger trust.

As I have described, RSCs take a wealth of data and intelligence into account when identifying which sponsor should take responsibility for turning around a failed school. The tabled amendment requiring RSCs to take account of value-added performance and progress measures when identifying a sponsor for a failing maintained school is unnecessary. RSCs already look at a sponsoring school’s performance and, of course, in the future our new Progress 8 measure, by which secondary schools will be held to account, is a value-added methodology. In fact, the department has led the way in using added value to assess performance, publishing proposals on using such measures for chains and local authorities back in March.

The amendment also proposes that where there is not a sponsor of a high enough quality available, a failing school should be sponsored by a local authority maintained school or, indeed, directly by a local authority. This amendment is unnecessary because RSCs will ensure that a failing school is matched with an academy sponsor. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, RSCs have a wealth of good sponsors available already. There are 778 approved sponsors, all of have been subjected to the rigor described and the criteria I have outlined. RSCs are continually identifying and supporting additional outstanding schools in their area to become new sponsors. That is one of the benefits that RSCs have already brought to the programme.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for the figures she has just given us but is she saying that there have not been cases where a school has been designated to be an academy but has not been able to continue because there is no sponsor? She mentioned some 700 sponsors. Are these organisations just waiting in the wings for a letter saying, “Will you take over this school?” or is this a plan for if and when this Bill is implemented? It is not clear what the figure of 700 involves.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

There are 778 approved sponsors and about 20% are waiting to be matched with schools. The noble Lord asked which schools may need sponsoring. The precise number will vary from year to year and will depend on Ofsted inspections and test and examination results. We anticipate that as many as 1,000 failing maintained schools could potentially become sponsored academies under the new measures.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendments 17, 21 and 26 to 29 in this group. Amendments 21 and 26 to 29 are identical, straightforward and, I believe, not in need of explanation because they are consequential on Amendment 17. Clause 7(2) inserts a new subsection in the 2010 Act which states that:

“The Secretary of State must make an Academy order”.

The amendments seek to reinstate Section 4(1) in the 2010 Act which states that:

“The Secretary of State may make an Academy order”,

for a school that is “eligible for intervention”. These amendments address various parts of the Bill where reference is made to the “must convert” duty. They are the removal of the duty to consult in Clause 8, the “Duty to facilitate conversion” in Clause 10, the:

“Power to give directions to do with conversion”,

in Clause 11 and the:

“Power to revoke Academy orders”,

in Clause 12.

The point about these amendments is that, rather than there being a presumption that the solution for one school is a solution for all schools, they propose that each school should be considered on its merits. Ministers say that they want to help all schools improve. If they are sincere in that aim, we believe that options other than forced academy status should be available to the Secretary of State.

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

That is an interesting comment by the noble Earl. Flexibility is what I am looking for in this amendment because this part of the Bill contains none. It is interesting that the noble Earl referred to housing. A word which he did not use but was, I think, suggesting is nimbyism, where people say, “It is admirable that there should be such a structure or facility, but just not right next to my house”. I am always dubious in such situations. If the Minister has not looked at it already, he should look at the Housing and Planning Bill, which was launched in another place a few weeks ago, which seeks to close down a lot of people’s ability to object to those sorts of developments as well. That is something that I will say more about on another amendment. There is a pattern with this Government closing down discussion and dissent and getting their own way regardless of what people think. I think that that is undemocratic, and it is important that we should speak out against it wherever we encounter it, in legislation or in any other setting.

In this regard, the Minister and the Secretary of State are just plain wrong. No one is infallible. The Secretary of State needs to accept that and, for goodness’ sake, give herself some flexibility. I hope that the Minister will now realise that in 2015 you cannot just gag people who care passionately about the education of their children and tell them, as you might say to one of their children, to sit down and shut up as if they were of no importance at all. That is what is effectively being said to parents in the Bill. That cannot be right, and I hope that the Minister will take on board the comments that I have made in this amendment.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I support Amendment 17 onwards. I was sorry to miss such a lot of last Thursday’s consideration of the Bill. I had to leave, as those present on Thursday will know, in order to get home before the bonfire celebrations in Lewes. That I did, just, dodging flaming torches, effigies and the burning of David Cameron, Sepp Blatter and Jeremy Clarkson among others. However, I have caught up by reading Hansard. As an antidote to fireworks and bonfires, I dipped into some of the former education Bills, such as the Education and Inspections Act and the Academies Act, as well as other Acts going through Parliament at the moment, such as the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill.

Two things strike me about that reading. One is that we must have the most complex, baroque and byzantine education system in the world, and it does not seem to be getting us very far. The other is that education cannot exist in a vacuum. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Hunt, are right to have pointed out on several occasions the connections between government policies—for example, the involvement of communities in sport and, as I have said, the Cities and Local Government Devolution Bill, which emphasises devolution. That leads me to believe that there cannot be only one form of governance that is suitable for a school, and that local communities and institutions must have a say. We all know that parental involvement in a child’s education is a very good predictor of success for that child or those children. So local structures are important.

Amendment 17 raises several interesting issues and questions for the Minister regarding special measures for improvement and consultation. I repeat that not just one system for anything will work. My noble friend has pointed out the investigations and action by the Catholic Education Service.

The Minister may well say that the amendment would make things too complex and too long. The Bill of course gives all power to the Secretary of State for Education, and we are suggesting here that that power should be devolved and broadened. We have heard a great deal in Committee and at Second Reading about how a single day at a failing school is too long for a child. I agree that poor education is a terrible thing, but it is worth looking more closely at what that poor education means. I myself do not think that one day at a failing school will do all that much damage. Poor education might of course be happening in just one subject at the school, or it may be inherent in the school system, which is what we are concerned about. A change of staff may be required, but the amendment suggests taking care to get good governance arrangements to avoid it. I agree that sometimes the speed of change is of the essence, but as the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, said, that does not necessarily mean lack of consultation.

We have heard about the possibility of delays in sponsorships. Speaking of speed and change, I remember being a parent governor and the chair of the governors of a primary school in Wandsworth. We had—if I dare use the term—a coasting head teacher. We, the governors, persuaded him to leave. I will not go into the methods used. We then appointed a dynamic, ambitious head and within months the school became a dynamic, ambitious school. Parents and governors knew what had to be done and did it. I am not advocating that as a general theory for change, but there is more than one way of doing things and parents should be listened to.

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[Lord Nash]

The consultation will close on 18 December and we will announce the findings in the spring. Unlike in failing schools—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

In looking at the document, that is indeed what it says. The Minister, I am sure, would expect the Bill long before then. Would he not?

[Lord Nash]

We will, of course, take into account the responses to the consultation before finalising the regulations.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

If that is the case, if the Bill did not become law, what would apply with regard to “coasting” in the interim?

[Lord Nash]

The definition is in the regulations, not in the Bill. That is what we are talking about in the consultation.

Unlike failing schools, intervention on coasting schools will not be automatic, as I have said. Schools will be given time to demonstrate their capacity to improve sufficiently, either on their own or with assistance. There will already have been a dialogue, likely over quite a long period of time, about a school’s plans to bring about improvements and an opportunity to share views with parents and others. I think that I have finished. In view of what I have said, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

Before my noble friend Lord Watson speaks, perhaps I may ask a question. This is an important amendment and it made me realise that I did not know terribly much about what academies have to do in relation to children with special educational needs and disabilities. Can the Minister tell us—if not today then in writing after the Committee—what information schools have to provide, when they are to become academies, about the arrangements that they will make for children with special educational needs and disabilities? Secondly, what statistics does the department have on the numbers of children with SEND who are currently in academies, compared with those elsewhere in the education system?

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I am not sure which Minister will respond to this debate—I see it will be the noble Baroness. I am sure that she will tell us that the amendment is not necessary, but I hope she will say that that is because the two requirements in it are already in place. She is nodding—and if that is the case, it is most welcome.

The issue of special educational needs is much underestimated and is not fully appreciated by many people. Like other noble Lords, I have been in contact with the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, which provided an interesting briefing with some rather worrying statistics. Two in particular stood out for me. First, one in five of all pupils has a special educational need of some sort; that represents about 1.6 million people in England. Secondly, 50% of children in areas of social deprivation have significant language delays, which of course have all sorts of other spin-off effects, not least the fact that children with vocabulary difficulties at five are significantly associated with poor literacy, mental health and employment outcomes in adult life. So it is important that schools deal with those issues as far as possible.

While the noble Baroness’s initial response is encouraging, we need to be clear whether there is any tendency—I am not aware that there is one and perhaps I could ask whether figures are available—by academies to exclude more children with special educational needs, like for like, than maintained schools. I would be concerned if that were the case. Certainly, the last part of the amendment, proposed new paragraph (b)(ii), which talks about,

“children with special educational needs and disabilities who do not have an education, health and care plan”,

is the most important because those children are most at risk. The school itself has to decide, in place of the plan that exists for other children, what it will do and how it will care for those children. I suppose it is self-evident that some schools do it better than others. This is not a division between maintained schools and academies. It is obviously more challenging to deal with children with special educational needs if there are only a few of them than if there is a significant group of them within the class and perhaps teachers can specifically be there full time to care for their needs.

With those points and the particular question about the comparison between academies and maintained schools, I await the Minister’s response with interest.

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I will leave it to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, and his Benches to make the case for their amendments but, at this juncture, I would like to record that we on these Benches are very much offended by those words of the Minister. We agree that it is good for these processes to move as quickly as possible, for the sake of the children, but we are also of the view that the right to consultation and discussion is one of the vital safeguards of democracy. It is appropriate that the procedures here are open and clear to those who are stakeholders within the school itself. For that reason, we very much support the general tenor of Amendment 22 and the ancillary amendments which go with it. With that, I beg to move Amendment 19.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 20 and 22 as well as to Clause 8 stand part. We are quite happy with Amendment 19, which has been moved by the Liberal Democrats, but to some extent it misses the bigger picture. Clause 8, as the noble Baroness has just said, is the Government’s attempt to enshrine in law the fact that our public education system is to become two tier—not so much the haves and have-nots as the haves and those who have much less. On the one hand, we have the maintained sector: under-resourced, tarnished by having its every fault highlighted, it seems, and on many occasions characterised as not fit for purpose. On the other, we have the academy sector: shiny, polished and well-resourced. It is the brave new world where failure does not exist or is at least not publicised.

I have to echo a point made earlier by my noble friend Lord Hunt in response to the noble Lord, Lord Nash, but I would direct this equally at the noble Baroness, Lady Evans. I accept the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Nash, that the Bill is about academies—I get that. But, at the same time, when the Minister gives out all the good news about academies, by not mentioning the maintained sector it seems that there is virtually nothing of value or merit in it. Today was one of the rare occasions when he talked about what is good in the maintained sector. I say to the Ministers in an open spirit that it would do them and their case some good if they were to highlight the fact that parts of the maintained sector are doing very well. I have no objection to them highlighting when academies are doing well, too, but there should be a little balance. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, that is what is missing: there is no balance. There is really no attempt to give credit where credit is very often due.

Section 5 of the Academies Act 2010 is quite clear. It allows for consultation to take place before a maintained school is converted into an academy, and that is the way it should be. I would argue that that is basic democracy: putting a proposal in front of people, asking “What do you think about this?”, and then listening to their considered response. I say to the Ministers: yes, that takes time, and it may not elicit the hoped-for response, but that is life, or at least it is life in a democracy. Ultimately, while the parents do not have an inalienable right to carry the day, they have an inalienable right to have their say. That is the kind of open and accessible process that we have known in this country for longer than anyone can remember. We probably take it for granted, as surely we are entitled to do. However, the Government now want to shut that down, stifling opinion and, it has to be said, not for the first time.

That wording was added to the 2010 Bill following a wall of protest, including many Conservatives, after the original draft of that Bill excluded consultation. Five years on, we have gone back to the future, but it is not a future that any of us should anticipate with anything other than trepidation because it represents this Government saying, “We’re not going to ask your opinion because even if you agree with us it will take time, and that’s a price we’re not prepared to pay”. That is not to rubbish the suggestion that one day of a child’s education lost can never be regained; of course that is the case. However, it is not appropriate to say that because of that, there can never be consultation.

I have referred on numerous occasions, both last week and today, to the Government’s authoritarian approach. The Minister has made it clear that he disagrees but the evidence is clear, and I am not talking simply about the Bill. The Bill seeks to disfranchise and keep in the dark local authorities, governing bodies and parents. Millions of parents are apparently unaware that they are about to lose any say as to the kind of school in which their children receive their education. How, in 2015, did we arrive at a place where neither democracy nor transparency has any place in a Bill in your Lordships’ House?

There are other examples of what I would call attacks on our human rights. The Trade Union Bill currently winding its way through another place is even more shocking, making strike action virtually impossible. Then there is the Housing and Planning Bill, published last month, to which I made reference earlier in response to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel. That is one of the most centralising and anti-local-authority pieces of legislation that we have seen, effectively ending a local authority’s ability to secure a mix of new homes in its local area. It has been dubbed “the end of localism”, and one can understand why; it gives the Secretary of State 32 new powers, almost all of them wide open, with detail to be decided by Ministers with little public scrutiny after the Bill is through Parliament. That touches on the point that we made earlier about the definition of “coasting”. The Minister said in his response that it would be dealt with through regulation. The Delegated Powers Committee said in its report that it was unhappy with that, but it appears that the Government are going to carry on regardless.

The Housing and Planning Bill also includes the enforced sale of affordable homes, often against the charitable functions of charities, which has echoes in the Bill that we are discussing, regarding the sale of church land and property following an academy order. Another example of the Government’s heavy-handed approach came just three days ago when information emerged of their plans to restrict human rights further by telling our judges that they are not obliged to follow rulings from the European Court of Human Rights. The Minister may sigh, and I am sorry to detain him if he feels there is somewhere more important that he should be, but this is part of a pattern and I am entitled to make that argument because this Bill is not seen in isolation. The draconian measures in the Bill chime with a lot of other pieces of legislation that are going through, and if the Minister is not willing to listen to that then I would ask that he at least not listen to it in silence. It is not difficult to detect a distinct pattern here of intolerance of those who disagree with or threaten the more extreme plans of this Government, whose answer is to lash out and use all their power to silence and cow their critics. Added together, the measures undoubtedly amount to a display of authoritarianism that I believe we have a moral obligation to stand against.

The key part of the clause is the addition of subsection (2) to the existing Section 5 of the Academies Act 2010. That has the effect of saying that academies are to be taken out of consultation and placed on a higher plain where only the Government, their business friends or other supporters are permitted to tread. Everything associated with academies is to become almost a gated community, with entry denied to lesser mortals. For “lesser mortals” read “parents”, who—the Government seem to have some difficulty in coming to terms with this—have more than a passing interest in the status of their child’s school. In the eyes of this Government, though, parents are regarded as worthless, or at least their opinions are. It is a shocking indictment that this sort of proposal can come forward in a Bill and the Government expect it to be greeted with equanimity.

Amendments 19, 21 and 22 are aimed at writing academies into the whole process of intervention by including them in the process that exists under the Education and Inspections Act 2006. By amending Section 59 of that Act, Amendment 22 would specify that all the provisions on schools being eligible for intervention, and the kind of intervention that would be possible, would apply equally to academies. It would also mean that local authorities would have the same power in relation to academies as they have in relation to their own schools. It is about treating academies in the same way as maintained schools in an intervention aimed at raising standards. I say: why not? Surely the aim of improving schools is one that we and all schools share, irrespective of the categorisation.

I have referred in the past to the Secretary of State, and indeed the Minister himself, describing the reasons for not allowing consultation. I have a quotation here from a recent press release from the Secretary of State, in which she said that,

“campaigners could delay or overrule failing schools being improved by education experts by obstructing the process by which academy sponsors take over running schools”.

That, in itself, is no reason for denying everybody the opportunity to speak out. She is saying that some people may delay the process, so nobody will have the opportunity to say anything. Surely that amounts to a sledgehammer to crack a nut.

Clause 8 represents what I believe to be an extraordinary departure from the normal processes of governmental decision-making. Under the clause, the Minister is empowered to make a decision without reference to—far less without making any attempt whatever to listen to—parents, pupils, teachers, governors, local authorities or anyone who might be thought to have some local knowledge of the situation on the ground relating to a school. It was suggested earlier that the regional schools commissioners would have that knowledge. Where would they get that sort of local information from? Surely they would have to go to the sort of people whom I have just mentioned, so why not involve them in the process right from the start?

There are certainly several reasons why Clause 8 should not form part of the Bill, but a powerful one is that it runs completely counter to the Government’s stated belief in devolution, or what they themselves have termed their “localism agenda”. In Committee last week, I quoted from a letter to the Minister from the Constitution Committee of your Lordships’ House. I return to it now. Referring to the Bill augmenting the Secretary of State’s powers to intervene in matters which have previously been the responsibility of local authorities, the committee said:

“These provisions appear to be at odds with the Government’s localism agenda, which emphasises the importance of local communities running their own affairs”.

And it gets better—although perhaps that is a view exclusive to this side of the Room—because the committee even quotes the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as recently as 14 May this year, saying that,

“we all know that the old model of trying to run everything in our country from the centre of London is broken”.

There is an element of left hand/right hand in that. We have already heard that the Constitution Committee was pretty unequivocal in its comments to the Minister. The members of the committee said that they would be interested in understanding the reason for this decision to shift power away from local communities. They were not alone.

We have today received from the Minister a copy of the letter that he sent to the committee in reply. It is slightly disappointing that we were given the letter only a couple of hours before the start of this Committee, given that it was dated 5 November—five days ago. The Minister’s only response to questions raised by the Constitution Committee about the localism agenda is that the Secretary of State has devolved power to regional schools commissioners to act on her behalf. I am sorry but that is not what devolution means; it means handing power to people locally—people who are elected by their peers, wherever possible—to engage in the process and act on their behalf. Simply giving regional schools commissioners a remit and saying, “Go out and do this or that on my behalf”, certainly is not devolution and it has next to nothing to do with localism. I believe that the Minister needs to revisit these issues to get a firmer grasp of what they really involve, because they are important to people at a local level. People want to be involved in decisions.

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[Lord Nash]

I fully accept that on both sides of the House we want to put the interests of children first. Maybe we have a different approach to doing that. I have already described to the House that once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, sponsors will be keen to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents understand what will happen next and have the opportunity to share their views on the sponsor’s approach. Widnes Academy is just such an example. The performance of the predecessor maintained school, West Bank Primary School, had declined and in May 2013 it was put into special measures by Ofsted. The Innovation Enterprise Academy, a high-performing local secondary academy, was named as the sponsor for the school, and its first action was to engage with parents, pupils and staff to seek their views about how the new academy should operate.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

But all this is after the event. He says that sponsors will be keen to engage with parents; yes, I would think they should be, but it is then too late for parents who disagreed with the decision in the first place. Why not do it the other way round?

[Lord Nash]

As it said in our manifesto, a school will become an academy in these circumstances.

I go back to the excellent work that the Innovation Enterprise Academy did in the case of West Bank Primary School. It had drop-in sessions at the school for parents and appointed a parent champion to the interim executive board. Parents and pupils were invited to name the new academy and design the new uniform and logo. As a result, parents were much more supportive of the school becoming an academy.

Noble Lords who attended last week’s meeting heard from Martyn Oliver, chief executive of one of our most successfully performing academy trusts, Outwood Grange. He said:

“A prospective trust does not just ride roughshod over a school and its community. Outwood Grange has a clear vision and we are passionate about engaging staff and parents on that vision. The advantage of our model is that alongside the clear vision of the trust, local governing bodies are left with more space to focus on things like engaging with the local community. Ultimately parents are happy, especially when they start to see the dramatic improvements in results for their children”.

Examples such as this show that parents will still have opportunities to have a say in the future of their children’s school if it has failed, even if there is no longer a question of whether or not a failing school should convert.

Looking at coasting schools, we debated at length last week the importance of parents being aware when their child’s school is identified as coasting so that they can then understand and challenge how the governing body and leadership team intend to improve sufficiently. As I said earlier, unlike in failing schools, intervention in coasting schools will not be automatic, and schools will be given time to demonstrate their capacity to improve sufficiently. There will therefore already have been a dialogue, likely to have taken place over a long period of time, about a school’s plans to bring about improvement and an opportunity to share views with RSCs, the community and parents before any decision for the school to become a sponsored academy is made.

As discussed, we already expect that governing bodies in schools identified as coasting would share relevant information with parents, but we have committed to consider whether there is anything further that can be included in the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance to ensure that such engagement with parents consistently takes place.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, asked about the circumstances in which governing bodies were obliged to notify parents. The legislation in this area is quite complex, depending on the status of the individual school. I am happy to write to her to explain that in some detail.

We feel confident that what parents want most is for their child to attend a school that is performing well. The Bill is all about ensuring that we have robust powers to challenge underperformance wherever it occurs, enabling us to tackle not just failing schools but now also coasting schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, again referred to my tendency to talk about only academies and not schools in the maintained sector. There is an excellent example of cross-academy and local authority maintained work in the Birmingham Education Partnership, which the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, chairs. Of course we recognise that there are many excellent schools in the maintained sector, but this Bill is about failing schools. We are not here to talk about excellent maintained schools.

As for the local knowledge that regional schools commissioners have, it is excellent. I look forward to introducing the noble Lord, Lord Watson, as part of his essential due diligence on this Bill, to some of the regional schools commissioners. He can discuss with them how close they are to the coal face. I hope that he will engage with them and be very impressed. As he said, a list of RSC decisions is already published on the GOV.UK website and we are making the decision-making of RHCs and HTBs more transparent. From December, a fuller note of head teacher board meetings will be published to cover all meetings from October this year, and will contain information on the particular criteria that were considered for each decision.

I turn to Amendment 19, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, which relates to where a governing body is proposing that a school should convert to an academy voluntarily where it is a school that is performing well and is not eligible for intervention. The amendment proposes that rather than consulting whoever it deems appropriate, the governing body should specifically be required to consult certain persons, including parents and guardians, teaching and support staff at the school, the local authority and also itself.

The purpose of Clause 8 is to ensure that we have robust powers to take action in schools that are failing, coasting or otherwise underperforming. I want to ensure we remain focused on that very important issue. The Bill does not have any impact on schools that are performing well, but I will gladly address the amendment. As I have set out, that is why Clause 8 removes the requirement for the governing body to consult on whether a school should become an academy. It is crucial to remember that we are talking about removing consultation only in the most serious cases.

The amendment proposes that, rather than the governing body having the flexibility to consult such persons as they think appropriate in cases where they convert voluntarily, it should be specified that the governing body must consult certain people. This very matter was discussed in detail, as the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, said, when the Academies Act 2010 was a Bill under consideration by this House, where we first introduced the prospect of schools that were performing well voluntarily converting to academy status.

Where schools are performing well, we must trust professionals to do their jobs without the unnecessary interference of central government—a fundamental principle underpinning the academies programme—and therefore it is right, as my noble friend Lord Deben said, that we leave it to those professionals to decide exactly who should be consulted on the matter of whether a good school should convert to an academy. In our view, it would not be right for us to dictate an inflexible checklist in legislation, which would not in itself ensure that consultation was any more thorough or meaningful. As my noble friend Lord Deben said, it might essentially consign some people to being second-class consultees. Having said that, we have very clear guidance to prospective converters, available on GOV.UK, setting out expectations that the consultation will include staff members and parents and should also include pupils and the wider community, but anyone with an interest can share their views.

I therefore do not believe that the amendment is necessary. The process for good schools converting to academy status is working well. In practice as opposed to theory, we have had no significant challenge or any real pressure to change the current requirements. Interest in conversion remains high: since 1 September 2014 we have received over 500 applications to become a converter academy. Converter academies continue to perform well: 2015 results show that the key stage 2 results of primary converter academies open for two or more years have improved by four percentage points since opening. Secondary converter academies continue to perform well above average, with 63.3% of pupils achieving five good GCSEs in 2015, 7.2 percentage points above the state-funded average.

While we have made the case for the need for a swifter academisation process in the case of underperforming schools, the Bill does not intend to change anything about the very successful process of converting strong schools. I hope, however, that this debate has clarified just why Clause 8 is so integral to the Bill. We still believe that sponsors and governing bodies should engage with parents about plans affecting their child’s school, and of course they do, but to mandate through legislation such consultation and what form it should take would be disproportionate and would only lead to delays in schools whose performance requires quick redress. I therefore urge noble Lords not to press their amendments and to let Clause 8 stand part of the Bill.