Education and Adoption Bill (Second sitting)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Q 13 I wanted to pick up on something that Dr Homden said, with which I will not disagree. She referred to looking at road transport as the means of establishing a hub. Presumably you have already given consideration to island regions where road transport is not possible, Dr Homden?

Carol Homden: Quite clearly, there are specific circumstances which will need to be carefully considered, affecting the regional and also the metropolitan areas as well as island areas. These are complicated matters, and there may be a very good reason why the Minister would wish to consider whether or not it would be appropriate to seek a particular form of involvement in a region. It may be that partnership in a much larger geography is more practical, or more meaningful in terms of access to the services that a particular area needs; I completely acknowledge that point. However, for the majority of places, these practical considerations will be ones that involve road transport links.

[Louise Haigh (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab)]

Q 14 Annie, you mentioned the inter-agency barriers that still exist. Could you confirm that the Bill actually does nothing to address any of those barriers other than creating bigger agencies? Secondly, to the whole panel, do you think that this will actually restrict choice for adopters in terms of agencies at a local level?

Annie Crombie: On the inter-agency point, the policy around regional adoption agencies would bring together a number of local authorities. At the moment, if a local authority purchases an adopter from another local authority or from a voluntary adoption agency, it pays for that adoptive placement. It pays the same amount whether it is to a local authority or a voluntary adoption agency. That levelling of the amount paid is an achievement of fairly recent years, and it has meant a great deal in terms of sustaining the participation of the voluntary sector. It cannot afford to do the work it does unless it gets paid a fair price. That has also been an achievement because it has ensured that local authorities would not look more favourably on another local authority placement just because it was cheaper, and genuinely think about which is best for the children.

A regional adoption agency—while it has reasonably not yet been worked out what that would look like—will probably change the way in which money changes hands when a child is placed from one local authority with an adopter. It might mean being placed elsewhere with an adoptive parent approved by a different part of the region. It might mean there is a single adopter, approver and recruitment arm in a regional adoption agency and so all of those adopters feel free to you. That could be a really good thing because there will be a much bigger pool and there will not be any financial barriers stopping the placement of a child with a particular adopter. The risk for the voluntary sector is that if it is not part of that, suddenly the cost drivers change and the placement feels very expensive again. That is why it is so important that we think about how the voluntary agencies can continue to be part of the landscape and part of the regional agencies.

Carol Homden: On your point about choice, there are some areas, with reference to the previous question, where in practice there is no choice. There is a local authority agency and I’m sure it works in the full best interests to meet the needs of those adopters, but generally, choice is a positive thing in any system. It tends to drive quality and, in a digital era where, for example, people can search for information on adoption first, they are better able to make a judgment and to find an agency with which they feel comfortable. An adopter is making a life-changing, lifelong decision. They need to have full confidence and trust in the particular social worker or group of social workers that they are working with. It is a risk to us if this reform process leads to a reduction in choice across boundaries, particularly given that there is generally a much higher level of engagement from and satisfaction of adopters from the first call to voluntary adoption agencies, which deepens through the process, including with post-adoption support. The point needs to be about protecting equality and choice in whatever arrangements we make.

Sir Martin Narey: The only thing that I would like to add is that the really important choice element in adoption is the choice of child. These arrangements will significantly increase the choice of children for adopters. At the moment, if a prospective adopter is unlucky enough to be living in one of the 20 local authorities that dealt with fewer than 20 adoptions last year or in a local authority where there are already many more adopters than children, it will be very difficult to get a child. The future is finding the best parents for adopted children, wherever they are. You are taking evidence later from Adoption Link. I think that is an incredibly good initiative, which is opening up the prospect of searching beyond regions to find the very best possible adopters. I am sure this will improve adopter choice significantly.

[The Minister for Children and Families (Edward Timpson)]

Q 15 Carol very helpfully set out some guiding principles on what should underpin the development of regional adoption agencies to make sure that they are driving the excellence that we want to see, as we have set out in our “Regionalising adoption” paper. Could you also say what the risks are of the Secretary of State being overly prescriptive through a direction about what that regional adoption agency should look like, given that we are hoping and expecting this to come from the bottom up on a local level rather than be dictated from the centre?

Sir Martin Narey: The reason that I counselled you and your predecessor Tim Loughton against making structural arrangements to further recruitment is that I thought it would result in you, your officials and me being absorbed in nothing else for two or three years. We would just be managing the incredibly complex business of using new structures. That is why I hope that you do not have to use this direction very much at all. If you do, there will be a very great risk that it diverts us from the more important task of making sure that we are getting children from neglect and into adoptive homes as fast as possible. I am confident that you will not have to use this power very much, but if you do, it will be a significant risk. If we have to design top-down structures for regions across England, it will divert us from the more important task.

Carol Homden: I would agree with that. This is a direction of travel where all agencies are motivated by one key thing, which is trying to improve the outcomes for children, but we also need to recognise that it can be challenging to apply that best practice. If the risk is that, due to the direction from above, you have the unwilling working with the unwilling, it will not necessarily lead to a positive outcome. We need to design these approaches based on a clear diagnosis of the problem to be solved locally. We need to enable organisations to come together in ways that address those problems, as opposed to having one size fits all or an obvious type of solution. That is why I drew attention to a hub-and-spoke model, as opposed to, for example, an area that is contiguous, because of the issues that were raised earlier around children needing to be placed in circumstances where they are and can be safe. We also need to draw upon specific, specialist expertise, as Annie said. The risk would be that it might be gotten wrong unless the diagnostic approach is taken to identify how local problems will be particularly addressed.

Annie Crombie: All I would like to add is that, where we see arrangements working well now—there are some excellent examples of partnership working in adoption—they are based on trust and strong relationships. If we impose such arrangements, we will not be able to take account of those sorts of things that can develop so well at local level organically. It is important that we allow people in organisations to build on those partnerships and have that dialogue at this point, leading into the development of regional agencies.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

Q 43 In the written evidence, we were told that the best way to achieve permanence is with low staff turnover and support from the best and most appropriate workforce. Do you think those are accurate descriptions of the environment that local authorities and adoption agencies have found themselves in during the last few years?

Alison O'Sullivan: From a local authority point of view, the difficulties in attracting and retaining qualified social workers are fairly well known and documented, but adoption is an area of work that tends to see more stability in terms of workforce. That is certainly the case in the authorities with which I am familiar. We tend to have people staying for longer in that work and I agree that it helps to contribute towards the quality of the work done and also maintains ongoing relationships.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 44 The British Association of Social Workers has said that the Bill will contribute to demoralising social workers. Do you agree?

Alison O'Sullivan: I cannot see how.

Anna Sharkey: I think retaining staff is very important. We have quite a secure staff group, but we have also done quite a lot of growth, which has been to do with the DFE expansion grant. That is significant, but we have a very definite system through which adopters are seen right the way through by the same social worker. That is because it is about building trust and rapport with the person whom you are going to trust with very personal information and about making you into the family you want to be. There has got to be that professional relationship, but that relationship also has to be with the child’s social worker, and that is often where there can be change and flux, because there is such turmoil in local authorities.

Andy Elvin: We have no problem in recruiting and retaining experienced social workers, although I must say that we recruit a lot from local authorities. I think there is a wider issue—probably not for here—about how many social workers there are in the system when permanence is achieved for a looked-after child. Do we really need a supervising social worker overseeing a fostering placement that is permanent and a looked-after children’s social worker also overseeing the said placement and an independent reviewing officer? Are there too many social workers looking at social workers doing their jobs and not enough actually doing the job?

[Edward Timpson]

Q 45 Can I take us back to the clause in the Bill looking specifically at the point at which the permanence decision has been made and what flows thereafter for those for whom that decision is adoption? I have two points to underpin that. First, we are not proposing something new here. A lot of this already exists. Could you tell me where you have come across a consortium of either local authorities or voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities working together that has impressed you most and that does not happen to be your own?

Secondly, in relation to the specialist support services that we know many children who are adopted need, how is the regional agency adoption approach having a positive effect, where we are already starting to see it happen?

Andy Elvin: We are currently working with the north London adoption consortium and the east London adoption consortium—south London is a regular choice—on introducing something called VIPP-SD, a post-adoption therapeutic intervention that comes from the University of Leiden in Holland. It is used with all adopters in Holland. It is evidence based and tested at country level. We are introducing it with six authorities in London and with one just outside London. We found co-operation patchy, I would say.

We have got six authorities across two consortia; other authorities in the consortia have not signed up to it. That was disappointing, given that the DFE for the CVAA are essentially paying for all this. It is a free and evidence-based service. It is interesting how decisions are made in local authorities, but those that have engaged have engaged magnificently and really well, and got involved very much in the spirit of the intervention. It is going very successfully so far. Local authorities can work together; I do have examples of the contrary, but that is the same in all areas. I do not think children’s services are peculiar in local authorities not working particularly well together.

Anna Sharkey: From my point of view, working in ABC has been really good, a very positive development. I know my local authority colleagues will say that one of the strengths has been that it came from the bottom up. It was local authority social work working together and deciding that was a more efficient way of working, so pooling resources in respect of recruitment and training activity, how we do information events and so on. The next stage, which is really exciting in terms of the pilots and so on, is about how we are making the linking activity work much more effectively, and also looking at post-adoption support provision.

I know one of the previous speakers talked about the importance of accessibility and the transport networks. People need to be able to access their social worker and support that is readily available for them and their children. There are all sorts of things that can happen as a consequence of this, but definitely the bottom-up bit has certainly helped.

Alison O'Sullivan: I will very briefly point to Warrington, Wirral and St Helens, established I think in 2011, because it is the sort of thing the Bill envisages and has been working well. It has improved the numbers and the speed of recruitment and matching. For many years, Yorkshire and Humber have also been running post-adoption support on a collaborative basis across the region.

Andy Elvin: Can I just add that I am on the board of Frontline social work? We hope to be moving into a new region in the north-east, and the attitude of the consortia of local authorities up there has been exemplary in the way that they are working together. It really is very impressive.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mrs Drummond]

Q 89 I am saying that if schools are moving to “good”, we can probably get rid of the other categories—“adequate” or “failing”. Can you see a time when you would just have schools that are “good” or “coasting”?

Mr Gibb: The ambition of this Government and the previous coalition Government is not to have any failing schools. Every local school should be a good school for parents to send their child to, and measures such as this help to deliver that. These structural reforms will be combined with what we are doing with the curriculum to raise standards through more rigorous and knowledge-based GCSEs and what we are doing in primary schools with reading. There are 100,000 more six-year-olds reading more effectively today than in 2010 as a consequence of the phonics reforms. With the Shanghai maths scheme, we are taking the approach adopted by the most successful educational jurisdiction for maths. We are trying to learn from that system and bring it to this country. All those things are designed to ensure we have the best education system we can give to young people. That must be the right ambition for any Government.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 90 Given the evidence we have heard today, should not the definition of “coasting” be based completely on value added and measures such as progress 8, rather than the threshold proposed in the regulations?

Mr Gibb: There are two issues: one is for secondaries and the other is for primaries. The issue for secondaries is that as time goes on, and as we move to progress 8 next year, it will be just based on progress, and we will have a different measure for coasting and for the floor. There were concerns about being retrospective. We do not want to go back and change our approach for looking at floor standards. We are taking the same approach to coasting for 2014 and 2013 as we took for the floor, but we are raising it up from—

[Louise Haigh]

Q 91 Sorry, but the definition of “coasting” contains a threshold and a progress measure. My question is, should the threshold not be removed completely from the definition?

Mr Gibb: There was a combined measure of attainment, which was 40% for the floor, plus a progress measure in English and maths for secondaries for 2013 and 2014. We do not want to make that retrospectively into just progress, but it will be just progress in the future for secondaries when we bring in progress 8. For primaries, we will retain a threshold attainment level of 85% achieving level 4b for the future and level 4 for the past two years. We do not apologise for that, because the figures are very stark: 65% of children who achieved a level 4 at primary school go on to get at least five good GCSEs, but only 5% of children who do not get a level 4 achieve five good GCSEs. We do not apologise for there being an attainment level. Only about 16% of schools are in that attainment level for 4b, so for the vast majority of schools we will be looking at their progress.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 92 Do you accept that certain schools in certain areas will always miss out on that threshold?

Mr Gibb: I am sure that will be the case, but it is not our ambition. We want every school to be achieving—

[Louise Haigh]

Q 93 And how does that affect morale and recruitment in those schools?

Mr Gibb: We have an aspiration that the floor will reach 85% over a period of time. As I said, it is important that children reach that level of academic attainment by the time they leave primary school. In primaries, there is the concept of the mastery level. We want every child leaving primary school to be fluent in arithmetic and mathematics, so that when they start with maths and science at secondary school, they can cope. That is our ambition and it is possible to achieve it. There are schools around the country in the most deprived circumstances that are getting 100% of their children to these levels and that is our ambition for the whole school system.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 94 Is there any scope to include churn in the assessment? Some primary schools, in particular, have a huge level of churn of pupils and are therefore being judged on pupils they may have had for only six months or a year.

Mr Gibb: It is a very good question. Some schools face real challenges. That is why we adapted the pupil premium: to reflect some of the issues that arise with certain professions, such as the military, and with looked-after children and so on. It matters even more that those children receive a high-quality education than it does for other children. We do not want to lower the ambition for the schools that serve those communities. We know it is challenging: that is really what the pupil premium is about—delivering extra resources so that those schools can deliver the quality of education that those children absolutely need.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 95 No one is suggesting that we lower the ambition for the most deprived pupils in our country; what worries me is the impact that the Bill may have on morale in the teaching profession. As we have heard, recruitment and retention are a problem across the board in teaching. Does the Minister not think that the Bill should have measures to tackle that growing issue?

Mr Gibb: As Lord Nash said, the definition of a coasting school is the beginning of the discussion. The regional schools commissioners will discuss with the headteacher their plans for bringing that school above the bar. If those plans are good and likely to be effective, that is really the end of the matter. I do not think that that should damage the morale of the teaching profession.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 96 We have heard that a dual accountability system will almost certainly damage morale.

Lord Nash: We have a dual accountability system now.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 97 The Secretary of State judges schools; this introduces yet another layer and confuses accountability mechanisms even further.

Lord Nash: It is based on the existing accountability system. Taking your point about schools that have high in-year mobility, obviously these are issues that the regional schools commissioners will take into account. They are experienced professionals and will look at the context of the school when making their analysis and working out with the school how it can improve its performance.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 98 You were not here to listen to most of the witnesses this morning, but as Peter Kyle said, we heard time and again that recruitment and retention of teachers is a serious problem, both for entry-level positions and in senior leadership. That is a major factor in the quality of a school’s education and there is nothing in the Bill to tackle it.

Mr Gibb: No; it is not about that.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 99 Yet it is a major issue in our education system. Sir Michael Wilshaw himself has said so.

Mr Gibb: The vacancy rate in the teaching profession is about 1% and it has been at that level since 2000. We know that we face challenges with a strong and growing economy: the competition now for graduates is very fierce and we are aware of that. All teaching recruitment organisations—Teach First, the National College for Teaching and Leadership—face that challenge, but you describe this as some sort of crisis. Teacher vacancy levels are very stable at 1%, we are above where we were this time a year ago in terms of acceptances, so I am not complacent about making sure that we have measures in place such as good marketing and bursaries to attract top graduates in shortage subjects such as maths, physics and modern languages. We are doing everything we can to make sure that we recruit graduates into teacher training, but we are actually doing very well considering the strength of the economy and the fact that we have a relatively small number of graduates coming out of our universities this year.

[Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)]

Q 100 We heard this morning about Downhills primary school and the campaign against its academisation. I am a governor of a school in Stourbridge which is now an academy and the process of academisation there took place against an orchestrated campaign, which ran for more than 12 months. Given those experiences and the potentially even greater struggle that failing schools or struggling schools in poorer areas would have in the face of such a campaign, do I take it from you, Mr Gibb, that the speed with which the measures in the Bill will enable the Secretary of State to turn a failing school into an academy will be the answer to those sort of problems? Under the measures in the Bill, how quickly do you think the improvement in a child’s education and the life chances of those children in a school that was failing will be turned around?

Mr Gibb: We heard from Sir Dan Moynihan this morning about how they managed to turn Downhills school around in two years and it is now good with some outstanding features. He also cited the metrics of the improvement in the proportion of pupils reaching level 4. It is quite staggering. That is in the face of delays that were caused by the “save our failing school” protests. It is a tragedy that any month is wasted when children only get one chance at an education. The Bill is designed to speed up that process and that is why a school that is in special measures or category 4 will automatically be issued an academy order. The whole issue of whether a school is going to become an academy will vanish. There is no point in protesting because that is going to happen and then we can get these outstanding academy groups to take over the school and bring in support and leadership and transform it very rapidly. I think Lord Nash might want to say how rapidly.

Picking up the earlier question from Louise Haigh about morale, I would say that this is a great time to be a teacher. We have between 400 and 500 new academy groups developing that are based on a good school. A headteacher can use their expertise to develop other schools. We heard that earlier today from the lady from Sunderland—her name escapes me—who runs the WISE academy chain. It is a wonderful professional thing to be able to do, to take your expertise and experience and to spread it into three, four or five other primary schools and raise their standards. Those opportunities were not available before the coalition Government came in in 2010 and there will be increasing numbers of those opportunities available to the profession in years ahead.

Lord Nash: Our mottoes are “Every child deserves to go to a good school” and “children before adults”. I know the experiences you are talking about from personal experience as an academy sponsor appointed by Andrew Adonis for a school in Pimlico which was in special measures. We had a group of teachers and parents who were very against the whole idea and came up with a lot of appalling tactics, including breaking into my office and various other things, but two years after we took the school over, it went from special measures to outstanding, thanks to the leadership team and teachers that we recruited. The people I have just referred to asked after a year if they could change their name from, I think, the Pimlico School Association to the Friends of Pimlico Academy. They got quite a short answer from me on that. We do not want other people to have to go through that experience because it is just adults putting their dogmatic prejudices before the interests of children. That is what part of the Bill is about.