Education and Adoption Bill (Sixth sitting)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I welcome everyone back for the Committee’s afternoon sitting. We come now to the third and final group of amendments to clause 2. Amendment 19 is an attempt to answer the problem of clause 2’s removing the mechanism for a governing body appeal to Ofsted. We are seeking more clarity about the decision to remove a governing body’s right of appeal to Ofsted following a warning notice. As the Bill removes the power of a governing body to appeal against a warning notice, the amendment would insert, as an alternative way of getting some measure of appeal, direct accountability for all decisions to intervene by the Secretary of State. It would require those interventions to be made via the mechanism of a statutory instrument.

It is clear from this and other actions by the Government that the Government lack confidence in Ofsted. Perhaps the fact that Ofsted has recently had to sack so many of its contracted inspectors—the very same inspectors on whom the Government have relied for judgments about which schools to intervene in—has led Ministers to strip Ofsted of the role of hearing appeals against these notices. I do not know. Perhaps the Minister will clarify why he does not think that Ofsted is a fit body to hear those appeals from governing bodies. However, just because the Government have lost faith in Ofsted’s ability to hear an appeal of this kind, that does not mean that they should completely abandon basic principles of natural justice. If Ofsted is not trusted by the Minister for Schools and the Secretary of State in this respect, surely something else should be put in its place as a safeguard against the arbitrary use of ministerial power.

The Schools Minister and I may disagree from time to time about the reasonableness of the actions that he takes and that the Secretary of State takes. I accept that we will sometimes see things differently when we are looking at ministerial actions, but as the Minister himself pointed out earlier in today’s proceedings, we are legislating for all future possibilities, including the most unlikely of possibilities for who might be sitting in his seat or the Secretary of State’s seat in the future. I remind him that there was a time when he was on the Opposition side and I was on the Government side. A week is supposed to be a long time in politics, so yes, that is ancient history, and I accept that we are likely to be in the same position for a few years to come, but on a serious note, we are legislating for all future Ministers, so we should be vigilant about legislating for anything that allows the arbitrary use of power by Ministers.

Amendment 19 means that, when issuing a notice, the Secretary of State would have to do so by order, rather than by direction. There would therefore be an opportunity for Members to pray against the statutory instrument—to use the technical term that we use in this place, not always understandable to the public—or, in effect, to put a question mark against what the Minister is doing to trigger at least a debate on the use of the power, against which the right of appeal is being removed from governing bodies.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that the issue is about not only who is Secretary of State, but an additional layer of accountability? As we heard time and again in evidence last week, that confuses the system and adds yet more challenges to a demoralised and over-pressurised workforce. Does he agree that the amendment would allow Parliament to scrutinise the impact on the workforce and on the education system as a whole of any order by the Secretary of State?

[Kevin Brennan]

With her usual acuity, my hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is an additional argument. We will be hearing from her later about her amendment, and I look forward to that immensely.

Amendment 19 proposes a minimum, light touch, democratic and parliamentary safeguard against a clause that introduces ministerial fiat into the Bill. Members might not be aware of this, but even the closure of a motorway slip road has to be done by statutory instrument through this place, yet apparently the Secretary of State, under the Bill, will be able to intervene in a school without any parliamentary accountability being necessary.

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[Mrs Emma Lewell-Buck (South Shields) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Alan. I will speak briefly in support of amendment 19.

During debates so far on the Bill we have heard a lot about accountability, which is why I am so surprised that, when it comes to the powers that the Bill gives the Secretary of State, there is so little by way of accountability. In our sitting just last Thursday we heard that the Secretary of State will not have to justify her reasons for intervening to regionalise adoption services; now, in clause 2, we see that she will not have to answer for her decision to intervene in a school, either.

I find it a strange trend, at a time when there is such a lively public debate about devolution and giving control of public services to communities, that when it comes to schools the Secretary of State seems to be accumulating ever more power. Clause 2 will mean that interventions can be signed off from Whitehall with no public scrutiny and no way for the decision to be effectively challenged. Taking away governors’ right of appeal makes the Executive completely unaccountable. Parents and governors need to be able to have confidence in the decisions that are being made about their school and they will not be reassured when those decisions are handed down from Whitehall while they have no ability to challenge them.

We all agree that turning underperforming schools around is important, but precisely for that reason, there needs to be proper accountability in the decision-making process. Parents will want to know that the decision has been made carefully and not on some whim of the Secretary of State’s. That is why amendment 19 will require a statutory instrument to be laid before the House before an intervention can be made. As my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West noted, it is not just Opposition Members who have opposed giving the Secretary of State unbridled power. I repeat that, back in 2011, this Schools Minister said,

“we do not believe that the power of the Secretary of State should be unfettered”.––[Official Report, Education Public Bill Committee, 31 March 2011; c. 835.]

Somewhere along the way it seems that he and the Government have changed their mind. If the Minister is not willing to accept amendment 19, will he please tell the Committee why he no longer believes that the Secretary of State needs to be accountable and why these decisions should be taken without proper scrutiny?

[Louise Haigh]

It is a great pleasure, Sir Alan, to serve under your chairmanship on my first Public Bill Committee. I support amendment 19 and I shall further examine the impact on subsection (2)(h). First, I ask the Minister for a clarification. Paragraph 19 of the explanatory notes state:

“The governing body’s entitlement to make representations against the warning notice to the local authority, and the local authority’s obligation to consider those representations, is removed by clause 2(2)(h)”.

However, the actual effect of this subsection, which removes subsections (7) to (9) of section 16 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, seems to be to remove the entitlement of the governing body to make representations against the warning notice to Ofsted, which may then uphold the warning notice or not. Perhaps this is just another symptom of the unnecessary haste with which the Bill was drafted and put before us, but it would be helpful if the Minister clarified his understanding of this provision and, if necessary, issued corrected explanatory notes.

I want to talk briefly about the real impact that the already highly stringent accountability regime is having on hard-working, dedicated teachers across the country and why I want some right of appeal to be maintained. On Friday night, I hosted a meeting with local teachers to hear about their experiences in the profession. I am sure the Minister will want to advise me on better ways to spend my Friday nights, but following the Minister’s response in the evidence session last week, when he told me there had never been a better time to be a teacher, I was interested to hear from those working on the front line whether they agreed. A wide range of staff attended, from lunchtime assistants, teaching assistants and newly-qualified teachers to teachers with 20-plus years of experience and heads of primary and secondary schools. We covered a range of issues that are currently affecting the profession, from the impact of academisation and the lack of CPD to the increasing use of teaching assistants and unqualified teachers in place of fully-qualified and experienced teachers, but what came up from every single person in the room was their fear of the current inspection regime. They fear that they will be judged as failing, inadequate or, as a consequence of the Bill, coasting. That is why this amendment, securing natural justice, is so important to those teachers.

One teacher with 18 years of experience in the profession broke down in tears in the middle of the meeting, describing working 50-plus hours a week, constant box ticking and evidence taking and excessive marking and paperwork—all things that she described as having nothing to do with why she originally chose to take up this vocation. Perhaps that would be worth it if it were all genuinely necessary to guarantee the best education for all our children, but there was a very strong feeling that the accountability regime cannot always be relied on to provide an accurate measure of quality.

My concern is that the clause will only add to the pressures outlined. For a governing body not to be able to make representations to Ofsted on the basis of a notice it believes to be based on inaccurate claims simply ratchets up the pressure.

I note that one group of teachers was not at the meeting on Friday; there was no one over the age of 50. Perhaps that is a consequence of the increasing number of teachers who retire early. Dealing with “inadequate” or “coasting” schools will ultimately rely on good teachers, such as the one who broke down in front of me who is now selling her house, so that she can leave the profession—something that she never thought she would have to do and least of all wanted to do.

The measures in the clause are perhaps minor compared with the Bill’s impact as a whole, but the direction of travel is important. We should remember that the effect of legislation is not just on processes and procedures, but ultimately on the professionals who operate them and, of course, the pupils, and we all want them to succeed. I hope that the Minister will consider these points and those made by my hon. Friends, and I look forward to his response.

[Mr Gibb]

Welcome back, Sir Alan, after our short break. I will start by responding to the hon. Members for South Shields and for Sheffield, Heeley. First, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley is absolutely right: the teachers whom she met on Friday are right about the workload that teachers endure at the moment. TALIS—the teaching and learning international survey—shows that teachers in this country are working significantly longer than the OECD average, perhaps by eight hours a week, yet the teaching hours that they work, according to that survey, are similar in this country compared with the OECD.

What is happening in those extra eight hours if it is not adding to the sum total of teaching in our schools? The answer is the sort of things that the hon. Lady is talking about: data collection, lesson preparation and marking. When we asked the teaching profession about its concerns about workload in response to TALIS and to what people were telling us, the issues that came top of the 44,000 responses were first, data collection and processing; secondly, the concept of deep marking; and thirdly, issues to do with lesson planning and so on.

We are taking measures to deal with these issues. We are setting up working groups, following that workload challenge, and looking at issues such as what is called dialogic marking to see whether that is the right approach. From my discussions with teachers, including the National Association of Head Teachers and other unions, I think that that is not the right approach to marking. We are absolutely looking at that to see how we can take away the pressure that is emanating from somewhere in the education world to insist that dialogic marking is used to give feedback on pupils’ work. We are also looking at data collection and resources that teachers use. We are absolutely committed to taking on the challenge of teachers’ workload, and we are determined to address it.

The hon. Lady referred to the explanatory notes, and again she is spot on. There is an error in the explanatory notes, which incorrectly refer to schools making representations to the local authority when, in fact, we are talking about representations made to Ofsted. She is right and that explanatory note will be corrected.

The hon. Member for South Shields referred to several issues where the Secretary of State will not have to answer. I have to disappoint the hon. Lady, but the Secretary of State does have to answer for everything that she does. She answers to us in the House at least once a month in Education questions, but also in other debates—Opposition day debates, Adjournment debates, Back-Bench debates and so on—so the hon. Lady is wrong to say that the Secretary of State will not have to answer, because she will.

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[Louise Haigh]

I beg to move amendment 27, in clause 4, page 4, line 32, at end insert—

‘(2A) Before exercising the power conferred by Subsection (1), the Secretary of State must consider the long-term impact of requiring the governing body to enter into the proposed arrangements on the pay, terms and conditions of employees of the school, and satisfy himself that likely changes will not reduce the ability of the governing body to employ effective staff.”

This amendment would require the Secretary of State to consider the long-term impact of academisation on the pay and conditions of teachers and other employees of the school.

This is a probing amendment that would place a new duty on the Secretary of State to consider the impact of forced academisation on the pay, terms and conditions of employees of the school and whether that would reduce the ability of schools to employ staff. Clause 4 confers on the Secretary of State the power to make arrangements where a school is considered eligible for intervention and, therefore, to take necessary actions to ensure its improvement. The Bill does not take note of the impact on teachers’ pay and conditions and, therefore, the potential impact on retention or recruitment in the plan to force academisation.

In last Tuesday’s evidence session, we heard that one of the biggest factors in a school’s success is high-quality teaching staff, especially in leadership positions, but schools across the country are struggling to recruit entry level and senior teachers. When I put it to the Minister in our evidence session that there was nothing in the Bill to address that, he simply said:

“No; it is not about that.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 85, Q98.]

That is precisely what is wrong with this legislation. My amendment is intended to explore what might be done about the issue. Many of my Opposition colleagues and I would have preferred a very different focus for the first Education Bill of this Parliament, but we are where we are. You have been kind in allowing this amendment to be debated, Sir Alan.

I hope that the Minister will, at the very least, outline how he intends to address the problem and prevent the Bill from worsening it. Most academies have continued to follow the national pay and conditions set out in the blue book, despite the exhortation of the Secretary of State to abandon traditional pay scales across academies, but some academies have not and, in those cases, it is not unusual for teachers to find themselves on lower pay per hour than they would have been previously under national conditions.

The amendment relates to the use of unqualified teachers in some of the worst academy chains—most academies refuse to use unqualified teachers, in my experience—and, as mentioned earlier, to the increasingly inappropriate use of teaching assistants. Indeed, the DFE’s figures show that the number of unqualified teachers has risen by 20% in the past year.

There is an understandable concern in the teaching profession that academies will move to harmonise contracts between those agreed under TUPE and those new contracts for new starters. The subsequent race to the bottom in pay and conditions could have hugely damaging implications for teacher morale and, therefore, the retention of existing teachers at a time when retirement rates in teaching are at a high not seen since the Major Government. As one head described to me last week, it used to be the case that when teachers were looking to move schools, heads and other colleagues could provide them with advice based on the leadership of that school, the geography, the demographics, and perhaps the culture. Now potential employees have to look closely at the sponsor, the pay on offer, the different maternity conditions and sick pay, or perhaps at whether the school is likely in the near future to be deemed inadequate, failing or, under this Bill, coasting, or potentially swallowed up by an aggressive academy chain.

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[Mr Gibb]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he does. Being involved as a governor is very important. I thank him for putting on record the excellent standards of the school he cited. If we have the opportunity to leave the building and get out, I would love to come and visit that school. On that basis, I urge the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley to withdraw her amendment.

[Louise Haigh]

I am grateful for the Minister’s response and I am pleased that my amendment awakened hon. Members on the Government Benches. I am genuinely grateful that the Minister recognised the incredible workload that teachers are under, although I would correct his earlier statement. The OECD workload survey showed that teachers in this country were working on average 12 hours longer than teachers in countries surveyed elsewhere.

The Minister mentioned that the issue is not just about Ofsted, but about the perception of Ofsted. I am grateful that the Secretary of State is taking action on those working groups to look into that. I will follow that work closely. I am disappointed to hear that the Minister does not feel that there is a crisis in recruitment and retention, because I believe that his own data and surveys demonstrate exactly that. I take exception to the idea that we are experiencing strong economic growth. I was unemployed in Sheffield last year, and my brother is currently unemployed and is struggling to find work in the north of England, so I would take exception to the idea that we are experiencing strong economic growth—in the northern powerhouse, at least.

Education and Adoption Bill (Fifth sitting)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

Thank you for your guidance, Sir Alan. You have just indicated the amendments we are to consider. Amendment 16 would clarify that a local authority may give a warning notice under section 60A (teachers’ pay and conditions warning notice), even if the Secretary of State has given one. Amendment 18 would ensure that a governing body could not have two different warning notices in quick succession. Amendment 17 would enable a local authority warning notice under section 60A to remain in force, even though the Secretary of State had given one.

Amendment 20 would restore section 69A of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, which allows the Secretary of State to require a local authority to issue a warning notice. Amendment 22 refers to section 62 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which gives a local authority power to take immediate action against a maintained school when there is a serious risk to pupils at the school. The amendment is aimed at probing the likely use of section 62 powers in the light of clause 2.

The amendments are designed to bring a degree of sense and order to the warning notice process or, if that is an over-ambitious aim, at least to understand how the Government intend to do that. We would like clarity on that from Ministers. It is clearly unreasonable for a school to receive two different—or indeed two similar—warning notices in quick succession. As ever, in drawing up policies, Ministers seem to have great problems in seeing matters from the viewpoint of a school and the impact of Government policies on schools. That is especially the case when we are presumably talking of schools that are in some way already short of capacity. The possibility that the school might be asked to begin to deal with requirements under a warning notice and then have them replaced by something different is clearly unsatisfactory, if that is what is envisaged in the clause.

Amendment 16 probes whether the term “warning notice” in new subsection (4A) refers to both types of warning notices: the section 60 performance standards and safety warning notices and the 60A teacher pay and conditions warning notices. In other words, a local authority can issue a section 60A warning notice if the Secretary of State has issued a section 60 one, and so on. Amendment 17 also relates to that.

Amendment 18 further explores whether the legislation is in danger of making matters even more complex. It will be highly confusing for a school, if it is trying to make rapid progress, to work to a local authority section 60 warning notice only to find that work on that must come to an abrupt end when the Secretary of State imposes a section 60 notice and stops the local authority notice that the school was already working on. Where is the evidence that, when imposing a warning notice, a local authority asks for the wrong kind of action?

Presumably, when a local authority has imposed a warning notice on a school it has done so for a reason and has not done so lightly, imposing actions that it believes will help to turn that school around or will improve the situation that triggered the warning notice. Where is the evidence that a local authority notice is likely to include the wrong actions and that a regional schools commissioner—who will have to keep an eye on a much greater number of schools than any local authority and with very limited resources, as we heard in the oral evidence before the line-by-line scrutiny of the Bill commenced—will have greater local knowledge or capacity to understand what needs to be done in relation to those warning notices?

Why does the Minister think that a regional schools commissioner, with a small number of support staff, will have better capacity to pick the right kinds of action in a warning notice than a local authority, which has, potentially, greater capacity and deals with a smaller number of schools about which it, presumably, and historically, already has more intimate knowledge?

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

I believe that we heard from Ministers last Tuesday that they would be providing extra resources to regional schools commissioners. Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be helpful if they confirmed exactly what resources they will provide, and does he further agree that it would also be helpful for them to confirm how regional schools commissioners will work with local authorities? At present, as I understand it, they only work with headteachers of academy schools.

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, I think that would be extremely helpful. I remember the days when Ministers were concerned about the growth of quangos, as they used to be called—bodies appointed by Ministers but without any direct accountability to the public. It seems to me that we need to understand whether the Minister is growing a whole new series of quangos around the country in creating—by stealth, in effect, and without use of legislation—the office of regional schools commissioners. Currently, as we found out from the oral evidence sessions, the commissioners have relatively small operations, namely half a dozen or so staff, but are now being given all these extra responsibilities. Who knows what other responsibilities are to be placed upon them in the future? It is inevitable that questions about accountability will grow as these institutions become more and more significant in the educational landscape and, potentially, as more and more Government resources are given to them to carry out the additional duties that the Government place upon them in this legislation and elsewhere.

The second point that my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley made in relation to headteacher boards—which is what I think she was referring to—was a question that I raised with Lord Nash during the oral evidence session. I asked him whether it was time for headteachers of maintained schools to be treated as equal to headteachers of academy schools by allowing their participation in headteacher panels, not least because of the expansion of the regional schools commissioners’ duties to have more and more responsibility for maintained schools.

How can the regional schools commissioners be properly advised by a headteacher panel that does not contain any maintained school headteachers, especially if they are dispassionately, properly and neutrally to deal with the problems faced by maintained schools? We have not yet even got to the question of key performance indicators of the regional schools commissioners in relation to targets for academisation. All sorts of problems are contained in my hon. Friend’s intervention, which I am sure the Minister will refer to.

Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

Annie Crombie, the chair of the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies—a woman with a wealth of experience in the field and who has previously worked closely with the Government on adoption matters—emphasised quality and specialisms as the key factors in any new arrangements. Would the Minister require those in any construction developed to carry out adoption functions, and how would he indicate or specify such a thing?

During the evidence session, Anna Sharkey, the chief executive of Adoption Focus, expressed her concerns, like my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West, that the size and criteria for the new arrangements needed to be considered carefully. I press the Minister on what, in his mind, he is trying to design. What does success look like and how can he be sure that he has got this right?

I noticed that, during the evidence session, the Minister asked about the risk of being overly prescriptive and he has referred to Sir Martin Narey’s comments on that. The chief executive of Coram indicated that obviously there would be a problem if we devoted too much energy to trying to design the perfect arrangements in advance. She was worried that that may divert people from the key task of successfully placing children. I absolutely understand those concerns and I understand the Minister’s caution. I stress again that I support him in his wish to secure more successful adoptions and prevent unnecessary delays that could well leave children languishing in the care system when they need a fresh start and a chance to rebuild their lives.

Alison O’Sullivan, the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, pointed out that, while children should not languish in the system, we should not automatically assume that waiting means languishing. It is not necessarily a bad thing that children are waiting because the right family placement must be found. There is a slight problem with the notion of time. Of course, we do not want unnecessary delays—I know, from my experience in a previous life, how damaging that can be—but if the existing care arrangements are good and well managed, waiting need not necessarily be bad.

For example, it would be perfectly sensible to wait to find the right placement when trying to get siblings adopted together or to place a child with particular difficulties, disabilities or special needs. Mrs O’Sullivan reminded us that while children are waiting, our duty remains the same. We have to ensure that those arrangements are the highest quality care that we are capable of providing.

Carol Homden reminded us of the store she places in concurrent planning. It is not necessary for social workers to assume that they will go down a single planning track, to the exclusion of all else. It is perfectly possible for a department to adopt a set of planning arrangements so that it can say, “This outcome is desirable or worth trying to achieve.” That will be most obvious when considering the possibility of a planned return home, which may be worth trying to achieve, but it makes perfect sense simultaneously to plan for adoption because a planned return home might not happen.

What exactly is the governing factor in the constructions and consortium arrangements that the Minister has in mind? Many of the people to whom I have spoken have commented on the fact that this legislation is particularly narrow. It is as if we are not paying sufficient attention to other care situations. We find ourselves thinking that the key factor is only to think about adoption and the speed of adoption in order to convince ourselves that if adoption is not taking place, waiting is intrinsically bad.

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

My hon. Friend makes an important point. The Bill makes it seem that the Government feel that adoption is the only solution for children in care. Figures from the Fostering Network show that, of the 65,000 children and young people in care, only 4,000 want or need to be adopted. Adoption is not an appropriate solution for the vast majority of children in care, who might be in care only temporarily. He is right on that point.

[Steve McCabe]

When only about 5% of children in the care system at any given point are likely to be adopted, it is dangerous if we become too focused on adoption to the exclusion of all else. The difficulties are obvious.

Returning to the notion of waiting, we need to be concerned about the quality of the care arrangement or placement that a child is experiencing now. I fear the unintended risk of saying, “We are pursuing adoption, and the focus must be on making that happen.” That is almost like being in a waiting room or a transport lounge, and the danger is that we will not place sufficient attention or focus on the quality of the care that the child is currently experiencing, which would be a dereliction of duty.

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[Bill Esterson]

I want to pick up on some of the points made about the smaller agencies’ concerns about the establishment of regional agencies. The quality of work often found in the smaller agencies is incredibly important. I come to this issue having experienced the value of a small adoption agency that specialised, at the time, in placing hard-to-place children; my wife and I adopted two siblings. The expertise, advice, guidance and support we received were all exceptionally good, and some of that was due to the fact that we used a smaller agency that could concentrate its time, energies and expertise.

Its inevitable problem, of course, was that funding was always a struggle. It ended up becoming part of a much larger organisation, and I am afraid that much of that expertise is no longer with us. I know that there are other examples; my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak mentioned the experience in Wales. We should work hard to ensure that in our attempts to improve the situation, we do not end up making matters worse.

My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak said that delay can sometimes be the right thing for siblings or children with complex needs—provided, it is fair to say, that they are in a good placement. Although I do not disagree with that, I think there is always a balance to be struck between delay in order to get the right decision, and ensuring that that delay does not continue longer than necessary and that it is not bound up in lack of expertise and opportunity to find the best permanent placement for children, particularly those who find it difficult to be placed.

I want to pick up on some of the evidence that we heard on Tuesday. On the point about voluntary agencies and smaller agencies, Hugh Thornbery told us that,

“there is no necessary direct correlation between quality and size, and it would be tragic if we lost some of the real expertise that exists within some of the smaller voluntary adoption agencies, which focus particularly on trying to find the right family for some of the hardest-to-place children.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 53, Q19.]

His expertise, experience and credibility are such that we should take that on board. When the Minister replies to the debate, I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, will be keen to hear how he plans to make sure that such specialist knowledge and expertise are not lost because smaller agencies become less viable in the new structure. We do not want a repetition of the experience in Wales where smaller agencies were pushed out by local authorities. What assessment have the Government made of the potential impact of voluntary agencies becoming unviable and being unable to serve children’s best interests? Such questions need to be answered.

The debate on amendment 13 is an appropriate place to look at the suitability of the adoption system for finding placements for particularly vulnerable children, such as those with disabilities, older children, sibling groups and children from black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds. I hope that the Minister can tell us more about how his proposals will help with the placement of hard-to-place children. As Andy Leary-May told us on Tuesday,

“unless we address the problems that exist…the children with the most complex needs may wait longer to find a suitable placement.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 56, Q23.]

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that a key performance indicator in this area should be not simply how long it takes to place children, but the breakdown in adoption places? Voluntary agencies are incredibly successful in that regard, with only 3% of adoptions breaking down.

[Bill Esterson]

That is an excellent point. Support is needed to make sure that those of us who adopt children overcome the very difficult challenges that we may face. Of course, children who are adopted have often had the most difficult start in life, which is why they have ended up being placed for adoption, and the challenges of dealing with the emotional difficulties and other background issues that those children present when they come to live with a new family are immense. It is incredibly important to ensure that support services are in place, albeit the level of breakdown overall is relatively small. I am glad that my hon. Friend raised that point, and I hope that the Minister will address the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak, some of which I have touched on in my remarks, not least about children who are sometimes described as harder to place—although I feel that that is an unfair description of children who, through no fault of their own, have ended up in a situation where they need the support of a new family.

Ordered, That the debate be now adjourned.—(Margot James.)

Equal Pay and the Gender Pay Gap

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

That is a very good point. That is perhaps the next challenge we will have to take on.

We are also taking strong action to ensure that our workplaces are fit for the 21st century. As part of that, the right to request flexible working was extended to all employees from last June. More than 20 million employees now have that right. Working parents now also have the option of taking shared parental leave and pay, which will enable a culture change to take place both in the home and in the workplace.

Affordable, good-quality childcare is vital to enabling parents to stay and progress in work. Almost 2 million families can benefit from our new tax childcare scheme from autumn 2015, worth up to £2,000 per child. In our manifesto, we announced that we would extend the number of free hours from 15 to 30 hours a week for three and four-year-olds from working families.

Ultimately, we know that we cannot address the gender pay gap unless we work with business. We have also strongly promoted and championed the work of the Women’s Business Council, set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), and implemented Lord Davies’ conclusions on women on boards.

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

Does the right hon. Lady agree that in order to improve the number of women on boards we must do much more to tackle the pipeline and encourage businesses to promote women internally? From my own experience working in the City of London, senior women were often brought into the organisation but very few women were promoted internally.

[Nicky Morgan]

I entirely agree. There has been a lot of focus on non-executive positions. The next place to look and on which to work with businesses is the executive pipeline. The hon. Lady is right. Whether we are talking about the education sector, parliamentarians or business, growing that internal talent, working to keep people in the workplace and to promote them is so important.

We have been actively working in partnership with business through the Think, Act, Report initiative. Nearly 300 companies, employing over 2.5 million people, are committed to that initiative, leading the way on gender equality. Those are just some of the steps we have taken in recent years.

We have also strengthened the law so that where an employer has been found by a tribunal to have breached the equal pay or pay-related sex discrimination provisions in the Equality Act 2010, they are now required to conduct and publish an equal pay audit.

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.

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Bill Esterson]

Q 49 Okay. So we are not interested in high quality.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It depends. How do you define local authorities as high performing? They are not directly responsible for the management of their schools, so what does that mean? If the schools in a local authority are doing well, does that mean the local authority is high performing? I think the headteachers of those schools would have something to say about that; their view would be that they have delivered.

Emma Knights: Or the governors.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: So if those heads and governors could take over schools, yes, I would agree with that.

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

Q 50 While we are talking about data, the Local Schools Network has managed—incredibly, given the lateness with which the Government made public the regulations last night—to crunch the data and has found that 814 secondary schools would be defined as coasting under the Government’s regulations. Some 342 of those are academies, a high proportion of which are converter academies. That is surprising given that, as the Minister points out, those would have been good or outstanding when they were converted, but 125 of them had a progress 8 value added measure. Is progress 8 wrong, or is the Government’s definition of “coasting” wrong?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Do you mean that they had a positive progress 8 measure?

[Louise Haigh]

Yes.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: I think Becky Allen was correct in the sense that in a well-to-do context where lots of children are affluent, it is probably easier to get a good progress 8 value. What should probably happen is that schools should be benchmarked according to the progress 8 value of schools very like them. At the moment, there is a “families of schools” section on the Department for Education website, where schools are compared with 55 schools with a similar intake. Probably something needs to be done to make progress 8 more sophisticated in order to take account of the context. It is too easy for some schools to look as if they are doing well with that, given their intake.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 51 Do you agree with the evidence in the previous session that it should be based solely or at least largely on progress rather than on a fresh value?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Yes. The proposal for secondary to be 60% means, I think, that we are going to miss a whole range of potential coasting schools—there are coasting grammar schools that will not be picked up by the 60% threshold—so progress needs to be the driver. That alone probably is not enough. It may well be that it is a signal that somebody needs to go in and take a further look.

Malcolm Trobe: It is also important that we realise at this stage that coasting is a situation judged over three years. At the moment, we do not know where progress 8 will end up, because schools’ curriculum models will be changing, so progress 8 as an indicator will change with time. I think it is a little dangerous to go in there. I would ask the New Schools Network how it knows where the measure is of being below progress 8. As I understand it—hopefully I have this bit of legislation right—that has not yet been determined, because the data have to be crunched. Quite logically, we do not know where progress 8 as a measure will end up, because of changing curriculum models in secondary school, so I think it is a little dangerous to throw numbers around at this stage.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 52 Do you think that it is dangerous to enforce this progress measure retrospectively?

Malcolm Trobe: I think it is important that we move very quickly on schools that are not improving. Therefore, it is important that we identify schools that are not improving, and that work is done and support programmes are put in place to ensure that those schools improve, because that is surely the ultimate objective of everyone in this room.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 53 But given that progress 8 is not due to come in until 2016, is it right that it should measure schools back to 2014?

Malcolm Trobe: What they are having to do—I have a concern about the measure that will be used in 2014 and 2015, because that is essentially an attainment measure. We have our concerns that you have not got a consistent measure. When progress 8 or an alternative version is in place for three years, you will be measuring progress over the three-year period, but we have concerns that what you essentially have is an attainment measure for the first two years, to deem whether a school is coasting or not in those years, and then the progress measure does not come in until the third year. So an element of caution needs to be urged in the first year.

We support what is in the notes: a very clear statement that academisation is not considered the first step in coasting schools. It is looking at the work of the regional schools commissioner. However, that highlights the capacity issues. You might ask Tim Coulson later about the capacity of the regional schools commissioner to look at the context of schools that, under this measure, particularly in the early stages, are designated as coasting because of the nature of the ’14 and ’15 indicators.

Richard Watts: If I may say so, I think there is a real danger about the risk of clashing accountability systems. I can think of one school in my patch that probably falls under the coasting definition as published last night but has had two successive outstanding Ofsted judgments and is the most popular school in my borough for people to send their children to. It would not command public confidence for that school to be described as coasting. They have people queuing round the block to get into it. I feel for heads in circumstances in which they can be judged as outstanding twice in a row and then be condemned as coasting under these things. More definition is needed to work out the priorities within the accountability system and to send a clearer set of messages to schools about what is expected of them.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

Q 54 You have commented a bit, but I ask each member of the panel: which criteria would you use to identify a coasting school?

Richard Watts: I would be happy with an Ofsted measure. If we have Ofsted for a reason, we should respect its judgments. If we are saying that Ofsted needs serious reform, let us get on and reform it. If we have a schools inspectorate, it should be respected to some extent. It has to be about more than just progress. My borough is traditionally a highly deprived area that has seen very high levels of progress, but we are still not getting the final results. Employees never ask what your progress measure is; they ask what your GCSEs are. We need some measure of final result.

Emma Knights: I think we are in huge danger of over-complicating our accountability system. Schools are held accountable in so many different ways. I agree that layering this on top of Ofsted seems the wrong solution. We need to sort out Ofsted if we do not think that it is telling us what we need.

The real thing that will improve schools regards capacity in the system. Those of us who want to improve schools should all be worried about that. We have not talked about the regional schools commissioners and their capacity. At a time when the Department is having to undertake cuts, is there enough capacity in the system to identify these schools and work with them to improve? That is the real problem that we all face.

I cannot tell you how much governing boards want to recruit fantastic headteachers. That is what we want to do and that is what will change our schools. We are not getting applications from fantastic candidates in a lot of parts of the country. That is the real problem that we need to worry about, rather than layering measure upon measure and increasing the fear in schools. We think that one reason that some school leaders are not coming forward for headship is because they are already scared and drowning under the accountability system. We need to seriously change the culture.

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Going back to Richard’s point, there clearly are schools that are judged to be outstanding and have parents queuing round the block. The problem is, that if the children in them are not making the amount of progress that similarly good schools elsewhere are making, it is not wrong to jolt the school and possibly upset parents by saying, “Hang on a minute, these children are being short-changed. In other places—look at those—they are doing much better.”

--- Later in debate ---

[John Pugh]

Q 98 Can I just persist with this point? You could give them the data as part of the consultation. Suppose you give them the data and you share all the data with them, and none the less it is their view in their school—this is my scenario—which may be a good school, but none the less is graded as coasting, that they would rather stay with the local authority than become an academy. Your view is still, in that circumstance where you share the data with them, that their view should be overridden.

Zoe Carr: That school would be given time under a plan that we have already talked about to see whether it could make the improvements that we discussed previously. If it is found that that school still cannot make those improvements, then the route forward would be for that school to become a sponsored academy.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 99 In the earlier session, we heard that we have little evidence of which formal intervention works best. There are anecdotal examples of academies that have improved, but clearly we cannot say across the board that academisation is the best answer for all schools. What is clear is that teaching and leadership is the most important factor in improving schools. Would you all therefore say whether the Bill will make it easier, harder or have no impact on the ability of schools to recruit and retain teachers?

Lee Elliot Major: It is hard to know. I would urge, as part of the Bill, looking to trial this in different schools so that we can come back to a Committee in three years’ time and know the evidence. One thing I would say straightway is that we should try to develop some evidence around this because there is very little at the moment. As I said earlier, our evidence is—and there are lots of claims and counter-claims in this area—that there are academy chains that do very well and there are others that do not. That is the honest truth. In terms of recruitment, I think it can go both ways. There are some academy chains that have better career progress for teachers because they can go between schools. There is better professional development. There are other chains that do not do it very well, to be frank. It can go either way depending on the academy chain.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 100 So probably no overall impact.

Lee Elliot Major: I would say that there are other ways of doing it. There are school federations that do it well. Generally, the sector is facing a big issue around improvement, and that is a looming issue.

Zoe Carr: What I have experienced through our trust is that we have been able to do more of the growing your own version that the CEO of Harris academies talked about earlier. We have been able to take leaders from one academy and give them opportunities to get them prepared and ready for our succession planning, so that if we take on another school that needs to strengthen leadership, we have the people there to be able to do that. The more time that you have to work with people, the more that you know them and the more it takes out the variation of what the next headteacher we will appoint will be like. Or, if we cannot get the people we need to run the schools, we have already grown people we can use. We have a talent bank.

It is not a perfect solution. Of course, we have a shortage of headteachers in the country willing to go into the most challenging and disadvantaged schools. I am not going to skirt over that issue, because we need to do more to encourage headteachers to go into challenging schools. As accountability rises, the pressure in the job rises—that has to be said—but multi-academy trusts can build a support network around the trust’s key leaders so that people are not left alone to make every decision. In our trust, our leaders have the opportunity to concentrate on the things that matter the most for the outcomes for our children, because they are not burdened with all the bureaucracy around all the other things that headteachers in a single school often have to deal with themselves.

[Louise Haigh]

Q 101 So you think that an extra layer of accountability will act as a further disincentive to attracting headteachers into the most challenging areas.

Zoe Carr: I think that the most successful and aspirational leaders thrive on challenge. That can drive them forward to think, “Right, if that’s the bar, we will do all that we can to achieve it.”

[Louise Haigh]

Q 102 Do we need to be heaping further challenges on to what are already the most challenging schools through another accountability measure?

Zoe Carr: There is great accountability in the system at the moment, and I am not sure whether more accountability is the right way forward, but this accountability works in relation to what is already out there in the system—it works within the floor targets that we have previously experienced.

[The Chair]

I want to fit in one more question.

Education and Adoption Bill

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), and a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who I think kicked this sorry excuse of a Bill into next week.

I congratulate the hon. Members for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) and for Kingston and Surbiton (James Berry) on their maiden speeches today. It’s a lovely feeling when you’ve nailed it—I know what it’s like.

I come to this debate as a governor of Thorpe St Andrew school—an outstanding local authority school; I am very proud of it. I will direct my contribution to the education component of the Bill, starting with what I believe is one of its overarching aims, namely, to build on the work of the Education Act 2011. If that Act could be described as the ignition of an engine to drive the dismantling of our public education system, this Bill is intended to turbocharge it—as the PM might say, “Fire up the Quattro, Nicky!”

In my constituency of Norwich South, the vultures are not just circling in anticipation of the Bill’s passage; they are already hacking away at the juiciest cuts. The Inspiration Trust has its beady eye on the Hewett local authority school and the £60 million of land that it sits on—land that belongs to the people of my city, not to what is little more than a corporation masquerading as a so-called educational charity. A secretive, unaccountable corporation in all but name, it has links to the very heart of this Government in the form of Theodore Agnew—a Conservative party donor and non-executive board member initially at the Department for Education, but now at the Ministry of Justice. I am sure that irony has not been missed by the parents and pupils of Hewett, who have seen little in the way of justice when it comes to having a say in their school’s future. That situation will be faced by many more communities if the Bill is passed in its current form.

In saying that, I recognise that there are good and decent academy chains out there, such as the academies run by the Co-operative Academies Trust, which are genuinely accountable and act in the public interest to improve the education of our children. Alas, the Inspiration Trust is not one of them. The Bill worsens rather than improves the chances of holding it to account.

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

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the other problems with the Bill is the lack of academies and sponsors who are able and willing to take on the number of schools that the Government intend to convert? The Co-operative can take on only so many schools. Is he concerned that the schools he describes in his constituency may have little choice other than to be forcibly taken over by the trust that he mentioned?

[Clive Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes an important and alarming point. Like many other trusts, the Inspiration Trust has already gobbled up tens of millions of pounds worth of public land and buildings and now, emboldened by the Bill, it finds its appetite whetted for yet more pickings.

Last year, using freedom of information requests, an investigation by The Guardian revealed that academy schools have paid millions of taxpayer pounds into the private businesses of directors, trustees and their relatives.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a great pleasure to follow so many excellent maiden speeches, especially those by Government Members who are former teachers and who called on the Secretary of State to tackle the crisis of morale, recruitment and retention among teachers, which they have obviously experienced. It is also an incredible pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for Norwich South (Clive Lewis) and for Ilford North (Wes Streeting), who made excellent contributions on the principles of what I and many colleagues believe to be a Bill that fails to address its professed aims.

The guiding principles of any education Bill that leaves this House should be to improve the life chances of our children. It therefore troubles me that the Government are intent on pursuing academisation at all costs, regardless of the evidence or the potential impact on pupils, particularly the most disadvantaged. My broad concern is that the Bill will force the Secretary of State to force academisation, regardless of the specific circumstances of the school and even if there is a clear alternative path to improvement.

When the last Labour Government introduced the academies scheme, it was intended to offer greater resources, new leadership and a fresh start to struggling schools. That principle has been abandoned in the Government’s programme, which instils competition in the education system and imposes almost complete centralisation. Indeed, the Bill finally removes the local authority, governors and, most shockingly, parents from the consultation process, denying them a voice completely.

As hon. Members have indicated, clauses 1 and 7 not only increase the power of the Secretary of State to force academisation, but introduce a statutory duty on her to issue an academy order for any school rated inadequate by Ofsted. The Government have estimated that the process will lead to an extra 1,000 schools being converted into academies over the course of this Parliament. That will constitute the largest wave of forcible academisation since the inception of academies.

We have had little assurance from the Government that forcing the academisation of swathes of our schools will improve those schools or the life chances of their pupils. Indeed, as we have heard, finding sponsors who are capable of driving improvement in at least 1,000 new academies will not be easy. Voices from across the sector have raised concerns over whether the academy chains on offer are capable of driving improvement. The Sutton Trust, in its 2014 report, found that

“a majority of the chains analysed still underperform the mainstream average on attainment for their disadvantaged pupils.”

Even the Education Committee, just this year, concluded:

“Current evidence does not allow us to draw conclusions on whether academies in themselves are a positive force for change.”

Does that not get to the heart of the matter? In a headlong rush to pursue academisation at all costs, the Government are ignoring the evidence and failing to take account of the specific circumstances of schools. Surely the Secretary of State should be compelled to force academisation only if the evidence supporting academy status is overwhelming and largely unchallenged? The reality is anything but that.

If the Bill is allegedly about driving school improvement, surely the Secretary of State should at least operate consistently by signalling a move towards driving improvement among academies too. However, there is no parallel requirement for the Secretary of State to act if an academy is shown to be failing. There is not even provision for Osted to carry out inspections of academy chains, despite the Sutton Trust reporting that the poor results of some academy chains represent a “clear and urgent problem”.

Is the Bill not a clear case of the Government putting ideology first? That is particularly important, given the pressures that schools are currently under. Is it really wise to impose wholesale structural change on a school if the issues that are contributing to its underperformance are nothing to do with the structure of the school? The problem of school places and the vexed issue of teacher recruitment and retention, which I and hon. Friends have raised in this House on a number of occasions already in this Parliament, will not disappear upon academisation. Forcing the academisation of schools will do nothing to address those, the most significant of issues for our schools and children; in fact, it may even exacerbate the crisis.

With Department for Education figures showing a 33% under-subscription of teachers in the core STEM subjects for the year ahead, and with schools in my constituency not receiving a single application when putting out national adverts for science teachers, how does the Secretary of State expect the Bill to address the teacher shortage that is fast turning into a crisis? Surely, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Rachael Maskell), it would be better to have a Bill before us that focused on tackling the very real issues that our schools face—a Bill that put evidence at the heart of any changes. Instead, we have a draconian Bill that causes a further massive centralisation of power in the hands of the Secretary of State.

If the Government’s primary interest is to drive up standards, I am afraid that this Bill would not pass that very test. With very little evidence to suggest that academisation drives up standards and with the Government doing nothing to drive up standards among failing academies, it seems wrong-headed for the Government to make the entire focus of the Bill a push to academise—regardless of whether it will improve schools or the life chances of schoolchildren. With such significant issues facing our schools and children, I am afraid that this Bill constitutes a missed opportunity to tackle the educational inequalities that scar many of our constituencies and to ensure that we have schools fit to provide the next generation with the education they deserve.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kate Osamor]

I would ask the Minister to be open, and to ensure that those of us representing constituencies where that could happen feel that it is above board. Until such time, that question will float. I would like him to answer it.

[Louise Haigh]

The debate is not just between my hon. Friend and the Minister. A great many other stakeholders should be involved in the process when academies want to take over schools, not least parents and governors. Does she agree that it is appalling that parents have been completely removed from the consultation process in academies?

[Kate Osamor]

Parents should be totally involved in the education of their children. In the new academisation process, parents are not on governing bodies, which is itself an issue that the Minister should look in to.

Recruitment and Retention of Teachers

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Thursday 18th June 2015 Commons Chamber

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

I thank Mr Speaker for granting this Adjournment debate on a critical issue that is of real and growing concern to my constituents and to people across the country, namely whether we are doing enough to recruit, train and retain the teachers who will inspire the next generation to learn and create things that our parents could not even have imagined. During this short debate, I will set out the background, touch on why the problem is of understandable concern to schools and the teaching profession, and suggest a couple of positive ways forward, which would carry the support of the profession, including head teachers, staff and their trade unions.

Hon. Members on both sides of the House will be aware that figures have demonstrated for some time that there is a problem with teacher recruitment and retention. Only today, Sir Michael Wilshaw said that the main challenge facing the education system was encouraging people to enter it. He said that one of the solutions was raising the status of teachers, and I could not agree more. I will come back to that point shortly. The Association of School and College Leaders has gone further, describing the crisis in recruitment and retention as a “perfect storm” and attributing the significant decline in postgraduate teacher training and the pool of graduates to the hike in tuition fees.

The impact is being felt in my constituency. One of my first meetings as a newly elected MP was with the head teacher of Newfield secondary school, when I was shocked to learn that after placing a national advert for a science teacher, the school had not received a single application. That matters to the pupils of Newfield, because despite the fact that it is an improving school with dedicated and brilliant staff, it took several rounds of recruitment to fill a teaching position. In a subject as important as science—part of the core subject group of science, technology, engineering and maths, which are so vital to our future—pupils in my constituency should not miss out on the continuity of teaching that is essential to success.

The problem is not peculiar to Sheffield. Vacancies in teaching have doubled during the past year, and a survey for schools weekly found that for the upcoming school year, only 83% of secondary places have been filled. Delve deeper and we find an even more troubling pattern. In the subjects that are vital to the jobs of the future—science, technology, engineering and maths, where we need more than 1 million in training just to keep up with demand—the pool of teachers is chronically under-subscribed. Figures taken from the initial teacher training census in physics and maths reveal a 33% under-subscription. For design and technology, the figure rises to a shocking 56%. One of the leading thinkers in the field, Professor John Howson, has said that the Department for Education “almost certainly” will not meet the recruitment target needed to fill places. Such targets are now being missed year in, year out.

[Justin Madders (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that the much vaunted School Direct programme has failed to recruit sufficient numbers of teachers in every single year since its introduction in 2011?

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. Government reforms have done little to help in that regard. The Government’s push towards recruiting teachers via School Direct has created a confused and fragmented system, with schools across the country reporting that they are struggling to access the School Direct programme. That will only get worse in the upcoming school year, as 17,000 places formerly allocated to university departments are transferred to School Direct. Since its creation by the former Secretary of State for Education, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), the School Direct programme has under-recruited every single year.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware that figures produced by TeachVac show that teacher recruitment is more difficult in this year than it has been at any time for a decade? With something like 800,000 children coming into the system over the next decade or so, a national strategy will be needed to solve this important problem.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend raises an important point, which is further evidence of more failed ideological experiments from the Tories.

[Justin Madders]

My hon. Friend has highlighted some disturbing issues. Has she managed to obtain from the Minister any details on the current performance of the School Direct programme?

[Louise Haigh]

The Government have provided figures on the failings of the Teach First programme, which have revealed that we are losing more recruits from Teach First than we are gaining every year. The Government’s management of the Teach First programme has produced very poor results. Even among Teach First ambassadors, over a third left teaching after two years and nearly half after five years. We are now losing more Teach First graduates from secondary education every year than are joining. The Government’s intention to expand recruitment makes little sense if it leads to an ever-higher turnover.

The problem is not that teachers are failing the system but that the system is failing them. These results are no reflection on their commitment to education but must surely be a reflection of their experience of teaching under this Government. How can we possibly hope to rebalance our economy away from its over-reliance on the City of London and the banking sector and towards manufacturing, high-tech industry, IT and engineering if we cannot even find the teachers to teach maths and science?

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that there is a serious problem in parts of London, in particular? In my constituency, house prices average £606,000. That means that even if a teacher can be recruited, keeping them is a real challenge.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend anticipates my next point.

The problem does not start and end with encouraging people to become teachers in the first place. Retaining experienced teachers is better for schools, better for pupils, and of course better financially as it is so much cheaper than recruitment and training.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rachael Maskell]

I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker.

Does my hon. Friend recognise that people are leaving the profession due to the high levels of work-related stress? We know that 83% of teachers are experiencing work-related stress and 67% are experiencing mental and physical health problems due to excessive workloads, the target-driven culture, and over-burdening inspection regimes.

[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point.

The OECD workload diary survey found teachers working a staggering 50 hours per week compared with the average of 38.3 hours across the countries surveyed. It is becoming harder and harder to keep hold of qualified and experienced teachers. Frankly, that is no surprise. Demoralised, overworked and undervalued by a Government who treat the profession as a political football and a group to be taken on and beaten, its dedicated members are doing their best in extremely challenging circumstances.

[Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab)]

Teacher workload is often cited as a major reason for the increased problems with teacher retention. Forty-four per cent. of teachers in the Department for Education teachers workload survey said that their time spent on doing unnecessary and bureaucratic tasks has increased under the Conservative Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government should investigate what those unnecessary tasks are and what can be done to relieve teachers of them?

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more.

The irony is that the Government’s criticism of teachers comes at a time when teachers are working harder than ever before. It is a scandal that the teaching workload is growing out of control and that, even as they work harder than ever, teachers remain so undervalued. The Government must know that this is happening. Their own figures tell the story of the teacher retention crisis. In the 12 months up to 2013, 50,000 qualified teachers left the state sector, equivalent to one in 12 of the entire profession, and the highest rate for over a decade. Furthermore, 100,000 teachers never even taught despite finishing their training.

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I used to be a teacher and I have trained teachers. In my view, the problem is that it is no longer fun, and that teaching, which used to be a wonderful career, is now drudgery. Will my hon. Friend ask the Minister to make teaching more fun, both for the pupil and for the teacher?

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. That is why we are losing so many teachers every single year.

The total wastage rate, or loss of teachers, from the sector is now at over 10%—the highest for over a decade. To make matters worse, the number of teachers taking early retirement has risen to levels not seen since the Conservatives were last in power nearly two decades ago. Is not the Minister concerned that his own Government’s policies have caused a crisis in teaching numbers, the consequences of which will be felt by parents and pupils nationwide?

[Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of figures from the Government’s workload challenge which show that the politicisation of Ofsted, and the pressure that teachers are brought under as a result, is one of the most commonly stated reasons for increased workload?

[Louise Haigh]

I could not agree more. The politicised inspection regime is clearly a major issue, and it is cited by teachers when leaving the profession.

Without working with the teaching profession, including their representatives in the teaching unions, to try to bridge some of the animosity of the past five years, it will be next to impossible to solve the crisis in teaching recruitment and retention. The morale of teachers will continue to decline and they will continue to look for ways out of a profession that feels increasingly undervalued, even as the pressures of work continue to grow.

[Thangam Debbonaire (Bristol West) (Lab)]

Will my hon. Friend also consider the effect that the cost of living crisis is having on teachers? The combination of the high cost of rent and all sorts of other things, as well as the pressures on their time, mean that some see no way of being able to support a family in the future, while others are unable to spend time with their families due to their excessive workload. Either way, the family lives of teachers are suffering.

[Louise Haigh]

As pay and conditions continue to decrease as the system fragments, the situation will only continue to get worse. Indeed, the profession is now so unattractive that for every 1% the economy grows, applications fall by 5%.

There is, of course, a financial as well as a human cost to this crisis. The past five years have seen a massive increase in the number and cost of agencies supplying teachers to schools, some of which charge up to £1,000 per week per teacher. As much as half of that money goes to the agency and not to the teacher. A survey for the National Union of Teachers found that almost eight in 10 supply teachers found work through such agencies, and only 6.9% were paid according to national pay rates.

[Sue Hayman (Workington) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the proposals on regional pay for public sector workers would kill recruitment and retention in areas further away from London such as west Cumberland?

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. Increasingly, teachers and supply teachers are being exploited, both by agencies and by certain schools.

It is clear from all the points that have been raised that there is a recruitment crisis as a result of fragmented and confusing pathways into teaching, and a retention crisis caused by a complete collapse in morale. The cost of those crises is being felt in the education budget, through the use of extortionate agencies.

[Imran Hussain (Bradford East) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that in places such as Bradford, where many schools are already full or oversubscribed, it is even more difficult to retain teachers, particularly in the light of the school places crisis?

[Louise Haigh]

Absolutely. The lack of school places is clearly yet another factor in the issue.

This leaves the Minister with a number of questions to answer. First, will he review the use of supply agencies, particularly in the light of the fact that spending on supply is 5% of the education budget? In the US, where supply teachers are employed directly by school districts, the figure is less than 1%.

Secondly, given the declining pool of teaching graduates, will the Minister consider writing off the annual repayment of student loans to act as an incentive to teach in key subjects?

Thirdly, will the Government bring forward the workload survey planned for spring 2016, given that workload has clearly been identified as one of the key causes of teachers leaving the profession?

Finally, what are the Government doing to ensure that teacher recruitment for science, technology, engineering and maths, which are so chronically under-subscribed, will be filled in time for the new school year?

I hope the Minister will agree that, in order to tackle the crisis in teacher recruitment and retention, we must act to encourage graduates and make it easier for would-be teachers to enter the teaching profession, and do much more to value those already there. The next generation of our constituents deserve nothing less.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

It is interesting to hear the Minister refute those assertions, given that his own written answer confirmed that 400 Teach First graduates started teaching maths and science in the last school year, but nearly 600 left the profession. Does he agree that the Government’s administration of the Teach First programme is failing on recruitment and retention?

[Mr Gibb]

On the contrary, Teach First has been a huge success. The purpose of Teach First is to attract people who might not otherwise consider entering teaching and ask them to commit to two years, so there has always been the expectation that a considerable number of the graduates who come into Teach First will leave and go into other careers in the City or elsewhere. The overall retention rate of more than 50% is actually staggeringly successful and reflects just how successful Teach First has been in recruiting high-calibre graduates into teaching.

The strong recruitment and retention figures have not been achieved by lowering our expectations for the quality of those joining the teaching profession. Almost three quarters of teachers now have an upper second or first-class degree, 10% higher than in 2010. A record proportion of teacher trainees—17%—have first-class degrees, and for several years running teaching has remained the most popular career destination for graduates of Oxford University. Teach First has played a huge part in that.

In spite of those successes, we recognise that there are still challenges. As the economy improves and the labour market strengthens, high-performing graduates are being tempted by opportunities in other sectors. Our task is to continue to champion teaching as a career choice for the brightest and the best, and not only to attract those people into our classrooms but to keep them there once they have joined the profession.

Oral Answers to Questions

Louise Haigh Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

We do not accept the conclusions of the Public Accounts Committee, as we made clear in the evidence that was given to it at the time. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman that we should put to one side the issue of fairer school funding. It cannot be right that children in one part of the country are receiving less per head than those in other parts of the country. That is not fair on schools. The formula has been flawed for a long time, and this Government have committed to ensuring that funding is fairer.

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

Mossbrook primary school, a special educational needs school in my constituency, cannot put drawing pins in its walls for fear of disturbing asbestos, and it cannot access the condition improvement fund because it is not an academy. Will the Secretary of State consider opening up that fund to non-academy schools?

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and welcome her to the House. Before the last Parliament was dissolved, the Government published a report on asbestos. There are other programmes available to schools in relation to school building improvement funds, but, if the hon. Lady wants to write to make the case for that particular school, we will, of course, look at it.