Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Louise Haigh and John Pugh

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Pugh]

I will consider the hon. Gentleman’s comments carefully. I am certainly happy with the idea of local decision making—I just wish the Government were more comfortable with it—and I think that we as politicians can do little to improve the educational landscape. We can change structures all the time, but they are not what makes a substantial difference: what makes a difference are the things that we normally cannot control or create but which, if we introduce the wrong kind of legislation, we can certainly frustrate.

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

I rise to speak in favour of my new clauses 4 and 5 and the new clauses and amendments in the names of my hon. Friends on the Front Bench and of my hon. Friend the Member for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).

We need to make a wealth of important changes to the Bill. It is a great honour to follow excellent contributions from hon. Members who are clearly passionate about educational standards. I do not doubt that the Government share that passion, but the problem is that none of the measures in the Bill will improve those standards. The Bill is based on an overriding assumption that academisation will automatically drive up standards and that the centralisation of power is the way to deliver it. Unfortunately, the Government have been simply unable to evidence that assumption at any stage of this Bill.

As such, the Bill before us today is a missed opportunity—a missed opportunity to address the profound teacher recruitment and retention crisis, which my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan)outlined, that is predicated on a demoralised, overstretched workforce and a burgeoning young population. It is a missed opportunity to drive up standards in academies where underperformance stubbornly persists—an issue that the Bill inexplicably excludes. It is a missed opportunity to put parents, teachers, assistants and the local school community at the heart of the agenda. That is why Labour Members were disappointed that the Minister refused to take up any of our sensible amendments in Committee, which would have demonstrated a cross-party willingness to drive up educational standards.

Let me explain the contrasting principles behind my new clauses 4 and 5. First, school improvement simply cannot take place without the consultation and involvement of parents, teachers and the school community. Secondly, we must strengthen the accountability system that is, even in its current form, all too lacking, particularly for academy chains.

New clause 5 would place a new duty on the chief inspector of Ofsted to inspect the overall performance of any academy chain to ascertain whether it is carrying out its functions appropriately; and it would give the Secretary of State power to direct the chief inspector to inspect any academy chain and specify which areas need inspecting. That is particularly important for financial stability, where several academy chains such as E-ACT have come unstuck. The new clause, supported by the chief inspector of Ofsted, will go some way towards opening up the accountability system for academy sponsors, which has not caught up with the rapid expansion of academies generally.

The speed at which schools converted into academies or joined multi-academy trusts has increased at a dramatic rate over the past three years. In 2012-13, the Department opened three times as many sponsored academies as in 2011-12, and by December 2014, 3,062 schools had converted to academy status—far in excess of expectations. This, of course, will continue apace under the Bill, as regional school commissioners scrabble to find sponsors in pursuit of centrally set targets.

It is therefore reasonable for systems of accountability to keep pace. That is all the more important because, as we have heard, performance levels among chains still suffer from significant variation. The Sutton Trust concluded in its recent report that the very poor results for pupils of some chains are of urgent concern. These concerns are about what happens not just in the classroom, but in the boardroom. The National Audit Office warned that the inability of Ofsted to inspect academy chains means that there is no independent source of information about the quality of their work, and called on the Government to ensure that the Department has an independent source of information for assessing the quality, capacity and performance of academy sponsors.

The lack of accountability and oversight by an independent body has its consequences—finance, audit and governance systems will suffer without rigorous independent inspections, and in some cases may not exist at all. In particular, the funding arrangements have been found to be open to abuse and conflicts of interests.

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Debate between Louise Haigh and John Pugh

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[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.