Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fifth sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsTuesday 28th January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 28 January 2025 - (28 Jan 2025)
Neil O'Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
I beg to move amendment 23, in clause 7, page 12, line 13, at end insert —
“(3A) Where staying close support is provided, it must be provided with due regard to the wishes of the relevant person and a record must be kept of that person’s wishes.”
This amendment would require local authorities to take account of the wishes of the relevant young person when providing staying close support, and keep a record of those wishes.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:
Amendment 40, in clause 7, page 12, line 22, at end insert—
“(vi) financial support;
(vii) financial literacy”
Amendment 41, in clause 7, page 12, line 28, at end insert—
“(c) the provision of supported lodgings, where the young person and local authority deem appropriate.”
Clause stand part.
Neil O'Brien
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. As we return to our work on the Bill with clause 7, I want to say that it is still a bit disappointing that we have been through Second Reading, and here we are on the third day of Committee, and we still do not have the impact assessment for the Bill, which could potentially answer some of the questions that we will be raising today. I know the Ministers want to do the right thing in trying to get it out of the relevant committee and published, and I hope they can succeed in doing that pretty soon.
On clause 7, no reasonable person would argue that a young person leaving care does not require some support to live independently. Young people who have not been in care often require years of support to live independently, and they are less likely to be doing so away from home and will be in less difficult circumstances. Again, the Opposition support the Government’s objectives in this clause to provide staying close support, but we have some questions about how it is to work in practice.
First, the Bill gives discretion to the local authority on whether this support is in the best interests of a young person’s welfare. Surely the assumption should be that the support is offered, and it should be the exception to withhold it. One advantage in having the onus turned round would be that the local authority would have to record and explain decisions not to offer that kind of support. What sort of criteria are the local authorities supposed to use to make those choices, and will that be consistent across the country?
Secondly, there is also a question about the process for identifying the person who is to help the young person. The Department’s policy summary quite rightly talks about identifying a “trusted person”, which is obviously very important to this kind of young person. By definition, some young people in care have pretty good reasons not to trust adults around them, so how are local authorities to go about identifying such a “trusted person”? Thirdly, and this is a small point, will there be digital options to support young people? These days, that is clearly the most frequent method that young people use to get information, particularly sensitive information. It gives young people a choice of how they find their information, and there is potentially an opportunity for some good practice here in setting up a good way of communicating with their trusted person.
That leads me to a wider point. As we have gone through this Bill, and we will continue to make this point, there is a risk that local authorities, when confronted with these new duties, will obey the letter of the law, but will they really fulfil the spirit and good intent of Ministers in passing the Bill? Can the Minister be clear that this is not supposed to be just another signposting service? As young people leave care, they need personal advocates who can help them articulate their needs with other agencies, not a phone number or email address to contact. They do not really need more leaflets; they need a human being who can be trustworthy and provide practical help and advice. Signposting can quickly turn into a doom-loop dead end and no help. How does the Minister also envisage the involvement of local charities, some of whom will have had quite long-term links with the young person in care, and how will that be funded?
I will come on to this point on other amendment, but I ask here what the Minister makes of the call from the Our Wellbeing, Our Voice coalition for a national wellbeing measurement of care leavers. That would obviously support some of those points.
Does the Government plan to accept the recommendation of the Family Rights Group to offer lifelong links to all care leavers to help them have better relationships with those that they care about? Again, is there an opportunity here? Many constituency MPs will know people who have been in care and then become carers. There is this cycle—I know several people like this, and I will talk about one of them later on today. If we are getting into the business of continuing relationships after leaving care, which is a good thing, I wonder whether that can become something bigger—a lifelong connection, for those who want it, obviously, as a way of getting much-needed carers to stay in the system.
There is a risk that these measures are all very local authority-focused rather than focused on the needs of the young person. Amendment 23 would ensure that the voice of the child is heard and that we have the information that we need to allow for continuous improvement. It is very light touch. Keeping a record of the person’s wishes would help to protect against the loss of knowledge when personnel change. If things are written down, it is easier for a new person to come in and pick up and understand a bit about what that young person has said they want. In the longer term, it also provides a resource for learning and performance improvement. I talked in the previous session about kaizen and continuous improvement. The amendment is designed to support that, to improve continuity and to make sure that the voice of the young people for whom this very sensible form of care is to be provided is heard.
Darren Paffey (Southampton Itchen) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I rise to support clause 8 stand part. [Interruption.] Sorry, my mistake.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the hon. Lady’s interest in this matter. We will produce the statutory guidance to make all this absolutely clear.
Before I come to clause 7 stand part, I want to respond to an additional question from the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston that I did not answer earlier. He asked about digital options and, as someone standing here using an iPad, I recognise the importance of that, particularly for young people. The local authorities already work with a range of digital options to connect with their care leavers, and we would certainly expect that to continue, and expect good practice to continue being developed and to be set out in the statutory guidance.
Turning to clause stand part, clause 7 requires each local authority to consider whether the welfare of former relevant children up to the age of 25 requires staying close support. Where this support is identified as being required, the authority must provide staying close support of whatever kind the authority considers appropriate, having regard to the extent to which that person’s welfare requires it.
Staying close support is to be provided for the purpose of helping the young person to find and keep suitable accommodation and to access services relating to health and wellbeing, relationships, education and training, employment and participating in society. This support can take the form of the provision of advice, information and representation, and aims to help to build the confidence and skills that care leavers need to be able to live independently.
The new duties placed on local authorities by this clause will not operate in isolation. They will be part of the existing legislative framework, which sets out the duties that every local authority already owes to its former children in care aged 18 to 24. This clause enhances and expands the arrangements for those children by supporting them to find long-term stable accommodation and access to essential wraparound services. The new statutory guidance will set out what the new requirements mean for local authorities and will draw on established good practice—for example, the role of a trusted person to offer practical and emotional support to care leavers.
On that basis, I hope I can rely on the Committee’s support for clause 7.
Catherine McKinnell
There will be a Minister from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. That area will form part of the discussions, I am sure, as the purpose of the group is to give the best chance to care leavers—this very vulnerable group of young people—and ensure that we as a Government are working collaboratively to make that effective.
We recognise how important it is that care leavers have clear information about the help and support they are entitled to, both from their local authority and central Government Department. We are therefore reviewing our published information to ensure that it is accessible and clear and that care leavers can quickly and easily understand and access all the support they are entitled to. Once that review has concluded, we will consider how best to publish this information. Therefore, I ask for the new clause to be withdrawn and urge the Committee to support clause 8.
Neil O’Brien
This is a good and sensible clause, and the Opposition support its inclusion in the Bill. I would note that although all these clauses are good, they come with an administrative cost.
We have already discussed the importance of ensuring that the measures are properly funded, but I want to press the Minister for a few more insights on clause 8. There is a list of details about the local offer—that it must be published, must anticipate the needs of care leavers—and it refers to how they will co-operate with housing authorities and provide accommodation for those under 25. This is all good stuff.
The discussion that we have just had prefigured the question that I wanted to ask, which is about co-operation with national bodies. The clause is quite focused on co-operation between local bodies and drawing up a clear offer. That is a good thing—although, obviously, some of those housing associations are quite national bodies these days.
In the “Keeping children safe, helping families thrive” policy paper published a while back, the Government set out an intention to extend corporate parenting responsibilities to Government Departments and other public bodies, with a list of corporate parents named in legislation following agreement from other Government Departments. When we were in government, we also said that we intended to legislate to extend corporate parenting responsibilities more broadly, so I wondered about that connection up to the national level. We have already had one excellent and very canny policy idea from my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire about setting the default for care leavers when it comes to how their housing payments are made. The Minister raised a good point about bursaries and making sure that care leavers are clear about what is available to them on that front. However, there is a whole host of other opportunities to write in to some of these—
Damian Hinds
Will my hon. Friend also comment on the particular situation of those young people from care who go on to university? Of course, come the holidays the vast majority of people in higher education go home, but the situation is very different for those who have been in care. Some enlightened universities—including the University of Winchester, in my own county—do very good work in this regard, but will he expand a little on how those young people in higher education can be supported with the offer?
Neil O’Brien
That excellent point is another example of exactly what we are talking about. In one sense, I regret not having an amendment that would insert a specific paragraph about the local offer from national organisations. On the other hand, it is pretty clear that the Minister is very interested in this question and is pursuing it. Anyway, there may even be scope to write that into the Bill as it goes through the Lords.
The DFE’s explanatory notes for the Bill say that, although the housing and children’s services departments are encouraged in guidance—in part 7 of the Children Act 1989, I think—to work together to achieve the common aim of planning and providing appropriate accommodation and support for care leavers, that is not happening consistently in practice; the Minister alluded to that.
My question to the Minister is: what do we know from current practice about where that does not happen and why not? It seems obvious, and something that every well-intentioned social worker—every person who works with care leavers—would want to do. What does the good model of effective provision of that support look like? Are there local authorities that are the best cases of that?
Other than providing the administrative and legislative hook for better gripping of this issue, I do not know whether the Minister has a specific plan to do anything else to try to achieve it more consistently—given that, of all the different things that one wants to join up for the care leaver, the provision of a safe place to live and a stable housing arrangements is probably No.1. Is anything more being done? Does the Minister have thoughts about how that can be done best and where it is done best? Where it has not been done as well as we would hope, why is that?
Darren Paffey
I appreciate your patience, Mr Stringer—this is not the first time I have stumbled over Committee procedure and no doubt it will not be the last. I welcome the Minister’s comments and the inclusion of clause 8, which I strongly support. I want to address the sentiment of new clause 40 as well.
The extension of the requirements around accommodation, extending the Children and Social Work Act 2017, requires councils to publish that local offer. That is crucial. Many of us have served in local government; it is at that local level that these crucial services, which can often make or break opportunities for care leavers, are delivered. The clause also takes steps towards making good on the Prime Minister’s commitment to guarantee care leavers a place to live.
We would all recognise, from the context of our own constituencies, that the barriers faced by care-experienced young people are numerous. The likelihood that good outcomes in life will be harder for them to achieve is simply a fact. It is absolutely right to bolster the local offer, as clause 8 seeks to do. The new provisions will further strengthen what many local authorities, including my own in Southampton, have begun to do over a number of years. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire suggested, there are measures of good practice under local councils that we now ought to be bringing into this standardisation of the offer.
In terms of a national offer, the new clause certainly has its merits and it is something good to aim for. I had the opportunity to speak to the Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham East (Janet Daby), who is responsible for children and families and whose remit this issue comes under. She has agreed to meet me to explore it further, but as my hon. Friend the Minister for School Standards has already said, there is a cross-ministerial group. I really welcome the work that it is doing to take these measures forward, because building on the existing measures, which strengthen that national focus, is crucial. It says to young people with care experience that they matter.
I have worked very closely with young people in care over the years, and I know that too many of them feel let down by the systems there to protect them. This is about showing that the Government get what it is like for them, are focused on acting for their good and doing so from the very top. Having that national focus goes a long way towards making those people’s journey to adulthood stronger and as smooth as possible and towards ensuring that they are fully supported to thrive.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I look forward to working through the measures in this landmark Bill with all Members, as has been the spirit so far.
The children’s social care market is not working effectively. The Competition and Markets Authority and the independent review of children’s social care recommended a regional approach to planning and commissioning children’s care places. My Department will support local authorities to increase the number of regional care co-operatives over time. As Members will have noted, the clause refers to those as “regional co-operation arrangements”. As a last resort, the legislation will give the Secretary of State the power to direct local authorities to establish regional co-operation arrangements.
Where a direction is in place, regions will be required to analyse future accommodation needs for children, publish sufficiency strategies, commission care places for children, recruit and support foster parents, and develop or facilitate the development of new provision to accommodate children. We expect regional care co-operatives to gain economies of scale and to harness the collective buying power of individual local authorities. I hope that the Committee will agree that this clause should stand part of the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
Regional co-operation is something that the previous Government were extremely enthusiastic about and worked to build up, so the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we support the clause. The previous Government’s “Stable Homes, Built on Love” policy paper said that the Government would work with local authorities to test the use of regional care co-operatives—regional groupings of authorities to plan, commission and deliver care places—in two areas. Those two pathfinders would trial an approach within the legal framework, with a view to rolling it out nationally following evaluation as soon as parliamentary time allowed. Were we in office, I suspect that we would be very much considering the same clause. This Government have announced that those two pathfinders are going ahead, in Greater Manchester and the south-east, from this summer.
When we consulted about the idea—it is a good idea —there was a lot of support, but there were also a lot of concerns and questions about the size of the groups, the risk that they would be too removed from the child, and the loss of relationships with small providers in particular. As the Minister said, this is a recommendation from previous work, including from the independent review of children’s social care, which we commissioned. Obviously, we hope that such groups will be useful in providing local authorities with greater purchasing power and more options when they are securing accommodation for children in care, but we think it is important to be clear about the objectives to avoid any unintended consequences. I have come to think that, often, it is when we all agree that we are doing a good thing that we should ask ourselves the difficult questions to ensure that we are not making a mistake.
The key issue in the “children’s home market”—I put that in scare quotes, because I hesitate to use the phrase in the current context—is a lack of supply, which leads to children being placed far away from their roots and support networks in accommodation that does not always match their care plan. We then see children going missing and having repeated placement moves. I wonder whether the Minister will put on record in Committee the aims for the regional care co-operatives, other than purchasing power, and how they will address the other issues.
Will the Minister respond to some specific issues raised in our consultation? One issue is that it is harder for smaller providers and specialist charities, which are obviously part of the offer for children in care at the moment, to engage with regional care co-operatives. What does he think about that risk and what does he plan to do about it?
Damian Hinds
Again, as hon. Members have said, we support this approach and it is the approach that we were taking. It is also true that when everybody agrees on something, it is usually the point of most danger for making bad law. It is important to have these Committee proceedings and proper scrutiny.
I was personally never keen on the name of regional co-operatives, although I do not think the word “co-operative” actually appears in the Bill. We can, of course, have co-operation without having a co-operative. This legislation is actually about regional co-operation arrangements.
There are three different types of potential co-operation arrangement: first, for strategic accommodation functions to be carried out jointly between two different local authorities; secondly, for one to carry out the duties on behalf of all; and thirdly, for a corporate body, effectively a separate organisation, to be created to do that. I imagine that Government Members will have different views depending on which of those three forms the arrangements take. Will the Minister say which of those he expects to be most common? As well as the pilots, there have no doubt already been formal and informal conversations with local authority leaders in children’s services in many different areas.
I am keen to know how this arrangement is different from some arrangements that may already take place. For example, the tri-borough children’s services arrangement in London—I will try and get this right—between Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham. Presumably, some of those functions are administered in common there, so how will this be different?
Neil O’Brien
I probably should have asked the Minister about scale. In the two pilots, we have Greater Manchester, which is just under 3 million people, and the south-east, which is roughly 3 million people. I do not know what the Government’s expectations about scale are and whether they would continue to support something like the tri-borough arrangement, which is obviously much smaller.
Damian Hinds
My hon. Friend, as ever, makes a very apt point. Where we end up on that continuum of scale depends on what we are going after most. Of course, we want all those things. For purchasing power, a bigger scale is better, but for close and easy working relationships, a smaller scale is sometimes better. When we are talking about children, and the placement of vulnerable children, that may well push us towards the smaller end of the scale.
Perhaps it is possible to perform different functions at different levels, with some functions still being performed by the individual local authority. Even then, as my hon. Friend often rightly says, there is an enormous difference in scale between London local authorities, which are actually quite small even though they are in our largest city, and Birmingham, which is one enormous authority. It might be argued that doing some things at a sub-local authority level makes sense in a very large local authority area, but as I say, it might be possible to do some things as the single local authority, some things at a larger level, and some things—presumably principally in terms of purchasing leverage—on a wider scale again.
If regional co-operation arrangements are not materially different in practice from something that already exists in co-operation between local authorities, even if that is on a smaller scale than what is envisaged, is legislation actually necessary? If it is not, we probably should not legislate. I would like to understand a bit more about the legislative basis that is currently missing.
Finally, the Bill sets out that the Secretary of State may add to the definition of the strategic accommodation functions that we have listed in proposed new section 22J(3) of Children Act 1989. What type of additional functions does the Minister have in mind?
Stephen Morgan
My apologies. I did know that, but I was trying to be impressive by remembering the hon. Lady’s constituency and I got it badly wrong.
On the hon. Lady’s point about where placements should be, local authorities will continue to have the same statutory duties to find the most appropriate place for looked-after children, including that they should live near home, so far as is reasonably applicable. Regional care co-operatives will assist local authorities with these duties. Placement shortage is a key driver of children being placed in homes far from where they live; regional care co-operatives should improve that by increasing local and regional sufficiency, making more places available locally for children who need them.
Neil O’Brien
Will the Minister confirm that—as I think is the case—the Government would use their powers under the clause to impose regional co-operation agreements only as a last resort, and that we would not push this on everybody who does not want it?
Stephen Morgan
The shadow Minister is absolutely correct. We want to work collaboratively with local authorities in rolling this out. We will not force local authorities to do so. I thank him for enabling me to make that clear.
Question put.
The Chair
I have put the Question. I am sorry, but you have missed the opportunity.
Question agreed to.
Clause 9 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 10
Use of accommodation for deprivation of liberty
Neil O’Brien
I beg to move amendment 24, in clause 10, page 16, line 39, at end insert —
“(8A) After subsection (9) insert —
‘(10) Where a child is kept in secure accommodation under this section, the relevant local authority has a duty to provide therapeutic treatment for the child.’”
This amendment would place a duty on local authorities to provide treatment for children in secure accommodation.
Neil O’Brien
We have come to a particularly serious clause—not that the other clauses are not serious, but the use of deprivation of liberty orders for children is always deeply troubling, as is the rise in the number of children who are subject to them. I share the wish of the Children’s Commissioner to see an end to this practice and an end to the use of unregistered provision.
We have seen an increase in the number of young children—including two aged seven last year and 200 under 13—given deprivation of liberty orders. There is nothing in the Bill to differentiate by the child’s age or stage. What consideration has the Minister given to that point? There is something about the use of the orders on very young children that is particularly striking.
When a young child goes into secure accommodation, the Secretary of State has to sign it off, but no sign-off is required from the Secretary of State on deprivation of liberty orders. Why not? The Government are keen on consistency elsewhere in the Bill. Will they bring the same consistency to this clause?
More broadly, do we not need greater clarity on the mechanism for restricting children’s liberty outside a secure institution? I am sure that Members of the other place will be very interested in that question. As the Children’s Commissioner has written, some of the children concerned have physical and learning disabilities, and many are at risk of criminal or sexual exploitation or both. Will the Minister act on the Children’s Commissioner’s recommendation and introduce a proper legal framework and guidance? We believe that much more clarity is needed in the Bill on therapeutic care for those who are under a deprivation of liberty order. Historically, there has been a lot of focus on containment. This amendment is, I suppose, our legislative prod to take the opportunity to think about what therapeutic help a child needs and how to deliver it.
Neil O’Brien
I am grateful to the Minister for his informative speech, but can I press him to respond to the specific points made by CAFCASS and the Children’s Commissioner? The Minister is alluding to some of them as he goes along. The first is about requiring explicit Secretary of State approval beforehand. The second is about specifying the frequency of review, particularly for younger children. The third is about having an automatic requirement for children’s protection plans as the child comes out. The fourth, which the Minister has alluded to, is about them being put into illegal settings, and whether something legislative should be done at this point to stop that from happening at all.
Stephen Morgan
I am coming to the end of my speech and hope to answer the points that the Opposition spokesperson made. I will certainly take away the issues that he raised.
I thank all Members for their contributions and questions on this very important matter. On consistency, the views of the Children’s Commissioner and age, I know that this point was raised in the other place only yesterday by a former Minister, and I am grateful for that. It is worth saying here, too, that the child rights impact assessment is informing our work on the Bill. I give the shadow Minister the assurance today that I will take on board these comments.
Neil O’Brien
Is the child rights impact assessment for the Bill published so that we can see it?
Stephen Morgan
There is no legal obligation for England to publish that assessment, but we are certainly using it to inform our work on the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
I think Ministers have said in previous sittings that it will be published during the process of scrutiny, along with the impact assessment. Is that still the case?
Stephen Morgan
I am referring to the conducted children’s rights impact assessment, where children are directly impacted by the policies and/or particular groups of children and young people are more likely to be affected by others. As I mentioned, there is no requirement to publish these documents in England. However, the documents are currently under review and we will advise on our next steps shortly. More broadly, with regards to the impact assessments, these will be published in due course.
Neil O’Brien
I thought I had heard Ministers say previously that they were planning to publish this for our benefit—that we would get both the impact assessment and the children’s rights assessment. Perhaps it is me who is sowing confusion and the Minister may still intend to publish this document. I cannot see any reason why the Government would not publish it, so can I get an assurance that that is going to be published?
Stephen Morgan
To state this clearly, the impact assessment has not yet been published but is obviously informing our work. Obviously, various different assessments are undertaken and I will certainly get back to the hon. Member on those points.
Stephen Morgan
To be clear, we will be publishing the regulatory impact assessments. We will certainly be using the evidence from the children’s rights impact assessments to inform our work.
I turn to the points raised by the Opposition spokesperson on placements of children under the age of 13. Depriving a child of their liberty must always be a last resort, but it is sometimes necessary to keep that child and others safe. These children are some of the most vulnerable in our society. We must do all that we can to keep them safe and help them get on well in life. When a child under the age of 13 is deprived of their liberty and placed in a secure children’s home, the local authority must obtain approval from the Secretary of State before applying to the court. That requirement is set out in regulations that reflect the added seriousness of depriving children so young of their liberty.
The Opposition spokesperson and the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) also made a number of broader points about child protection plans and deprivation of liberty. Local authorities’ care-planning duties are clear that when there are looked-after children, they must have a long-term plan for a child’s upbringing, including arrangements to support their health, education, emotional and behavioural development, and their self-care skills.
The statutory guidance “Working together to safeguard children 2023” is clear about the actions that local authorities and their partners should take, under section 47 of the Children’s Act 1989, if a child is suffering or likely to suffer significant harm, as well as the support that should be provided under section 17. If there is a concern about a child’s suffering, or if a child is likely to suffer significant harm, the local authority has a duty to make an inquiry under that Act. “Working together to safeguard children” sets out the actions that the local authority and their partners must take when there are child protection concerns. That includes putting in place child protection plans when concerns are submitted. I hope that the Committee agrees that the clause should stand part.
Neil O’Brien
I hope that we can clear up the confusion about whether we will see the children’s rights assessment. I cannot see any good reason why we would not be able to see that perfectly routine assessment. None of these things is the end of the world, but not having the impact assessment of the thing that we are quite deep into line-by-line scrutiny of seems to further compound this problem. Obviously, no one can defend that; it is not good practice.
I slightly pre-empted what the Minister said—he had scribbled some last remarks—but I was glad that he came to some of the points raised by CAFCASS and the Children’s Commissioner. I raised them partly because I know that their lordships will be extremely interested in these specific questions. There probably is scope for improvement of this clause to do some of those other good things, because this is such a serious issue for those very young children.
We will not vote against clause stand part, but I will press our amendment to a vote. I heard what the Minister said, but I just make the point that there is scope for improvement in the clause, and I suspect that their lordships will provide it.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stephen Morgan
Clauses 11 and 12 will strengthen Ofsted’s regulatory powers to allow it to act at pace and scale when that is in the best interests of children. Specifically, clause 11 strengthens Ofsted’s powers to hold provider groups—parent undertakings, in legislation—to account for the quality of the settings that they own and control. This ensures that Ofsted can take the quickest and most effective action to safeguard vulnerable children, without adding duplication within the existing regime. It will allow Ofsted to look across provider group settings as a whole and take action at provider group level, rather than being limited to doing so setting by setting as it is now. It will also ensure that a provider group is accountable for the quality of the settings that it owns.
Where Ofsted reasonably suspects that requirements are not being met in two or more settings owned by the same provider group, it will be able to require senior people in the provider group to ensure improvements in multiple settings. The requirement applies both to settings operated by a single provider and to multiple providers owned by the same group. Ofsted will be able to request that the provider group develops and implements an implementation and improvement plan to ensure that quality improves. The plan will need to address the issues identified by Ofsted and be approved by Ofsted if it is satisfied that the plan will be effective in addressing the issues.
The clause gives the Secretary of State the power to make regulations to provide that non-compliance by the provider group means that the providers that it owns are not fit and proper persons to carry on a setting. That will prevent a person from being registered in relation to new settings if their owner has failed to comply with the relevant requirements under these provisions. That should act as a deterrent and ensure compliance with the requirements.
Clause 12 gives Ofsted the power to issue monetary penalties to providers that have committed breaches of requirements, set out in or under the Care Standards Act 2000, that could also be prosecuted as criminal offences, including operating a children’s home without registering with Ofsted. Ofsted will also be able to issue a provider group with a fine for non-compliance with the requirements set out in clause 11. The fine will be at Ofsted’s discretion and is unlimited in legislation. That will act as a significant deterrent, so that provider groups comply with these requirements. Clause 12 ensures that Ofsted has an alternative to prosecution where that is currently the only enforcement option against those seeking to run a children’s home without registration. Ofsted will not be able to impose a monetary penalty on a person for the same conduct where criminal proceedings have been brought against them in relation to that conduct.
To act as a deterrent and to ensure transparency for the public, the clause gives the Secretary of State the power, by regulations, to require Ofsted to publish details about the monetary penalties that it has issued. Ofsted must also notify local authorities when a monetary penalty has been issued, as it is currently required to in relation to other enforcement actions that it takes. Finally, the clause provides that the issue of a monetary penalty could be used as grounds for cancellation of registration.
Neil O’Brien
We are entering a whole new section of the Bill. I will make a number of points now that we could come back to when we debate future clauses, but I hope we will not have to. I hope that we can have discussions about the principle and philosophy now and we might be able to move faster later, but we can come back to them if necessary.
As we turn to the clauses dealing with children’s homes, I want to start by checking that the Minister has the same basic understanding of the situation, and the same philosophical take on what we are trying to do, as I do. First and most importantly, there is a question about the underlying structural problems that have driven high costs for local authorities in the provision of residential care for children and young people, and there is a second question about the best approach to tackling that, both legislatively and non-legislatively.
On the first, does the Minister agree with me, at least in principle, that the main issue driving the high costs is a shortage of foster care, which is driving local authorities to send children into expensive children’s homes at best, or into unregistered provision at worst? Research by Ofsted in 2022 suggested that residential care was part of the care plan for just over half of the children whose cases it reviewed. To put that the other way round, almost half of children who ended up in residential care should ideally not have been there. Crucially, the research shows that the original plan was for over one third of children to go into foster care.
Although the Bill makes changes to the provision of information about kinship care, which is good, there is nothing that will produce the step change that we need to increase the number of foster carers, which is the thing that would really take down the demand and the high costs. That point is common to the discussions that we will have about cost-capping social workers, cost-capping individual care homes and reviewing whole entities. I do not think that those measures are bad; I just do not think that they are ultimately the underlying solution. That is a point that the Committee will hear me make several times today.
In his independent report commissioned by the previous Government, the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) highlighted that in the year ending March 2021,
“160,635 families came forward to express an interest in becoming a foster carer, and yet just 2,165 were approved”.
That is just 1.3% making it through. It might be that some of those were just initial approaches and not all of those people were deadly serious, but that is still a very small share. He continued:
“Local authorities perform a wide range of roles and appear to be struggling to provide specialist and skilled marketing, recruitment, training and support for such an important group of carers. In 2020/21 recruitment and retention among independent fostering agency services led to a net increase in capacity of 525 additional households and 765 additional foster care places. In contrast, there has been a decrease in capacity of 35 households and 325 places in local authorities over the same period”.
By definition it is quicker, and in quite a lot of cases better, to provide foster care than to build a new children’s home. I want to press the Minister on what he thinks is the explanation for that 99% gap between those expressing an interest in fostering and final approvals. What is he doing to close that gap? He will be aware that there is a perception that it is almost impossible to become approved as a foster carer. We looked at this in my family some years ago. We started in on it through my work as a constituency MP; I have met many constituents who are foster carers. They are incredible people and I pay tribute to them. A woman I know well has fostered 70 children as well as adopting. I honestly think these people are amazing.
The Government really need to use the Bill—this rare legislative slot, as one of the Ministers said—to increase the number of foster and kinship carers. Publishing information is good, but it will not change much unless it is accompanied by a radical attitude to approvals by local authority social work teams. When the alternative—which we are getting to in this clause—is children being sent miles from home, placements breaking down, children going missing and high costs to local authorities, there is obviously a burning platform for change.
If I were the Minister—he is free to take this suggestion or not—I would commission a month-long desktop review to look at the pipeline and all the decisions to reject applications to be foster carers that got fairly far down the track, and understand what can be learned from them. That could shape amendments either here or in the other place and be a huge benefit to him. I can think of a senior official in a Government Department—someone the Government trust to run a major public service—who has two kids, provides a loving home and wanted to foster but was turned down. There are many such cases. Everyone knows the phrase “too many books in the house”, but I strongly encourage Ministers to dig into the underlying question of why we lose so many opportunities to get the foster carers that would take off the pressure that we are trying to take off with these clauses.
A key recommendation of the independent review of children’s social care led by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington was to introduce mixed models combining residential and foster care, particularly for older children, who are the fastest growing part of this cohort. That was part of our brief for the initial pathfinder sites for the regional care co-operatives, which I mentioned in the debate on a previous clause. What assessment has the Minister made of that approach? What impact does he think its adoption might have? Is there any interesting early data from the pilots in Greater Manchester and the south-east?
Speaking of mixed models, I encourage the Minister to look at the incredible work of the Royal National Children’s SpringBoard Foundation, which, as he knows, does amazing work looking after care-experienced and edge-of-care children in a network of state and independent schools. It has been working with the DFE since 2020—something I am very proud that we brought in—and has provided incredible, transformative opportunities for disadvantaged young people. I encourage the Minister to build on that and go further.
On the specifics of clause 11, after the terrible abuse of children supposedly in the care of the Hesley Group, it is absolutely right that the Government are trying to identify systemic safeguarding problems in organisations that manage multiple children’s homes, independent fostering agencies and residential special schools. Our only concern, which is quite serious, is that we should allow for rapid action, not something that drags on and becomes a time and resource-consuming process.
I heard what the Minister said in introducing the clause about providing an alternative to prosecution, but I do not want to lose sight of the importance of prosecution. My noble Friend Baroness Barran told me that when she was a Minister in the Department for Education, she was already able to request inspections of every home in a group where one was judged to be failing, and did so on at least one occasion. Ultimately, we need experienced people to go into a home quickly and see what is actually happening. I think this is within the spirit of what the Minister said, but I hope he would agree that there is often no better alternative to actual inspection and actual prosecutions.
To use an example from a very similar area, the Department can also request an “improvement plan”, which is the main vehicle proposed in these clauses, in the case of independent schools, but that does not always work well in practice. The reasons for that are instructive for the kinds of issues that I hope Ministers will think about here. What ends up happening is that plans are sent in varying degrees of adequacy, and time—in some cases literally years—can be wasted with a lot of letter writing back and forth. I urge the Minister to think about the action he wants in those kinds of cases. Imagine being in the middle of a drawn-out improvement plan process in another case like the Hesley Group case—and that is before the inevitable appeals, which the clauses provide for, kick in.
We have not tabled an amendment to do this—I wonder, though, about the other place—but we think that the Minister needs to confine the improvement plan idea to more minor administrative cases or lower-level concerns. That is where it might be more appropriate. We worry that we might get similar processes to those that we have seen in independent schools, where we have a resource-intensive, rather bureaucratic and slow process that goes on for a long time with a lot of back and forth and appeals. Ultimately, we sometimes just need to get to the point. That is our broad concern.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Sixth sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsTuesday 28th January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 28 January 2025 - (28 Jan 2025)
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
As I said in the last sitting, I am grateful to the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, for his thoughtful contributions and specific questions. I will take those points away and I will try to address as many of them as I can in this debate.
As required, we have produced impact assessments for all measures in the Bill, and have followed the better regulation framework for measures that are in its scope. As outlined on gov.uk, the Regulatory Policy Committee, or RPC, is currently reviewing the Bill’s impact assessments and will produce an opinion when its scrutiny has been completed. We will publish those impact assessments shortly. We have also conducted child’s rights impact assessments, where children are directly impacted by the policies and/or there are particular groups of children and young people who are more likely to be affected than others, as I mentioned this morning. There is no requirement to publish these documents in relation to England, but the documents are currently under review, and we will also publish those shortly.
The shadow Minister made a number of points about the shortage of foster carers. Local authorities have a duty to place looked-after children in their care in registered children’s homes. We understand that sometimes authorities need to place a child quickly, including when there are no suitable registered places immediately available, but the Government are clear that all providers of accommodation for children should register with Ofsted. We are also helping local authorities to meet their sufficiency duty by investing more than £130 million in fostering hubs and kinship care and providing additional funding for children’s homes, including more than £36 million specifically on foster carer recruitment and retention.
In the light of the questions that the shadow Minister raised, I also wanted to respond on how we are working with Ofsted to embed the reforms in the Bill. As Sir Martyn set out in his evidence, Ofsted is a key partner in delivering reform of children’s social care, and we are working closely with Ofsted to ensure that each of the measures presented to the House can be implemented carefully, alongside the non-legislative asks that Ofsted also needs to respond to in parallel. The Department has provided funding for a children’s social care transformation team in previous years, which has built the capacity for Ofsted to respond effectively to all the changes we have asked of it to date and ensure that it can meet the demands placed on it by the Bill.
The shadow Minister asked about the term “reasonably suspects”. Ofsted will have the grounds to suspend registration, which could be based on minor or major non-compliance, and may consider that that is a problem in other settings owned by the same provider group. That would be a reasonable suspicion, and it will be a matter for Ofsted to apply those judgments.
On the question of whether the bar is too high for provider group-level intervention, Ofsted’s power to cancel registrations is broad and allows it to intervene when the regulatory requirements are not being met. If Ofsted reasonably suspects that two or more settings owned by a provider group are not meeting those requirements, it has the power to ensure that the provider group acts to make improvements in the settings. If an issue arises in a single setting, it is unlikely to be indicative of wider issues in the provider group, and Ofsted would use its existing powers in relation to registered providers at the individual setting level. It is right that the bar at which Ofsted should be able to require actions of a provider group is the same bar that would enable Ofsted to take action against individual settings, where that is already set out in legislation and guidance. That ensures that this further power is proportionate and that it can only be used where there are real issues of concern arising in settings.
These powers supplement the existing inspection regime. If Ofsted has serious safeguarding concerns, it has the power to close individual settings.
The shadow Minister also spoke of the need to speed up action by Ofsted. The Hesley Group case showed what can happen when a culture and environment in a provider group allows a culture of silence and allows abhorrent abuse to take place. These new powers will allow Ofsted to act quickly and go directly to the provider group to seek improvement if it reasonably suspects that requirements are not being met, which it could not do with any legal backing in the Hesley case. If the provider group does not improve its settings, Ofsted can take action. Where there are serious safeguarding risks, ultimately Ofsted has existing robust powers to cancel a registration and close the setting.
On why we are not introducing inspection of provider groups, Ofsted inspects settings at a minimum of once per year, using the social care common inspection framework. Inspection is not warranted at provider group level—the organisation that owns the providers who run the settings—given the existing robust regime for inspection of individual settings. Provider oversight will supplement inspections to ensure that Ofsted can take the quickest and most effective action for the benefit of children. In many situations, the provider oversight measures will not be necessary, as most provision is rated good or outstanding. Inspection of provider groups would, in many cases, simply duplicate what Ofsted is already doing. Ofsted is already able to cancel registrations in respect of settings if necessary. Provider oversight ensures that multiple cancellations of registrations are not necessary.
On the point about compliance with action and plans relating to litigation, it will be a straightforward question of whether a provider has implemented the improvement plan, which will have been agreed between the provider group and Ofsted. We do not foresee that it will lead to any lengthy litigation.
The shadow Minister spoke about local authorities who place in unregistered settings. Local authorities have a duty, of course, to place looked-after children in their care in registered children’s homes. We understand that sometimes authorities need to place a child quickly, including when there are no suitable registered places immediately available, but Government are really clear that all providers of accommodation for children should register with Ofsted. We are helping local authorities to meet their sufficiency duty by investing more than £130 million in fostering hubs and kinship care, and providing additional funding for children’s homes.
Finally, Ofsted will ask local authorities for information on their use of unregistered provision ahead of any inspections. If there are any concerns, Ofsted may focus on unregistered provision in the local authority’s next inspection. That could include the decision-making processes leading to use of this provision and the statutory duties to plan for sufficient places to meet the area’s needs.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
I simply want to lodge a very specific question about proposed new section 30ZC(3)(a) of the Care Standards Act 2000 and the category of people who may not be given a regulatory fine but instead must be prosecuted. I raised the issue in this morning’s session about whether those people would not be able to get a regulatory fine because of the individual case being dealt with, or whether it was the case that anybody who had a previous history of being found guilty of any of these things could not have a regulatory fine applied to them. I would be grateful if the Minister can clear that up now, or if he will undertake to write to me about it. It is just to understand what the law is proposing in that respect.
Stephen Morgan
I thank the shadow Minister for those comments. We will certainly take that away and get him a response.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 11 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 13
Financial oversight
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
It is actually quite difficult to talk to clause 13, as it looks as though pretty much all the important detail here is to be worked out in regulations. Of course, the Government should support local authorities to minimise the risk of disruption to children in homes or independent fostering placements from providers getting into financial difficulty, and financial oversight should indeed be part of their registration conditions. So far, so good.
However, proposed new section 30ZE(2) of the Care Standards Act 2000 states that a financial oversight condition
“is a condition specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State for the purposes of this section.”
Subsection (4) lists examples such as size, the number of children looked after, geographical concentration and so on. Though this area is being left to regulations, could the Minister say more about the sort of thresholds the Government are considering for these metrics—particularly as the Secretary of State will have so much power, including to alter all the criteria in regulations? Although this is broadly a sensible measure, it is quite an open-ended and new power.
The clause is already quite long, but the Opposition wondered about an improvement, perhaps as it goes through the other place, to fundamentally change the registration approach for any new market entrants, so that it is a condition of delivery that they provide financial transparency up to the parent company level, give a quarterly going concern update to the regulator and provide financial information as reasonably requested by the regulator. Has the Department considered similar requirements, so that all providers would have to give full financial transparency as a matter of course and further investigation would follow if concerns were raised?
We are completely sympathetic to proportionality in regulation, but in this case we could reasonably put the onus on providers to share the information systematically, rather than having to wait for a tip-off from a whistleblower or for a concern to become apparent. Sometimes it is the analysis of consistently reported data that provides the tip-off that there is a problem.
To use an example from a slightly different field, in my constituency I have been involved in cases where the integrated care board is regulating GP practices, and I have always thought there is a strong case for ICBs to get more data up front. Twice, when there has been a problem in my constituency and I have talked to the ICB afterwards, it seemed to me that if it had been getting financial data, the issue would have been obvious and there would have been signs long before whistleblowers ever went to the Care Quality Commission. I wonder whether consistent reporting analysis of data would allow us to see problems coming before we get to whistleblowers and other problems down the line. One issue is therefore whether we should have reporting on a more regular basis.
The Opposition have worries of the same kind about this clause as we did about clause 11, though in this case, instead of an improvement plan, it is called a recovery and resolution plan. Again, thinking about independent schools, there is a risk that time and resource get spent preparing the request for the plan, writing the plan, challenging the plan as needed, writing a better plan and going through iterations. In the case of these providers, do we have the financial expertise, either in Ofsted or the Department, to assess the plans? It looks as though there is a recognition that we do not, because proposed new section 30ZI includes the power to arrange for an independent business review. That makes sense, but for reasons best known to the Bill drafters that does not appear to include scrutinising the recovery and resolution plan. I am not sure why not. I do not know whether that is a slip of the draftsman’s pen, as they say, or whether it is deliberate.
My understanding is that Ofsted already has the power to inspect the financial position of schools, but there is a limit on what it does because of the need for a high level of expertise to pick through these cases. Looking at the accounts of a school or group of schools is simpler than analysing the complex debt and ownership structures that we see in some of the private equity-owned children’s homes.
In practice we know that the market is so tight for placements that the loss of even a smaller provider would be disruptive, and the timing of the issuing of the advanced warning notices set out in proposed new section 30ZJ will be terminal for the affected businesses. Page 47 of the policy summary states that the regulations may be extended in scope,
“so that they may provide that a person is not fit to carry on an establishment or agency if a parent undertaking has failed to comply with the financial oversight scheme.”
I am unclear where that provision is in the Bill. Perhaps the Minister could clarify that, because it is quite a complicated clause. Are there any other potential extensions of the Secretary of State’s power by regulations here? Could the Minister clarify the thinking behind allowing Ofsted to determine that someone applying for registration is not a fit and proper person to manage an organisation in this area?
Neil O’Brien
I rise to speak to amendment 25 and clause 14. I thank the hon. Member for Twickenham for what she said about our amendment. I completely agree that, ideally, we would have what we are asking for on a regular basis, but just to be clear, the requirement on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament details and analysis of available placements is in amendment 25 because we want to keep the focus firmly on supply and capacity, which I think we agree are the ultimate drivers of the problem we are addressing.
As we said in response to the oral statement to the House by the Secretary of State, we welcome the continuing focus on issues that we identified, and we set up the market intervention advisory group to look at that when we were in government. The heart of the problem, however, as I think we all recognise, is the lack of supply of high-quality places in residential, kinship and foster care for looked-after children. Demand for such places outstrips supply, and that is what is causing the high cost of placements.
It is striking that in its 2022 report, the Competition and Markets Authority did not recommend a profit cap because, in its words,
“The central problem facing the market…is the lack of sufficient capacity.”
The CMA concluded that taking measures to limit the profitability of providers would
“risk increasing the capacity shortfall.”
So if we do not take action to increase capacity first, ironically, we risk simply driving up prices and exacerbating the shortage of places.
Likewise, the review commissioned by the last Government and carried out by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) found that profit caps would not work as it would be,
“relatively easy for providers to reallocate income and expenditure to maintain profit levels”,
a point already alluded to by the hon. Member for Twickenham. The capacity problem rests on the availability of places and the demand for those places. We spoke previously about the need to do much more to grow fostering to reduce demand. Our amendment is designed to ensure that that capacity issue remains at the front of everybody’s mind at both the national and the local levels, so that at neither level do we fall into thinking that we can fix this without primarily fixing supply.
I understand the argument that it cannot hurt to have the power in the clause, which is the reason why we will not vote against it, but it is unlikely to change things very much compared with increasing supply. In fairness, the Bill’s policy notes state that the profit cap power
“is intended only to be used as a last resort should other measures not have the expected impact”.
The hon. Member for Twickenham talked about it being a backstop. My only worry is we should not even rely on it as a backstop. As the previous independent review and the CMA highlight, it would not be easy to use. One reason is that it would inevitably have to be backward-looking. The Government’s policy notes state:
“We are aware that the administration of the profit cap will be a retrospective look back at whether or not the profit cap has been breached in a past period. It will therefore not necessarily prevent breaches in itself, but it will allow action to be taken retrospectively if such breaches have occurred and act as a disincentive for further breaches.”
We will be looking backwards at a sector where there are a lot of complicated financial arrangements, and because we are looking backwards, people will have time to do all kinds of things to make sure that they look like they are complying, for the reasons I have mentioned.
As Ministers take this measure through the other place and consider implementation, I strongly recommend that, if they regulate for fines, they set up an absolutely iron-clad mechanism to ensure that those fines are paid. I was very disturbed to learn from an answer to a parliamentary question the other day that the Home Office has no idea what proportion of the fines imposed for illegal working are actually paid. In that sector, people just move on—they set up a new company, or get their brother to start a new thing. They just move on, and they do not pay the fine. It is widely known that we do not even know how many people are paying those fines. Obviously, we need to prevent that from happening in this sector, where there is equal scope to move on, to set up new things and collapse the old, and so escape fines. I am sure Ministers are seized of that risk; I just wanted to emphasise what they need to do when regulations are made.
Another way out that Ministers might want to try to close off is that some in the sector adopt offshore models of provision. Might the Government want to use this rare legislative moment to discourage, either in primary legislation or by giving themselves the power to regulate, the commissioning of places with providers that are domiciled offshore? They might want to take that power now, but even if they fix it, there will continue to be so many opportunities to fudge and to manage profits with interest and debt.
I do not mean to labour this because, as I listen to some people in the debate, including Ministers, I hear that they understand the difficulties, but then I hear from some other people, and they think, “Oh, we can just control prices to get out of this, without addressing the underlying real problem about supply.” When I was at the Treasury, one reason we were really keen on the work we were leading on through the OECD on base erosion and profit shifting was that we were faced with the endless generation of new tax wheezes and profit-shifting arrangements. They all had these exotic names—the Dutch sandwich, the green jersey and the double Irish; people were constantly generating new ways of moving profits around.
I want to bring that to life a bit by asking some questions. How would profit be defined for the purposes of the cap? The policy summary talks about
“(on average) profits of 19.4% on fostering, 22.6% on children’s homes and 35.5% on supported accommodation.”
I went back to look at the 2022 CMA report from which those numbers are drawn, but it just talks about margins, so I was not clear on whether we were talking about pre-tax, post-tax, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. I am keen to understand what measure of profit we are using.
What analysis have the Department done to think about the capital needs of the sector over the next five years? It will need large sums, which may make profit capping harder. Fundamentally, there is a big question about what level of profit the Department for Education deems to be acceptable. In in her articulate and thoughtful remarks, the hon. Member for Twickenham mentioned one provider that had a very high rate and another that she said was more acceptable. That is the heart of the issue: given the powers that are being taken, do Ministers at this stage have some rough barometer of what they would regard as unacceptable profits?
Alongside this debate, even as we as we speak, the consultation is running. Obviously, in an ideal world it would have been much better to have had the results of that consultation before the debate and before we moved to legislate. To say we are being asked to sign a blank cheque is an overstatement; I am less worried about it than that. Obviously, though, it would have been much better to have the results of the consultation. What is the timescale of the consultation and when will we have some results from it? Is the Minister already able to share any findings?
I am labouring the point slightly, but I want the Minister’s reaction to the issue, which I am trying to raise in different ways, of the difficulty of capping profits in this kind of industry with these kinds of players so that the concerns that caused the CMA and the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington not to recommend profit caps do not come to bear in practice.
A fundamental question is what the evidence is that, on a like-for-like basis, private sector providers are more expensive than either charities or local authority provision in this area. The numbers may exist, but I have not seen them. If the margins are so high, why are more providers not entering the market? It is a strange thing: there is not enough supply, but we think profits are too high. What is the barrier to entry? It may be that all those questions are addressed in the impact assessment, which is one reason that it is frustrating that we still do not have it.
The DFE says that it is trying to do other things to tackle excess profits. In its policy summary notes to the Bill, it said:
“Until these other measures have had time to be implemented and have effect, we will not know whether regulatory action in the form of a profit cap is necessary.”
That is totally sensible; I completely agree. What are the Minister’s thoughts on timing for making a decision on that? We have a consultation now. The Ministers are trying to do other things to tackle excess profits now; once implemented, they will take time to have an effect, if they are going to have an effect. In what year will we potentially make a decision on the profit cap? As I started to make the mental Gantt chart, I wondered whether this was a decision for the end of this Parliament or the next. I just want a sense of what Ministers think about the timing for making that decision.
Page 53 of the policy summary notes says:
“The level of any future profit cap would depend on a number of factors, including market conditions at the point that we make a decision that a cap is needed.”
That line is a bit mysterious. This may be obvious, but it is not obvious to me—what does that mean in practice? I could not work out which way round it was: would there be no profit capping if supply was too limited, as there would be no scope to do it, or would profit capping come in if supply was limited and prices higher than Ministers wanted? I was not sure in which direction the arrows ran between market conditions and the decision on having a profit cap.
We are not against the clause standing part of the Bill. We are obviously keen on our amendment, and indeed the improvement to it suggested by the hon. Member for Twickenham, but, as an amendment, it is what it is. But all of this is just an aim. We think there are massive limits to how usable this power will be in practice and we do not want it to become a distraction from fixing the main issue, which is supply. To use an example from housing policy, which is apt, given the Chair’s former Select Committee role, the places around the world that have tried to rely on rent controls to fix housing problems generally fail. The people who focus on supply generally do much better. That is the spirit behind our amendment and our questions to the Minister.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Betts. I rise briefly to echo some of the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and to ask a couple of questions. I have total sympathy with what Ministers are trying to do here. Having spent a bit of time at the DFE, I know the pain of seeing the amounts of money going out from local authorities for some very expensive placements.
The thing I always found vexing, and still do to this day, is exactly the thing the shadow Minister mentioned. If there are fat margins to be had, ordinarily, in a Schumpeterian world, people come into that—again, I hesitate to use the word—market. The insurmountable barriers stopping that from happening were never clear to me. It was not just that additional supply was not coming in to bring down unit costs, but that, on occasion, there was no place to be found. It is very important that we understand the underlying economics of this, bearing in mind, as ever, that we are talking primarily about the care of children.
The profit made by an entity cannot be limited, ultimately, because that is the residual left at the end of the year between revenue and cost. All one can do is either to choose not to use an entity that makes a profit of more than a certain amount, or seek some form of clawback. I note from the Bill that it is the latter approach that Ministers wish to take, as in proposed new section 30ZM. Do they seek to use this power as a fine—a penalty—for having a profit above whatever is deemed the appropriate level, or in proportion to it? In other words, do they seek to claw back the entirety of the surplus—the profit made—in excess of what is deemed a fair return?
Munira Wilson
I thank the Minister for his kind remarks about my comments, but he is aware that the SEND system is in crisis—he and his fellow Ministers hear that every other week in the Chamber. He knows that local authority finances are on the brink because of SEND costs, and that those deficits are driven to a certain extent by the spending on private provision. I am curious as to why the Government are so hesitant to take action in this space, yet they are happy to slap VAT on parents wishing to send their children to independent schools. This amendment is about tackling specific providers that are clear outliers in the fees they are charging. It is a targeted intervention that could really help local authorities and, in turn, children who are desperate for more support that local authorities cannot provide.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire talked about whether we can control profitability. I used to work in the pharmaceutical industry, in which the Government have for many years had a control on not only prices but profits and have clawed back profits. As a monopoly purchaser of services, the Government can act on behalf of NHS trusts around the country, and they could do something similar for local authorities where needed, whether it is with special schools or private social care providers. I would like to press amendment 42 to a vote.
Neil O’Brien
I was quite reassured by the Minister’s thoughtful comments and his clear appreciation of the difficulty and extreme number of obstacles to making this power practicably usable. Kenneth Clark said that he did not know what civilisation was, but he knew it when he saw it, and I think quite a few Members of this House, including those on the Government Benches, have the same feeling about excess profits—we feel that they are too high, but we struggle to say what we think an acceptable level would be. That challenge will not get any easier over time.
As ever, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire is more articulate than I am, and he made the point well that this is not a profit cap but a retrospective clawback mechanism, which is another reason why it will be so hard to use in practice. Unless we are going to get into problems of retrospection and loads of legal action, we will be giving people advance warning, which will give them time to move money around and ensure that things look compliant.
I am keen to move amendment 25 to a vote. I promise that we will make great progress on subsequent clauses; I am not trying to be a dog in the manger. I understand and accept the Minister’s arguments about the things that the Secretary of State would do before commencing such a power—that was reassuring—but there should be a national assessment of the number of available placements. The Minister said that such things happen locally, and that someone could tot them up; I hope the Government will do that. It would be a powerful thing for the Minister to do and would give him huge clout in driving this agenda forward, so I hope he will do it even if the Committee votes against this amendment.
There should be a German word for a bit of data that we think should exist—we look on the internet and think we should be able to find it, but somehow it does not exist. This assessment of what is available out there is an example of that. I am keen to put our amendment to the vote, to make that point for our friends in the other place when they discuss the Bill, but I am reassured by the Minister’s comments.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Stephen Morgan
My Department will introduce civil monetary penalties to compel children’s care providers to comply with the financial oversight scheme and—if implemented in the future—the profit cap. It is imperative that providers comply with the scheme in order to protect vulnerable children from the disruption to their homes and care that could result from a sudden market exit by the providers of their placements. If providers do not comply, we will tackle that effectively by introducing penalties. Penalties could apply up to the highest level of the organisational structure of a provider that has failed to comply with the scheme.
If a profit cap is introduced in future, clauses 15 and 16 provide for civil monetary penalties for breaches of any profit cap, to be issued at provider level. The Secretary of State will be able to issue monetary penalties for breaches of the cap, and for failure to comply with annual return requirements. Both are essential to allow for the proper administration of the cap—if we need to bring it in in the future.
Furthermore, if providers fail to comply, action may be taken against their registration. The Care Standards Act 2000 is amended to give Ofsted the power to suspend or cancel the registration of a person, in respect of a children’s home or fostering agency, if they have failed to comply with either measure.
Clause 16 sets out the process that both the Secretary of State and Ofsted must follow when issuing civil monetary penalties under provisions in the Bill. It will ensure that any penalties are issued fairly and consistently. It places a duty on the Secretary of State and Ofsted, when issuing a monetary penalty, to serve a notice of intention on the recipient. They must also take into account any representations from the recipient of the notice before a final decision to issue a penalty is made.
The clause sets out that the Secretary of State or Ofsted may issue a monetary penalty of any amount. The only exceptions to that are when the Secretary of State has prescribed in regulations a maximum penalty that may be imposed. Proposed new schedule 1A specifies the maximum amount and sets out the factors that must be considered when determining the amount of the monetary penalty to be issued, ensuring transparency.
To ensure that monetary penalties are paid on time, we will have the ability to charge interest on any unpaid penalty and to recover the unpaid amount, including any interest, as a civil debt. The interest will be charged at the standard rate, as specified in the Judgments Act 1838, but the total amount must not be more than the amount of the penalty. All penalty moneys are to go into the Consolidated Fund to help pay for vital public services. Finally, persons may appeal either the imposition of a penalty or the amount to the first-tier tribunal. I commend the clause to the Committee.
Neil O’Brien
I will be much briefer, because this is essentially a consequential clause relating to clause 14, but I want to touch on a couple of things.
A further difficulty in enforcing this profit clawback, and understanding what excess profit is, is that even within a single market not all these institutions are doing the same thing. In a funny way, the remarks that the hon. Member for Twickenham made about clause 14 go to that point. We look at the very large unit costs—that is a horrible expression—or the costs per child of care in independent special schools, and we think, “Gosh, these unit costs are so high. Surely we have to do something about this.” The Government and the Opposition are seized of that point—we do not want to spend money that we do not need to spend—but we should sometimes look at the individual cases.
For example, a child in my constituency who has just been put into one of these brilliant institutions—Red Kite, over in Northamptonshire—literally needs constant help just to keep breathing, so we have to be clear about whether these things are really like for like. It is true that that independent special school is a lot more expensive than a mainstream school, but is it really like for like?
As we think about capping profits in this industry, a further complexity is that, depending on the caseload and the child, the profit and risk levels will be different. Within an individual institution, there could be some unbelievably hard-to-place, hard-to-look-after, very difficult and expensive children, alongside other children, so it will not be easy to work out an acceptable level of profit.
Proposed new schedule 1A(6), on the right of appeal against imposition of monetary penalty, further extends the opportunities for people to game the system. First, it is retrospective—it is about clawing money back from people after the fact, which gives them an opportunity to manage their profits so they look like they are compliant—and then there is a right of appeal. I understand why that is in the Bill, but to return to the metaphor about the lack of proper enforcement with regard to illegal working and the lack of information about the fines that are collected, by the time we have tried to claw money back retrospectively and given people the right of appeal, it would be easy for them to say, “This is in the name of my brother. We have collapsed the company. Sorry, we don’t have any money to pay this fine,” so we may not end up with anything at the end of it. Meanwhile, the people who are really behind the scheme have moved on and are doing the same thing down the road.
I want to highlight those points. This clause is consequential on clause 14. If we have clause 14, it makes sense to have clause 15, so we will not oppose it. I want to emphasise again, however, that there are even more dimensions to why it will be difficult to use this measure, so the focus should be on supply.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 15 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 16 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Stephen Morgan
Clause 17 enables information sharing between Ofsted and my Department to ensure the effective functioning of the financial oversight scheme and profit cap regime. Sharing relevant information also supports Ofsted’s functions under part 2 of the Care Standards Act 2000.
For the purposes of a financial oversight scheme, effective information and the sharing agreements that are in place between my Department and Ofsted are crucial, and they will enable us to bring together financial corporate performance and quality indicators about individual providers to inform decision making. This clause does not authorise the processing of data, which would contravene data protection legislation.
Neil O’Brien
I have a brief question. I understand what the Minister is trying to do here; the Secretary of State is taking powers to require the Ofsted chief inspector to share information with them in connection with the functions under this part. Can the Minister explain how that differs from the current ability of His Majesty’s chief inspector to share information with the Secretary of State? As the Minister just said, proposed new section 30ZO(8) is clear that it cannot contravene the GDPR legislation anyway, so I am trying to understand what gap this clause is trying to fix.
Stephen Morgan
I thank the shadow Minister for that. Data will be shared to other parties as part of the financial oversight scheme. It is worth saying that the Department will share with local authorities which providers meet the financial oversight conditions and are subject to the financial oversight scheme. That is to support their local sufficiency and contingency planning.
To ensure that commercially sensitive information is kept confidential, we will not share any provider information submitted as part of this scheme with local authorities or the sector. The Department will use this information to make an assessment of financial risk and issue an advance warning notice to local authorities where there is a real possibility that financial risk could lead a provider to cease operating.
Finally, where providers or their corporate owners, as I mentioned earlier, breach the requirements of this scheme, the Department will publish information on civil monetary penalties imposed. That is to be transparent about providers who fail to comply with the scheme.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 17 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 18
Use of agency workers for children’s social care work
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell)
Clause 18, through the introduction of a regulation-making power, will allow the Government to take stronger action to alleviate the significant affordability and stability challenges that have arisen from the increase in the use and cost of agency workers in local authority children’s social care in England. This clause ensures that, while agency workers remain an important part of local authority children’s social care, they do not become a long-term replacement for a permanent, stable workforce.
The clause will allow the Secretary of State to introduce regulations on the use of agency workers in English local authority children’s social care services. It will strengthen the existing regulatory framework for the use of agency social workers in local authority children’s social care services, which is currently set out in statutory guidance. It will also extend the framework beyond the social workers to the wider local authority children’s social care workforce, such as agency workers delivering targeted early intervention or family help.
We remain committed to working in partnership with stakeholders across the children’s social care system, including agencies, to ensure that the proposals implemented are proportionate and effective. The clause provides a duty to consult ahead of introducing regulations.
Regulations will make it clear to local authorities, the recruitment sector and agency workers what they should expect from each other. The consistency that that brings to the market will benefit all parties. Reducing local authority spend on agency workers will allow local authorities to invest more in services supporting children and families and enhance the offer to permanent employees. I hope that the Committee agrees that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
We have not tabled an amendment to clause 18, but I have a lot of questions similar to those we have been asking about attempts to introduce profit capping for children’s care homes.
The Government clearly have two quite different hopes for this measure. On the one hand, the explanatory notes on the Bill say that strengthening the regulatory framework for the use of agency workers within local authority children’s social care services will improve the stability and quality of the agency workforce. That is the first hope. However, the notes also say that reducing local authority spend on agency workers will allow local authorities to invest more in services supporting children and families and enhance the offer to permanent employees. Those are two quite different objectives in different clauses of the Bill.
The last Government were taking steps to increase the number of people in social work. Those steps included the “step up to social work” scheme and the creation of social work apprenticeships, as well as advertising some of the amazing things that people can do and be part of as social workers. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to our social workers. They are amazing people. Theirs is a tough job, but people feel an enormous sense of pride in what they do, and when they look back on their careers they can reflect that they have helped a lot of people. It is an amazing profession.
According to the most recent DFE statistics, there were over 33,000 full-time social workers in post in 2023. That is 4,600 more than in 2017, or a 16% increase. The caseload per full-time equivalent worker had dropped from 17.7 cases to 16, the lowest in the series. We can say that that number is still too high, but it has at least been going in the right direction during my time in Parliament. Just under one in five of the full-time equivalents is an agency worker, and the agency share has gone up, but sometimes people assume that it has gone up more than it has. In fact, from 2017 to now, it has gone up from about 19% to just under 22%. That is an increase, but we must keep these things in perspective. As with children’s homes, issues with agency workers are probably more likely to be resolved by addressing issues of supply and career progression, rather than attempting to freeze or cap prices without addressing supply. Crudely trying to cap prices runs the risk of increasing vacancies in social work teams, lengthening lead times for families or at-risk children to get help, and putting more pressure on all the other staff.
When we look at the map, we see that not all local authorities are in the same position, facing the same costs, market forces and challenges. There are huge variations in the share of agency staff, even within regions, and in some regions, such as London, the use of agency staff is consistently higher. Applying the same rules, caps or limits to places facing totally different situations would be risky. That is why the last Government were talking about encouraging authorities in an area to come together on a voluntary basis to agree things, but were not forcing the pace or applying a hard national cap on a one-size-fits-all basis. Sometimes when we look at the map, we can see what we think is the rationale—for example, Trafford is more expensive than Manchester. Trafford is quite expensive, but then we see other parts of the country where the issues are not connected to the costs. Why are Bradford and Leeds so different? Without understanding the story, it is pretty dangerous to move to a one-size-fits-all solution.
Instead of alleviating significant workforce affordability pressures, which the explanatory notes say is the aim in the clause, a one-size-fits-all regulation could make things worse. Interestingly, a poll found that only 16% of agency workers agreed with the idea of national rules, which suggests that many are choosing to work in this way. In other fields we sometimes want to regulate agency staff for the good of the staff, or because we are worried that they are being exploited. In this case, however, we should be clear that they are overwhelmingly not looking for new national rules—although it is worth saying that the same poll shows that local authority staff take a different view. We should be trying to understand why that is the case.
I imagine that both the flexibility and the wider conditions are among the reasons people want to work as agency staff, and they are far from alone in that. Across almost every public service, in each new generation there is a much higher level of demand for flexible working—being able to work at the times and in the places that people see fit. That is, in one sense, a good thing. The workforce is more female, for example. We can understand why people want it. On the other hand, it poses a challenge for public services to adapt and manage.
As I said, the clause has a dual goal, which the Government sets out in the notes. One part of it is potentially capping pay rates or numbers. The other part of it is to improve stability, so that there are better relationships and quality is higher. Proposed new section 32A(4), on page 35 of the Bill, lists the reasons why Government can act under the clause. Paragraphs (a) and (b) are about quality; they are about agency workers’ specified requirements, such as qualifications. Paragraph (b) is also about how they are managed, and it is very open ended. Paragraph (c) then says,
“including the amounts which may be paid under such arrangements”.
I see no limit—although the Minister may tell me that there is one—on what the Government can do under that paragraph. Might they be able to set individual limits for individual local authorities? I see no obstacle to them doing that; it is a very strong power. If Minister were so inclined—I am sure that none is—they could micromanage the whole situation and try to run it from the centre.
I am interested to hear the Ministers’ views on the Government’s intent. How plausible do they think using those powers is, and what do they think are the obstacles to fixing the problem by directly regulating against it, rather than by improving supply overall?
We are, in a sense, again being asked for a blank cheque in so far as everything is in regulations. We do not have the promised impact assessment, although of course there is a commitment to engage extensively with the sector before introducing secondary legislation. There will be public consultation, and the regulations will be subject to the affirmative procedure, but as the Minister knows, that means they cannot be amended, so we will have no steer over them. It is a very strong power to heavily manage almost every aspect of the use of agency workers. There is, more or less, nothing that the Government cannot do under subsection (4).
Rather than asking lots of specific questions, I want to get a general sense from Ministers of how they feel about that. A lot of people say, “There are too many agency staff.” It is not obvious to me that there has been a ballistic growth in their numbers, or that there is a “right level”, which we are not at. I said that the level is now about a fifth; should it be what it was in 2017? Was that the right level, or was it the level it was in 2010 or 1997? Quite often, we hear people say that it is terrible that there are so many agency staff, but what is the right proportion? It is probably not zero.
The power being given is big, sweeping and general, and I do not have a firm sense from Ministers of what they want to do with it or when they will know what they want to do with it. When I listen to some people in this debate—not necessarily Ministers—I am struck by the naiveté of Ministers riding in and saying, “Right, you’re banned from having any agency workers,” or, “You’re all capped at a maximum of x per day or x per hour,” and thinking that that will not cause problems. In a country like England, with all our divergences, the Government would quickly get into big trouble if they did those things. I do not think Ministers are so unwise.
I would like to get the Minister’s response to the concerns I have raised about the limits of action on pay. I am less worried about whether agency workers should all have qualifications; we should do everything we can to drive up continuous learning and professional development. That is all good stuff. I do not have a big problem with making agency workers more like local authority workers and making them part of the team. What I am more wary about is proposed new section 32A (4)(c), which seems to suggest that the Government intend to attack profiteering. I would be interested in the Minister’s response to those concerns.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank both hon. Members for their probing of the clause. No amendment has been tabled, and there seems to be general agreement that the principle is right. Over-reliance on agency workers contributes to workforce instability, which has implications for both the workforce and the children it is there to serve. It also puts pressure on local authority budgets. I thank both hon. Members for recognising the challenging but hugely valuable work of social workers, which is often unrecognised and un-thanked. It is good that we take the opportunity to put on record our collective gratitude to them for the difficult work that they do.
Many local authorities are already demonstrating success in transitioning agency workers into their permanent workforces. People who work in social care need the right environment so that they can thrive, personally and professionally. We recognise that regulation alone is not the answer, but the Government are supporting local authorities to attract and retain children’s social workers and provide positive working environments for all who work in children’s social care, because ultimately children will benefit.
Local authorities will still be able to use agency workers if doing so is the most appropriate resourcing option and in line with the regulatory framework, but it is important to reduce local authority spend on agency staff and to allow local authorities to reinvest in the permanent children’s social care workforce. Statutory guidance that has already been issued on this matter has allowed the Government to act quickly to introduce a new framework. The framework focuses on social workers, but other Government Departments are working on the same issue.
Guidance can be departed from in certain circumstances, so introducing regulations on the use of agency workers is appropriate and proportionate. It is important that we strengthen the regulatory framework on the use of agency workers in children’s social care to ensure that it is legally binding, so that we bring greater transparency and accountability to the use of agency workers, as the right hon. Member for East Hampshire suggested. We will continuously consider the evidence, ensuring that we take an informed approach to those regulations.
There is a statutory duty to consult before introducing regulations. We commit to working in partnership with stakeholders across children’s social care, ensuring that any proposals that we introduce are proportionate and effective. We are also working with local authorities and regions on developing price caps. We will look at the data later this year, before introducing those changes, and the raised regulations will be subject to consultation and the affirmative procedure. With those comments and queries responded to, I hope that Members feel that they can support the clause.
Neil O’Brien
I think the Minister answered this question when she said that, in respect of caps, she was working on a regional basis, but does the provision give the Government the power to cap on any basis, including at a local authority level? The Government could say that the cap is x in Westminster and y in County Durham—is my understanding correct?
Catherine McKinnell
As is becoming more evident as the Committee progresses, the hon. Member is very focused on the detail. Obviously, that is something that we will work through as part of our development of the statutory regulations. We will consider developing price caps on a regional basis, but we will look at the evidence and consult as well. That is important, because I think we all agree in principle on the provision, and we will work hard and consult to ensure that we get it right.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 18 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 19
Ill-treatment or wilful neglect: children aged 16 and 17
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Catherine McKinnell
Clause 19 amends sections 20, 21 and 25 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. That Act protects over-18s in regulated social care settings and everyone provided with certain healthcare from ill treatment and wilful neglect, and the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 protects all under-16s from cruelty, so if someone is under 16 or over 18 there is protection in place to prosecute perpetrators of abuse. However, there is a gap that means that carers or care providers involved in the wilful neglect of 16 and 17-year-olds in regulated children’s social care settings or youth detention accommodation cannot be prosecuted. We are therefore expanding the 2015 Act so that the offence includes protections for 16 and 17-years-olds.
The change means that where there has been ill treatment or wilful neglect by those providing care or support in regulated establishments, the law will support the relevant authorities in prosecuting the individuals and providers involved. I am sure we all want the right legal protections to be in place for all children, and for the law to support action being taken against those involved in abuse or neglect. I hope the Committee agrees that the clause should stand part of the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
We support clause 19, which closes an important gap in the law regarding the ill treatment and neglect of 16 and 17-year-olds. I have some specific questions. Have the Government considered making the ill treatment or wilful neglect of a child aged 16 or 17 in a children’s home or other regulated setting, as set out in the Bill, an aggravating factor in the sentencing of those cases? The low level of the terms “ill treatment” and “wilful neglect” sits uncomfortably beside the context, reality and vulnerability of those children. Will the Government think about the criminal justice side of that?
My second question is about children who are held on remand in the youth estate. Members who have read my Substack will know that, both under the last Government and this one, I have complained a lot about the growth in the remand population in the adult and youth estates, and the court delays that drive that. A lot of children now in the youth estate are held on remand—about 40%—so can the Minister confirm that these provisions will apply to children who are held on remand in youth detention accommodation, and not just to those who have been sentenced? Those on remand are there temporarily, and as we fix one important hole in the law, I want to check whether we need to fix another one, or whether it is already covered. I am happy if the Minister wants to write to us on that point because it is quite detailed.
Catherine McKinnell
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support for the clause. To answer his second question, the change will affect regulated establishments in children’s social care, including youth detention accommodation. It will therefore cover children’s homes, residential family centres, accommodation where holiday schemes for disabled children are provided, and supported accommodation settings. There are other measures already in place to protect all children, including 16 to 17-year-olds, against abuse and neglect within children’s social care settings and youth detention accommodation. This clause is specifically intended to address the current legal gap.
Neil O’Brien
I think the most natural reading is that those children should be covered, because they are in the YOIs. I just wondered whether there was a potential issue because they are not permanently there; they are just on remand. I wonder whether the Minister could check with her officials to ensure that we are not missing an opportunity.
Catherine McKinnell
I will double-check on the hon. Gentleman’s behalf, but my understanding is that they will be covered, given that they come within the remit of youth detention accommodation. I will certainly convey his point about wilful neglect being an aggravating factor within the criminal justice system as a query to the Ministry of Justice, as it may be worth considering with the change being brought through in this education legislation. With that, I commend the clause to the Committee.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 19 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 20
Employment of children in England
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Neil O’Brien
As the Minister says, the clause essentially centralises and harmonises differences in rules on children’s employment, which are currently set partly at the local level. As a localist, I start with a small degree of nervousness, in so far as we are taking away a local authority power. We have done that an awful lot over the last 40 years.
I do not have a great objection to this measure, because in general it is a liberalisation overall. The notes provided by the Library are quite good, in so far as they talk about the extensions in different ways that this will bring about in most local authorities. I do have one slight nervousness, though, from a practical rather than a philosophical point of view. When we replace a complicated patchwork quilt and a lot of variation with a single national rule, we must check that every place is clear about the impact. To pick a random example used in the Library briefing, the byelaws of Birmingham city council do not include the line allowing 13-year-olds to work on car washing by hand in a private residential setting that is present in Richmond upon Thames and in the model byelaws.
I do not know whether the Government have a spreadsheet or an assessment somewhere detailing the current differences between the laws in all the different places. I hope that they do, because although in general it sounds like we are harmonising all these things across the country in a way that is liberalising, by having more times when young people and children can work, in some cases there might be a restriction, and it would not be a small thing for anyone caught by that restriction to be found breaking the law on the employment of children.
Although ignorance of the law is no defence, one might feel that it perhaps should be where people have been happily working away on the basis of their local authority’s byelaws for some time, when suddenly, without them clocking it—because they do not read Hansard every day—the law changes and they can no longer do what they were doing before. Those people could easily be caught out, as the rules change and we move from a patchwork quilt to a single national standard.
As I say, I have some philosophical questions about the loss of local authority autonomy. However, because the direction of travel overall seems to be more liberalising than not, I do not think that we will oppose the clause, although I would ask the Minister to commit to producing that assessment of what the rules are now, compared with what they will be, which might be a sensible thing to do purely from the point of view of any legal challenge.
The Minister might stand up and say, “We’ve already done that—obviously,” but if that has not happened already, will she commit to doing it, so that we are super-clear for individual local authorities about how the rules will be changing? Such a document or spreadsheet would be of benefit not just to those of us discussing these things nationally, but to the local authorities—the laws are changing in their areas—and to the actual employers of young people, so that they are not caught out by some of the changes and, indeed, are potentially alerted to the new opportunities that the more liberalising aspects of the clause will bring about.
It is a good thing for young people to be in employment at an early age—some of the best jobs I have ever had were when I was a young person working on a farm. That was an absolutely fantastic experience. We want young people to be able to get on with their lives, not to be held back. We are generally supportive of the liberalising aspects of the clause, but we have that nagging doubt.
We strongly encourage the Minister to do that work—indeed, we hope she will commit to doing it—on how the move from a patchwork quilt to a single set of national rules will affect each local authority, so that someone has done the work, not least for the legal protection of the Minister herself, but for the legal protection of those on the ground who will be affected.
Catherine McKinnell
Considering the level of agreement on this provision, there is a significant amount of interest and questions around it. It might help if I clarify that currently a child can work for a maximum of only two hours on a Sunday and up to 7 pm at night, which restricts employment opportunities. It may not make business sense to employ a child who is able to work only a very short shift. We spoke with children while developing this policy, and they were pretty universally of the view that they would like to have more flexibility in when they can work, not necessarily in the amount that they wish to work. Clause 20 will not change the overall number of hours that a child can work, but it will give children much greater flexibility to maximise the opportunities that hopefully will become available to them as this area becomes more clearly set out as part of the legislation.
Employers and sector bodies have set out the difficulties in being able to offer employment to a child either on a normal trading day or when they experience peak demand when the child has worked their requisite two hours. That often closes down opportunities that children could easily have had and would have enjoyed having. Businesses would appreciate having those children as part of their team, but the restrictions in the current arrangements often make that difficult to accommodate.
Neil O’Brien
I have a question about babysitters, which are one of the hardest cases here. This question is as much about the existing law as it is about the proposed change in the cut-off from 7 pm to 8 pm. Are people who employ babysitters after 7 pm or 8 pm committing a criminal offence under the clause?
Catherine McKinnell
I do not believe that people register with their local authority to ask someone under the age of 16 who they know to babysit in their home. My understanding, therefore, is that these regulations would not apply in those circumstances.
To explain another issue that these measures are intended to fix, the vast majority of local authorities simply follow the byelaw model, so they are already in place. However, some local authorities have additional restrictions in their rules for employing children. That has led to some local authorities, which may be geographically located directly next door to each other, having different restrictions. For example, one local authority might decide to add a role to the restricted employment list, but the other might not. That leaves children, parents and businesses, which do not always operate within local authority boundaries, somewhat confused. As the right hon. Member for East Hampshire pointed out, that can put employers off employing children, even where it might be to the benefit of both that these opportunities are available.
Replacing the power for local authorities to make byelaws with the power for the Secretary of State to make these regulations will ensure fair outcomes for all children right across England. That means that a child, their parent or a business can know what work can be undertaken, and when and by whom, wherever they live in England. National employers will also hopefully be encouraged to employ children who are looking for these opportunities, as they will not be put off by inconsistencies around the country that create bureaucratic obstacles to opportunities. That will provide much-needed employment for businesses across the country. I hope that I have responded to the majority of concerns about this largely—I certainly get the impression—uncontested clause.
Catherine McKinnell
It would, however, appear that the shadow Minister has another query.
Neil O’Brien
I thank the Minister for her patience. Will the Government undertake to have an authority-by-authority assessment of what the patchwork quilt looks like now? For everyone’s ease and benefit, what will the changes mean for those who are not just following the model byelaws, because they are maybe different in each different place? Is the Minister happy to at least go away and have a look at that?
Catherine McKinnell
As part of the work to create the draft legislation that we are debating, an assessment of local authorities was undertaken. That assessment has not changed the view that a more consistent approach across the country would be beneficial to children, employers and their families—indeed, it threw up the fact that the vast majority of local authorities do follow the current byelaw framework. This clause not only creates a nationally consistent approach; it creates a better and more flexible approach for children, which will hopefully unlock opportunity for them to take their first steps on the employment ladder.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 20 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Ordered, That further consideration be now adjourned. —(Vicky Foxcroft.)
Oral Answers to Questions
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
The hon. Member for Luton North (Sarah Owen) has asked a very important question. The Government funded the pay award for schools and academised sixth-form colleges but, unlike last year, not for stand-alone sixth-form colleges. That decision has already led to seven days of industrial action. After threats of judicial review, the Department for Education offered some additional funding, but only £7 million of the £19 million that is needed. That funding gap has led to a pay gap, and as a result the National Education Union has more strikes planned and the NASUWT is also balloting. What is the Government’s plan to end the dispute and end the damage that is being done to those students?
Janet Daby
The hon. Member will know that industrial relations are a matter for sixth-form colleges themselves, in co-ordination with the sector-led national bargaining arrangement through the national joint council. We encourage open and constructive dialogue by all parties in the best interests of staff and students during this critical transition period.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
The Government have said in answer to written questions that they have a forecast for the number of apprenticeships but that they will not publish it for Members to see, which is a shame. At the last oral questions, the Secretary of State said it was still the Government’s policy to allow employers to spend 50% of their apprenticeship levy money on other things. Is not the reason the Government will not publish their forecast for the number of apprenticeships that their policy will lead to a sharp reduction in the number of people starting apprenticeships?
Janet Daby
We are very confident about what the Government are doing with apprenticeships. Our levy-funded growth and skills offer, with apprenticeships at the heart, will deliver greater flexibility for learners and employers in England, aligned with our industrial strategy, creating routes into good skilled jobs in growing industries. As a first step, that will include shorter duration and foundation apprenticeships in targeted sectors.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
The decision not to compensate nurseries for the national insurance increase has already pushed providers “to the brink”, according to the Early Years Alliance, and many in schools, including schools with nurseries, are worried that they will be next. Local councils received a bill of £1.8 billion as a result of the national insurance increase, but received compensation for less than a third of that because the indirect costs were not covered. Can the Minister reassure the House that compensation for the increase will cover all the costs to schools, not just the direct costs?
Stephen Morgan
The Government have announced that public sector employers will receive compensation for the increase in their national insurance contributions, including school-based nurseries and maintained nursery schools, but in line with the arrangements for other areas, there will be no additional NICs funding beyond that.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Third sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsThursday 23rd January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 23 January 2025 - (23 Jan 2025)
Ian Sollom
Broadly, the Liberal Democrats welcome the new requirement on local authorities to offer family group decision making, which gives those who care for children, including family members, the opportunity to be involved in putting together that plan for their welfare. The provision strengthens the right to hear the child’s voice, which as we heard in the evidence session is important.
We have a few concerns. As the provision is currently laid out, it might be a little ambiguous. There are lots of different models of family group decision making around, so we would like clarification from the Minister about the principles and standards that are set out in regard to what it actually looks like in practice. Cases where there is domestic violence or coercive control can be hard to identify, so we would like guidance on the principles around that.
We would also like to encourage local authorities to probe into what family group decision making should look like and who should be involved. One example that came to us from the Family Rights Group was of Azariah Hope, who was a care-experienced young parent very frustrated about how she was not offered a family group conference because the local authority presumed that she did not have a family or friend network to draw on.
Amendment 36 strengthens the right for the child to be involved, but still gives the local authority the power to decide on the appropriateness of who should be involved. We would like to hear more from the Minister about what those principles and standards should be for taking family group decision making forward.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Christopher. As this is the first amendment on the first day of our line-by-line consideration, I will briefly say that although the Opposition have lots of serious questions about the second part of the Bill, there is much in part 1 of the Bill that we completely support.
In fact, a lot of the Bill builds on work that the last Government were doing. To quote the great 1980s philosopher Belinda Carlisle, we may find that
“We dream the same thing
We want the same thing”.
It may not always seem like that, because we are going to ask some questions, but they are all about improving the Bill. A lot of them are not our questions, but ones put to us by passionate experts and those who work with people in these difficult situations.
The relevant policy document sets out why it is so important to get this clause right. It highlights the number of serious case incidents, which was 405 last year, and the number of child deaths, which was 205—every single one a terrible tragedy. Around half of those deaths were of very young children, often under 2; they are physically the most vulnerable children, because they cannot get away.
Our amendment 18 seeks to make clause 1 work in practice. It reflects some, but not all, of the concerns that we heard in oral evidence on Tuesday from Jacky Tiotto, the chief executive of the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. The clause states:
“Before a local authority in England makes an application for an order…the authority must offer a family group decision-making meeting”.
In general, those meetings are a good thing, and we all support them—the last Government supported them; the new Government support them. They are already in statutory guidance.
However, we have two or three nagging worries about what will happen when, as it were, we mandate a good thing. The first is about pace. As I said in the oral evidence session, I worry that once family group decision making becomes a legal process and right, people will use the courts to slow down decision making, and that local authorities will sometimes worry about fulfilling this new requirement—although the meetings are generally a good thing—when their absolute priority should be getting a child away from a dangerous family quickly.
A long time ago, when I used to work with people who were street homeless, I met a woman who was a very heavy heroin user and a prostitute. She was about to have—[Interruption.]
Lizzi Collinge (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Lab)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Neil O’Brien
I will give way; I have finally managed to get my train of thought in order again.
Lizzi Collinge
How common does the hon. Gentleman think the situation that he describes is across our constituencies? Does he accept our understanding of that situation? We see it ourselves in our constituencies and in our inboxes.
Neil O’Brien
I thank the hon. Member for the intervention. A lot of us will have seen such situations where there is not a minute to lose. To complete my sentence, the woman was about to have—I think—her third or fourth child. This is not to criticise her, but a child would not have been safe with her for a single minute. The priority has to be getting children away from people who are dangerous to them.
I worry about pace, and our amendment 18 makes the importance of pace clear. It would insert:
“Nothing in this section permits an extension to the 26-week limit for care proceedings in section 14(2)(ii) of the Children and Families Act 2014.”
I was struck by what the head of CAFCASS told us on Tuesday. She said that the Bill “probably could move” the requirement for the family group decision-making meeting
“down to the point at which there are formal child protection procedures starting so that the family can get to know what the concerns are, work with the child protection plan for longer, understand what the concerns are and demonstrate whether the protection can happen.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 31, Q68.]
This is the bit of her evidence—she knows a lot more about this than I do—that struck me:
“if the Bill were to stay as drafted at the edge of care, I think there are risks for very young children, and babies in particular. The meetings will be difficult to set up. People will not turn up. They will be rescheduled”.––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 31, Q68.]
She went on:
“For very young children when you are concerned, if they are still with the parents, which is sometimes the case, or even with a foster carer, you want permanent decisions quickly. That does not negate the need for the family to be involved. You can have it much earlier because you have been worried for a while at that point.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 31, Q70.]
Our amendment does not encompass all those concerns, but it does seek to ensure that this very sensible provision in clause 1 does not slow down measures to keep children safe.
Given that there we were told a few other things by CAFCASS, I should also be clear about what our amendment does not do. It does not address my concerns about people and families—indeed, extended families—using the move to primary legislation to bring about legal action, such as a judicial review, against the decisions of local authorities, or using lawfare or the threat of legal action against local authorities, perhaps to force their way into a room when most of the social workers and other people involved would much rather they were not there because they are inappropriate people. Protecting against that risk is legally much more complicated, which is why the Government have not tabled an amendment on that point.
Ministers may say that the legal worries are less than I am supposing, but will they agree to look at this issue? The last thing we want, once this goes from being guidance to being statute, is people saying, “I’ve got a right to this meeting. You didn’t have me in the meeting. I am going to challenge this decision,” and all that sort of stuff. Hopefully, there is no risk, but I would love to see Ministers consider that point.
Nor does our amendment address moving meetings earlier in the process. As drafted, the clause encourages LAs to put pretty much all their cases to a meeting at the pre-proceeding stage—it has to be done before it goes to court—but lots of the people we heard evidence from think it would be desirable to have the meetings earlier, before the case enters the much less consensual pre-court process. By the time the case gets to the pre-proceedings stage, it is normally pretty clear that it will be hard to reach an amicable solution.
As I said, these questions do not come from us, but from people who know more about the issues than I do. I would like Ministers to respond to the points made by various experts and official groups. The head of CAFCASS said on Tuesday that we should move the point at which the Bill applies to when a section 7 report is ordered. I was really struck by her saying that, because it would be quite a big change to the Bill. She was very specific, however, and she knows a lot about the issue. She said:
“One suggestion I would like to make on CAFCASS’s behalf is that family group decision making should be offered to families where the court has ordered a section 7 report—a welfare report that, if ordered to do so, the local authority has to produce for the court in respect of what it advises about where children should live and who they should spend time with. I think the opportunity for a family group decision-making meeting for those families is important.”––[Official Report, Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 32, Q72.]
That is a big proposal, but it comes from someone with huge experience, who clearly has some real concerns. Will Ministers agree to take that away and consider it further as we make progress in Committee and in the Lords?
The head of CAFCASS made a second big proposal on Tuesday:
“The Bill tends to focus on those who are in public law proceedings. Two thirds of the children we work with are in private law proceedings, where there are family disputes about who children spend their time with and where they live. Very often, those children are in families where conflict is very intense. There are risks to them; there is domestic abuse. The Bill is silent on children in private law proceedings, and I think there is an opportunity for that to be different.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 32, Q72.]
My second question to the Ministers is: have the Government reflected on that suggestion, and do they have any plans to respond? They might not be able to give us a full and final answer today, but what is their basic reaction to that?
Another expert made some significant and specific suggestions about the clause. Will the Government respond to concerns put forward in the written evidence from the Family Rights Group, a charity that helped to introduce family conferences, which were used in New Zealand, to the UK in the 1990s? It said:
“we are concerned that the family group decision making offer in the Bill is too ambiguous and state-led in the way it is framed, with the state determining how, who attends and even if it happens. Without strengthening the provisions, we fear in practice it will not deliver the Bill’s ambition, to ensure fair and effective opportunity across England for children and families to get the support they need to stay safely together.”
Essentially, it is worried that the form will be followed but the spirit will be lost. It goes on:
“We are already seeing evidence of local authorities claiming to use such approaches, including reference to ‘family-led decision making’ to describe meetings which are led by professionals and where family involvement is minimal. Without clear definition of terms, and a set of principles and standards for practice, it is likely that in many authorities, such meetings will be professionally-led, with the child and family engagement peripheral…If the legislation does not specify what is expected, we are also concerned approaches unsupported by evidence will proliferate.”
Neil O'Brien
Thank you, Sir Christopher. I will include it here—I just wanted to double-check.
Although I have asked lots of questions about it, we totally agree with the spirit of the clause. In fact, in February 2023, the last Conservative Government published a strategy and consultation on reforming children’s social care called “Stable Homes, Built on Love”. That was partly a response to reports published in 2022, including the final report of the independent review of children’s social care, which was very ably put together by the hon. Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister). The 2023 strategy said that, over the following two years, the Government would invest £200 million,
“laying the foundations for whole system reform and setting national direction for change.”
After two years, the Government would refresh the strategy, scale up the approaches and bring forward new legislation, and in a sense that is what is happening now. This Government are doing some of the things that we had hoped to do when we were in government.
We are obviously not against new legislation; in fact, as part of the strategy, we provided £45 million to launch the Families First for Children pathfinder in 12 local areas for the following two years. That was going to test some of the measures in the Bill, such as more multi-agency working and early, non-stigmatising help and group decision making. We set up those pilots partly because of one of the measures in clause 1.
Those pilots started in July 2023 and, frustratingly, the results are supposed to be out in the next couple of months. Because of the way that things happen in this place, we are in the slightly frustrating position of having done a proper experiment—we have tested the concepts in clause 1 in the pilot—as we always say we want to do as politicians, but we do not get to hear the results, which are potentially just weeks away.
Have Ministers had sight of early findings from those pilots? Would they be prepared to make them available to Members of this House and of the other place, either in written form or via access to those who have been doing the work of pulling the findings together? It is very frustrating: there is a good piece of evidence, on which a lot of time and money has been spent, and yet, at the point at which we are legislating, we do not quite have access to it. It is weeks away. I hope that Ministers will find a way to share the findings with Members of both Houses.
As I alluded to, I read the Foundations report. Based on a randomised controlled trial, it states:
“We estimate that if family group conferences were to be rolled out across England, 2,293 fewer children would go into care in a 12-month period”.
That would be about a 7% drop, so that is a very large effect. If the RCT is right and it is not just a pilot effect, the effect would be big. We have that estimate from an external group, but I would like to know what the Government think the clause will do to the number of people in care.
On the one hand, that is very encouraging. Having 7% fewer children safely flowing into care every year would be a glorious and fantastic outcome, which is why both sides are interested in the model. On the other hand, such a big change would bring with it some downsides and risks, as is inevitable when we are talking about so many children. The Foundations report concludes that
“There is a need to undertake further research”.
I therefore have another question for the Minister: what gold standard randomised controlled trial work have the Government planned to understand the impacts of the change if it is rolled out as we expect?
I am speaking specifically of the potential negative impacts, which will be smaller in number and hard to look at. We might think, “Wonderful, we have 7% fewer children flowing into care every year. That is great,” but what happens to the children who do not end up in care but have a bad experience in another way? We all hope that will be a much smaller number, but when there is a big upside, there will probably be downsides as well. It is important to have a piece of research in train to try to measure those downsides and check whether the good consequences that we hope for also come with negative consequences. Unless we have the research that Foundations has called for, we will not find that out.
We do not disagree on the attractiveness of family group decision making in principle, but we need to make it work and to minimise the risks. Our amendment is one way to do part of that. We need to make sure that we are seizing all the opportunities of this legislative moment; they do not come around too often, as the Minister pointed out the other day. As the Bill goes through, we need to get a lot more information about that consequential reform. That will come partly from the Government’s impact assessment, when it is published, and partly from the Government providing the answers to some of our questions.
I have given lots of examples, and I hope that Ministers will think very carefully about some of the suggestions that we are getting from the serious experts who have been doing this for a long time. They are totally independent—they just want the right thing for kids and to ensure that we get the upsides of this change, which we all support in principle, while minimising the downsides.
Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
I rise to speak to amendments 36, 37 and 18. It has been a number of years since I was regularly involved in care proceedings as a barrister, but I did so for the best part of a decade. I and a number of my former colleagues hugely welcome this requirement for family group decision making to ensure that it can consistently take place and that all kinship options are considered before there is an application to remove a child from their family and place them in care. I anticipate that the clause will mean fewer cases where lawyers have to get involved and where families are subject to care proceedings.
I am concerned about amendments 36 and 37, however, which would make the Bill more directive about children being present at family group decision making. The wishes and feelings of the child need, of course, to be considered at that meeting and the voice of the child should, of course, always be heard, but that is different from them being present at the meeting. It is really important that the discussion at that meeting is frank and meaningful—often, in that meeting, family members will be finding out, and coming to understand, the risks posed to a child. The appropriate way for a child to be told about their safety or an issue that parents need to tackle is likely to be very different, and more tailored, from what is appropriate for the adults in the room.
Catherine McKinnell
I do think I have responded to the hon. Lady’s specific request, and explained why we are mandating and putting on to a statutory footing the requirement to offer family group decision making at this crucial point before care proceedings. We obviously encourage local authorities throughout their work with children in these circumstances to take a family-first approach and to offer family conferencing. Indeed, family group decision making can be used at any stage of a child’s journey through their relationship with the local authority. However, our decision to mandate it at this crucial point is very much based on the evidence that this reduces the number of children who end up going into care proceedings, and indeed into care.
A lot of issues were raised and I will do my very best to cover them. The hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston raised private law proceedings. The Ministry of Justice offers a voucher scheme to provide a contribution of up to £500 towards the mediation costs for eligible cases, supporting people in resolving their family law disputes outside of court. Similarly to family group decision making, family mediation is a process that uses trained, independent mediators and helps families to sort arrangements out. I take on board the concerns he has raised that all children should be able to benefit from family group decision making where possible. On the impact assessment, as we said in the second evidence session on Tuesday, the Regulatory Policy Committee is considering the Bill’s impact assessments and we will publish them shortly and as soon as possible.
Neil O'Brien
I know that the Minister is trying to get us the impact assessments and is completely sincere about that. Will she undertake to get them while we are still in Committee?
Catherine McKinnell
I believe I can, but I will check and report back in this afternoon’s sitting. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s request.
The Chair
I invited the hon. Gentleman to withdraw his amendment and he said that he wished to press it, so that is why we had a Division.
As a number of people in this Committee are on a learning curve, I will just say that, if the people who tabled the other two amendments in this grouping wish to put them to the vote, that request needs to be put to the Chair now. They can then be moved formally and we can then have a Division on them. If that is not done now, those amendments will not have been moved and they will just fall. Does anybody else wish to move any of the amendments in this group?
Neil O'Brien
Yes, Sir Christopher.
Amendment proposed: 18, in clause 1, page 2, line 26, at end insert—
“(10) Nothing in this section permits an extension to the 26-week limit for care proceedings in section 14(2)(ii) of the Children and Families Act 2014.”—(Neil O'Brien.)
This amendment clarifies that nothing in this section should imply an extension to the statutory 26-week limit for care proceedings.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Catherine McKinnell
By strengthening the role of education in multi-agency safeguarding arrangements, clause 2 recognises the crucial role that education and childcare play in keeping children safe. It places a duty on the local authority, police and health services, as safeguarding partners, to automatically include all education settings in their arrangements, and to work together to identify and respond to the needs of children in this area.
The clause includes the breadth of education settings, such as early years, academies, alternative provision and further education. This will ensure improved communication between a safeguarding partnership and education, better information sharing and understanding of child protection thresholds, and more opportunities to influence key decisions about how safeguarding is carried out in the local area.
Multiple national reviews have found that although some arrangements have worked hard to bring schools to the table, in too many places the contribution and voice of education are missing. Education and childcare settings should have a seat around the table in decision making about safeguarding, so we are mandating consistent and effective join-up between local authority, police and health services, and schools and other education and childcare settings and providers. We know that many education and childcare settings are well involved in their local safeguarding arrangements, but the position is inconsistent nationally, which can lead to missed opportunities to protect children.
This change will improve join-up of children’s social care, police and health services with education, to better safeguard and promote the welfare of all children in local areas. It will also mean that all education and childcare settings must co-operate with safeguarding partners and ensure that those arrangements are fully understood and rigorously applied in their organisations. I hope that this clause has support from the Committee today.
Neil O’Brien
The Opposition do not have amendments to this clause, but we do have some questions. This change is generally a very good idea and we welcome it. I have sat where the Minister is sitting, so I am conscious that, even when a Minister wants to answer all the questions posed by the Opposition, it is sometimes impossible—but I hope, thinking about some of the questions in the last part of our proceedings, that she will continue to consider those and see whether she can get answers to them. I know it is utterly impossible to answer all these questions in real time.
On the Opposition Benches, we welcome the inclusion of education agencies in safeguarding arrangements. All too often, the school is the one agency that sees the child daily and has a sense of when they are in need of protection or are in danger. Our conversations with schools all underline that. We have heard that they welcome this change and that it is a good thing. Last year, schools were the largest referrer of cases, after the police, to children’s social care, and I know from friends who are teachers just how seriously they take this issue. One of my teacher friends runs a sixth form and she spends her spare time reading serious case reviews, so I know that teachers take this issue deadly seriously, and we want to help them to have as much impact as they can.
My questions relate to nurseries, particularly childminders, because this clause is about an extension to education, not just to schools. We understand that child protection meetings can take place via video conference to make them easier to attend. We would just like the Government to confirm and talk about what conversations they have had with those kinds of organisations, which are often literally one-woman bands, about how they will be able to participate, given their very limited staffing and the imperative to look after children in their care effectively.
If the childminder has to go off to some meeting and are shutting down their business for the day, do they have to ask the parents who leave their children with them to find their own childcare? How do we make it easier for these organisations, particularly in relation to really small, really vulnerable children, to take part in this process? We do not doubt that they will want to contribute; we just want some reassurance that the Department is thinking about how that will work well in practice.
The Government argue that education should not be a fourth safeguarding partner because, unlike with other safeguarding partners, there is not currently a single organisation or individual who can be a single point of accountability for organisations across the whole education sector and different types of educational institutions. I understand the Government’s argument, but there are other views. Barnardo’s says in its briefing that
“the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care recommended that the Department for Education make education the fourth statutory safeguarding partner, highlighting that the Department should ‘work with social care and school leaders to identify the best way to achieve this, ensuring that arrangements provide clarity.’
However, the new Bill falls short of this recommendation, mandating only that education providers should always be considered ‘relevant partners’. This should improve the recognition of the importance of education providers in safeguarding arrangements, but we believe that this does not go far enough to protect children at risk.
We recognise that the diverse nature of the education sector could pose a practical challenge in identifying a relevant senior colleague to represent education as a statutory partner. Education settings have a wealth of experience in working with children to keep them safe and we believe it is vital that options are explored to ensure they are able to fully participate in…the planning and delivery of local safeguarding arrangements.”
I want to hear what the Government’s response to those arguments is. As the Minister said, this is a rare legislative moment, so we want to ensure that these important contributions and questions are heard and answered.
Turning to a slightly different question, I understand that there might not be a single point of accountability—which is why this Government, like the previous Government, are not pursuing education providers as the fourth safeguarding partner—but to make this work well, a single point of contact for education might be sensible. Can the Minister confirm that, to support the successful operation of this provision, every local authority currently provides childminders in particular with a line they can call to discuss any concerns, both specific and more general? Schools generally know where to go, but is that true at the moment of nurseries and childminders?
Catherine McKinnell
Amendments 1 to 5, in my name, relate to the nomination of individuals by safeguarding partners for multi-agency child protection teams. These important amendments ensure that primary legislation is consistent. To be consistent with the Children Act 2004, the reference to those who nominate should be to the safeguarding partners, not to specific roles. It is, after all, the safeguarding partners who are best placed to make the nomination for individuals, and have the required expertise in health, education, social work and policing. We will continue to use the statutory guidance, “Working together to safeguard children”, to provide further information on safeguarding partner roles and responsibilities, which will include nominating individuals in the multi-agency child protection teams.
These amendments ensure consistency with the Children Act and set out that safeguarding partners are responsible for nominating individuals with the relevant knowledge, experience and expertise to multi-agency child protection teams.
Neil O’Brien
I have nothing to say about these amendments. I will reserve my comments for our amendment, which is in a different group. I completely understand what the Minister is doing.
Amendment 1 agreed to.
Amendment made: 2, in clause 3, page 3, line 36, leave out
“the director of children’s services for”.—(Catherine McKinnell.)
See the explanatory statement for Amendment 1.
Neil O’Brien
I beg to move amendment 19, in clause 3, page 5, line 3, at end insert—
“16EC Report on work and impact of multi-agency child protection teams
(1) The Secretary of State must report annually on the work and impact of multi-agency child protection teams.
(2) A report under this section shall include analysis of —
(a) the membership of multi-agency child protection teams;
(b) the specific child protection activities undertaken by such teams;
(c) best practice in multi-agency work; and
(d) the impact of multi-agency child protection teams on —
(i) information sharing;
(ii) risk identification; and
(iii) joining up services between children’s social care, police, health services, education and other agencies, including the voluntary sector.”
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to report on the effectiveness of multi-agency child protection teams.
Neil O’Brien
Members will know that we are extremely supportive of this principle and agenda. We generally welcome the clause and think it is sensible, but we of course have questions, and we have tabled an amendment.
Members know that a huge amount of good multi-agency work is already going on to safeguard children, and it has the potential to address some of the really serious information-sharing gaps that have been so visible in pretty much every serious case review, from Victoria Climbié to the present day. Although we welcome the introduction of the multi-agency child protection teams, we have some substantive questions about them.
First, will the Minister set out her expectation for the activity of these teams? Teams can have a formal meeting, but then there is what they really do. If there is just one team in a local authority, that team may become a source of advice but not really generate new activity. I have a question about the scale of different local authorities and how many teams there will be in an area. This might seem a bit specific, but obviously there is a huge difference between Rutland, which is a single unitary authority with a population of 40,000, and Birmingham, which is also a single unitary authority. We need to ensure—I will come back to this in a second—that we can have provision for these teams to meet and work on a geography that makes sense.
The Government are building on a lot of activity that already exists, but they are slightly changing it in various ways. Will the Minister be specific about what these teams will do that is not being done today? How do they relate to, and how are they different from, existing multi-agency safeguarding hub teams? Linked to that, should we assume that they will be resourced to deal with all section 47 referrals? If they are not, it will potentially become another gatekeeping process—they would be making judgments in good faith, but not necessarily with the information to make them safely. I hope that the Minister can reassure me that the teams will be expected to do things like carrying out home visits, attending strategy meetings and having a much clearer view of health information.
There is also the crucial area of private law proceedings, where children are all too often invisible. I wonder what the expectation is for the involvement of these teams in private law cases. There are real concerns, as we heard the other day, that when CAFCASS makes a referral to the local authority in these cases, it looks like the threshold is not met because of the lack of social services and police involvement with the family in the past. Particularly in cases of domestic violence, we know that those kinds of appearances can be deceptive.
The clause makes provision for two or more local authorities to work together to deliver multi-agency child protection teams, and the explanatory notes state that that would enable police and health services to work within local authority boundaries to make the best use of their resources, which they do not always do. I can see the sense in that. To go back to our neighbours in Rutland, they come under Leicestershire and Rutland for the police and for health, and they have a lot of cross-border students in their schools. However, I want to check that the reverse is also true, and that there will be no impediment to having multiple teams within a local authority, and no sense that the police or health services with a bigger geographical footprint should not be expected to service more than one team in a large local authority. That question is about the geography.
Another question is about the timeliness of meetings, which is crucial. The best possible group of people in the world could be down to attend a meeting, but if they do not meet often enough, things will go wrong. Does the clause give the Government the power to specify in regulations how often such meetings take place? Do the Government intend to specify that kind of thing, or—maybe perfectly reasonably—not? Will they try to establish some norms around the frequency of these teams meeting? I do not have an incredibly strong view; I am just interested.
I also have some questions about the cast list, which was the subject of the last group of amendments; we went from a named person with a specific role to someone from a particular organisation. Subsection (4) lists a social worker, a police officer, a health professional and so on. Is the assumption that it will be the same person who attends each time? What happens in the absence of those people? Presumably, a person of the same category can be substituted for a period—for example, if the policeperson on the team goes off sick, someone can be substituted.
Although I am not an expert, I think that having the same cast list each time is broadly the right model. It is a much better model than one where, for example, the social worker for that case turns up once and perhaps do not go to that meeting ever again or for another year, meaning they are not in a position to join the dots. However, there is always a risk that appointing specialists within a team deskills others on the team. That sense that everybody has to stay alert and maintain professional curiosity gets a bit lost, and there is an assumption that the specialists on the team will deal with it. That is obviously not what the Government intend, but can we get some reassurance that they have thought about how to avoid that?
In oral evidence on Tuesday, we heard from—[Interruption.] May I ask you, Sir Christopher, whether we are going until 1.30 pm? The Opposition Whip is looking anxiously at the clock.
The Chair
The Opposition Whip may be looking at the clock, as indeed am I. Under the rules that have been agreed, the Committee will meet again at 2 o’clock. If people wanted to have a reasonable time for lunch, normally, by convention, the Committee would adjourn at 1 o’clock and come back at 2 o’clock. That is obviously in the hands of the Committee itself—
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Fourth sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsThursday 23rd January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 23 January 2025 - (23 Jan 2025)
Neil O'Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
I have already talked about our general support for clause 3, as well as some of the issues around the geography, content and cast lists of the teams, which brings me on to funding. On Tuesday, we asked the Local Government Association about the new burdens doctrine and whether there would be clarity on funding for these new requirements. The Government do not plan to commence this clause until 2027, so will local authorities be appropriately resourced to meet these demands? In its summary of the Bill, the Department for Education says:
“Later commencement allows more time to secure funding and resources and workforces will have more time to engage and prepare for change.”
Do the Government know roughly how much extra funding will be required? As Ruth Stanier from the LGA said in her evidence to us on Tuesday,
“the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units.”––[Official Report, Children's Wellbeing and Schools Public Bill Committee, 21 January 2025; c. 13, Q21.]
We are talking about those multi-agency units here. What are the Minister’s rough estimates of what will be required, and at roughly what point will that be agreed? Again, the DFE notes on the Bill say that it will be
“set out in regulations how the multi-agency child protection teams will carry out their day-to-day activities.”
That will be extremely specific; for example, it says:
“The new provisions will include a power for the Secretary of State to set out in regulations requirements for the practitioners who are nominated to be part of the multiagency child protection teams. This might include examples of the types of ‘minimum qualifications or experience’ that they will need, which have not been included in the legislation as this will require discussion with the relevant work forces, including police, health and education, to understand what would be relevant”.
The big question is: how much will this roughly cost, and when will the Government agree that with local government, so that we can fulfil the requirements of the new burdens doctrine?
I would like to turn to amendment 19. I have come to believe very strongly, in public services, in the importance of setting up self-improving dynamics whenever that is possible. The Japanese talk about the principle of “kaizen”, or continuous improvement, and really that is the spirit of our amendment. Everybody supports the idea of the new multi-agency meetings, and we are all supportive of the principle of trying to make that happen really well. We do not want just a meeting, or that the letter of the law is followed, but the spirit of it is. We really want to do this as well as we can, and that is what our amendment is about.
There are very different ways of making these things work, and they work in very different places already. There is lots of scope to learn from each other at the local level, and central Government have scope to learn from them all. The amendment is self-explanatory, so I will not go through it, but it is basically looking for a report on all the different aspects of the ways in which this clause plays out on the ground. I am keen to press it to a vote, and I hope it is one that the Government might accept, at least in some form.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
It is very good to see you in the Chair, Sir Edward. I think everybody agrees with the principle of this clause, and there is undeniable valuable in having all the relevant agencies working together. I am afraid it is invariably a conclusion of reviews that, when things go badly wrong, part of the issue is that working together has not functioned as well as it could. The Bill does not invent multi-agency working—that is not a new thing—but it does write something very specific into primary legislation, and that is welcome.
Amendment 19 is good and important and requires reporting back on the work and impact of multi-agency teams. What we need to focus on is actual practice. It is one thing to set out that so-and-so must talk to somebody else—no one would argue with that—but as my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston said, there is quite some variety in the way these things happen. Will there be more guidance in terms of operations to stress the importance of following process and procedure, but also recognising the centrality of professional curiosity and taking ownership of problems through to their solution?
I am keen to understand better from the Government the extent to which what the clause proposes is different from multi-agency safeguarding hubs, commonly known by their acronym, MASH. Is it the same, or is it for a subset of higher level cases? Are we drawing a distinction between safeguarding and child protection?
MASHs themselves have worked in quite different ways. I said that these things are not new—I remember that in 2012, when I was on the Education Committee, we did an inquiry in this area. We visited a couple of different MASHs and had a couple of local authorities, one from Devon and one from Leeds, at a Committee hearing. One of those authorities had a MASH; the other had actively decided not to because it felt that there were better ways of achieving some of the same aims. That highlighted the importance of what is done operationally and what is done in practice. We were frequently told about the advantages of physical colocation —simply being in the same room facing each other across the desk—but that does not guarantee that people will work as well together as they could. Relationships are incredibly important, and so is the willingness to appropriately share information, and these days that can arguably be done without colocation in ways that it could not in the past.
As far as I can make out, the clause does not adopt the principle from what we used to call the troubled families programme, which is now the supporting families programme, of having a designated key worker for each family. Can the Government say why that is, or if it is their intention that that should be the case? More generally, it would be interesting to hear how this programme works with the supporting families programme—probably still better known to many as the troubled families programme.
The creation of that programme straddled the previous change in Government: it started in pilot and research form before 2010 and came into being fully after 2010. Louise Casey is now Baroness Casey of Blackstock and still very involved in incredibly important work. Some of the work of that programme is on the key upstream stage where, sadly, we sometimes end up in child protection territory. Some of the common features identified in Baroness Casey’s report, “Listening to Troubled Families” —abuse, institutional care, violence, mental health problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and so on—are incredibly prevalent in this group.
I hope the Government can say more about how the multi-agency child protection teams and the supporting families programme would work together, particularly since that programme, which used to be in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, is coming or has come—I do not know if it already has—into the Department for Education, so there are great opportunities for good working with children’s services.
Neil O’Brien
My right hon. Friend asks a really good question, and I intervene to sharpen that further. He asks whether the new teams are displacing or replacing the MASHs. Does the Government think that the MASHs that exist now will still be running alongside these new teams, or does the one turn into the other?
On the point about continuity of knowledge, which is so important in these cases as often the same family is in trouble for a long time, is it the Government’s expectation that it would be quite normal for people who are currently on one of the MASHs to find themselves on the new teams as well, or is this a new thing? I am just trying to understand the intent.
Damian Hinds
I think amendment 19 has a lot of value and I hope it will be agreed.
I want to ask about resourcing. My hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston has rightly asked about cash resourcing—how much there will be—and there is of course the new burdens principle to follow, but I want to ask about staff availability. It is one thing to legislate for people to do a certain thing, but if it is very difficult to hire those people, that is obviously an impediment. To what extent and, if it is possible to quantify, by how much, does this programme create a new human resource requirement? How many more person days per year are we talking about?
Neil O'Brien
I agree with everything the Minister is saying—it all sounds very sensible. She may be coming to this, but on this point about where MASHs already exist, do these new teams replace them? Are they likely to have similar members? What happens to the existing bodies when the new one is created?
Catherine McKinnell
As I said earlier, at the moment, local authority teams are not required to have multi-agency safeguarding hubs. We will build on the work that has been done and make sure that every local authority has a child protection multi-agency team, so that no child will fall through the gaps where provision does not currently exist.
Neil O’Brien
I have two specific questions, although there may be no answer to the first—it may be for regulations, and there may be no decision yet. If a large local authority such as Birmingham wants to have more than one of these things, can it do so? My other question —which Iaised before the break—is about substitutes. What happens if one of the nominated people is sick? The meeting obviously still needs to go ahead, so can substitutes be used?
Catherine McKinnell
The hon. Gentleman is really getting into the detail of how these will work operationally and in practice. We are exploring through 10 pathfinder programmes how this will work most effectively, to ensure that no child falls through the cracks. This will be set out in greater detail to ensure that we have a consistent approach nationally. Obviously, the point is to ensure that it can be tailored to local need; indeed, different areas will ensure that they are bringing the expertise and adding to the capacity already in the system, wherever it is needed, to keep children safe. I implore members of the Committee to support the passing of this clause.
Question put, That the amendment be made.
Neil O’Brien
I beg to move amendment 20, in clause 4, page 6, line 33, at end insert—
“(4A) Where the relevant person considers that the disclosure would be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing the information, this decision must be recorded.”
This amendment requires decisions made not to disclose information to be recorded.
The Chair
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment 21, in clause 4, page 7, line 5, at end insert —
“(6A) Where information is disclosed under this section, the recipient must consider the welfare of others to whom the information may relate or involve and take steps to promote their welfare.”
Neil O’Brien
The first thing to say about clause 4 is that we are extremely supportive of the principle of consistent identifiers. This is something we were working to deliver when I was in Government. I remember being in meetings about it when I was at the Department of Health and Social Care, discussing for example whether it would be possible to use the NHS number as the identifier. We are really keen that this happens. We have seen far too many young people fall through the cracks because of inconsistent identification, which means that problems are not connected and dots are not joined up. Government Members will not always hear me say this, but this is a very good and important idea, and one of which we are completely supportive.
Our amendments are therefore tweaks to ensure the idea works as well as it can. I will also ask some questions that do not have an amendment with them, but which I hope the Government will take away and think about so that this can work as well as possible.
To start with our amendment 20, I understand the reason for the safety valve in clause 4(3); however, I am wary. In practice, how can a single agency take the decision not to share information until it knows what other information its partner agencies hold about the same case and person? Surely there needs to be a level of trust and strong information-sharing protocols to allow sharing to happen. For example, there might be concerns about a child who has delayed speech at school, but without knowing that the mother has suffered years of abuse, been to A&E and never called the police, it is difficult to judge the situation accurately. What is the Minister’s answer to that concern about the safety valve? I hope one part of the answer can be our amendment. That is what it is there for.
Where information disclosure is not carried out because of a risk of detriment, something pretty serious is obviously happening. That information itself—that there has been deliberate, conscious non-disclosure—is very important. It is information from which we can possibly learn, and we certainly do not want it to just disappear into the ether and be lost. That is totally against the spirit of what we are all trying to do here. Our suggestion is that a conscious decision not to disclose for that reason should be clearly recorded, so that there is no confusion later about what happened or whether it was a conscious choice to not disclose, or just inaction or error.
Our amendment 21 would insert a new subsection (6A), in order to encourage those involved in taking such decisions to consider not just the welfare of the person whose information is being disclosed, but
“the welfare of others to whom the information may relate or involve”.
The person whose confidential information is being shared is not necessarily the only one whose welfare is going to be affected by that sharing.
Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)
The amendment appears to have two parts. The first is the requirement to consider the welfare of others to whom the information may relate. That seems quite reasonable; however, the requirement to take steps to promote the welfare of potentially anybody to whom the information may relate seems to me very broad.
Neil O’Brien
I thank the hon. Lady for her thoughtful question. It is a very general point to say that people should take steps to think about their welfare. We are not asking people to move mountains or work miracles or anything like that—I cannot think of a clearer way of putting it. We want them not just to think about it, but to act on it, and there are two different amendments here.
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has set out his questions. To clarify, amendment 20 would require the relevant person to record their decision to withhold information if they considered disclosing it to be more detrimental to the child than not disclosing it.
We absolutely agree that practitioners should record the reasons for their information-sharing decisions. However, that should happen irrespective of the reason for sharing or not sharing particular information. The current, non-statutory information sharing guidance for practitioners and managers issued by the Department for Education covers this point, making it clear that practitioners should keep a record of their decisions, including their rationale. Rather than legislating on this issue, it is our intention to cover it in statutory guidance, which relevant persons would be required to have regard to in relation to these matters.
I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman raised a range of other issues and questions about clause 4 more generally, and I will respond to those in the clause stand debate.
Neil O'Brien
I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I beg to move amendment 44, in clause 4, page 7, line 37, after “welfare” insert “or wellbeing”.
Neil O’Brien
I have already asked most of my questions, but I want to add some simple ones to those. First, I may have missed this in the conversation, but is the intent that the system will be for people up to the age of 18? Secondly, what are the Government’s initial thoughts about people who do not have NHS numbers?
Thirdly, I wish to sharpen and bring out the point I was making in my questions about all the different get-outs from the system. The case of Victoria Climbié is the ultimate example: she had eight different identifiers with her name spelled differently every single time. The worry is that the system needs not to have too many holes in it—although it needs some, otherwise everything would grind to a halt.
At the bottom of page 7 of the Bill, proposed new section 16LB(5) of the Children Act 2004 says:
“Subsection (4) applies only so far as the designated person considers that the inclusion of the consistent identifier is likely to facilitate the exercise…of a function…that relates to safeguarding”.
That is one out. Proposed new subsection (6) says:
“Subsection (4) does not apply if the designated person considers that”
it would be “detrimental” to include it, which is another out—and perfectly sensible in a way. Proposed new subsection (7) says that the person does not need to comply if they do not know the consistent identifier and it would slow things down. So there are quite a lot of outs.
We will not press our amendment to a vote, and the Minister is right to say that the statutory guidance requires a record of why decisions have been made at the local level, but I am sure that the Department and officials would want to set things up in such a way that a national report can be built out of that data, to figure out what is going on at a local level.
Finally, let me explain what I was going on about with the complexity of parsing proposed new subsection (9), which says:
“A duty under this section does not operate to require or authorise the processing of information which would contravene the data protection legislation (but the duty must be taken into account in determining whether the processing would contravene that legislation).”
That is quite a complicated sentence that I find difficult. I would be supportive of Ministers if they want to give frontline professionals more legal protection so that they think, “I don’t need to worry about data protection first—I need to worry about the safety of children first.”
Catherine McKinnell
I totally accept that Members’ comments have all been made with a view to making sure that the legislation can be as effective as it needs to be, and that we all share the desire to ensure that it serves to safeguard children.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked whether the information-sharing duty is the same as mandatory reporting. The duty in the clause and the mandatory reporting are intended to address different problems. The information-sharing duty underpins how existing multi-agency partners, along with schools and early years providers, can share—I appreciate the right hon. Gentleman’s philosophical reflection on the word “share”—and request information among themselves so that they can build a full picture of a child. They can then use that to assess risk and put in place appropriate support and intervention.
The mandatory reporting of child sexual abuse is due to be introduced in Home Office legislation. It will impose a duty on professionals to report instances of child sexual abuse, and will also impose criminal sanctions on those who prevent others from reporting abuse. The duty in the clause and mandatory reporting have different purposes and different legislative frameworks.
The right hon. Member for East Hampshire asked about the terminology and the meaning of the word “share”. In this context, the sharing of information covers the exchange of knowledge, data or insights with others, and it can happen in a number of ways.
On the specific question of whether information about an individual child or dataset is relevant, we intend the duty to be about supporting individual children day to day, to ensure their safeguarding and to make sure that they and their families get the support they need.
The right hon. Gentleman thoughtfully raised a range of important questions and kindly acknowledged that I would not be able to respond to them all in this debate. We will take them away and work them through, and that will feed into how we pilot this idea and test the system so that we get this right, as he rightly highlighted.
The single unique identifier in the NHS system will apply to children up to the age of 18. The right hon. Gentleman asked what would happen to a child without an NHS number; that will have to be considered as part of the pilot, which is why we are undertaking one. This is an important change. We do not underestimate the challenges of delivering it, but we are determined that it will make the difference to children and to safeguarding.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 5
Information: children in kinship care and their carers
Neil O’Brien
I rise to speak to clause 5 and amendment 22. The previous Government were promoting kinship care and there is no great disagreement about it; in fact, there is great agreement, including with the hon. Member for Twickenham. I pay tribute to her work on the issue, and she is right that her amendment 39 is similar to our amendment 22.
Creating a duty for a local authority to publish a local kinship care offer seems sensible to provide clarity and to ensure that kinship families are aware of what support is available. The statutory guidance on kinship care, which exists already, states that every local authority must publish information about the services they offer in their area to children in kinship care and their approach towards meeting the needs of those children. That has been there since 2011, but too many still have no up-to-date offer, so we are supportive of clause 5.
This is an example of the current Government building on the direction of travel under the previous Government. The kinship care strategy we published in December 2023 set out a definition of kinship care that has been used in the updated statutory guidance on kinship care published by this Government in October.
One important reason for having something that is public and visible to everyone is that when many people hear mention of kinship care they think of uncles, aunts and grannies, but of course a lot of kinship carers are not related to the child. Some 140,000 children live in kinship care, but a further 24,000 live with kinship carers to whom they are not related, such as family friends.
The Minister will be aware of the concerns expressed by kinship carers and the organisations that represent them, such as the Family Rights Group, that the definition of kinship care in this clause of the Bill—on pages 9 and 10, in proposed new section 22I of the Children Act 1989—risks providing less clarity and potentially greater confusion for children, families, practitioners and agencies. They argue that it does not adequately address the different types of kinship care arrangements, while the expectations for councils to involve families in shaping or promoting the local offer are minimal. What is the Minister’s response to that, and what does she plan to do about it?
The Family Rights Group also made a specific point about something that should be amended in the Bill, stating:
“The Bill includes a list of categories of services available in the authority’s area that the kinship local offer should include. We are very concerned by the omission of legal support and family group decision making from this list. These categories already appear in statutory guidance but not…the Bill.”
The Family Rights Group proposed an amendment to remedy that, which we tabled. Will the Government at least consider taking it up?
The Family Rights Group made another point:
“We are concerned that the Bill sets low expectations regarding the involvement of children, kinship carers and others in the development of kinship local offers, as well as in respect of publication and transparency. This is in contrast to the SEN and disability local offer…established in section 30 of the 2014 Children and Families Act. That legislation gives the Secretary of State the power to set out in regulations how the offer should be published, when it should be reviewed, and”—
this is the key bit—
“how children and families are involved in developing it.”
That takes us to our amendment 22. Again, as with previous ones we have tabled, our amendment seeks to set in train a self-improving system by collecting feedback from children in kinship care. We have heard several times during our sittings about the importance of the voice of the child and the voices of those who provide care; this is a way of ensuring that we hear them. We are proposing a light-touch process in the amendment: keeping a record of feedback. That helps to protect from the loss of knowledge when personnel inevitably change, so we can still have that feedback and knowledge. It also provides a resource for learning and performance improvement at the local level. By publishing it, as we suggest in the amendment, we allow for better public discussion and for learning at the national level.
That is the purpose of our amendment. We have no great disagreement about the spirit of this clause—quite the opposite, in fact—and we hope that the Minister will adopt or in some way implement the ideas in our amendment.
Catherine McKinnell
I rise to speak to the amendments and to clause 5 stand part.
On amendment 38, which the hon. Member for Twickenham tabled, I appreciate her engagement and great interest in the kinship local offer, and I will explain how we see it working. We expect that local authorities would include information on legal support when setting out their general approach to supporting children living in kinship care and to kinship carers under the newly inserted section 22H(1)(a) to the Children Act 1989, as set out in clause 5. To be clear, the listed categories of information about services have been kept very broad by design, in order to cover as many different kinds of services as possible. That means that local authorities could reasonably be expected to provide information about legal support under one of the categories that we have included.
Clause 1 already sets out the requirement to offer family group decision making at pre-proceedings and new section 22H(1)(b) to the 1989 Act will require local authorities to publish information about financial support that may be available to children living in kinship care and their carers. Therefore, I would like to reassure Members that the list of categories of information about services in the Bill is deliberately not exhaustive. It also remains our intention that further detail about what we expect to be included in the kinship local offer will be made in statutory guidance, so we will take on board the points made in this debate. We believe that amending clause 5 as has been suggested would not achieve that effect. We believe that we have the measures in place that will deliver what the hon. Lady is looking for, so we kindly ask her to withdraw her amendment.
On amendments 22 and 39, tabled by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston and the hon. Member for Twickenham respectively, I appreciate the concern that exists about consulting children and carers on the kinship local offer and making sure that their feedback is collected. The children’s social care national framework and the existing kinship care statutory guidance make it clear that children’s wishes and feelings should be taken into account whenever adults try to solve problems and make decisions about them, and local authorities are legally obliged to adhere to article 12 of the UN convention on the rights of the child, which makes it very clear that the child has the right to express their views, their feelings and their wishes in all matters affecting them and to have their views considered and taken seriously.
The kinship care statutory guidance also sets the expectation that local authorities should consult children, kinship carers and parents as appropriate in drawing up their kinship local offers, and set out how the kinship local offer has been informed by their views, to ensure transparency.
New section 22H(7) to the 1989 Act states:
“A local authority must review and update its kinship local offer from time to time”,
to give opportunities for the views and opinions of children living in kinship care and their carers to be taken into account. However, since the intention of clause 5 is to ensure that local authorities publish information about what their kinship local offer includes, what is published should be a clear reflection of the services available, and consultation on the publication would be of limited value.
We cannot be more specific about how kinship local offers are published, because that would potentially limit the accessibility of the information. For example, requiring online publication would potentially limit access to the information among those who do not have access to that technology. For that reason, new section 22H(6) of the 1989 Act already puts an obligation on local authorities to:
“take such steps as are reasonably practicable to ensure that children”
and kinship carers
“receive the information relevant to them.”
Consequently, we do not believe that the amendments are required, as there are sufficient safeguards within clause 5 and other legal frameworks, and because the local authority will be best placed to determine what information should be published. More prescription in legislation might hinder local authorities as they design and publish their local offer in a flexible way that reaches people and makes the maximum impact.
I will respond to the question raised by the hon. Member for Twickenham and to some extent by the hon. Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston about some lack of clarity on the definitions of a connected person. To be clear, that is because they are defined in the Children Act 1989. The term “relative” is deliberately not defined in the Bill, because the measures on the kinship local offer are not freestanding: they form part of the 1989 Act. Although section 105 of that Act defines relatives, new section 22I(1)(a) under clause 5 includes
“a relative, friend or other person connected with the child”,
so it is broad enough to cover every type of person. Although cousins are not specifically defined as a relative, they would fall within the category of another person connected with the child. I hope that has answered all the questions raised by hon. Members, and I urge them to support this clause.
Neil O'Brien
The Family Rights Group raised a specific point. It would effectively like to add another item to the list on page 9, line 17 of the Bill, which currently states that the list of support services should include
“health…relationships…education and training…accommodation”.
The Family Rights Group would like to add legal support to that list. Will the Minister go away and have a look at that?
Catherine McKinnell
I appreciate the request; I have dealt with that in my response, in that we feel that we have included broad headings that are clearly not exhaustive and leave room for local authorities to publish the whole range of services that they feel will support kinship carers. Fundamentally, we know that having a good kinship care offer is in the best interests of a local authority, because it is the one supporting the children who it knows need that care, but I will certainly take away the hon. Gentleman’s specific consideration.
Munira Wilson
I thank the Minister for her response on the point about legal support, which is in amendment 38 along with financial support and family group decision making. I intended to push the amendment to a vote, but, given her assurances that this will be in statutory guidance, I am happy to withdraw the amendment and not push it to a vote.
On her point about connected persons, we need some clarity. As she says, the term “relative” is in the Children Act 1989, but it does not cover cousins. Practitioners on the ground and families would like clarity for those other arrangements. Whether or not that is in guidance, it needs to be spelled out further. Nevertheless, based on the assurances the Minister has given, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
Clause 6
Promoting educational achievement
Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.
Neil O'Brien
We have not tabled an amendment to clause 6, as this is another area where the Government are building on the direction of travel set under the last Government. The role of the virtual school head was already extended on a non-statutory basis from September 2021 to include strategic oversight of the educational outcomes of children with a social worker in a local authority’s area; through this Bill, it is now being extended again to champion the education of children, including children in kinship care.
Educational outcomes for children in need and children in care are still far too low, despite the efforts of successive Governments over the last 40 years to improve them. About one in five children in need and looked-after children achieve grade 4 and above in English and Maths GCSEs, compared with 65% of all children. That is a huge gap.
As the Minister knows, local authorities have an existing duty to monitor child in need or section 17 plans, which I believe is about twice a year. Will the Minister clarify whether the Bill gives us an opportunity to escalate that monitoring? Does it extend to children in kinship care, where a child is falling behind or where their attendance drops sharply? Have the Government considered extending priority school admissions for children in kinship care and making them eligible for pupil premium plus?
I have a question about how a single person can discharge this duty in any local authority, let alone a large one—thinking of dried Birmingham, Kent, Leeds or somewhere like that. What is the Government’s expectation of what the person responsible for delivering this work will be able to do?
Damian Hinds
The clause extends the role in legislation of virtual school heads to children in need, previously looked-after children and children in kinship care. The virtual school and virtual school heads concepts are not new. The concept was first piloted in 2006 in Liverpool. It was the Children and Families Act 2014, which we both remember well, Sir Edward, that required all local authorities to administer pupil premium plus.
The Oxford University report on the virtual school heads concept noted that there had been improvements in outcomes at key stage 2 and key stage 4 for looked-after children and a marked decrease in permanent exclusions. However, as the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Harborough, Oadby and Wigston, rightly said, there is still a yawning gap in attainment and all manner of life outcomes for this group of children.
Previously, looked-after children were added to the virtual school head cohort in 2018. There was a pilot to include children in need in 2021. From 2023-24 onwards, pupil premium plus was extended to age 16-plus. Once again, this is a policy area where there is no difference between us; the current Government’s work builds on previous Governments’ work, and we welcome that. We also note the successes of the virtual school heads concept.
My question is about the danger of dilution. In terms of orders of magnitude, there are 80,000 or 85,000 children in care—looked-after children, but there are 400,000 children in need, so that is a big increase in number. I note that paragraph 4 of proposed section 23ZZA(4) of the 1989 ACT introduced by clause 6 puts a strategic duty on to virtual school heads; it is not about individual children. The bigger number of children there is, with that dilution effect, there is a risk that some of the benefits of the virtual school heads program reduce. We can counter that, to a degree, by upping the resource. My real question is therefore about what resource will be behind this measure, to make sure that the maximum effect can be felt from virtual school heads.
As we talked about earlier on multi-agency working, it is actual practice that matters. People have been working in different ways, and we can learn from what works in different places, but what work will there be to propagate the best and most effective practice between places across the country?
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsTuesday 21st January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 January 2025 - (21 Jan 2025)
The Chair
Thank you. I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, but as I will not be making any comments, that may not be relevant.
Examination of Witness
Dame Rachel de Souza gave evidence.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I am the Children’s Commissioner and have been since 2021, and before that I was a school leader in the most disadvantaged areas for 20 years, so I am very interested. I am pleased to see a Bill on children’s wellbeing; it is great that we are getting some legislation on that. I was well consulted around the first part of the Bill, on wellbeing, and I was able to take the children’s voice through. I worked closely with the Department for Education and others to ensure that it was honed, refined and made really good, as I did on some bits of the schools part. But I do not think that anybody got to see the schools bit until it was published.
On the schools bit, what I feel more than anything is that we now have a period of time when we need to see a vision for a new, vibrant and transformative schools system—how it will work locally, with local authorities, to do the best for children, particularly the most vulnerable children. I have a number of outstanding questions around that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Look, I need the school system to be as ambitious for children—as Children’s Commissioner, I represent children—as they are for themselves. I had hoped that we would get to a point where we were not talking about old binaries—academies or council schools—but talking about schools, families of schools and building up our local authorities so that everyone can play their part to support standards in the post-lockdown period.
I have two issues with the academies provisions. First, I cannot let children remain in failing schools, so if those are going, I need to know what is going to happen. Childhood lasts a very short time, so if a child is in a failing school, how will those schools be improved, immediately and effectively? Secondly, as well as a real vision for the schools system—I know that it is there—I would like to see what will happen to attainment data, under what is envisaged as replacing it, so that no child, particularly the most vulnerable, is disadvantaged.
I was a headteacher for the first time in 2006. It was a Tony Blair-sponsored academy—I was his No. 67. That school had been failing for 20 years, and I got it to outstanding with the support of everyone around me. It has never gone back to less than good. Any new system has to deliver for the most vulnerable as well.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I think, Neil, that you have given quite a thoughtful comment, which people new to education might not quite get. Probably the main reason for academy orders was to try to expedite improvement quickly against a backlash. Would it not be great if we could get everyone on side to be able to act really quickly, together, to improve schools that need improving? I am not going to get hung up on this bit. What I want to see is the vision for how we are going to work together with the best knowledge we have about school improvement, and with a sense of absolute urgency about making sure that no child is sitting in a failing school, because childhood lasts such a short time. What makes a great school? Whatever background you are from—whether you are from the academy sector or the local authority sector—the evidence is clear: we need a great headteacher and great teachers allowed to do their jobs, with support from a family of schools, whatever that family of schools is. That is what we need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Yes. Before I do, I want to praise the fact that the children’s bit of the Bill really listens to children, because it has tried to do that. I want the schools bit to do the same. Since Minister Morgan is asking the question, I will say that he was the first person to speak to my ambassadors and actually try to take on board their views. That is important for all of us—we need to hear from children all the time.
I have been obsessed with the unique identifier from the second I got into my role. I do not need to spell out why—well, maybe I do. In my first couple of weeks in the role, I visited a violence reduction unit—a police crime reduction unit—in Bedfordshire, and it had a spreadsheet of children that were on nobody’s roll. They were not on any GP system or school roll; they were known by nobody. We cannot, in this century, with the tech capacity we have, find ourselves in that position.
I spoke to Professor Jay yesterday about the terrible abuse of young girls that has been going on and what to do about it. Do you know what she told me? She told me that one local area she was working with had a massive increase in sexually transmitted diseases in girls aged 13 and 14, but the health authority would not share the data with the police, under a completely misguided view about data sharing. My view is that we must invest in a unique identifier. Had Sara Sharif’s social workers had a unique identifier, they would have had the information and tech to know from other authorities she had been in that she was a child known to social services. The school would have known. Children, particularly vulnerable children, think we already know their stories. They think that we, the adults, are already talking to each other. For children, that is just how they think it should be—the adults who care for them should know.
Let me be clear, and be under no illusion: the parlous state of data systems means that the unique identifier will be a huge job. However, I am so pleased to see it committed to in the Bill. If there is one thing I would like to see before my term ends in the next couple of years, it is the unique identifier on the way. It will underpin so many things that we want in education, in child protection, in gluing the systems together and in the multi-agency work, so absolutely, we need it.
The Chair
Will the witnesses from Ofsted please introduce themselves?
Sir Martyn Oliver: I am Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted.
Yvette Stanley: My name is Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for early years regulation and social care inspection and regulation.
Lee Owston: I am Lee Owston, one of His Majesty’s inspectors and Ofsted’s national director for education.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: No, we do not find that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We do not actually look at the backgrounds of teachers and check to that level of detail, so I could not give you a quantitative answer. I do know that increasingly, as schools are finding it difficult to recruit and retain staff, they are looking at alternative measures. It is massively important that people be qualified to teach children to the highest possible standard in the specialism in which they are delivering.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Speaking as a previous headteacher, absolutely. Bringing in external expertise to supplement high-quality qualified teachers is clearly of benefit to children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“if any key judgement is inadequate…we will place the school in a formal category of concern.”
How will that work in future? If a school is in the bottom tier of one of your new categories of assessment, what will happen?
Sir Martyn Oliver: The legal powers for Ofsted are that I identify to the Secretary of State a school that is in special measures or requires significant improvement. That requirement—from, I think, the Education and Inspections Act 2006—will not change. Ofsted will still be under a duty to pass that on to the Secretary of State. Very imminently, I will consult on a new framework that will strengthen and raise standards further. I am interested to see what the Department for Education will release alongside my consultation to explain those academy orders further.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Yes, but I think it is very imminent. I am very happy: I feel that we are going to hold the system to account to raise standards better than ever before.
The Chair
It will help if those Members who wanted to ask a question last time but were not called indicate if they want to ask a question in this session.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: The coalition broadly welcomes the potentially transformational proposals that are contained within the Bill, including those for a single unique identifier, which is one of the things that the coalition has been specifically calling for over a period of time. Multiple reviews have found that information sharing between agencies is problematic, so that is one of the things that we think could really aid child protection, safeguarding and multi-agency working. I would say that to really shift the dial we need further investment in early intervention and early help across our communities, and much greater focus on embedding that consistently and universally. We also need some further clarification on some of the areas that the single unique identifier will need for effective application, I think it is fair to say.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: Yes, certainly. I will raise the third area and then I will come back to that, if I may. The third area is mechanisms for ensuring that the voices, wishes, feelings and experiences of children and young people really influence the provisions in the Bill, and to put those at the heart of support.
On the single unique identifier, there are some questions that we think are worth some further scrutiny. The first of those is the question whether the single unique identifier would be assigned to all babies, children and young people, and a confirmation that that would be for children between the ages of nought and 18. We also think there is an opportunity to extend the use of the identifier, the scope of which is currently limited in the Bill to safeguarding and welfare purposes. A wider emphasis on wellbeing of children and young people and positive outcomes is one of the things that could be further considered here.
As ever, implementation cannot wait, and it would be helpful to have some indicative timescales for when the Secretary of State might introduce regulations for the consistent identifier and how people will be required to use it within their systems. Finally, while acknowledging the need for data protection, there is an opportunity to make better, data-informed decisions in the future about the commissioning and scoping of services that will effectively meet the needs of children and young people, as well as taking account of some of their emerging vulnerabilities and risk and need factors.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Mark Russell: I associate myself entirely with everything that my colleague has said, but I have a couple of extra points. I would want the Bill to include a measurement of children’s wellbeing. I welcome the fact that the title of the Bill mentions children’s wellbeing, but we have no measurement of children’s wellbeing. We in the Children’s Society measure children’s wellbeing, but we are a charity; we are measuring a sample of children rather than all children. The Government talk about wanting to be child-centred. A measurement of children’s wellbeing would be real data on what real children think about their lives, and that would provide a huge amount of information for local authorities to ensure that local services meet the needs of young people. That is one thing.
Secondly, I would welcome schools becoming a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, because so many safeguarding challenges are first identified by schools—I speak not just as the chief executive of a charity, but as a school governor. Thirdly, I hugely welcome the breakfast clubs and the changes to the rules on school uniform; the Children’s Society has campaigned on school uniform for many years. Those will help families. I understand why the Government have made the breakfast clubs a universal offer, but with limited funds, I would like to see secondary school children included in it, but with the breakfast clubs available first to children from families receiving universal credit. The free school meal allowance has not gone up for a very long time. We think that around 1 million children in this country who are living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and we know that hunger hugely limits what children can do in school and their learning. If we can change that, we will improve the opportunities for, and wellbeing of young people.
Katharine Sacks-Jones: I want to focus on the provisions on children in care and young care leavers. There are some welcome steps to better support care leavers. At the moment, young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, where support falls away, often on their 18th birthday. A huge number go on to face homelessness —one in three become homeless within two years of leaving care—and that has meant a big increase in statutory homelessness among care leavers: a 54% rise in the past five years. There is a real challenge to ensure that we better support young people leaving the care system.
In that context, extending Staying Close up to the age of 25 and making it a statutory provision is welcome, but we think the Bill could go further in strengthening the legal entitlement for young people leaving care. There are two areas in particular. The first is that we are concerned about the how the Bill assesses whether a young person’s welfare requires Staying Close support. Where you have those kinds of assessment, particularly in times of scarcity, the extra support is often rationed, which will mean that many young people are not eligible for it or are not assessed as being in need. We think that rationing needs to be removed. Instead, there should be an assumption that a young person leaving care does require some extra support; the question should be what that support looks like, and we would like to see the provisions in the Bill broadened to allow local authorities to provide other types of support beyond what the Bill provides for at the moment, which is largely advice and guidance.
We welcome the strengthening of the care leaver local offer to include provisions around housing and homelessness. As I said, those are big issues for young people leaving care. We also warmly welcome the Government’s recent amendment on homelessness intentionality, which would remove intentionality from care leavers. We hear from young people who have found themselves homeless because, for example, they accepted a place at university in a different part of the country, and they were then deemed by their home local authority to be intentionally homeless and so not eligible for further homelessness assistance. We think that needs to change. That is a welcome step.
We think the Bill could go further in looking at priority need for young people leaving care. At the moment, that goes up to 21; we think it should go up to the age of 25, in line with other entitlements for young care leavers. We are also disappointed not to see in the Bill the extension of corporate parenting—something that the Government have previously committed to.
There are some welcome measures that will increase oversight and accountability, and help with some of the structural challenges, in relation to the provision of homes for children. We do not think those go far enough in addressing the huge issue around the sufficiency of placements for children. That issue is seeing more and more children moved across the country, moved far from their local areas and being moved frequently—a huge amount of instability. That is a big challenge. We would like to see a requirement for a national strategy that looks at the issue of sufficiency and collects better data, as well as an annual report to Parliament on progress against that strategy. Finally, to reinforce the point made by colleagues, young people’s voices are really important. The importance of considering young people’s wishes and feelings is set out in other pieces of legislation, and there are a number of areas in the Bill that would benefit from the inclusion of that, too.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Mark Russell: Perhaps I should say that we are working with about 75,000 young people around the country, and so many more young people are reporting as being hungry than have been for quite some time. We know that families are under huge strain. We saw in our “Good Childhood Report” this year that 84% of parents were anxious about being able to pay their bills, and we also saw that one in three parents were struggling to pay for a hot meal every single day. As they are provided to all children in the school, I think breakfast clubs will provide a real sense of uniformity and equality, and will give every child the best possible start to the day. Children who are hungry cannot learn and cannot thrive. I have friends who are teachers, and they are telling me that in classrooms around the country they are seeing children who are hungry and living in homes that are cold. Anything that we can do to support families is really important, so I welcome breakfast clubs. As I said earlier, I would like to see secondary school children helped, and if the pot is limited, I would probably step back from universality and provide for those most in need.
Also, alongside that, this needs to link up with the Government’s child poverty strategy that is coming later this year, which we are very much looking forward to seeing, about how we lift more and more families out of poverty. According to the stats, there are 4.3 million children in this country in poverty, and those children will not get the best start in life or thrive in school if they are hungry and cannot succeed. I obviously very much welcome the measures on that in the Bill.
The Chair
We now move on to representatives from the Churches. Could you begin by introducing yourselves, please?
Nigel Genders: My name is Nigel Genders. I am the chief education officer for the Church of England, which means that I have the national responsibility for the Church of England’s work in education, and I oversee 4,700 schools, which educate 1 million children.
Paul Barber: I am Paul Barber. I am director of the Catholic Education Service, which is the education agency of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales, and we provide just over 2,000 schools across England.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: The cap is a policy rather than law. We would very much like to see the cap lifted. My understanding of the current policy is that it applies to free schools, and we would very much like to see that lifted. The consultation took place and there has not, as yet, been a Government response to that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: I do not—that is not in my hands.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: You are right to raise the issue of behaviour. When we talk to teachers across the country, one of the biggest things that puts people off teaching, in terms of the retention and recruitment crisis, is children’s behaviour. I am not sure there are particular things that you need legislation for in that space; it is about just giving teachers greater confidence. We are doing work in teacher training and leadership training to equip teachers to be really fantastic teachers, which are all important tools available to the system to really prioritise that area. I cannot think of anything particularly in the legislative space that would be needed.
Paul Barber: I agree with Nigel that discipline is definitely a factor in the recruitment and retention of teachers, and it is something that we need to give some attention to. Like Nigel, I do not think there is anything specific that is required legislatively, but I think what is needed is an overall accountability framework within which schools have the flexibility to respond to the needs of their particular pupil populations. Our schools have a very good track record of being orderly, and I think that is one of the reasons why they are very popular with parents. It is about school leaders and professionals being able to do what is in the best interest of their pupils and enabling the behaviour to be what it should be in our schools.
Neil O'Brien
Q
My second, more specific question is whether there is anything you would have concerns about being in the curriculum. I am particularly thinking of religious education and topics like that. Are there ideas out there that you would be concerned about being forced into all schools?
Nigel Genders: As previous panels have said, there is a slight complexity about the timing of the Bill and the intention to bring in a national curriculum for everyone. In broad principle, I think it is right. There are one or two caveats I will go on to talk about, but in broad principle it is right to create a level playing field and have a broad and balanced curriculum across the piece for everybody. The complexity is that this legislation is happening at the same time as the curriculum and assessment review, so our schools are being asked to sign up to a general curriculum for everybody without knowing what that curriculum is likely to be.
Certainly among the schools and leaders I have spoken to the hope is that through the process of the curriculum review, and certainly in the evidence we have been giving to that, we will end up with a much broader, richer balance of both academic and vocational and technical skills within the curriculum. We hope to have something of broad appeal to everybody that is at a high level, and under which everybody can find an equal place in that space. But we do not know at the moment.
The Chair
We do not want to go too far into the curriculum today, because it is not really part of the Bill.
Paul Barber: I will keep my remarks brief. We have a very clear understanding of what a curriculum is in a Catholic school. It is very much a broad, balanced and holistic curriculum in which there are no siloes and the curriculum subjects interact with each other. There is of course the centrality of RE, which you mentioned. We are hopeful that the review will provide a framework within which we will be able to deliver alongside other views of curricula in other schools.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Barber: Sorry; I misunderstood. You are talking about the restrictions on schools unilaterally changing their published admission number. Our position on that is that it is because of this relationship between admissions and the planning of school places, which must be planned in some way. Our diocese has a long track record of decades of working with its local authorities and with the diocese in the Church of England to work out what is required in the future, and looking forward for places and planning that. Having some kind of regulation of schools’ published admissions numbers is quite helpful in ensuring that that works smoothly, because if you plan it and three schools then arbitrarily decide to increase their published admission number, that creates some real problems locally with place planning.
Nigel Genders: We would agree with that. Not to rehearse all that Paul has just said, but a further point is that when it comes to resourcing local authorities to carry out their role in the allocation and direction of schools to take particular pupils, we are really keen to see that done in a way that makes fairness the arbitrating factor to ensure that there is a real fairness of approach. The collaboration between maintained and academy and diocese and local authority very much needs to happen, and we would welcome that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
The Chair
Let us have a fairly quick answer. One other Member would like to ask a question as well.
Neil O'Brien
Do we know whether that is the case?
Nigel Genders: There is the question of how to make all that possible within the allotted hours that staff can be directed. It needs resourcing. It does not have to be teachers who provide those breakfast clubs—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: They will have to be resourced to do it in other ways to make it possible.
The Chair
We will now move on to representatives from various academies. If you could begin by introducing yourselves, that would be helpful to the Committee.
Luke Sparkes: I am Luke Sparkes, and I lead the Dixons Academy Trust. We run urban complex schools in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool.
Sir Dan Moynihan: I am Dan Moynihan, CEO for the Harris Federation. We run 55 academies in and around London, most of which were previously failing schools.
Sir Jon Coles: I am John Coles, and I run United Learning, which is a group of just over 100 schools nationally—again, mostly previously failing schools. Before the 13 years I have spent doing that, I spent 15 years in the Department for Education, and the last four on the board.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Jon Coles: My top concern is about pay and conditions freedoms. We take schools that have got themselves into serious difficulty and look to turn them around. If you want to turn around schools that have failed seriously—often generationally—to give children a good standard of education, clearly you need to attract very good people to come and work in those places; the quality of a school is never going to exceed the quality of its teachers. Therefore, the things that we do with pay and conditions are designed to make sure that we can attract and retain the very best teachers to do the toughest jobs, which I think is our fundamental role as a trust.
I think we really need those freedoms. They are very important to us. Obviously, that applies to this Bill, in relation to schoolteachers’ pay and conditions, but it also applies to the Employment Rights Bill, in relation to the school support staff negotiating body. Those are fundamentally important to us.
I have been hugely encouraged by the Secretary of State’s remarks that what she wants is a floor but no ceiling, and that is something that we can absolutely work with. I hope that that is what we see coming through. At this moment, that is not what the Bill says; it says that we have to abide by the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. I think there is an ongoing conversation to be had about whether that is where we end up, because that is not quite a floor but no ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Having looked at that document, it does have a whole bunch of different maximums in it. It has quite specific maximums as well as minimums.
Sir Jon Coles: The thing about the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document is that it is fundamentally a contract. Section 122 of the Education Act 2002—it happens to be an Act that I took through Parliament as a Bill manager, when I was a civil servant—essentially says that the Secretary of State may, by order, issue what is commonly known as the pay order, but the pay order includes a lot of conditions. Section 122 of the Act says that that applies as if it were a contract. Indeed, if you are a teacher in a maintained school, typically your contract will literally say, “You are employed under the terms of the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document,” so it is your contract.
Therefore, the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document has to act as a contract. It has to be specific. A teacher looking it up has to be able to see, “What are my terms and conditions? Have I been treated properly?” and so on. That is how the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document needs to work, so if we have to abide by it precisely, that is what we would have to abide by.
I think that officials—I speak as an ex-official—should be asked to look again at whether the Bill they have produced for Ministers does what Ministers want it to do, and whether it actually provides a floor but no ceiling, or whether there is something slightly different that would enact Ministers’ policy.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: We have taken over failing schools in very disadvantaged places in London, and we have found youngsters in the lower years of secondary schools unable to read and write. We varied the curriculum in the short term and narrowed the number of subjects in key stage 3 in order to maximise the amount of time given for literacy and numeracy, because the children were not able to access the other subjects. Of course, that is subject to Ofsted. Ofsted comes in, inspects and sees whether what you are doing is reasonable.
That flexibility has allowed us to widen the curriculum out again later and take those schools on to “outstanding” status. We are subject to Ofsted scrutiny. It is not clear to me why we would need to follow the full national curriculum. What advantage does that give? When we have to provide all the nationally-recognised qualifications —GCSEs, A-levels, SATs—and we are subject to external regulation by Ofsted, why take away the flexibility to do what is needed locally?
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: They are very useful when it comes to conditions. As Jon was saying, the narrative coming through about a floor and no ceiling is encouraging. I can see that working for pay, but I am not sure how that would work for conditions. My significant concerns with the Bill are about conditions. We have done more than most as a trust to try to position ourselves as a modern organisation. We know that post-millennials are not going to accept the norms that currently exist in our sector. We have also tried to overcome the rigidity of the job with innovations such as the nine-day fortnight. That innovation is starting to diffuse across the sector.
We want to be even bolder. We are really starting to think about how we can totally re-imagine the school workforce. That is because most complex schools—the kind of schools that we lead—have become, in many ways, the fourth emergency service. That is by stealth and not by choice. We have had to address the scope and intensity of the job.
I wanted to make that position clear. It is from that position and understanding that we still believe that a rigid set of expectations around conditions will stifle innovation—the kind of innovation that the three of us have led across our trusts. Leaders working in our context need the freedom to do things differently. That, of course, was the point of Labour’s academy policy in the first place. I accept that in some instances, it is possible to negotiate around standard conditions, but not everybody can do that. The innovations we are leading will not be scaleable if we are all forced to align to a set of rigid standards.
It is also worth knowing that our most successful schools at Dixons—the ones that are getting the best results for disadvantaged students nationally—would have to fundamentally change as schools if they had to align to a set of rigid standards. That would be bound to impact negatively on outcomes for children, and not just academic outcomes. It would be a significant backward step. Finally, an interesting point is that our most innovative schools—the ones that are using their freedoms the most—actually have the highest staff engagement scores. These freedoms benefit and are attractive to staff.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: Certainly, around the areas that I have just described.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: It is an excellent idea. Too many children disappear off-roll and are not monitored sufficiently. I would say it probably does not go far enough. When any child leaves the school roll, whether they are at risk or not, we should know why it happens and whether the parent can make proper provision for them, so it is a really good idea. My concern is whether local authorities have the resourcing to make this thing work. As we all know, they are under immense pressure. However, it is about time that we had it, and it is a real move forward. The question is about their ability to deliver it.
Sir Jon Coles: I agree with all that. I am not sure quite how many Secretaries of State have thought it was a good idea to do this, but it is a lot of them, and they have all backed off it before now. I think it is good, important and brave that it is being done, because while I support the right of parents to home educate, and I think that is an important freedom in society, those of us who work in challenging areas can see that there is an overriding child protection and child safeguarding risk. That risk has grown, is growing and does need to be tackled.
Luke Sparkes: I echo that. I think the correlation of families who apply for elective home education, for example, and the vulnerability of those children is known. Whether it is in relation to attendance, unsupportive parenting or poor relationships with schools, challenging EHE is the right thing to do. However, as Sir Dan said, it will need significant additional resource if a school is to ensure that the child is supported to integrate into school in that way.
The Chair
Could the two witnesses in the room introduce themselves as well?
Rebecca Leek: I am Rebecca Leek. I am currently the executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association. There are 253 primary schools in Suffolk; around a third of them are local authority and two thirds are academies. I am currently also an interim headteacher in a local authority school. I have been a headteacher in an academy school and a CEO of a trust, and I have worked in inner-city London, urban Ipswich and rural Suffolk.
Leora Cruddas: I am Leora Cruddas; thank you very much for the invitation to give evidence to this Committee. I am the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, which is the national organisation and sector body representing school trusts in England. Around 77% of all academy schools are in membership.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Do you have concerns that the general power is a bit untrammelled at the moment? Might it be sensible to table some amendments to that, so that we have some proportionality and do not have the Secretary of State being constantly sucked into intervening in schools and being pressed to do so by lots of different activists?
Leora Cruddas: The first thing I should say is that we really welcome the children’s wellbeing part of this Bill. There are a lot of good things in the Bill. We do have some concerns, as you say, about the schools part of the Bill, including, as you have heard from my colleagues, about pay and conditions. We welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification on that in her evidence to the Education Committee. We now need to work with the Government to make sure that the clarification around direction of travel is reflected in the way that the Bill is laid out. We do not think that the Secretary of State’s intention is properly reflected in the clause as it stands.
We do have concerns about the power to direct. We think it is too wide at the moment. We accept that the policy intention is one of equivalence in relation to maintained schools, but maintained schools are different legal structures from academy trusts, and we not think that the clauses in the Bill properly reflect that. It is too broad and it is too wide. We would like to work with the Government to restrict it to create greater limits. Those limits should be around statutory duties on academy trusts, statutory guidance, the provisions in the funding agreement and charity law.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I worry about that, particularly in the context of falling school numbers in some areas, which will make these questions quite acute, because of the lack of any guidance or trammelling around it. For example, if there is an outstanding school and one that is struggling and may shut, where is the prioritisation? Where are the rules that say, “You must not treat academies unfairly compared with your local authority schools.”? Do you share any of those concerns? Do you think that there is scope to make amendments to improve the Bill?
Leora Cruddas: I start by saying that we really welcome the duty to collaborate at a local level. Trusts already work with local authorities; you may have heard that from my colleagues in the previous session.
We are concerned about some of the potential conflicts of interest. We say “potential” conflicts of interest in the context, as you point out, of falling primary school rolls. We would like to work with Government to set out a high-level, strategic decision-making framework that would mean that, in a local area, we know our children really well and we get our children into the right provision at the right time. That means working together strategically around pupil numbers, admissions, falling rolls and the sufficiency of need in a local area. Those conflicts of interest can be managed, but they would need to be set out in a very carefully framed decision-making framework so that they are managed properly.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“We accept current arrangements are fractured: introducing the Schools Adjudicator worsens rather than improves this”.
What do you mean by that?
Leora Cruddas: We are not sure what the intention is behind the Government’s need to bring forward the clause in the Bill that would introduce greater powers for a schools adjudicator. That is one of the conflicts of interest that we would be alive to—if a local authority could bring forward a case to resist an academy trust’s pupil admission number, that would be a source of concern for us. That is why we need this high-level decision-making framework.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“The schools bill working its way through Parliament…is not good legislation.”
You described it as “micromanagement” and “stifling”. You talked about some of your experiences as a headteacher. Can you expand a bit on the overall vision and direction of travel?
Rebecca Leek: Yes. I love being a headteacher—I was a headteacher yesterday, doing an assembly—but I have stood in both camps, and I have worked in very rapid turnaround situations with trusts.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: One of the things about the school sector is that it is incredibly complex, so you have to have complex solutions for complex systems—if you know anything about systems thinking. To support such a complex system, there needs to be room for agility, so the reason why I was writing that—we will talk about my specific experience as well—is that I know quite a lot about systems theory and governance. I have written a book on governance, subsidiarity and why it is important to have flexibility and agility in localities. That comes from theoretical knowledge about how to create good systems that meet the needs of very complex things, which is what schools are. I cannot impress on the Committee enough how much diversity there is in the school system, and how much there is the need for agility.
As a headteacher on the frontline, my dominoes can topple within a term: I am in a small school; I lose two senior teachers; a safeguarding issue happens because something in the locality changes, and I suddenly have to find a pastoral lead, because there are more safeguarding issues; I am trying to get more engagement with some of the local services, which might be struggling because they are undercapacity; and there is a recruitment crisis with teachers, honestly, and also with headteachers—hence I am an interim headteacher, as we can never recruit headteachers, because it is such a hard job, given so much grit in the system. There is that fundamental need for agility.
I do therefore have a concern, and my colleagues share that. I speak to headteachers and CEOs all the time in Suffolk—I met a trust last week and spoke to a CEO of a trust with 12 primary schools on the phone yesterday. We went over some of the things in the Bill. We know that the agility that the academies legislation and other changes brought into the system have helped us to be very adaptive to certain circumstances. Anything that says, “Well, we are going to go slightly more with a one-size-fits-all model”—bearing in mind, too, that we do not know what that looks like, because this national curriculum has not even been written yet—is a worry. That is what I mean. If we suddenly all have to comply with something that is more uniform and have to check—“Oh no, we cannot do that”, “Yes, we can do that”, “No, we can’t do that”, “Yes, we can do that”—it will impede our ability to be agile around our school communities and our job.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: There are a few specific things, and some other things. I had to step in as an interim headteacher in Ipswich just prior to covid. I did not have an early years lead and we had Ofsted six weeks in: we got RI—with good for leadership and management, thank you very much—but I still did not have an early years teacher. I needed to solve that incredibly quickly, so I liaised with three different agencies and made contact with various different people. There was someone who was not a qualified teacher, but who had been running an outstanding nursery. She had decided to stop running it, because of her work-life balance, and she thought she might want to work in a school. I took her on, and although she was not qualified, she was really excellent. I was able to do that because it was an academy school, and it was not an issue. In a maintained school, there is a specific need for a qualified teacher to teach in early years, so I would not have been able to take her on.
That is just one example. Another example is that maintained schools, I think under the 2002 legislation, must have a full-time headteacher—they must have a headteacher at all times. In a small rural school, that is financially a real burden, and it is one of the reasons why I am not a permanent headteacher. Last year, I was an interim headteacher. I came to an agreement with those at the local authority that I would do it on four days a week, and they kind of accepted that—it was a bit of a fudge, because it is actually non-compliant. They asked, “Will you carry on?”, and I said, “No, because I am not going to be full-time.” At the moment, I am three days a week and, again, it is okay because I am interim—academies can have great flexibility around leadership arrangements.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: It is a real problem for small rural schools particularly. They function really well in little pockets of two or three schools together, with maybe one executive head dealing with some of the headaches—because there are headaches—and with some things that are more systematic across the three schools. Yes, definitely.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: There definitely are trusts that have used their freedoms around the national curriculum. I would say it is not unreasonable for a state to want a high-level national curriculum framework—that is not an unreasonable position—
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: That is exactly right. Under this legislation, we could end up with a high-level national curriculum framework—once again, as I said on pay and conditions, with a floor but no ceiling. That would protect the right of schools and trusts, all schools and trusts, to innovate, to be agile, to respond to local context, and to be centres of curriculum excellence—you heard Sir Jon Coles talk about his curriculum. We want to retain that notion of curriculum flexibility, curriculum freedoms.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: It would be very helpful to have clarity on that position. Obviously, we have not had the curriculum and assessment review report yet. I have absolute confidence that Professor Francis will be eminently sensible. She is a very serious person, and will follow the evidence; but I think we need to be careful that we are not tying ourselves into high levels of prescription in all parts of the Bill, including the national curriculum.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Again, I would cite the Secretary of State’s evidence to the Select Committee, where she made clear that it is also her expectation around curriculum to have that floor and to be able to innovate and have flexibility above that floor.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Yes, I would say that was true.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Rebecca Leek: I can only tell you, from my experience, that there is a lot of collaboration where I work. We have Suffolk Education Partnership, which is made up of local authority representatives, associations, CEOs and headteachers. Admissions are not really my area, in this Bill, but my experience is that there is collaboration. We are always looking to place children and make sure that they have somewhere if they are permanently excluded. There is real commitment in the sector to that, from my experience where I work.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I want to ask you first about the national curriculum and its imposition on all academy schools. We have heard about the use of that flexibility as a form of freedom—where schools are being turned around, they might do something different for a while and diverge from the national curriculum. But I know there are also trusts and school leaders who use it on a longer-term basis—they make a conscious choice to focus on, for example, the core academics, often in situations of great difficulty, in order to secure what they regard as the most important, core things for their students that will enable the maximum number of choices later on.
Obviously you have been a maths teacher—you have been in that core discipline—and I wondered whether, in an education system where parents have school choice and can choose different things that are right for their child, you thought it was legitimate for people to have different models and to have that flexibility, and whether it was useful to have that freedom from the national curriculum.
David Thomas: We need to strike a careful balance. It is absolutely a central purpose of education to make sure that all children going out into society have some shared knowledge in common and can interact as a society and function in that way. That is very important. It is also important that people running schools get to look at their children, look at the challenges they are facing and have bold and ambitious visions for what they want those children to go on and do and what that community wants for itself, and that they can be flexible and go on and achieve that. That is why you need a balance of different things.
At the moment we have statutory assessments that apply to all schools, whether an academy or a maintained school. We have Ofsted making sure that you teach a curriculum that is at least as broad and balanced as the national curriculum, so that you cannot go narrow. But you need to be ambitious for your children, and my understanding from Sir Martyn’s evidence earlier was that that system appears to be working for children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: No, there is not one that I can see.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Clause 43, as drafted, goes beyond the explanatory notes and what Ministers have stated their intention to be. If the intention of the clause is to allow Ministers to intervene where an academy trust is breaching a power, but to do that in a way that is short of termination, that is a very sensible thing to want to do and the Government should absolutely be able to do that. If the purpose is, as it says in the explanatory notes, to issue a direction to academy trusts to comply with their duty, that feels like a perfectly reasonable thing to be able to do. The Bill, as drafted, gives the Secretary of State the ability to
“give the proprietor such directions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.
I do not think it is appropriate for a Secretary of State to give an operational action plan to a school, but I think it is perfectly reasonable for a Secretary of State to tell a school that it needs to follow its duty. I think there is just a mismatch between the stated intention and the drafting, and I would correct that mismatch.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Yes.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: On pay and conditions, I agree with the Secretary of State’s stated intention to spread the freedom to innovate, and to make teaching a more attractive profession, to all schools. I think we are only scratching the surface as a profession of what it means to offer flexible working within education. I do not think anyone has really mastered that, and it is a really big challenge. We need to be allowing the maximum freedom for people to be able to innovate. Of course, we have just done an experiment in what happens if you tell lots and lots of schools that they do not need to follow the statutory teachers’ pay and conditions: people only ever exceed it and offer things that are more attractive, because you want the very best teachers in your school.
I think it is essential that we have that freedom, and it is not enough for a Government to say that their intention is to grant that in a future statutory teachers’ pay and conditions document. It needs to be there in legislation for trusts to know that will be the case, which is really important for both pay and conditions. If you want to nail flexibility and offer that to teachers, you need to be able to trade off around conditions to make something more flexible. I think that is really important, and I agree with the Government’s intention, but I do not think that the Bill, as drafted, achieves that at the moment.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I think it would absolutely work, as CST has suggested, to say that statutory teachers’ pay and conditions should be an advisory thing that schools and trusts need to have due regard of, and to continue with something like the School Teachers Review Body. As it is at the moment, they are effectively setting a default starting position from which people can innovate out if they want to, rather than capping what people are able to do.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have concerns about limiting the number of people with unqualified teacher status who are not working towards qualified teacher status.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have worked with some fantastic people—generally late-career people in shortage subjects who want to go and give back in the last five to 10 years of their career—who would not go through some of the bureaucracy associated with getting qualified teacher status but are absolutely fantastic and have brought wonderful things to a school and to a sector. I have seen them change children’s lives. We know we have a flow of 600 people a year coming into the sector like that. If those were 600 maths teachers and you were to lose that, that would be 100,000 fewer children with a maths teacher. None of us knows what we would actually lose, but that is a risk that, in the current system, where we are so short of teachers, I would choose not to take.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
David Thomas: Yes. I find it very odd how little flexibility lots of teachers are given. As a headteacher I remember teachers asking me questions such as, “Am I allowed to leave site to do my marking?” and I thought, “Why are you asking me this? You are an adult”. I absolutely agree with that direction of travel, but I do not see that reflected in the wording of the Bill, so I think there is an exercise to be done to make sure that that is reflected in the Bill. Otherwise, the risk is that it does not become the actual direction of travel.
The Chair
Thank you very much for coming. Apologies; we are a little bit later starting than we had anticipated because of the delay for voting earlier. Could you introduce yourself?
Kate Anstey: I am Kate Anstey, the head of education policy at Child Poverty Action Group.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: We certainly welcome the introduction of free breakfast clubs in the Bill. We speak to children and families in schools extensively and carry out extensive analysis. We know that where breakfast clubs are provided freely, they make a huge difference to low-income families —they make a big difference to lots of children, but to lower-income families disproportionately. The fact that provision is universal is very important; we know that removes a lot of barriers for parents. Where there is any kind of targeted approach, there are issues around stigma and families are less likely to use provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, exactly. Take-up of breakfast clubs varies, but the fact that it is universally available is very important.
I would say that it feels like secondary school pupils need more attention. They are being missed in the Bill. More could be done to support those families. There is also the issue in primary schools of how much support breakfast clubs can provide in terms of childcare, which is much more needed at primary level, but secondary school pupils certainly need support. They need support to get to school and they need food available as well.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: My understanding is that the HAF funding for holiday programmes has been committed to until 2025—some time this year. There are concerns about what will happen next with holiday programmes. In terms of funding for breakfast clubs more generally, there has been commitment to carry on funding the national school breakfast programme until 2026. That supports some secondary schools that meet the criteria. That is welcome, but one of our concerns with the work going on around breakfast clubs is funding and commitment to funding. We know that there is funding until 2026.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, there is no certainty after that. The costs cannot land on families—we know that that will be a major barrier—but they also cannot land on schools, which need to know that they can continue that provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Around 75% of schools have some form of breakfast provision already, but, as you say—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: There is a higher proportion in primary, but that 75% is across all. Sorry—I have forgotten your question.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: A large proportion are already running breakfast clubs. It is a real mixture in terms of how that is funded, whether it is through schemes or other things. In primary schools, it is much more likely that parents are paying in some form for that. Again, it is a mixed picture. There is a postcode lottery for families. If you are in a more affluent area, you are more likely to have breakfast club provision available to you, and you are more likely to be supported by family.
In what the Bill is trying to do on breakfast clubs, we really welcome the fact that it is bringing consistency and ensuring that there is access for all families. In the early adopter phase, it would be good to understand what schools are doing already and how this can work, but I think that standardised limit that includes both time and food for families should be standardised for everybody. There might be other things that go around that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: It is probably worth speaking to organisations; I am sure that Magic Breakfast will be able to speak more to that. There are certainly economies of scale that can help you bring down costs, but again, our area of expertise is free school meals, and schools are struggling with the funding that they have for free school meals. I would imagine that 65p might be a struggle for schools—I do not know. You would have to have conversations with some of the providers about that.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Kate Anstey: We were very pleased to see Government taking action on reducing the cost of the school day, and uniforms are a huge pressure for families. We have done some research looking at the cost of uniforms for families. If you are a primary-aged family, the cost is £350 minimum, and it goes up to about £450 for secondary-aged families. That is for one child, of course, so that multiplies if you have more children. Part of that includes the fact that schools sometimes have excessive lists of compulsory branded items, so we were very pleased to see that acknowledgment in the Bill and the recognition that that needs to be limited. We think that that will make some difference to families.
The Bill could have gone further. I am not sure why the difference has been made between secondary and primary on the minimum. I think that those should be the same; there should not be a discrepancy there. I encourage Government to consider going further on this and bringing down the branded items as much as possible, because that is one of the things that place pressure on families.
In addition, the Bill could go further to support families with the cost of uniforms. In every other UK nation, families get grants and support with school costs. England is the only one that is lagging behind in that area, so we would like the idea of lower-income families getting more support with the cost to be looked at. This is two-pronged: schools need to do more, but families really do need help to meet some of those costs as well.
One more thing on uniform that comes up a lot in our research with children and young people is that children are being isolated or sent home from school because they do not meet requirements around uniform. DFE data showed that 18% of children in hardship were sent home for not meeting uniform requirements. I find that kind of shocking when we have an attendance crisis. Something needs to be done around the guidance for behaviour in schools to ensure that children are not sanctioned for poverty-related issues or issues relating to uniform. Those are areas where I think that the Bill could have gone further, but we certainly think restricting branded items is a good thing.
The Chair
Order. It is not acceptable to have this backwards and forwards across the Committee. Please ask a question of the witness.
The Chair
Q
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell): I am Catherine McKinnell, the Minister for School Standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan): I am Stephen Morgan, the Minister for Early Education.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I want to say first that the Government’s mission through the Bill—
Neil O'Brien
Could you answer the question?
Catherine McKinnell: I will answer the question.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham North) (Lab)
We are supposed to be polite to each other.
Neil O'Brien
We have limited time. Can you please just answer the question. I have incredibly limited time.
The Chair
Order. We have had a question, and the Minister is going to answer it.
Catherine McKinnell: The Government’s mission through the Bill is to deliver on the ambition of giving every child a national core of high-quality education, while allowing schools more flexibility and to innovate beyond it. We know that excellence and innovation can be found in all school types, so our priority is to create a school system that is rooted in collaboration and partnership so that we can spread that best practice throughout our very diverse system, which was commented on in the evidence we heard today. That is just the schools part; there is obviously a whole other section on children and safeguarding, and making sure we bring forward the landmark reforms that we need to see in child safeguarding.
In direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, the factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s education in schools and colleges is high-quality teaching, but there are severe shortages of qualified teachers across the country. We know that they are integral to driving high and rising standards, and they need to have an attractive pay and conditions framework. That is essential to both recruiting and retaining teachers who are qualified in every classroom.
We know academies have made transformational change, and we want them to continue driving those high and rising standards for all pupils, but especially disadvantaged pupils. That is why, as the Secretary of State set out, we want to create a floor with no ceiling, enabling healthy competition and innovation beyond that core framework to improve all schools. That is what we intend to deliver. We have heard the feedback from the sector. I have listened very carefully to the evidence that has been given today.
What this means for our ambition for teachers pay and conditions is that it should be clearer. In the same way that we have tabled other amendments to the Bill to make sure the legislation delivers our objectives, we are also intending to table an amendment to the clause covering teachers’ pay and conditions. That is entirely in line with the Government’s approach to providing clarification on the intention of legislation while we go through Committee stage.
The amendment will do two things. First, it will set a floor on pay that requires all state schools to follow minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. Secondly, it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teacher’s pay and conditions document. In doing so, we make it clear that we will deliver on our commitment to create a floor with no ceiling, so that good practice and innovation can continue to spread and be used by all state schools to recruit and retain the very best teachers that we need for our children.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: As I said, the amendment will require all state schools to follow the minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document, and then it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. This is so that we can deliver that core offer to all state schools, but without a ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We are in close consultation with all of the stakeholders that we have been collaborating with to make sure we create the best framework of legislation that will deliver opportunity for all children, and we will continue to do so.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I can respond to the hon. Gentleman on the new power in clause 43 that he has raised a number of times today. It will provide the Secretary of State with a more proportionate and flexible remedy, where it is really important to address quite a narrow or specific breach regarding unreasonable behaviour within an academy trust. I can give you an example as to why this is necessary: at the moment existing intervention powers require the Department for Education to use a termination warning notice and subsequently a termination notice. That is not always necessary or appropriate when dealing with an isolated breach of a legal duty.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We need a proportionate response and that needs to be framed—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about a point that he has made on that or a point that—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Obviously, we will listen to legitimate concerns on that. At the moment our view is that it is a much more proportionate way of dealing with a breach by an academy of a legal requirement within the legislation, so that we can avoid disruption to children where there is another way of dealing with it.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I am conscious that other Members of the Committee might want to actually ask about the legislation, but I am happy to set out our overarching vision.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (First sitting)
Neil O'Brien ExcerptsTuesday 21st January 2025
(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 View all Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 Debates Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts Amendment Paper: Public Bill Committee Amendments as at 21 January 2025 - (21 Jan 2025)
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Q
Dr Homden: Particularly, we are concerned that some of the very sensible provisions in the Bill, such as breakfast clubs, are not extended to infants in the early years. There are a number of areas where early years extension would be appropriate, so while we recognise that this is a Bill on children’s wellbeing and schools, none the less the children’s wellbeing elements for the youngest children are particularly important—especially the opportunities for children to receive free meals, and also for the extension of admissions priority. The provisions for the extension of recognition of quality for teaching staff could and should be extended to early years workforce issues.
The second key area is the fact that there are no provisions in relation to children’s access to advocacy—particularly 16 and 17-year-olds, those who are excluded from school, and those who face other forms of crisis in, for example, unregulated accommodation. While others will call for broader extensions of advocacy, these are the focus areas that we would recommend and commend to you as being the most effective ways to ensure that young people have the information they need to exercise decision making, and that they can hold the system to account.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dr Homden: That is indeed an extremely valid point. Many local authorities will offer family group decision making support prior to pre-proceedings, and it is important that the new duty introduced does not take away earlier opportunities to extend the involvement of the family network when children’s services are involved. Timescales are indeed acknowledged to be of critical importance in family law, and statutory guidance should make it clear that nothing in the family group decision making requirement, or the provisions of the Bill, should slow down processes, or delay solutions for babies and children.
Overall, we support the promotion of the family first decision-making approach, but point out that while we understand that it is the preference not to specify a particular model, the evidence from the randomised control trial that Coram conducted is in relation to family group conferencing, and that evidence shows very clearly the importance of independent support, and of consistent and sufficient practice. So we do call upon the consideration of the ways in which there would be a strengthening of consistency and quality of approach to ensure that this really meets the needs of children and families.
It is also worth remembering that family group decision making will not necessarily divert children from care. There has been a significant increase in kinship foster placements, now representing 19% of all active households, but all our casework in the Coram Children’s Legal Centre demonstrates that family group conferencing and well-delivered family group decision making most certainly help.
Anne Longfield: I will briefly add my support on that. There is widespread support for upholding the principles of family group conferencing. In my experience, that intervention can transform children’s and families’ experience at that point and avert decisions being made about them without their involvement, including children, but it has to be done properly. We all want families to be involved, but this is around a process of involving families and children in solutions. That will have a point that it needs to get over, in terms of the mechanisms around it and the actual formality of that. So there is something there that there is widespread support for strengthening.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dr Homden: Absolutely.
The Chair
This is a reminder to Members that is important to catch the Clerk’s eye if you want to ask a question. We will try to get everybody in during the morning and give everybody the same crack of the whip. I will now call the Minister to ask questions.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from two more witnesses. We must stick to the timings: this session must end at 10.30 am. Will you briefly introduce yourselves, please?
Andy Smith: My name is Andy Smith. I am the president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services. In my day job, I am director of children’s services and adult social services in Derby.
Ruth Stanier: I am Ruth Stanier, assistant policy director at the Local Government Association.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Ruth Stanier: Thank you for those extremely important questions. We very much welcome many of the measures in this Bill, which we have long been calling for, but they must be appropriately resourced to have the impact that we want.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Ruth Stanier: You are absolutely right that the new burdens doctrine must be applied in the usual way. There are a number of measures in this Bill for which additional funding will be required, for example the new multi-agency units. We are encouraged that at this stage we are already having early discussions with the Department about the implementation arrangements. We are yet to undertake the full cost estimates, but that work will be set in train with the Department.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Andy Smith: You have to cover both. It has been incredibly important and positive that the Government have taken forward measures to tackle the cost of agency workers. We are seeing the impact of the measures that have taken place already. For example, on Friday in my region we were talking about the implications and impact of the changes that have started to be implemented. We are seeing less churn of workers from one authority to another; we are also seeing some agency workers move over to the permanent books of councils, which is better for children.
It is also important to ensure that we have a sufficient approach and strategy for the workforce generally. That covers all elements of the Bill, so it would include social work but also other professions and other agencies where we have particular challenges. Yes, we absolutely need to focus on the recruitment and retention of social workers as well as tackling the costs of agency workers. I believe that that is already under way and is making some impact.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Andy Smith: I think some things are missing from the Bill. There are some things that will be positive; no doubt we will come to those. What was disappointing, from the policy paper to where we are now, was the lack of corporate parenting: we would have expected to see all Government Departments committing to corporate parenting. We see that lack as a real disappointment, actually. It feels like a once-in-a-generation time for us to focus on the wider responsibility that all Departments should have for our children in care, so that is a particular gap in the Bill.
Ruth Stanier: I very much agree on extending the corporate parenting duty—this must be the right time and the right Bill to do that, and the Government have already committed to doing so in a recent policy paper, so it is really important we get that included. We were also disappointed that the Bill does not have powers for Ofsted to inspect multi-academy trusts, which was a Government election manifesto commitment. We support the similar new powers relating to care placement providers, but in respect of trusts that is an omission.
I am sure you will want to come on to discuss the elective home education provisions. We do support those, but there could be scope for them to go further. In an ideal world, councils would have the power to visit any child where there were concerns. Obviously, that would need to be appropriately resourced, but there could be scope to go further on that provision.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
Q
Andy Smith: A strength in the Bill is the focus on family help and early intervention. We talk a lot about the cost of the care system, but we need to see this in a much more strategic context and sense. We know that there is a lot of evidence. We published research last week showing that for councils that have been able to invest and maintain early help services, it has a direct impact on reducing the number of children coming into the more statutory end of things within children’s social care or the looked-after children service.
The challenge is that we have real variability around early help services across the country, because of the difficulties there have been with council budgets over the past 10 years. Seeing these reforms and the focus on family help in its totality—this goes back to the earlier question about the funding required to implement the reforms—will make a positive impact. It is ultimately better for children to remain with their families. If not, there is a big focus on kinship care, where children remain in the family network. That is a real strength in the Bill.
Ruth Stanier: I completely agree with that. We very much support the measures on support for kinship families. We think that is a very important area.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Julie McCulloch, senior director of strategy, policy and professional development services at the Association of School and College Leaders, and Paul Whiteman, general secretary of the National Association of Head Teachers. You are very welcome. Do you both want to say a brief word of introduction?
Paul Whiteman: I am Paul Whiteman. We broadly support the provisions within the Bill, as far as they connect with schools. The Bill builds upon a lot of the policy positions and ambitions that we have held for some time. We do not see it as a revolution in education, but the provisions are broadly sensible.
Julie McCulloch: We are in a similar place in our schools. There is much in the Bill that aligns with our existing policy positions. We have a few logistical questions about how some of the proposals might play out, and perhaps some questions about how they sit within the Government’s broader vision and strategy for education, but we are broadly in favour of the proposals in the Bill.
Neil O'Brien
Q
“work will be needed to get these measures right…Further changes must be done with care and must not seem ideological.”
You talked about some of the issues that you want to see addressed as we amend the Bill. What are they?
Julie McCulloch: They are largely about the fact that these proposals are landing in a particular context. There are three areas where those logistical challenges exist. The first is that they are landing in the context of a system that has been systematically underfunded for many years. That particularly relates to the proposal about breakfast clubs. We have some questions about ensuring sufficient funding for breakfast clubs.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: That is our understanding. Is that yours too, Paul? There will be the provision of additional funding for the children who most need it, but you can provide provision around that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: I am not sure I would be as confident as that. We have started to have some conversations about that, but not detailed ones.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: We absolutely would, and continued funding.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: I have two other thoughts, just to finish my point about the context within which this is landing. The second is about the challenge around recruitment and retention in schools. Although the proposal about qualified teacher status is absolutely welcome and the right thing in principle, we have had some concerns from our members about the challenges of ensuring that can be followed through, when they are already really struggling to recruit.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: In some cases, yes. That is a sad place to find ourselves, but sometimes that is the case, particularly when we are looking at vocational subjects at the top end of secondary school and into colleges. There are some excellent teachers and lecturers in further education colleges and secondary schools on vocational subjects, who do not necessarily have qualified teacher status, and we need to make sure we can retain them.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: Yes. We absolutely in principle think that there should be qualified teacher status, but it is about that contextual piece.
The third area where we have some concerns about the context is the extent to which there is capacity in local authorities—you have just heard from local authority colleagues—to pick up some of the additional requirements on them. Again, we do not have any concerns about the principle, but some of our members are concerned about whether there is that capacity, and whether that expertise still exists in local authorities.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: No, it is absolutely not a significant number at all. We hear from our members that the vast majority do use the national curriculum as their starting point and as a benchmark, and they innovate on top of it.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: In our view, it is right that there should be a core national entitlement curriculum for all children and young people; we think that is the right thing to do. The devil is in the detail—we are going through a curriculum review at the moment. Our view is that that entitlement is important—on the ground it might not make an enormous amount of difference, but it is still important.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Paul Whiteman: We do think it will help local authorities—we think there has been a gap in terms of their ability to ensure that their admissions duty is fully met. To that extent, the difficulty of some parents to find the school that their children really should go to has been fettered. Therefore, we think these provisions are broadly sensible and to be welcomed.
Julie McCulloch: We agree. The more join-up we can have between local authorities and schools on admissions the better; there are some areas where that is working really well already, and there are others where that statutory duty might help.
Munira Wilson
Q
Paul Whiteman: May I add something in response to your first question, and then deal with your second question? In terms of QTS, we agree with what Julia said, but would add that it is a legitimate expectation of pupils and parents that they are taught by someone who is qualified to do so. Therefore, the provisions in the Bill meaning that people travel towards becoming qualified teachers are very important. That necessity has a marginal impact on recruitment and retention, frankly.
Recruitment and retention is so much more than the flexibilities that may or may not be allowed to academy chains under pay and conditions. Those are sparingly and judiciously used at the moment—we have no objection to how they have been used so far. But those flexibilities have a marginal impact. What affects recruitment and retention is more around workload stress, the stress of accountability, and flexibility within employment, rather than those flexibilities.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Julie McCulloch: Yes.
Amanda Martin
Q
Paul Whiteman: We absolutely support that. A statutory duty for schools and educators to be consulted in that respect is necessary, and it will widen the voices within that. After all, it is in schools that children are most present and visible, and teachers and school leaders already play a role in noticing changes and issues.
Julie McCulloch: We feel the same way. I would simply add that it is a growing set of responsibilities on schools—burden is not the right word, because schools absolutely need to do it. We are hearing a lot about the pressures on designated safeguarding leads in schools. While we also welcome schools’ having a statutory role here, we need to recognise that schools will need support and sufficient resources to deliver that.
The Chair
We will now hear oral evidence from Jacky Tiotto, chief executive of CAFCASS—the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service. Please could you introduce yourself?
Jacky Tiotto: Thank you. My name is Jacky Tiotto. I am the chief executive of CAFCASS and have been there for five and a half years.
Neil O'Brien
Q
“Before a local authority in England makes an application for an order”
it has to
“offer a family group decision-making meeting”.
Those meetings are generally a very good thing. They are in statutory guidance already, but I have two nagging worries as we move to mandate a good thing, as it were. The first is about pace. I worry that through people using the courts or their legal rights, some people will slow this down, or I worry that the local authority will sometimes worry about fulfilling this requirement when the priority should be the pace of getting a child away from a dangerous family. And I worry, on the other hand, that because we are saying that they should think about this and do more of these meetings just before they put an order in, you are at the point where the meeting is not going to be that useful because you are already not into a consensual process. We want to try and get local authorities to do this earlier more often. Do you have worries about the pace, particularly for very young, very vulnerable children? Could we amend the clause to try to address some of my nagging doubts?
Jacky Tiotto: I think they are good doubts to have. I should say at this point that CAFCASS is not involved before the application to court has been issued, so it does not technically affect the work that we do. But when the proceedings are issued, we are interested in why they have been issued and what has not happened for the child. Our position is that if you are introducing something largely consensual about engaging people in the care of children in their family at a point when you are going to formalise a letter that says, “If you do not act now, we may remove your children,” I think it will be very confusing.
As drafted, the Bill probably could move it down to the point at which there are formal child protection procedures starting so that the family can get to know what the concerns are, work with the child protection plan for longer, understand what the concerns are and demonstrate whether the protection can happen. On the second point, if the Bill were to stay as drafted at the edge of care, I think there are risks for very young children, and babies in particular. The meetings will be difficult to set up. People will not turn up. They will be rescheduled—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: I do not know, but I would think it is a number of weeks.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: For very young children when you are concerned, if they are still with the parents, which is sometimes the case, or even with a foster carer, you want permanent decisions quickly. That does not negate the need for the family to be involved. You can have it much earlier because you have been worried for a while at that point.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: There are a few bits that it would be good to talk about. I do not know if you have a set of questions.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: If I speak too long—because this is a great opportunity—please interrupt me. To go back to family group decision making and make a point about CAFCASS, we are the largest children’s social work organisation in England. We see 140,000 children through proceedings every year. The Bill tends to focus on those who are in public law proceedings. Two thirds of the children we work with are in private law proceedings, where there are family disputes about who children spend their time with and where they live. Very often, those children are in families where conflict is very intense. There are risks to them; there is domestic abuse. The Bill is silent on children in private law proceedings, and I think there is an opportunity for that to be different.
One suggestion I would like to make on CAFCASS’s behalf is that family group decision making should be offered to families where the court has ordered a section 7 report—a welfare report that, if ordered to do so, the local authority has to produce for the court in respect of what it advises about where children should live and who they should spend time with. I think the opportunity for a family group decision-making meeting for those families is important. I just put that on the table, if I may.
I want to talk a bit about clause 10, which is on deprivation of liberty—I do not know whether you have spoken about it yet. Obviously, CAFCASS is involved in 98% of those applications; to give you a sense of the span, last year there were 1,200 applications to deprive a child of their liberty. As I am sure you will know from the research briefing, that is an increase of about 800% since 2017, because the provision to secure children is not there. This is therefore a welcome change to section 25, but it is a missed opportunity to deal with the arrangements around deprivation, and some better, stronger regulations could be made for those children—who, let us face it, are actually being secured, or deprived of their liberty.
Our data shows that 20% of those children are aged 13 or under. Currently, if a local authority applies for a place in a secure unit for a child aged 13 or under, the Secretary of State for Education has to approve that application. I think an assumption is made in the Bill that that strength would remain in the amendment. We need to make it clear that, for all applications for 13-and-unders into places where they will be deprived, the Secretary of State should still approve. That has been unnecessary because the courts have been using their jurisdiction to deprive children. This clause will remove that, and make the accommodation usable legally, but we need to ensure that for young children it comes back. That is one point.
The second point is that for those young children, the review of their deprivation should be stipulated in terms of how regularly that deprivation is reviewed. For a 10-year-old deprived of their liberty, a week is a long time. The children who we work with tell us that they do not know what they have to do to not be deprived of their liberty, and very young children will be confused. So the frequency of review, I think, becomes more regular if you are younger.
I very much feel that the Department for Education should definitely consider what has happened to the child before the deprivation application is made. From our data, only 7% of those children were the subject of child protection plans, and it is hard to imagine going from not being protected by a statutory child protection plan to being in a court where they might deprive you. The relationship between child protection and deprivation needs strengthening.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Jacky Tiotto: As soon as that child becomes the subject of a concern, such that you might be making an application to deprive, you hold a child protection conference and you have a plan in place to protect that child beyond the deprivation, so including and beyond—it helps with the exit.
The final point is about the type of people who apply to run this provision as amended: Ofsted needs to be really sure who they are and what their experience is. I have run this provision; I have worked in it. These kids are really needy. They need specialist, highly qualified people, and at the moment the provision that they get is not run by those sorts of people.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Jacky Tiotto: The intention to be family-centred and to promote families as being the best place for children to grow up in is a good one. As I said, I think it is too late when you are in a panic and get a letter that says, “We may remove your children”—you are going to engage very differently at that point than if you were involved earlier. I think it is a good thing, but the problem with mandation is that just because you say it has to happen does not necessarily mean that people will come, and it does not necessarily offer protection to children. The principle is right but how it becomes operationalised will be important.
Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
Public Bill CommitteesRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Chair
Thank you. I am a vice-president of the Local Government Association, but as I will not be making any comments, that may not be relevant.
Examination of Witness
Dame Rachel de Souza gave evidence.
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I am the Children’s Commissioner and have been since 2021, and before that I was a school leader in the most disadvantaged areas for 20 years, so I am very interested. I am pleased to see a Bill on children’s wellbeing; it is great that we are getting some legislation on that. I was well consulted around the first part of the Bill, on wellbeing, and I was able to take the children’s voice through. I worked closely with the Department for Education and others to ensure that it was honed, refined and made really good, as I did on some bits of the schools part. But I do not think that anybody got to see the schools bit until it was published.
On the schools bit, what I feel more than anything is that we now have a period of time when we need to see a vision for a new, vibrant and transformative schools system—how it will work locally, with local authorities, to do the best for children, particularly the most vulnerable children. I have a number of outstanding questions around that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Look, I need the school system to be as ambitious for children—as Children’s Commissioner, I represent children—as they are for themselves. I had hoped that we would get to a point where we were not talking about old binaries—academies or council schools—but talking about schools, families of schools and building up our local authorities so that everyone can play their part to support standards in the post-lockdown period.
I have two issues with the academies provisions. First, I cannot let children remain in failing schools, so if those are going, I need to know what is going to happen. Childhood lasts a very short time, so if a child is in a failing school, how will those schools be improved, immediately and effectively? Secondly, as well as a real vision for the schools system—I know that it is there—I would like to see what will happen to attainment data, under what is envisaged as replacing it, so that no child, particularly the most vulnerable, is disadvantaged.
I was a headteacher for the first time in 2006. It was a Tony Blair-sponsored academy—I was his No. 67. That school had been failing for 20 years, and I got it to outstanding with the support of everyone around me. It has never gone back to less than good. Any new system has to deliver for the most vulnerable as well.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: I think, Neil, that you have given quite a thoughtful comment, which people new to education might not quite get. Probably the main reason for academy orders was to try to expedite improvement quickly against a backlash. Would it not be great if we could get everyone on side to be able to act really quickly, together, to improve schools that need improving? I am not going to get hung up on this bit. What I want to see is the vision for how we are going to work together with the best knowledge we have about school improvement, and with a sense of absolute urgency about making sure that no child is sitting in a failing school, because childhood lasts such a short time. What makes a great school? Whatever background you are from—whether you are from the academy sector or the local authority sector—the evidence is clear: we need a great headteacher and great teachers allowed to do their jobs, with support from a family of schools, whatever that family of schools is. That is what we need.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan)
Q
Dame Rachel de Souza: Yes. Before I do, I want to praise the fact that the children’s bit of the Bill really listens to children, because it has tried to do that. I want the schools bit to do the same. Since Minister Morgan is asking the question, I will say that he was the first person to speak to my ambassadors and actually try to take on board their views. That is important for all of us—we need to hear from children all the time.
I have been obsessed with the unique identifier from the second I got into my role. I do not need to spell out why—well, maybe I do. In my first couple of weeks in the role, I visited a violence reduction unit—a police crime reduction unit—in Bedfordshire, and it had a spreadsheet of children that were on nobody’s roll. They were not on any GP system or school roll; they were known by nobody. We cannot, in this century, with the tech capacity we have, find ourselves in that position.
I spoke to Professor Jay yesterday about the terrible abuse of young girls that has been going on and what to do about it. Do you know what she told me? She told me that one local area she was working with had a massive increase in sexually transmitted diseases in girls aged 13 and 14, but the health authority would not share the data with the police, under a completely misguided view about data sharing. My view is that we must invest in a unique identifier. Had Sara Sharif’s social workers had a unique identifier, they would have had the information and tech to know from other authorities she had been in that she was a child known to social services. The school would have known. Children, particularly vulnerable children, think we already know their stories. They think that we, the adults, are already talking to each other. For children, that is just how they think it should be—the adults who care for them should know.
Let me be clear, and be under no illusion: the parlous state of data systems means that the unique identifier will be a huge job. However, I am so pleased to see it committed to in the Bill. If there is one thing I would like to see before my term ends in the next couple of years, it is the unique identifier on the way. It will underpin so many things that we want in education, in child protection, in gluing the systems together and in the multi-agency work, so absolutely, we need it.
The Chair
Will the witnesses from Ofsted please introduce themselves?
Sir Martyn Oliver: I am Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted.
Yvette Stanley: My name is Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for early years regulation and social care inspection and regulation.
Lee Owston: I am Lee Owston, one of His Majesty’s inspectors and Ofsted’s national director for education.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: No, we do not find that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: We do not actually look at the backgrounds of teachers and check to that level of detail, so I could not give you a quantitative answer. I do know that increasingly, as schools are finding it difficult to recruit and retain staff, they are looking at alternative measures. It is massively important that people be qualified to teach children to the highest possible standard in the specialism in which they are delivering.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Speaking as a previous headteacher, absolutely. Bringing in external expertise to supplement high-quality qualified teachers is clearly of benefit to children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“if any key judgement is inadequate…we will place the school in a formal category of concern.”
How will that work in future? If a school is in the bottom tier of one of your new categories of assessment, what will happen?
Sir Martyn Oliver: The legal powers for Ofsted are that I identify to the Secretary of State a school that is in special measures or requires significant improvement. That requirement—from, I think, the Education and Inspections Act 2006—will not change. Ofsted will still be under a duty to pass that on to the Secretary of State. Very imminently, I will consult on a new framework that will strengthen and raise standards further. I am interested to see what the Department for Education will release alongside my consultation to explain those academy orders further.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Sir Martyn Oliver: Yes, but I think it is very imminent. I am very happy: I feel that we are going to hold the system to account to raise standards better than ever before.
The Chair
It will help if those Members who wanted to ask a question last time but were not called indicate if they want to ask a question in this session.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: The coalition broadly welcomes the potentially transformational proposals that are contained within the Bill, including those for a single unique identifier, which is one of the things that the coalition has been specifically calling for over a period of time. Multiple reviews have found that information sharing between agencies is problematic, so that is one of the things that we think could really aid child protection, safeguarding and multi-agency working. I would say that to really shift the dial we need further investment in early intervention and early help across our communities, and much greater focus on embedding that consistently and universally. We also need some further clarification on some of the areas that the single unique identifier will need for effective application, I think it is fair to say.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Lynn Perry: Yes, certainly. I will raise the third area and then I will come back to that, if I may. The third area is mechanisms for ensuring that the voices, wishes, feelings and experiences of children and young people really influence the provisions in the Bill, and to put those at the heart of support.
On the single unique identifier, there are some questions that we think are worth some further scrutiny. The first of those is the question whether the single unique identifier would be assigned to all babies, children and young people, and a confirmation that that would be for children between the ages of nought and 18. We also think there is an opportunity to extend the use of the identifier, the scope of which is currently limited in the Bill to safeguarding and welfare purposes. A wider emphasis on wellbeing of children and young people and positive outcomes is one of the things that could be further considered here.
As ever, implementation cannot wait, and it would be helpful to have some indicative timescales for when the Secretary of State might introduce regulations for the consistent identifier and how people will be required to use it within their systems. Finally, while acknowledging the need for data protection, there is an opportunity to make better, data-informed decisions in the future about the commissioning and scoping of services that will effectively meet the needs of children and young people, as well as taking account of some of their emerging vulnerabilities and risk and need factors.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Mark Russell: I associate myself entirely with everything that my colleague has said, but I have a couple of extra points. I would want the Bill to include a measurement of children’s wellbeing. I welcome the fact that the title of the Bill mentions children’s wellbeing, but we have no measurement of children’s wellbeing. We in the Children’s Society measure children’s wellbeing, but we are a charity; we are measuring a sample of children rather than all children. The Government talk about wanting to be child-centred. A measurement of children’s wellbeing would be real data on what real children think about their lives, and that would provide a huge amount of information for local authorities to ensure that local services meet the needs of young people. That is one thing.
Secondly, I would welcome schools becoming a fourth statutory safeguarding partner, because so many safeguarding challenges are first identified by schools—I speak not just as the chief executive of a charity, but as a school governor. Thirdly, I hugely welcome the breakfast clubs and the changes to the rules on school uniform; the Children’s Society has campaigned on school uniform for many years. Those will help families. I understand why the Government have made the breakfast clubs a universal offer, but with limited funds, I would like to see secondary school children included in it, but with the breakfast clubs available first to children from families receiving universal credit. The free school meal allowance has not gone up for a very long time. We think that around 1 million children in this country who are living in poverty are not eligible for free school meals, and we know that hunger hugely limits what children can do in school and their learning. If we can change that, we will improve the opportunities for, and wellbeing of young people.
Katharine Sacks-Jones: I want to focus on the provisions on children in care and young care leavers. There are some welcome steps to better support care leavers. At the moment, young people leaving the care system face a care cliff, where support falls away, often on their 18th birthday. A huge number go on to face homelessness —one in three become homeless within two years of leaving care—and that has meant a big increase in statutory homelessness among care leavers: a 54% rise in the past five years. There is a real challenge to ensure that we better support young people leaving the care system.
In that context, extending Staying Close up to the age of 25 and making it a statutory provision is welcome, but we think the Bill could go further in strengthening the legal entitlement for young people leaving care. There are two areas in particular. The first is that we are concerned about the how the Bill assesses whether a young person’s welfare requires Staying Close support. Where you have those kinds of assessment, particularly in times of scarcity, the extra support is often rationed, which will mean that many young people are not eligible for it or are not assessed as being in need. We think that rationing needs to be removed. Instead, there should be an assumption that a young person leaving care does require some extra support; the question should be what that support looks like, and we would like to see the provisions in the Bill broadened to allow local authorities to provide other types of support beyond what the Bill provides for at the moment, which is largely advice and guidance.
We welcome the strengthening of the care leaver local offer to include provisions around housing and homelessness. As I said, those are big issues for young people leaving care. We also warmly welcome the Government’s recent amendment on homelessness intentionality, which would remove intentionality from care leavers. We hear from young people who have found themselves homeless because, for example, they accepted a place at university in a different part of the country, and they were then deemed by their home local authority to be intentionally homeless and so not eligible for further homelessness assistance. We think that needs to change. That is a welcome step.
We think the Bill could go further in looking at priority need for young people leaving care. At the moment, that goes up to 21; we think it should go up to the age of 25, in line with other entitlements for young care leavers. We are also disappointed not to see in the Bill the extension of corporate parenting—something that the Government have previously committed to.
There are some welcome measures that will increase oversight and accountability, and help with some of the structural challenges, in relation to the provision of homes for children. We do not think those go far enough in addressing the huge issue around the sufficiency of placements for children. That issue is seeing more and more children moved across the country, moved far from their local areas and being moved frequently—a huge amount of instability. That is a big challenge. We would like to see a requirement for a national strategy that looks at the issue of sufficiency and collects better data, as well as an annual report to Parliament on progress against that strategy. Finally, to reinforce the point made by colleagues, young people’s voices are really important. The importance of considering young people’s wishes and feelings is set out in other pieces of legislation, and there are a number of areas in the Bill that would benefit from the inclusion of that, too.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Mark Russell: Perhaps I should say that we are working with about 75,000 young people around the country, and so many more young people are reporting as being hungry than have been for quite some time. We know that families are under huge strain. We saw in our “Good Childhood Report” this year that 84% of parents were anxious about being able to pay their bills, and we also saw that one in three parents were struggling to pay for a hot meal every single day. As they are provided to all children in the school, I think breakfast clubs will provide a real sense of uniformity and equality, and will give every child the best possible start to the day. Children who are hungry cannot learn and cannot thrive. I have friends who are teachers, and they are telling me that in classrooms around the country they are seeing children who are hungry and living in homes that are cold. Anything that we can do to support families is really important, so I welcome breakfast clubs. As I said earlier, I would like to see secondary school children helped, and if the pot is limited, I would probably step back from universality and provide for those most in need.
Also, alongside that, this needs to link up with the Government’s child poverty strategy that is coming later this year, which we are very much looking forward to seeing, about how we lift more and more families out of poverty. According to the stats, there are 4.3 million children in this country in poverty, and those children will not get the best start in life or thrive in school if they are hungry and cannot succeed. I obviously very much welcome the measures on that in the Bill.
The Chair
We now move on to representatives from the Churches. Could you begin by introducing yourselves, please?
Nigel Genders: My name is Nigel Genders. I am the chief education officer for the Church of England, which means that I have the national responsibility for the Church of England’s work in education, and I oversee 4,700 schools, which educate 1 million children.
Paul Barber: I am Paul Barber. I am director of the Catholic Education Service, which is the education agency of the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales, and we provide just over 2,000 schools across England.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: The cap is a policy rather than law. We would very much like to see the cap lifted. My understanding of the current policy is that it applies to free schools, and we would very much like to see that lifted. The consultation took place and there has not, as yet, been a Government response to that.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Paul Barber: I do not—that is not in my hands.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: You are right to raise the issue of behaviour. When we talk to teachers across the country, one of the biggest things that puts people off teaching, in terms of the retention and recruitment crisis, is children’s behaviour. I am not sure there are particular things that you need legislation for in that space; it is about just giving teachers greater confidence. We are doing work in teacher training and leadership training to equip teachers to be really fantastic teachers, which are all important tools available to the system to really prioritise that area. I cannot think of anything particularly in the legislative space that would be needed.
Paul Barber: I agree with Nigel that discipline is definitely a factor in the recruitment and retention of teachers, and it is something that we need to give some attention to. Like Nigel, I do not think there is anything specific that is required legislatively, but I think what is needed is an overall accountability framework within which schools have the flexibility to respond to the needs of their particular pupil populations. Our schools have a very good track record of being orderly, and I think that is one of the reasons why they are very popular with parents. It is about school leaders and professionals being able to do what is in the best interest of their pupils and enabling the behaviour to be what it should be in our schools.
Neil O'Brien
Q
My second, more specific question is whether there is anything you would have concerns about being in the curriculum. I am particularly thinking of religious education and topics like that. Are there ideas out there that you would be concerned about being forced into all schools?
Nigel Genders: As previous panels have said, there is a slight complexity about the timing of the Bill and the intention to bring in a national curriculum for everyone. In broad principle, I think it is right. There are one or two caveats I will go on to talk about, but in broad principle it is right to create a level playing field and have a broad and balanced curriculum across the piece for everybody. The complexity is that this legislation is happening at the same time as the curriculum and assessment review, so our schools are being asked to sign up to a general curriculum for everybody without knowing what that curriculum is likely to be.
Certainly among the schools and leaders I have spoken to the hope is that through the process of the curriculum review, and certainly in the evidence we have been giving to that, we will end up with a much broader, richer balance of both academic and vocational and technical skills within the curriculum. We hope to have something of broad appeal to everybody that is at a high level, and under which everybody can find an equal place in that space. But we do not know at the moment.
The Chair
We do not want to go too far into the curriculum today, because it is not really part of the Bill.
Paul Barber: I will keep my remarks brief. We have a very clear understanding of what a curriculum is in a Catholic school. It is very much a broad, balanced and holistic curriculum in which there are no siloes and the curriculum subjects interact with each other. There is of course the centrality of RE, which you mentioned. We are hopeful that the review will provide a framework within which we will be able to deliver alongside other views of curricula in other schools.
Damian Hinds
Q
Paul Barber: Sorry; I misunderstood. You are talking about the restrictions on schools unilaterally changing their published admission number. Our position on that is that it is because of this relationship between admissions and the planning of school places, which must be planned in some way. Our diocese has a long track record of decades of working with its local authorities and with the diocese in the Church of England to work out what is required in the future, and looking forward for places and planning that. Having some kind of regulation of schools’ published admissions numbers is quite helpful in ensuring that that works smoothly, because if you plan it and three schools then arbitrarily decide to increase their published admission number, that creates some real problems locally with place planning.
Nigel Genders: We would agree with that. Not to rehearse all that Paul has just said, but a further point is that when it comes to resourcing local authorities to carry out their role in the allocation and direction of schools to take particular pupils, we are really keen to see that done in a way that makes fairness the arbitrating factor to ensure that there is a real fairness of approach. The collaboration between maintained and academy and diocese and local authority very much needs to happen, and we would welcome that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
The Chair
Let us have a fairly quick answer. One other Member would like to ask a question as well.
Neil O'Brien
Do we know whether that is the case?
Nigel Genders: There is the question of how to make all that possible within the allotted hours that staff can be directed. It needs resourcing. It does not have to be teachers who provide those breakfast clubs—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Nigel Genders: They will have to be resourced to do it in other ways to make it possible.
The Chair
We will now move on to representatives from various academies. If you could begin by introducing yourselves, that would be helpful to the Committee.
Luke Sparkes: I am Luke Sparkes, and I lead the Dixons Academy Trust. We run urban complex schools in Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool.
Sir Dan Moynihan: I am Dan Moynihan, CEO for the Harris Federation. We run 55 academies in and around London, most of which were previously failing schools.
Sir Jon Coles: I am John Coles, and I run United Learning, which is a group of just over 100 schools nationally—again, mostly previously failing schools. Before the 13 years I have spent doing that, I spent 15 years in the Department for Education, and the last four on the board.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Jon Coles: My top concern is about pay and conditions freedoms. We take schools that have got themselves into serious difficulty and look to turn them around. If you want to turn around schools that have failed seriously—often generationally—to give children a good standard of education, clearly you need to attract very good people to come and work in those places; the quality of a school is never going to exceed the quality of its teachers. Therefore, the things that we do with pay and conditions are designed to make sure that we can attract and retain the very best teachers to do the toughest jobs, which I think is our fundamental role as a trust.
I think we really need those freedoms. They are very important to us. Obviously, that applies to this Bill, in relation to schoolteachers’ pay and conditions, but it also applies to the Employment Rights Bill, in relation to the school support staff negotiating body. Those are fundamentally important to us.
I have been hugely encouraged by the Secretary of State’s remarks that what she wants is a floor but no ceiling, and that is something that we can absolutely work with. I hope that that is what we see coming through. At this moment, that is not what the Bill says; it says that we have to abide by the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document. I think there is an ongoing conversation to be had about whether that is where we end up, because that is not quite a floor but no ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Having looked at that document, it does have a whole bunch of different maximums in it. It has quite specific maximums as well as minimums.
Sir Jon Coles: The thing about the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document is that it is fundamentally a contract. Section 122 of the Education Act 2002—it happens to be an Act that I took through Parliament as a Bill manager, when I was a civil servant—essentially says that the Secretary of State may, by order, issue what is commonly known as the pay order, but the pay order includes a lot of conditions. Section 122 of the Act says that that applies as if it were a contract. Indeed, if you are a teacher in a maintained school, typically your contract will literally say, “You are employed under the terms of the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document,” so it is your contract.
Therefore, the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document has to act as a contract. It has to be specific. A teacher looking it up has to be able to see, “What are my terms and conditions? Have I been treated properly?” and so on. That is how the schoolteachers’ pay and conditions document needs to work, so if we have to abide by it precisely, that is what we would have to abide by.
I think that officials—I speak as an ex-official—should be asked to look again at whether the Bill they have produced for Ministers does what Ministers want it to do, and whether it actually provides a floor but no ceiling, or whether there is something slightly different that would enact Ministers’ policy.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: We have taken over failing schools in very disadvantaged places in London, and we have found youngsters in the lower years of secondary schools unable to read and write. We varied the curriculum in the short term and narrowed the number of subjects in key stage 3 in order to maximise the amount of time given for literacy and numeracy, because the children were not able to access the other subjects. Of course, that is subject to Ofsted. Ofsted comes in, inspects and sees whether what you are doing is reasonable.
That flexibility has allowed us to widen the curriculum out again later and take those schools on to “outstanding” status. We are subject to Ofsted scrutiny. It is not clear to me why we would need to follow the full national curriculum. What advantage does that give? When we have to provide all the nationally-recognised qualifications —GCSEs, A-levels, SATs—and we are subject to external regulation by Ofsted, why take away the flexibility to do what is needed locally?
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: They are very useful when it comes to conditions. As Jon was saying, the narrative coming through about a floor and no ceiling is encouraging. I can see that working for pay, but I am not sure how that would work for conditions. My significant concerns with the Bill are about conditions. We have done more than most as a trust to try to position ourselves as a modern organisation. We know that post-millennials are not going to accept the norms that currently exist in our sector. We have also tried to overcome the rigidity of the job with innovations such as the nine-day fortnight. That innovation is starting to diffuse across the sector.
We want to be even bolder. We are really starting to think about how we can totally re-imagine the school workforce. That is because most complex schools—the kind of schools that we lead—have become, in many ways, the fourth emergency service. That is by stealth and not by choice. We have had to address the scope and intensity of the job.
I wanted to make that position clear. It is from that position and understanding that we still believe that a rigid set of expectations around conditions will stifle innovation—the kind of innovation that the three of us have led across our trusts. Leaders working in our context need the freedom to do things differently. That, of course, was the point of Labour’s academy policy in the first place. I accept that in some instances, it is possible to negotiate around standard conditions, but not everybody can do that. The innovations we are leading will not be scaleable if we are all forced to align to a set of rigid standards.
It is also worth knowing that our most successful schools at Dixons—the ones that are getting the best results for disadvantaged students nationally—would have to fundamentally change as schools if they had to align to a set of rigid standards. That would be bound to impact negatively on outcomes for children, and not just academic outcomes. It would be a significant backward step. Finally, an interesting point is that our most innovative schools—the ones that are using their freedoms the most—actually have the highest staff engagement scores. These freedoms benefit and are attractive to staff.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Luke Sparkes: Certainly, around the areas that I have just described.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Sir Dan Moynihan: It is an excellent idea. Too many children disappear off-roll and are not monitored sufficiently. I would say it probably does not go far enough. When any child leaves the school roll, whether they are at risk or not, we should know why it happens and whether the parent can make proper provision for them, so it is a really good idea. My concern is whether local authorities have the resourcing to make this thing work. As we all know, they are under immense pressure. However, it is about time that we had it, and it is a real move forward. The question is about their ability to deliver it.
Sir Jon Coles: I agree with all that. I am not sure quite how many Secretaries of State have thought it was a good idea to do this, but it is a lot of them, and they have all backed off it before now. I think it is good, important and brave that it is being done, because while I support the right of parents to home educate, and I think that is an important freedom in society, those of us who work in challenging areas can see that there is an overriding child protection and child safeguarding risk. That risk has grown, is growing and does need to be tackled.
Luke Sparkes: I echo that. I think the correlation of families who apply for elective home education, for example, and the vulnerability of those children is known. Whether it is in relation to attendance, unsupportive parenting or poor relationships with schools, challenging EHE is the right thing to do. However, as Sir Dan said, it will need significant additional resource if a school is to ensure that the child is supported to integrate into school in that way.
The Chair
Could the two witnesses in the room introduce themselves as well?
Rebecca Leek: I am Rebecca Leek. I am currently the executive director of the Suffolk Primary Headteachers’ Association. There are 253 primary schools in Suffolk; around a third of them are local authority and two thirds are academies. I am currently also an interim headteacher in a local authority school. I have been a headteacher in an academy school and a CEO of a trust, and I have worked in inner-city London, urban Ipswich and rural Suffolk.
Leora Cruddas: I am Leora Cruddas; thank you very much for the invitation to give evidence to this Committee. I am the chief executive of the Confederation of School Trusts, which is the national organisation and sector body representing school trusts in England. Around 77% of all academy schools are in membership.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Do you have concerns that the general power is a bit untrammelled at the moment? Might it be sensible to table some amendments to that, so that we have some proportionality and do not have the Secretary of State being constantly sucked into intervening in schools and being pressed to do so by lots of different activists?
Leora Cruddas: The first thing I should say is that we really welcome the children’s wellbeing part of this Bill. There are a lot of good things in the Bill. We do have some concerns, as you say, about the schools part of the Bill, including, as you have heard from my colleagues, about pay and conditions. We welcome the Secretary of State’s clarification on that in her evidence to the Education Committee. We now need to work with the Government to make sure that the clarification around direction of travel is reflected in the way that the Bill is laid out. We do not think that the Secretary of State’s intention is properly reflected in the clause as it stands.
We do have concerns about the power to direct. We think it is too wide at the moment. We accept that the policy intention is one of equivalence in relation to maintained schools, but maintained schools are different legal structures from academy trusts, and we not think that the clauses in the Bill properly reflect that. It is too broad and it is too wide. We would like to work with the Government to restrict it to create greater limits. Those limits should be around statutory duties on academy trusts, statutory guidance, the provisions in the funding agreement and charity law.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I worry about that, particularly in the context of falling school numbers in some areas, which will make these questions quite acute, because of the lack of any guidance or trammelling around it. For example, if there is an outstanding school and one that is struggling and may shut, where is the prioritisation? Where are the rules that say, “You must not treat academies unfairly compared with your local authority schools.”? Do you share any of those concerns? Do you think that there is scope to make amendments to improve the Bill?
Leora Cruddas: I start by saying that we really welcome the duty to collaborate at a local level. Trusts already work with local authorities; you may have heard that from my colleagues in the previous session.
We are concerned about some of the potential conflicts of interest. We say “potential” conflicts of interest in the context, as you point out, of falling primary school rolls. We would like to work with Government to set out a high-level, strategic decision-making framework that would mean that, in a local area, we know our children really well and we get our children into the right provision at the right time. That means working together strategically around pupil numbers, admissions, falling rolls and the sufficiency of need in a local area. Those conflicts of interest can be managed, but they would need to be set out in a very carefully framed decision-making framework so that they are managed properly.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“We accept current arrangements are fractured: introducing the Schools Adjudicator worsens rather than improves this”.
What do you mean by that?
Leora Cruddas: We are not sure what the intention is behind the Government’s need to bring forward the clause in the Bill that would introduce greater powers for a schools adjudicator. That is one of the conflicts of interest that we would be alive to—if a local authority could bring forward a case to resist an academy trust’s pupil admission number, that would be a source of concern for us. That is why we need this high-level decision-making framework.
Neil O’Brien
Q
“The schools bill working its way through Parliament…is not good legislation.”
You described it as “micromanagement” and “stifling”. You talked about some of your experiences as a headteacher. Can you expand a bit on the overall vision and direction of travel?
Rebecca Leek: Yes. I love being a headteacher—I was a headteacher yesterday, doing an assembly—but I have stood in both camps, and I have worked in very rapid turnaround situations with trusts.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: One of the things about the school sector is that it is incredibly complex, so you have to have complex solutions for complex systems—if you know anything about systems thinking. To support such a complex system, there needs to be room for agility, so the reason why I was writing that—we will talk about my specific experience as well—is that I know quite a lot about systems theory and governance. I have written a book on governance, subsidiarity and why it is important to have flexibility and agility in localities. That comes from theoretical knowledge about how to create good systems that meet the needs of very complex things, which is what schools are. I cannot impress on the Committee enough how much diversity there is in the school system, and how much there is the need for agility.
As a headteacher on the frontline, my dominoes can topple within a term: I am in a small school; I lose two senior teachers; a safeguarding issue happens because something in the locality changes, and I suddenly have to find a pastoral lead, because there are more safeguarding issues; I am trying to get more engagement with some of the local services, which might be struggling because they are undercapacity; and there is a recruitment crisis with teachers, honestly, and also with headteachers—hence I am an interim headteacher, as we can never recruit headteachers, because it is such a hard job, given so much grit in the system. There is that fundamental need for agility.
I do therefore have a concern, and my colleagues share that. I speak to headteachers and CEOs all the time in Suffolk—I met a trust last week and spoke to a CEO of a trust with 12 primary schools on the phone yesterday. We went over some of the things in the Bill. We know that the agility that the academies legislation and other changes brought into the system have helped us to be very adaptive to certain circumstances. Anything that says, “Well, we are going to go slightly more with a one-size-fits-all model”—bearing in mind, too, that we do not know what that looks like, because this national curriculum has not even been written yet—is a worry. That is what I mean. If we suddenly all have to comply with something that is more uniform and have to check—“Oh no, we cannot do that”, “Yes, we can do that”, “No, we can’t do that”, “Yes, we can do that”—it will impede our ability to be agile around our school communities and our job.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: There are a few specific things, and some other things. I had to step in as an interim headteacher in Ipswich just prior to covid. I did not have an early years lead and we had Ofsted six weeks in: we got RI—with good for leadership and management, thank you very much—but I still did not have an early years teacher. I needed to solve that incredibly quickly, so I liaised with three different agencies and made contact with various different people. There was someone who was not a qualified teacher, but who had been running an outstanding nursery. She had decided to stop running it, because of her work-life balance, and she thought she might want to work in a school. I took her on, and although she was not qualified, she was really excellent. I was able to do that because it was an academy school, and it was not an issue. In a maintained school, there is a specific need for a qualified teacher to teach in early years, so I would not have been able to take her on.
That is just one example. Another example is that maintained schools, I think under the 2002 legislation, must have a full-time headteacher—they must have a headteacher at all times. In a small rural school, that is financially a real burden, and it is one of the reasons why I am not a permanent headteacher. Last year, I was an interim headteacher. I came to an agreement with those at the local authority that I would do it on four days a week, and they kind of accepted that—it was a bit of a fudge, because it is actually non-compliant. They asked, “Will you carry on?”, and I said, “No, because I am not going to be full-time.” At the moment, I am three days a week and, again, it is okay because I am interim—academies can have great flexibility around leadership arrangements.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Rebecca Leek: It is a real problem for small rural schools particularly. They function really well in little pockets of two or three schools together, with maybe one executive head dealing with some of the headaches—because there are headaches—and with some things that are more systematic across the three schools. Yes, definitely.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: There definitely are trusts that have used their freedoms around the national curriculum. I would say it is not unreasonable for a state to want a high-level national curriculum framework—that is not an unreasonable position—
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: That is exactly right. Under this legislation, we could end up with a high-level national curriculum framework—once again, as I said on pay and conditions, with a floor but no ceiling. That would protect the right of schools and trusts, all schools and trusts, to innovate, to be agile, to respond to local context, and to be centres of curriculum excellence—you heard Sir Jon Coles talk about his curriculum. We want to retain that notion of curriculum flexibility, curriculum freedoms.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: It would be very helpful to have clarity on that position. Obviously, we have not had the curriculum and assessment review report yet. I have absolute confidence that Professor Francis will be eminently sensible. She is a very serious person, and will follow the evidence; but I think we need to be careful that we are not tying ourselves into high levels of prescription in all parts of the Bill, including the national curriculum.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Again, I would cite the Secretary of State’s evidence to the Select Committee, where she made clear that it is also her expectation around curriculum to have that floor and to be able to innovate and have flexibility above that floor.
Neil O’Brien
Q
Leora Cruddas: Yes, I would say that was true.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
Rebecca Leek: I can only tell you, from my experience, that there is a lot of collaboration where I work. We have Suffolk Education Partnership, which is made up of local authority representatives, associations, CEOs and headteachers. Admissions are not really my area, in this Bill, but my experience is that there is collaboration. We are always looking to place children and make sure that they have somewhere if they are permanently excluded. There is real commitment in the sector to that, from my experience where I work.
Neil O’Brien
Q
I want to ask you first about the national curriculum and its imposition on all academy schools. We have heard about the use of that flexibility as a form of freedom—where schools are being turned around, they might do something different for a while and diverge from the national curriculum. But I know there are also trusts and school leaders who use it on a longer-term basis—they make a conscious choice to focus on, for example, the core academics, often in situations of great difficulty, in order to secure what they regard as the most important, core things for their students that will enable the maximum number of choices later on.
Obviously you have been a maths teacher—you have been in that core discipline—and I wondered whether, in an education system where parents have school choice and can choose different things that are right for their child, you thought it was legitimate for people to have different models and to have that flexibility, and whether it was useful to have that freedom from the national curriculum.
David Thomas: We need to strike a careful balance. It is absolutely a central purpose of education to make sure that all children going out into society have some shared knowledge in common and can interact as a society and function in that way. That is very important. It is also important that people running schools get to look at their children, look at the challenges they are facing and have bold and ambitious visions for what they want those children to go on and do and what that community wants for itself, and that they can be flexible and go on and achieve that. That is why you need a balance of different things.
At the moment we have statutory assessments that apply to all schools, whether an academy or a maintained school. We have Ofsted making sure that you teach a curriculum that is at least as broad and balanced as the national curriculum, so that you cannot go narrow. But you need to be ambitious for your children, and my understanding from Sir Martyn’s evidence earlier was that that system appears to be working for children.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: No, there is not one that I can see.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Clause 43, as drafted, goes beyond the explanatory notes and what Ministers have stated their intention to be. If the intention of the clause is to allow Ministers to intervene where an academy trust is breaching a power, but to do that in a way that is short of termination, that is a very sensible thing to want to do and the Government should absolutely be able to do that. If the purpose is, as it says in the explanatory notes, to issue a direction to academy trusts to comply with their duty, that feels like a perfectly reasonable thing to be able to do. The Bill, as drafted, gives the Secretary of State the ability to
“give the proprietor such directions as the Secretary of State considers appropriate”.
I do not think it is appropriate for a Secretary of State to give an operational action plan to a school, but I think it is perfectly reasonable for a Secretary of State to tell a school that it needs to follow its duty. I think there is just a mismatch between the stated intention and the drafting, and I would correct that mismatch.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: Yes.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: On pay and conditions, I agree with the Secretary of State’s stated intention to spread the freedom to innovate, and to make teaching a more attractive profession, to all schools. I think we are only scratching the surface as a profession of what it means to offer flexible working within education. I do not think anyone has really mastered that, and it is a really big challenge. We need to be allowing the maximum freedom for people to be able to innovate. Of course, we have just done an experiment in what happens if you tell lots and lots of schools that they do not need to follow the statutory teachers’ pay and conditions: people only ever exceed it and offer things that are more attractive, because you want the very best teachers in your school.
I think it is essential that we have that freedom, and it is not enough for a Government to say that their intention is to grant that in a future statutory teachers’ pay and conditions document. It needs to be there in legislation for trusts to know that will be the case, which is really important for both pay and conditions. If you want to nail flexibility and offer that to teachers, you need to be able to trade off around conditions to make something more flexible. I think that is really important, and I agree with the Government’s intention, but I do not think that the Bill, as drafted, achieves that at the moment.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I think it would absolutely work, as CST has suggested, to say that statutory teachers’ pay and conditions should be an advisory thing that schools and trusts need to have due regard of, and to continue with something like the School Teachers Review Body. As it is at the moment, they are effectively setting a default starting position from which people can innovate out if they want to, rather than capping what people are able to do.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have concerns about limiting the number of people with unqualified teacher status who are not working towards qualified teacher status.
Neil O’Brien
Q
David Thomas: I have worked with some fantastic people—generally late-career people in shortage subjects who want to go and give back in the last five to 10 years of their career—who would not go through some of the bureaucracy associated with getting qualified teacher status but are absolutely fantastic and have brought wonderful things to a school and to a sector. I have seen them change children’s lives. We know we have a flow of 600 people a year coming into the sector like that. If those were 600 maths teachers and you were to lose that, that would be 100,000 fewer children with a maths teacher. None of us knows what we would actually lose, but that is a risk that, in the current system, where we are so short of teachers, I would choose not to take.
Catherine McKinnell
Q
David Thomas: Yes. I find it very odd how little flexibility lots of teachers are given. As a headteacher I remember teachers asking me questions such as, “Am I allowed to leave site to do my marking?” and I thought, “Why are you asking me this? You are an adult”. I absolutely agree with that direction of travel, but I do not see that reflected in the wording of the Bill, so I think there is an exercise to be done to make sure that that is reflected in the Bill. Otherwise, the risk is that it does not become the actual direction of travel.
The Chair
Thank you very much for coming. Apologies; we are a little bit later starting than we had anticipated because of the delay for voting earlier. Could you introduce yourself?
Kate Anstey: I am Kate Anstey, the head of education policy at Child Poverty Action Group.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: We certainly welcome the introduction of free breakfast clubs in the Bill. We speak to children and families in schools extensively and carry out extensive analysis. We know that where breakfast clubs are provided freely, they make a huge difference to low-income families —they make a big difference to lots of children, but to lower-income families disproportionately. The fact that provision is universal is very important; we know that removes a lot of barriers for parents. Where there is any kind of targeted approach, there are issues around stigma and families are less likely to use provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, exactly. Take-up of breakfast clubs varies, but the fact that it is universally available is very important.
I would say that it feels like secondary school pupils need more attention. They are being missed in the Bill. More could be done to support those families. There is also the issue in primary schools of how much support breakfast clubs can provide in terms of childcare, which is much more needed at primary level, but secondary school pupils certainly need support. They need support to get to school and they need food available as well.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: My understanding is that the HAF funding for holiday programmes has been committed to until 2025—some time this year. There are concerns about what will happen next with holiday programmes. In terms of funding for breakfast clubs more generally, there has been commitment to carry on funding the national school breakfast programme until 2026. That supports some secondary schools that meet the criteria. That is welcome, but one of our concerns with the work going on around breakfast clubs is funding and commitment to funding. We know that there is funding until 2026.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Yes, there is no certainty after that. The costs cannot land on families—we know that that will be a major barrier—but they also cannot land on schools, which need to know that they can continue that provision.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: Around 75% of schools have some form of breakfast provision already, but, as you say—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: There is a higher proportion in primary, but that 75% is across all. Sorry—I have forgotten your question.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: A large proportion are already running breakfast clubs. It is a real mixture in terms of how that is funded, whether it is through schemes or other things. In primary schools, it is much more likely that parents are paying in some form for that. Again, it is a mixed picture. There is a postcode lottery for families. If you are in a more affluent area, you are more likely to have breakfast club provision available to you, and you are more likely to be supported by family.
In what the Bill is trying to do on breakfast clubs, we really welcome the fact that it is bringing consistency and ensuring that there is access for all families. In the early adopter phase, it would be good to understand what schools are doing already and how this can work, but I think that standardised limit that includes both time and food for families should be standardised for everybody. There might be other things that go around that.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Kate Anstey: It is probably worth speaking to organisations; I am sure that Magic Breakfast will be able to speak more to that. There are certainly economies of scale that can help you bring down costs, but again, our area of expertise is free school meals, and schools are struggling with the funding that they have for free school meals. I would imagine that 65p might be a struggle for schools—I do not know. You would have to have conversations with some of the providers about that.
Stephen Morgan
Q
Kate Anstey: We were very pleased to see Government taking action on reducing the cost of the school day, and uniforms are a huge pressure for families. We have done some research looking at the cost of uniforms for families. If you are a primary-aged family, the cost is £350 minimum, and it goes up to about £450 for secondary-aged families. That is for one child, of course, so that multiplies if you have more children. Part of that includes the fact that schools sometimes have excessive lists of compulsory branded items, so we were very pleased to see that acknowledgment in the Bill and the recognition that that needs to be limited. We think that that will make some difference to families.
The Bill could have gone further. I am not sure why the difference has been made between secondary and primary on the minimum. I think that those should be the same; there should not be a discrepancy there. I encourage Government to consider going further on this and bringing down the branded items as much as possible, because that is one of the things that place pressure on families.
In addition, the Bill could go further to support families with the cost of uniforms. In every other UK nation, families get grants and support with school costs. England is the only one that is lagging behind in that area, so we would like the idea of lower-income families getting more support with the cost to be looked at. This is two-pronged: schools need to do more, but families really do need help to meet some of those costs as well.
One more thing on uniform that comes up a lot in our research with children and young people is that children are being isolated or sent home from school because they do not meet requirements around uniform. DFE data showed that 18% of children in hardship were sent home for not meeting uniform requirements. I find that kind of shocking when we have an attendance crisis. Something needs to be done around the guidance for behaviour in schools to ensure that children are not sanctioned for poverty-related issues or issues relating to uniform. Those are areas where I think that the Bill could have gone further, but we certainly think restricting branded items is a good thing.
The Chair
Order. It is not acceptable to have this backwards and forwards across the Committee. Please ask a question of the witness.
The Chair
Q
The Minister for School Standards (Catherine McKinnell): I am Catherine McKinnell, the Minister for School Standards.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Stephen Morgan): I am Stephen Morgan, the Minister for Early Education.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I want to say first that the Government’s mission through the Bill—
Neil O'Brien
Could you answer the question?
Catherine McKinnell: I will answer the question.
Vicky Foxcroft (Lewisham North) (Lab)
We are supposed to be polite to each other.
Neil O'Brien
We have limited time. Can you please just answer the question. I have incredibly limited time.
The Chair
Order. We have had a question, and the Minister is going to answer it.
Catherine McKinnell: The Government’s mission through the Bill is to deliver on the ambition of giving every child a national core of high-quality education, while allowing schools more flexibility and to innovate beyond it. We know that excellence and innovation can be found in all school types, so our priority is to create a school system that is rooted in collaboration and partnership so that we can spread that best practice throughout our very diverse system, which was commented on in the evidence we heard today. That is just the schools part; there is obviously a whole other section on children and safeguarding, and making sure we bring forward the landmark reforms that we need to see in child safeguarding.
In direct answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question, the factor that makes the biggest difference to a young person’s education in schools and colleges is high-quality teaching, but there are severe shortages of qualified teachers across the country. We know that they are integral to driving high and rising standards, and they need to have an attractive pay and conditions framework. That is essential to both recruiting and retaining teachers who are qualified in every classroom.
We know academies have made transformational change, and we want them to continue driving those high and rising standards for all pupils, but especially disadvantaged pupils. That is why, as the Secretary of State set out, we want to create a floor with no ceiling, enabling healthy competition and innovation beyond that core framework to improve all schools. That is what we intend to deliver. We have heard the feedback from the sector. I have listened very carefully to the evidence that has been given today.
What this means for our ambition for teachers pay and conditions is that it should be clearer. In the same way that we have tabled other amendments to the Bill to make sure the legislation delivers our objectives, we are also intending to table an amendment to the clause covering teachers’ pay and conditions. That is entirely in line with the Government’s approach to providing clarification on the intention of legislation while we go through Committee stage.
The amendment will do two things. First, it will set a floor on pay that requires all state schools to follow minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. Secondly, it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teacher’s pay and conditions document. In doing so, we make it clear that we will deliver on our commitment to create a floor with no ceiling, so that good practice and innovation can continue to spread and be used by all state schools to recruit and retain the very best teachers that we need for our children.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: As I said, the amendment will require all state schools to follow the minimum pay bands set out in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document, and then it will require academies to have due regard to the rest of the terms and conditions in the school teachers’ pay and conditions document. This is so that we can deliver that core offer to all state schools, but without a ceiling.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We are in close consultation with all of the stakeholders that we have been collaborating with to make sure we create the best framework of legislation that will deliver opportunity for all children, and we will continue to do so.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I can respond to the hon. Gentleman on the new power in clause 43 that he has raised a number of times today. It will provide the Secretary of State with a more proportionate and flexible remedy, where it is really important to address quite a narrow or specific breach regarding unreasonable behaviour within an academy trust. I can give you an example as to why this is necessary: at the moment existing intervention powers require the Department for Education to use a termination warning notice and subsequently a termination notice. That is not always necessary or appropriate when dealing with an isolated breach of a legal duty.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: We need a proportionate response and that needs to be framed—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Is the hon. Gentleman talking about a point that he has made on that or a point that—
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: Obviously, we will listen to legitimate concerns on that. At the moment our view is that it is a much more proportionate way of dealing with a breach by an academy of a legal requirement within the legislation, so that we can avoid disruption to children where there is another way of dealing with it.
Neil O'Brien
Q
Catherine McKinnell: I am conscious that other Members of the Committee might want to actually ask about the legislation, but I am happy to set out our overarching vision.
Creative Arts Education
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 7 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Mundell. I congratulate the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on securing this debate, which, as well as being hugely informative and important, has been a pleasure to listen to. It has given us the exciting prospect of the Liberal Democrat drama club, which—given the exciting predilection of their leader, the right hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), for doing his own stunts—holds all kinds of potential. The idea of a flautist-off between the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Stroud (Dr Opher) is another exciting prospect.
We have heard thoughtful and important speeches from the hon. Members for Reading Central (Matt Rodda), for East Thanet (Ms Billington), for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous), for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne), for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger), for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham), and for Strangford. It has been an interesting debate.
This will be the last education debate of 2024—barring any surprises from the Minister tomorrow—so I want to thank all the hard-working teachers for their efforts over the year. When I meet teachers, as I have been over the last couple of days, I often find that they are quite tired at this time of year. For primary school teachers, the creative activity around the nativity is the thing that finally finishes them off and leaves them ready for Christmas. I end the year in the spirit of good will, and particularly thank our hard-working teachers.
In order to facilitate an answer that the Minister may wish to get from her officials, I will start by asking about a very specific thing: the music and dance scheme. On 21 November, the Secretary of State wrote to the former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), to say that the Government were going to extend transitional support for that scheme: “From 1 January 2025, for families with relevant income below £45,000, my Department will ensure their total fee contributions will remain unchanged for the rest of the academic year.” In a sense, that is a pause or a stay of execution. When will the Minister make a decision on the future of that really good arts scheme, so that there can be certainty beyond the end of the academic year? Will she continue to hold down fees for those who benefit from it for the next year? Will she also commit to maintain a related project, the Choir Schools’ Association scholarship scheme? I enter those specific things into the debate at this point so that the Minister has a chance to respond.
Let me now turn to the wider debate. We have talked about some of the things the last Government did, such as music hubs, which I think are widely welcomed, but—without wishing to move away from the spirit of good will and Christmas towards being the dog in the manger—of course the issue is always time. Our hard-working teachers are already working flat out. In theory and principle, I love the idea advanced by the Liberal Democrat Front Bench that it should not be an either/or, but unfortunately there are only a certain number of hours in the school day.
Now, if the Minister gets a wonderfully huge sum of money from the Treasury and manages to expand the school day so that we can do all those additional things, that is wonderful—I will be the first to welcome that—but our teachers and schools face some inescapable trade-offs. As the Minister will know by now, every week there are on average four calls from different groups for something new to be put on to the national curriculum or to get more time in our schools, but they cannot all have more time.
My only caveat to what Members have said today is the idea that there are creative and non-creative subjects. Some spoke about STEAM, which is a better concept, because the sciences and all those other things are creative subjects too. After a fall from 83% to 70% of pupils getting double or triple science between 2006 and 2011, it is a good thing that those subjects have rebounded to 98%. We have to be honest about what the trade-offs are. If we want to do more of one thing, we have to be clear and honest with people about what we are going to do less of—unless there is some sudden money gusher.
Ms Billington
I am interested in the idea that there is a limited amount of time in the state school curriculum, but there does not seem to be a limited amount of time for creative education in private schools. If it is important for private schools, then it is important for state educated children, so why can we not find the time for it?
Neil O’Brien
With respect, I am all ears, and it will be for the Government to say where they will find the time for those things. In principle, I have no objection, but I do not believe that the hon. Lady thinks that there is an unlimited amount of time in the school day, or that our teachers can all do endlessly more work. Of course that is not the case—no one believes that; there are choices here.
If I can return to the spirit of good will and Christmas, I want to commend something good that the Government have published: the evidence pack published alongside the curriculum and assessment review. It is a good piece of work that brings some nuance to the debate that is not always there. It shows that, although the numbers doing GCSE are somewhat down for some art subjects, the numbers doing other types of qualifications are going up at the same time. A lot of the bigger changes are nothing to do with art subjects whatsoever. We see less time spent on ICT in schools and more time spent on English, maths and science. I commend to hon. Members that very good piece of work by the Government; I strongly endorse the nuance that it brings. We all want to see more of these wonderful things happening in our schools, but I also beg that everyone is honest about the trade-offs involved.
David Mundell (in the Chair)
Minister, I would grateful if you left a few moments at the end so that Jess Brown-Fuller can respond to the debate.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education (Janet Daby)
I will endeavour to do so, Mr Mundell. I am pleased to be speaking in this debate, which, as has already been said, is probably the last education debate this year—what a lovely subject for the final one. I extend my congratulations to the hon. Member for Chichester (Jess Brown-Fuller) on securing it. It was excellent to hear so much about her performing arts background—from teaching to advocating here; she obviously still enjoys it.
I am sure many of us are enjoying creativity during this festive season—maybe hon. Members have been to a pantomime or two, although I am not encouraging anyone to do one here. I look forward to seeing “Sleeping Beauty” in my constituency, and I am sure that many Members who have spoken about the theatres, creative arts and creative places in their areas are enjoying visiting them and partaking in the activity as well. It was excellent and lovely to hear about the many things that colleagues have mentioned, although of course we also heard about the many challenges and the changes that are needed. Hon. Members said that we need to go further, and I know that they will hold the Government to account on our mission statements and reforms.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) for her contribution, particularly about Sammy’s Foundation, and about the need to ensure that the creative arts are there for people with SEND and those who are neurodiverse.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for speaking about music hubs and the need to review provision for arts and creativity.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) talked about the need to campaign. I very much agree that creativity and the arts help with children’s emotional health and wellbeing—I will be speaking about that later—but it was also lovely to hear that it helps with maths. Why wouldn’t we want to hear that? It is absolutely brilliant.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tristan Osborne) for talking about not only the worrying decline in the arts but the need to inspire generations to come.
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halesowen (Alex Ballinger) for raising concerns about declining GCSE uptake, and for talking about hubs.
My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) talked about the missions and growth, as well as SMEs.
It was lovely to hear the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) speak about many things, including how the art of graffiti can make real and positive changes.
The hon. Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) spoke about many relevant things, as she often does, including the need to ensure that the curriculum is rounded, varied and broad—I could not agree more. I am sure that we are all advocating for more fun in our children’s studies and the encouragement of their creative abilities. Learning can be fun, and we hope that it is in our schools.
I am pleased with the many contributions that have been made, and I will endeavour to respond to them in the time I have, but I encourage Members to make contact with me if they feel they have not been answered. The Government recognise the immense value of creative subjects for every child and young person, extending far beyond career aspirations in the creative industries. Creative subjects support a child’s ability to express themselves, help their confidence and support their emotional wellbeing, and there are benefits in many other areas.
Creative subjects, like the arts, music, drama and many others, are significant elements of the rounded and enriching education that the Government want every child to receive. That is why creative subjects are part of the national curriculum for all maintained schools from the age of five to 14—and beyond for drama. Academies, too, are expected to teach these subjects as part of their statutory requirement to foster pupils’ cultural development. Indeed, many schools currently teach creative subjects as part of the curriculum and do so with great success, which enables children and young people to engage with subjects like music beyond the school day. The Government’s goal is to ensure that no child is deprived of the enriching experience that creative education provides. We aim to ensure a consistent approach across all schools.
The Government’s mission is to break down the barriers to opportunities that hold back many of our young people. We know that this will take time, but we are committed to taking the right steps to make it a reality. A crucial step in realising our vision is to ensure that our national curriculum strikes the right balance. It must embody ambition, excellence, relevance, flexibility and inclusivity. That is why in July we launched an independent curriculum and assessment review for ages five to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE.
The review will seek to deliver a broader curriculum, with improved access to music, art, sports, drama and vocational subjects. It will look closely at the key challenges to attainment for young people and the barriers that hold children back from the opportunities that they should be able to access. This is an important process, and the recommendations put forward by Professor Becky Francis and her expert-led panel will be published in 2025. Many Members have mentioned that crucial review.
We recognise that although potential is widespread, opportunities are not. That disparity has held many young people back from fulfilling their true potential. To ensure that music education is fully inclusive, including for those with special educational needs and disabilities in both mainstream and special schools, music hubs are required to have an inclusion lead and to develop an inclusion strategy. Furthermore, the Government will launch a new national music education network. This initiative will help families, children and schools access broader opportunities and support.
Janet Daby
I really do not have time, I am afraid.
Through the opportunity mission, we will work to break the link between young people’s background and their future success. Our focus is on supporting the most vulnerable and disadvantaged children, and we will continue to take steps to ensure that opportunity is not restricted by a young person’s location or background.
Our goal is to help families continue to support their children in accessing specialist music and dance courses, so we have made changes to the music and dance scheme for this transitional academic year. From January 2025, we will ensure that families with below average incomes receive additional support to prevent any increases in parental contributions due to the VAT change. This adjustment will benefit around half the families with a music and dance scheme bursary for their child.
I would like to give the hon. Member for Chichester some time to respond, so I will end on that note. I thank all Members for their contributions, and I wish everyone a very merry Christmas.
Qualifications Reform Review
Neil O'Brien Excerpts(1 year, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Neil O’Brien (Harborough, Oadby and Wigston) (Con)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of the statement.
For many years, people have worried about the huge number of different qualifications in further education. For many years, people have wanted us to be more like Germany and called for new, higher-quality, higher-funded, simpler qualifications. T-levels, introduced under the previous Government, are an attempt to do exactly that, with a higher unit of funding and much more work experience. Finally, we have a clear, prestigious qualification mirroring A-levels on the academic side. As the Minister will know from talking to Lord Sainsbury, part of the vision was to use T-levels to simplify the landscape, which everyone agrees is too complex. I think the sector will heave a sigh of relief that today’s announcement is finally out—we were getting to the point where literally any decision would have been better than continued indecision—but it leaves some huge unanswered questions. The Minister says that things will be clear up until 2027. In other words, we will be back here again in two years. We had a pause and a review. We will now have a longer pause and another review. At some point, the Government will have to decide. The sector wants certainty, but we know from the statement that it will not get that yet.
The Government must spell out some kind of vision for how they plan to simplify the landscape of qualifications, which for my whole lifetime everyone has agreed is far too complicated and fragmented. The Minister said in her statement that the qualifications landscape is too confusing, even as she announced that the Government have decided to keep more qualifications, particularly overlapping qualifications. I do not want to be too mean to her—these issues are not easy. In Government, we had the Wolf review. More recently, we removed a further 5,500 qualifications that had sustained low take-up, but what is this Government’s vision to simplify the landscape? Never mind the detail, what is the rough vision, and when will they set it out? If it is not T-levels and what the previous Government were planning to do, what is it?
There is also a lot more work to be done to improve T-levels. As the Minister said, the Government will allow part of the work experience to be delivered working from home, but we need much more than that. What is the plan to reduce drop-out rates, and make T-levels more appealing and easier to deliver? One of the great things about T-levels is the need to produce so much work experience—about 50% more than previous qualifications. That makes them much harder to deliver. What are the Government doing to help colleges to deliver them? On a point of process, the Government—extraordinarily, I thought—refused to publish the terms of reference for the review that has just concluded, even in response to freedom of information requests from FE Week. Will the Minister agree to publish the terms of reference now that the review has concluded? There is no reason for them not to be in the public domain.
No qualification structure will work unless the review gets the funding landscape for technical education right, so will the Minister set out the funding implications of her announcement? The Government promised that they would protect public services from the national insurance increase, but first universities and, this week, nurseries and early years providers have discovered that that was a false promise. The university fee increase has been entirely eaten up by the increase in national insurance. Now, early years providers say that the failure to compensate them for the national insurance increase is “catastrophic” and will mean that
“countless nurseries, pre-schools and childminders will be left with no option but to raise costs, reduce places or simply close their doors completely.”
So far, the Government have refused to come clean about the cost to the further education sector of the national insurance increase—a piece of information that this House deserves to know. The Government have it, but they will not release it. When staff in non-academised colleges complain about their different treatment on pay compared with academised colleges, the Government say that there will be £300 million for post-16 education, but they will not say how much of that will be eaten up by the increase in national insurance. I hope that today the Minister will finally give this House the information that it deserves to know. The Government have the information, and this House and people in the sector deserve to know it.
It is early days, but what we are looking at is ongoing uncertainty over these qualifications, no clear vision to bring about the simplification that the Government say they want, and no proper plan yet to support T-level students and providers. The House is not allowed to see the terms of reference of the review that has just concluded, or know how much the national insurance increase will cost the sector. For students and teachers alike, we have to do better than this.