Education Bill

Pat Glass Excerpts

Wednesday 11th May 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dan Rogerson]

I am pleased that Labour Members have raised some of these issues, because it is right that we explore them in detail and in depth. We began to do that in Committee and it is right that we continue the process. Given the time available today, I am sure that those in another place will continue the exploration.

It is important for us, as legislators, to examine what the Government are trying to do, which is free up schools to get on with providing the best education that they can. At the risk of boring those who were present at the discussions, I can tell the House that we had an extensive debate in Committee about the level of trust among different members of the Committee for those involved in education, be it head teachers or teachers, and about the extent to which the state or local authorities ought to step in and not trust them to exercise the powers and freedoms available to them.

We have to examine the evidence. I absolutely accept that some of the charities to which the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham) referred have concerns and have discussed potential scenarios. However, we are dealing with hypothetical situations and although I very much respect what the former Chair of the Select Committee had to say—

[Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Dan Rogerson]

Gladly.

[Pat Glass]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who was a fellow member of the Public Bill Committee. I can remember saying to the Secretary of State that he would get the benefit of my experience and that at the end of the six weeks of the Public Bill Committee he would be sick to death of the benefit of my experience. I do not accept that these are theoretical cases. I have 25 years’ experience in education, many of them in dealing with admissions. Time and again, very good head teachers—nice people—did things that I thought, and which parents thought, were completely unacceptable. They did so because they were driven down the route of targets, obtaining a certain numbers of GCSEs and so on. One hon. Member on the Government Benches said that good people can do bad things and that does happen. It is our most vulnerable children—children with special educational needs, looked-after children and children on free school meals—who will suffer and their parents who will lose out if this code is simplified.

[Dan Rogerson]

The point that the right hon. Member for Leigh raised is that we do not have the code in front of us, and so the hon. Lady is raising the issues that she fears may result. We will have to wait and see the code and examine it then.

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[Mr Gibb]

No, they would not be wasting their time, because I am not convinced that these issues are deterring good independent selective schools from coming into the state sector. That is certainly not the case with Batley grammar school, and I am sure that it is not the case for other good independent schools, selective or otherwise, that wish to come into the state sector.

New clause 10 would amend the general duty on the Secretary of State to promote the education of the people of England and Wales to include a duty to

“ensure fair access to opportunity for education and training.”

Equity coupled with excellence is at the heart of the schools White Paper, the Green Paper on special educational needs and this Bill. Fair access is about more than admissions; it is about ensuring that every school is worthy of parents’ consideration, that every school is able to raise standards free from red tape, and that every school supports the most vulnerable children. Everything we are doing in the Department is geared to support that aim: the pupil premium allows funding to follow disadvantaged pupils, we are spending £800 million in 2011-12 to meet the pressure for places at good schools, and our behaviour reforms are intended to make every classroom a safe place to learn.

It should be absolutely clear that we do not disagree with the thrust of new clause 10. Of course it is the job of all those involved in education to ensure that all children have the opportunities they need to succeed, but local authorities already have that duty, and that is where the duty is most appropriate. Local authorities have the duty to secure the provision of education for people in their area, and they have the levers to achieve that. Localism is about ensuring that powers are given at the right level, and it is right that duties go alongside that. Fair access is and should be driven locally, not by a Whitehall-focused duty. I therefore urge hon. Members not to press new clause 10.

[Pat Glass]

Surely localism is about supporting parents and their rights. Anything that weakens parents’ rights, such as not allowing them access to the adjudicator or the ombudsman, is not about raising standards in schools.

[Mr Gibb]

I think the hon. Lady and, in particular, the shadow Secretary of State overstate their case. We are not just extending the right to access the adjudicator to parents of children attending academies, who can now complain to the adjudicator about admissions arrangements, we are also changing the rules on which parents and members of the public can complain to the adjudicator about a school’s admissions arrangements. We are saying that any parent from anywhere can make such a complaint. We are widening the ability of parents and members of the public to complain to the adjudicator.

I turn to amendment 9. Although, again, I agree with the aim of ensuring fair access, I do not believe that the amendment is necessary. The admissions code is entirely about fairness, which is why we have an admissions system for schools. I can assure hon. Members that in our work to revise the admissions code and make it more straightforward, we have not in any way removed the focus on fairness.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

However much the Minister values schools forums, they are the only mechanisms through which parents have any input into their local admissions agreements. Surely it cannot be right that parents in one local authority have access to a forum when parents in the neighbouring authority do not. That will create a postcode lottery. The local authority can effectively cut out the parents whose needs are greatest by not having a forum. Surely that cannot be right.

[Mr Gibb]

There is a philosophical difference between the Government and Opposition. We do not believe that the Whitehall-constructed approach, which means that things are identical throughout the country, is right about how to deal with anomalies that might occur. We think that a more localised approach is better. Of course, parents can object to admissions arrangements via many avenues. They can take part in the consultation or lodge an objection with the independent schools adjudicator, for example. In addition, as I said earlier, we are expanding parents’ right to object via the schools adjudicator to schools that are not within their area. That, rather than the top-down, prescriptive, bureaucratic approach, is the right approach. Those are very real problems, and we want to address them. We want to ensure that parents can comment on admissions arrangements and that those arrangements are fair, but we also want to reduce bureaucratic burdens.

On amendment 13, one perceived problem with making admission forums non-mandatory is that concerns about admissions will go uninvestigated. However, that is not true. In fact, admission forums never had a power to make decisions on admissions. That role remains with the Office of the Schools Adjudicator, and the Bill will extend his role so that in future, he can investigate and adjudicate on complaints about admissions at academies and free schools. The Bill also gives power to schools and local authorities to put things right for themselves when the adjudicator judges that their admissions arrangements are non-compliant.

Amendment 13 would provide for a wide-ranging local authority power of scrutiny and direction over admissions authorities following a binding decision by the adjudicator, and offer a mere two weeks’ grace in which such authorities can act to comply with the decision. When I first read that proposal, which was tabled by Opposition Front Benchers, I was in two minds about it. On the one hand, I was reassured by their acceptance of the principle of allowing schools the freedom to implement decisions—although they would have to do so within two weeks. On the other hand, the amendment completely misses the point about the purpose of that freedom.

I sought in Committee to reassure hon. Members that schools cannot simply ignore the decision of the adjudicator: he is a statutory post holder, and his decisions have the force of law. Schools must implement change to comply with the adjudicator’s decision. Although at first glance a fortnight seems reasonable, on closer examination it looks less reasonable. Admissions policies must be locally consulted on for at least eight weeks to allow all parties to consider proposals or amendments. Many changes subsequent to an adjudicator’s decision can be swift and simple, but others take time, because they are inherently complex or because they seek to address coherently a number of issues.

More often than not, the timing of decisions means that they cannot easily be adopted for the coming admissions round without risking frustrating parents and others. That is why adjudicators try to ensure that their changes can be included when appropriate, and not just immediately.

[Pat Glass]

Local authorities have 14 days in which to comply with the decision of a special educational needs tribunal. Therefore, why is it unreasonable for schools to have 14 days to comply with the decision of the schools adjudicator, who is also a statutory body?

[Mr Gibb]

The example that the hon. Lady gives applies to one individual, but an objection to admission arrangements applies to an entire school, and therefore to a wider range of people, which means that consultation is necessary before those changes are made. That is the difference between the two examples.[Official Report, 13 May 2011, Vol. 527, c. 11MC.]

There is something else wrong with Opposition Front Benchers’ amendment 13. It would give the 152 local authorities a power to direct, but those local authorities are themselves the admissions authorities for about 19,000 schools in England, and it cannot make sense to give them the power to direct themselves, which in essence is what the amendment would do. Nor is the amendment consistent with our general thrust to allow schools the flexibility to put matters right themselves. Adjudicator decisions carry the full weight of law, and any attempt to thwart them through undue delay risks further legal challenge and possible direction from either the Secretary of State or the courts. All admissions authorities, including academies and voluntary-aided schools, must comply with binding decisions, and we believe that exactly how they do so is best judged by the schools themselves. However, when they do so will be just as important in ensuring that we do not create chaos in our admissions system. I believe that we have struck the right balance between national parameters and local pragmatism, so I ask hon. Members not to press their amendments.

I turn to amendment 40, in the name of the hon. Member for Walthamstow (Stella Creasy). She and, through an intervention, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn) explained that they were seeking to ensure that the impact of the changes made by the Bill to the exclusions process were clearly understood. I agree that it is important to understand what is happening in schools on such an important issue, and as I set out in Committee, extensive statistics have already been published on the number of permanent and fixed-period exclusions, including for each local authority and ethnic group, as too have national and local authority-level statistics on SEN exclusions, both statemented and non-statemented. In collecting information, however, it is important to eliminate the risk of revealing the identities of individual children, and in some instances, numbers are likely to be far too low to deliver the level of detail sought by the amendment. If there are fewer than five exclusions in a local authority area, the numbers are not published.

We collect information on the review panels, and will continue to do so for the new panels, including on how many cases are reviewed, the outcome of a panel’s decision and whether the pupil is reinstated by the school. I can confirm that we will also have details of when an adjustment of a school’s budget share is directed. However, I am happy to meet the hon. Member for Walthamstow to discuss the precise data that she seeks to see whether we can accommodate her request, bearing in mind the fact that we have to ensure that we do not inadvertently publish very small numbers, which could inadvertently reveal the identities of individual children.