Co-operatives in Education

Philip Hollobone Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I call the sparkling Steve Baker.

[Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)]

Thank you for your kind words, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve again under your chairmanship in this important debate. I thank the Minister for being here. I know that liberating his time has caused his Department some inconvenience, and I am extremely grateful to him for being here willingly when his Department is so busy.

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[Steve Baker]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. He is of course right that we sometimes forget to look at such points. It is crucial that no one should be left behind and the ethos of the school, as he will appreciate, is that the co-operators involved are determined to lift everyone up. I appreciate his point and I apologise that I do not have that information to hand.

Mr Hood made the point that performance in all core subjects rose markedly. In particular, Cressex has risen well above the national average in maths for the first time. He said that that is an exceptional achievement and he is right. Cressex is improving itself, which goes back to the point about defiant spirit. Cressex does not wish to have a model imposed on it; it is improving itself.

I have been on a journey, discovering something of the traditions of the left and the co-operative movement, and to me, that was the essential thing to understand. It is about self-help—a difficult term for a Conservative to use—mutuality, self-responsibility, direct democratic control, equality and solidarity. Such terms are perhaps vexed for Conservatives, but separated from state power, they actually just represent values and ideals that any fully formed human being should support. That, to me, explains the defiant spirit of autonomy that I found. Those values are being used by the Cressex school to engage with the community around it, and they are values transforming the lives and prospects of individuals whom we cannot allow to fall into neglect. Those people must be supported with a degree of delicacy if they are to flourish, which, in the end, is what we want for all the people in our constituencies, irrespective of their voting habits.

I turn to what it means to be a co-operative, and how Cressex has applied some of those principles. In the co-operative statement on identity, we find a definition that I think anyone could support and welcome:

“A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”

That crucial element of voluntarism surprised me. I hope that Members on the left will forgive me if I say that I have always misunderstood socialism to mean compulsion, and I was amazed to discover that on the left, there is this great tradition of voluntarism. When I look down through the values—

“ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others”—

who could possibly disagree with them?

I turn to the principles: “Voluntary and Open Membership”—of course, a school should certainly comply with that. When I look at “Democratic Member Control”, I start thinking that the Government need to act, because it seems to me that across the whole suite of policy areas in education, the Government need to ensure that when parents, staff and others in the community are engaged in a school, they have the opportunity for their democratic control to be meaningful. The next principle is “Member Economic Participation”—although I paid £1 to become a member of Cressex co-operative, it does not seem to me, unless an Opposition Member would like to correct me, that anyone is immediately leaping to suggest that there should be economic participation in schools. However, “Autonomy and Independence”—what a marvellous idea, which seems to go directly to the heart of the Government’s policies. We then have “Education, Training and Information”, “Co-operation among Co-operatives”, and “Concern for Community”.

Those are some of the values that the Cressex co-operative trust has implemented, and which I think could allow other schools to follow suit, particularly where they are smaller and need to combine in order to be viable. The partnership with Cressex school has included Buckinghamshire New university, Dr Challoner’s grammar school, Wycombe Abbey school, the local authority and the Co-operative college.

After years of campaigning, the school moved into a new building, which certainly lifted spirits, and I have to say that we are grateful to the previous Government and all those involved locally for giving us those new premises. The community’s values were naturally aligned to those of the co-operative movement, and particularly the notion of being values-driven and faith-neutral, which, in my constituency, is highly relevant. The community engages actively, and as I mentioned in response to an intervention, is a specialist business and enterprise school.

I am particularly pleased that Johnson & Johnson’s Dr Cesar Rodriguez Valdajos, a Spaniard, has engaged with the school and become a governor. At a time when we are challenging how capitalism is working and where it has gone wrong, it is particularly interesting that someone from Johnson & Johnson has engaged with the school. When capitalism previously failed, that company showed, through its credo, how private enterprise could step up. What I find encouraging is that the notion of enterprise being people-centred is actually highly inclusive. Wycombe Abbey school is one of the finest independent girls’ schools in the country, and its engagement with Cressex has been not only crucial but mutual, because it is in those sixth-form pupils’ interests that they engage with the school and help with literacy and numeracy.

Crucially, the pupils share the school’s co-operative vision and values. As a former head boy told the governors recently:

“High achievement for all is certainly our shared responsibility. I can say for a fact that Cressex is a rising star. It’s climbing to the top and I am proud to be head boy.”

I have to say that Cressex has travelled a long way very quickly, since when I first visited the school as a candidate and saw a collection of prefab buildings and some people who were rather long in the face. There were some poor results, but Cressex is transforming itself very rapidly.

I am aware of the time, and that other Members would like to speak, so I shall abridge some of my other remarks on other co-operatives, but I particularly want to point to the experience of Mondragon university from the Library debate pack. Mondragon university is a Spanish institution owned by its staff, and an article, in the course of describing it, interviews a British academic, saying that

“many of the principles on which cooperatives are based are not necessarily that radical in higher education. Cook”—

Dan Cook—

“points out that the University of Cambridge ‘is already configured as a sort of workers’ co-op’ because every academic is part of the governing body…he adds: ‘I don’t think anyone has told them yet.’”

Therefore, it may well be that co-operatives are more advanced in the United Kingdom at all levels than has generally been believed.

Co-operative schools are now the third largest network of schools in the country, following Church of England and Roman Catholic schools. More than a quarter of a million young people attend a co-op school and more than £4 billion of assets have been transferred from local education authorities to co-operative trusts. In September 2011, co-op trusts ran 63 secondary schools. There are now 94 and the figure is predicted to be 102 by December. In the same period, co-op primary schools increased from 76 to a surprising 389, which is predicted to be 444 by December. Overall, co-operative schools have grown from 188 in September 2011 to a predicted 714 in December this year. That is an astonishing vote in support of autonomy and self-governance in relationship with others. To me, it is an enormous endorsement of liberty and civil society, and I believe that the Government should row in behind it.

The first co-op free school will be in Swanage, which demonstrates that co-ops are not incompatible with the Government’s free school programme. However, I look ahead to 2014, and I must say to the Government that at this time there are real imperatives for action, because about half of secondary schools and almost 90% of primaries still need to determine their long-term structure. There is every likelihood that they could choose to be co-operatives. If co-operation is a necessary requirement to enable small schools to flourish, the Government certainly need to act fast to put in place whatever is necessary to allow co-operation to thrive.

The Government ought not to fear co-operatives. I know that the co-operative movement began with figures such as Robert Owen, who was a utopian socialist, but the values and principles, and the place reached by the co-operative movement today, are not to be feared by people on the Government side of the House of Commons. Co-operatives are, above all, people-centred businesses, and it strikes me that co-operatives can resolve a number of conflicts of interest and ideology.

On markets versus collectivism, we have democratic, collective ownership of property, and yet co-operatives participate—and always have participated—in markets. I observe that one of the crucial reasons why state socialism can never work is that it eliminates markets in capital goods. Co-operation does not do that.

On employer versus worker, the Co-operative party’s website recognises that producer interest can effectively be dealt with through co-operation. I would suggest that some problems that the Government are currently experiencing could be ameliorated if more schools were directly controlled by parents, staff and the community, so that not only were industrial relations easier from the outset, but if difficulties did arise, they would be easier to resolve, because it would be clear who was negotiating with whom, and to what end.

It seems to me that today, sometimes co-operative schools are succeeding despite obstacles. That may well be in the spirit of the co-operative movement, but it seems that the Government ought to do more to ensure a crisp, simple and effective legal framework. I do not wish to pre-empt the remarks of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Meg Munn), but I would like to ask the Government to look closely at the ten-minute rule Bill that she brought forward. She proposed a measure that would enable schools to register as industrial and provident societies and enable nursery schools to be established as school trusts. That seems an extremely good idea, not only to complete that scale of education from nursery through to—it turns out—university level, but to ensure that things are viable and sustainable. I expect the Government to go down that road because of what has been said, and I would like to provide a little detail on what has gone before.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education said:

“First, let me pay tribute to the work of the co-operative movement. Since it started in Rochdale, many of us have been inspired by its achievements. I believe that the academies programme and particularly the free schools programme provide an opportunity for the ideals of the original co-operative movement to be embedded in our schools. The idea that all work together for the good of their community and for the fulfilment of higher ideals is one that Government Members wholeheartedly applaud.”—[Official Report, 16 January 2012; Vol. 538, c. 468.]

Cabinet Office Ministers have been outspoken in support of co-operatives. My right hon. Friend the Minister for the Cabinet Office and Paymaster General said of mutuals and the Government’s policies:

“The right to provide will challenge traditional public service structures and unleash the pent up ideas and innovation that has been stifled by bureaucracy.”

That chimes directly with the Co-operative party’s message that co-operative models offer the best model for the reform of the public services or public service delivery.

In November 2007, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister spoke of co-operatives in Manchester and developed arguments leading to the tantalising prospect of

“a new generation of co-operative schools in Britain—funded by the taxpayer but owned by parents and the local community.”

In January 2012, he also held out the prospect of a new co-operatives Bill. Without wishing to give succour to Opposition Members, I say gently to the Government that the Prime Minister ought now to find time to bring forward that Bill, encompassing the proposals of the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, if we are to avoid the allegation of mere posturing. I want us to get behind co-operative schools, and more broadly co-operatives in education, in the general interest, to transcend some of the partisan debate that has gone to and fro, because I know that, in Wycombe, co-operative principles are transforming Cressex school. Those principles are proving increasingly popular across the country.

Today, a revolution in autonomy for schools is taking place, but it seems to me that it is taking place despite obstacles, so I ask the Government please to work more closely with the co-operative movement in establishing new free schools and helping academies to become co-op trusts. Will they bring forward the co-operatives Bill and will they look closely at the hon. Lady’s proposals? I am sure that Ministers will be welcome at Cressex school if they wish to see how it works in practice.

The Government ought just to do the right thing. Principles of co-operation entrench liberty and civil society. They produce self-esteem, confidence and resilience. They are evidently popular with the public. The Government should now move heaven and earth to liberate the co-operative spirit in education.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

From the sparkling Steve Baker to the fragrant Meg Munn.

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[Mr Timpson]

I am glad that we have managed to come to another co-operative consensus in this debate. Given the steep rise in the number of co-operative trusts in England, it is important to look seriously at their impact and where they fit into our attempts to establish the most effective education for all our children. As the hon. Lady rightly points out, much of that involves good joint working relationships that should provide incentives for schools to develop higher educational standards.

Doing so has several other advantages. The biggest contribution to school leadership development lies in providing the rich and varied opportunities that will lead to the innovation and responsibility that we want schools to show. Collaborative working can, therefore, provide a broader base for developing leaders, and a greater opportunity for leaders to learn from one another. As I have seen in my constituency, it gives such leaders a greater experience of what is going on not only in their schools, but in surrounding ones and at different levels or key stages.

Working more closely together increases the scope for shared learning and continuous professional development, and helps to improve the capacity of small schools—another important point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe—by creating a greater pool of resources and expertise that can be shared more flexibly between schools. School leaders tell us that they can recruit and retain the best staff by providing them with professional challenge and support in working with other schools.

One major advantage of shared arrangements has been the improvement in the governance of weaker schools. It is typical for governing bodies of sponsored chains to be supported in their monitoring role not only by training, but by receiving data that are collated and presented to main boards and local governors in a standard format. The format will normally report on progress against targets and previous performance, comparisons with national benchmarks and the performance of other academies in the chain.

Another advantage is that central costs can be shared across more schools, giving them greater purchasing power in partnership than they would have as stand-alone schools. They can also benefit from economies of scale and from the pooling of resources. The use of shared business management as a resource across schools has been shown to lead to improved efficiencies and the more effective use of resources across schools. Collaborative working also opens up new opportunities to adapt the primary and secondary curriculums to meet local needs, and it allows schools to put in place stronger academic transition procedures between different phases of school.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) raised the issue of the Treasury’s proposed tax changes. Obviously I need to look carefully at that to establish exactly whether they will play out as he suggested. On ensuring that we have a crisper, clearer legislative framework, that builds on the matters raised by the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley. Whatever we do in education, we must ensure that it raises standards and that it is sustainable, which is another reason it is important to look at the impact of co-operative trusts on our educational system.

We have managed to transcend a partisan debate, mainly because, as I said at the outset, we have many shared values that do not always have an opportunity to rise to the surface in political debate or in our efforts to make our wider political points as we think is most effective. We do not, however, have anything to fear from co-operatives. Whatever side of the political spectrum we are on, we should embrace the values they offer.

The debate has been an opportunity to celebrate the success and the growing involvement of the co-operative movement in our schools, and to acknowledge that at its core are values that we all hold dear, wherever we sit on the political spectrum—a commitment to social justice and moral purpose, a combined spirit of autonomy, a deep desire to help ensure that children and young people across our communities, but especially in the most challenging areas, get every opportunity to make the most of their education and, wrapping around those values, strong community roots that bind in a joint sense of responsibility and, perhaps most importantly, of caring for others. We all have some compassionate bones in our body, and such values have risen to the surface today, which is a testament to the fact that the co-operative movement does much to enrich our communities, as it does more and more within our schools.

I hope that I have given a forceful indication that this Government hugely value the co-operative movement’s work in our schools. We want to learn more about the effect that it is having, what it is achieving and how it can do more in the future. As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said, many schools are still deciding and choosing, as are parents, what sort of schools they want their children to be in. This excellent and informative debate will have encouraged us all to continue to push for higher educational standards in whatever form, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this subject to the House.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (in the Chair)]

I thank all those who co-operated so effectively in the debate.