School Funding

Debate between Richard Graham and Neil Carmichael

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)]

The very fact that we are having this debate is proof that there has been a huge step forward, because there is a proposal on the table for fairer funding. We should salute the Government for getting this far. We are obviously in a consultation process. The Education Committee is part of that process, in a sense, because we will be seeing the Minister for School Standards shortly, and we will expand on many of my points then.

In a funding situation where schools in a county like Gloucestershire are, in effect, no further forward and some are actually going backwards, there are clearly issues to explore. One of those is the need to lift the baseline, which can be done in a number of ways; I will suggest three. First, we must look at the deprivation assessment in line with the pupil premium, because the two things are clearly related, and it would be wise to consider the impact of one in the context of the other. That provides scope to lift the baseline.

The second area is small schools. We all want to support small schools, but we might need to look at the ratio between what we think of as a small school and a slightly larger school. The use of statistics, as we all know, can have unpredictable and unintended consequences, and that is possibly the case with small schools. The third area is recalibrating the 3% floor, which could give authorities that have had historical problems with underfunding some way out of that.

I know those three ideas are complicated in the context of these reforms, but we need to demonstrate that we really are committed to providing fair funding. If we think carefully about the impact of the various measures I have outlined, in conjunction with the wider question of the objectives of the new funding system, we may well deliver for our children exactly what we want.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Neil Carmichael]

No, I am not going to give way, because too many people wish to contribute.

In an ideal world, we would want to spend more on education. When the Government continue to grow the economy, as I am sure they will, with or without Brexit, that will be achieved. But we have to be realistic about the size of the cake and make sure that everybody has an appropriate slice.

School Governors and School Improvement

Debate between Richard Graham and Neil Carmichael

Tuesday 8th October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Lady for her helpful intervention. That was one of my points. She is absolutely right, and I thank her for her support.

I want to touch on sub-regional structures, academy chains and other such structures that one might expect to find when schools collaborate. Collaboration certainly does make a difference. I suggest that some formal federal structure might be the answer in many situations. Mutual help, by which I mean learning best practice from others, getting support when there is a problem and being able to reach out for expert help, is really important. I accept the point that has just been made. I would even go further and say that the Government might want to consider making sub-regional structures more formal where that is appropriate. A horizontal or vertical structure, or a combination of both, is a good way of ensuring that the best leadership is available to schools. That applies to rural areas where there is a variety of smaller schools, or to a secondary school with a number of feeder schools.

Another point relates to the question of skills versus stakeholders. The Select Committee talked about that in some detail. It was right to do so, not least because I encouraged it to take on the issue. It has always concerned me that if schools are boxed in with certain stakeholders on their governing bodies, they might not be able to reach out for the appropriate skills. I have never been completely satisfied that all stakeholders are accountable to the body that appointed them or that they represent, so calling them stakeholders is, in some cases, an exaggeration. The Government need to focus on getting the right skills, and all barriers to that should be removed, which means that there should be considerably less focus on stakeholders and more focus on skills. I call on the Government to consider that point.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making some powerful points. I expected as much, given his strong personal experience of both a further education college and a secondary school in Stroud. On the point he was making, does he agree that governors in constituencies such as Stroud and Gloucester are by definition volunteers and community-minded, and that given the right experience, training and help they can play an invaluable role in the success of a school? What more does he think the Government can do to help on the training side?

[Neil Carmichael]

My hon. Friend, whose constituency neighbours mine, is absolutely right. Of course we need to encourage people to become governors. We do not want to frighten them off, and good training is critical. The Education Committee has made some powerful recommendations on training, which the Government have largely accepted. The National Governors Association has constantly talked about the importance of training. I want also to highlight the work of the all-party group on education governance and leadership, which has produced 20 questions that feature in a number of reports, including those of the Wellcome Trust and our Select Committee. Those 20 questions include a reminder that we should focus on the training of governors. We must ensure that those training packages are up to scratch and relevant to the challenges of governance now, and not to what we think it was. The Government are right to talk about setting up memorandums describing what academies turn into and how governors should respond.