Educational Poverty: Children in Residential Care

Debate between Robert Halfon and Ian Mearns

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for the time today, and I thank the officers and members of the Committee for working so hard on this report on educational outcomes for children in care.

We found widespread state failure to ensure that looked-after children receive a quality education. The state repeatedly fails to act as a pushy enough corporate parent when it comes to the education and career outcomes of children in care. The statistics speak for themselves. At key stage 2 for reading, writing and mathematics, just 37% of looked-after children reach expected standards compared with 65% of non-looked-after children. Just 7.2% of looked-after children achieve the grade 5 good pass in English and maths GCSE compared with 40.1% of non-looked-after children. Children in residential care at age 16 scored over six grades less at GCSE than those in kinship or foster care.

Our report has four key findings. First, there is a culture of impunity that enables schools to get away with blocking or refusing admissions of children in care. Looked-after children are less likely to attend the best schools. Ofsted has found that 76% of children in children’s homes attended a good or outstanding mainstream state school compared with 84% of other children. Surely the proportion of these children should be 100%, especially given that laws state that good and outstanding schools should be prioritised for children in care. We heard that some schools discriminate against looked-after children, while local authorities are not sufficiently ambitious in getting them into their good or outstanding schools.

Secondly, unregulated education is rife for children in children’s homes. Local authorities have a legal duty to ensure that the looked-after children in their care are receiving full-time education in a school registered with the Department for Education, but this is not always happening. Some local authorities are flouting that duty. As a result, vulnerable children are falling through the cracks. Ofsted has identified that 9% of children in children’s homes attend unregulated education settings and 6% are not in education, employment or training at all. I think these statistics on children missing from education or receiving unregulated education are a national scandal.

Thirdly, we heard that over 6,000 children in care are living in unregulated accommodation, which poses a barrier to young people’s educational progress. These are vulnerable children often living in unsuitable and unsafe environments, and that negatively impacts on their education and mental health.

Fourthly, too many children in care have poor career and life outcomes due to lack of support. Employment outcomes are bleak: 41% of 19 to 21-year-old care leavers are not in education, employment or training, and just 2% go on to do an apprenticeship. Only 22% of care leavers aged 27 are in employment compared with 57% of others, and even when they are in jobs, there is an average pay gap of £6,000. Thirty-three per cent. experience homelessness, 25% of them are sofa surfing and 24% of those in prison have been through the care system.

What are the solutions? First, we need to tackle the data black hole. The existing data on the educational outcomes of children in children’s homes is not good enough. The data is fundamentally unreliable and should come with a health warning. Without the right data on where children in care are being educated, how much education they are missing and what kind of education they are receiving, the Department for Education will fight these issues in the dark. The Department for Education should commit to annual data publication through a data dashboard of looked-after children. We could then disaggregate the information by care placement type, flagging when the child is living in unregulated provision, as well as data on progress, attainment, attendance, suspensions and exclusions.

Secondly, we need to penalise schools that block or refuse admissions of children in care. A clear sanctions mechanism is needed for schools that consistently refuse or delay admissions of looked-after children, with the lever of accountability coming in the form of impacting on their Ofsted judgment. A school should not get a good or outstanding grade if it does not provide good or outstanding support and outcomes for looked-after children.

Thirdly, we need sanctions for local authorities that flout their duty to ensure that their looked-after children are receiving full-time, high-quality education. Greater accountability is needed for local authorities that fail to ensure that looked-after children receive full-time education at a school registered with the Department for Education. We could do that by capping the Ofsted rating of local authorities that fail to fulfil that duty.

Fourthly, we need to extend the pupil premium plus beyond the age of 16. The pupil premium plus is vital extra funding that raises the educational outcomes of looked-after children, but it ends at 16. With unemployment rates so high for care leavers, it is indefensible for children to be left out in the cold after 16, at the beginning of their transition into professional life. Extending the pupil premium plus past 16 to 18 will help looked-after students to do their best at that crucial stage of their education and kick start their careers. Virtual school heads, the local authority professionals with a duty to promote the education of children in care, should be given statutory powers, guidance and control of the allocation of the pupil premium plus grant.

Fifthly, we need to roll out the Staying Close scheme nationally. For too many young care leavers, the transition from care to independent living can feel like a cliff edge. Staying Close is a support scheme for young people in care leaving their children’s home, and it provides support and accommodation to help with the transition. Pilots have evidenced significant benefits: fewer evictions, fewer care leavers not in education, employment or training, and better well-being. Further to support care leavers to develop their full potential, the Department should strategically weigh the apprenticeship levy in favour of care-experienced young apprentices under the age of 25. A secure place to live, and a future in the world of work with an apprenticeship, are the first two critical rungs on the ladder of opportunity.

Finally, early intervention spending has fallen by 48%, while spending on the crisis end of children’s services and costlier downstreaming interventions has risen by 34%. Short-changing early intervention is a false economy. It does not provide value for the money for the taxpayer, who ends up funding less effective and costly interventions, and most importantly it means that children are suffering harms that could and should have been addressed earlier. Our report calls on the Government to explore a range of options to funnel excessive care home profits into improving the care system, especially through early intervention. The recent review by Josh MacAlister talked about a windfall tax and the Government should respond to that. Other options include increasing the bargaining power of local authorities and transforming care home businesses into community interest companies.

There is much to be done to support the progress, champion the attainment and raise the life chances of children in care. The number of children in care is rising and could reach the significant milestone of 100,000 children in care by 2025. Our report states that action is needed now to ensure that every looked-after child is properly supported to succeed in education and life. They should have as much chance to climb the ladder of opportunity as everybody else. If levelling up is not about this, what is it really about? The recommendations in our report provide that roadmap for how that can be achieved.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

It was a privilege to serve on the Education Committee and to produce this report. I could not agree more with the Chair about the recommendations. It is important that the Government look at those and react positively to them, because we are letting down children in our care system. When I was a local authority councillor, chaired the education committee and was the lead member for children’s services in Gateshead, I took very seriously my role as corporate parent. But it is not just the local authority that is the corporate parent. This House, the Government and the Department for Education are also part of the corporate parenting system and should be taking their responsibilities very seriously. When I see the statistics, outlined in the report, that 41% of care leavers aged 19 to 21 are not in education, employment or training, and that only 2% of those aged 16 to 18 are able to take up an apprenticeship, I feel ashamed of what the governance of this country is doing to the children in our care.

It is important that we do something about this barrier to apprenticeships. Paying youngsters who are living independently after coming out of care £4.81 an hour while they learn on an apprenticeship is just not satisfactory—they literally cannot do it.

[Ian Mearns]

It was a rhetorical question, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Member. He is an incredibly hard working member of the Committee and is passionate about this issue. I am so grateful for his support. He is right—this is unforgivable. I am asking all the leadership candidates what they plan to do about educational poverty in all those disadvantaged cohorts who are underperforming in our education system. The answer, as he will know from our report, is that the levy should be changed to incentivise big business to hire apprentices and care leavers should be paid the national living wage. That would make a huge difference, given the disadvantage that those care leavers have faced.

Education Committee

Debate between Robert Halfon and Ian Mearns

Thursday 6th September 2018 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

When I introduced my 10-minute rule Bill on the reform of the Social Mobility Commission in May, I said that social justice was the defining issue for our country, so I am pleased to be making this statement on the publication of the Education Committee’s fifth report of this Parliament, “Forgotten children: alternative provision and the scandal of ever increasing exclusions”. I thank the officers of the Committee, and particularly its hard-working members, two of whom are here today: the hon. Members for Colne Valley (Thelma Walker) and for Gateshead (Ian Mearns).

Social justice is the defining issue for our country. It is fundamental for ensuring that all pupils can climb the educational ladder of opportunity. At the moment, alternative provision is either a springboard or a millstone. For some pupils, it enables them to achieve in a safe and supportive environment; for others, the poor quality of provision and the lack of ambition of some teachers drag them down, opening them up to stigmatisation and underachievement at 16, which then sets them up for underachievement as adults.

Pupils attend alternative provision for a number of reasons. We find pupils who have been permanently excluded, as well as those who are too ill to attend school and those who have been sent to an alternative provider to improve their behaviour. The report certainly got a lot of coverage, which this forgotten part of our education system deserves, but it seemed to divide the education sector. Some welcomed its approach to greater transparency by schools and clearer, stronger rights for pupils who have been excluded. Others were concerned that the report and its recommendations were an attack on a headteacher’s right to exclude and on the importance of ensuring that pupils can learn and staff can teach in a safe and welcoming environment.

I know that the Minister for School Standards is serious about this issue, and that he is doing a lot of work on it, but I was disappointed to see a senior adviser to the Department for Education describing our report by saying:

“It would make more sense if you held it upside down and read it backwards”,

and that the exclusion figures represented

“too small an increase to panic about”.

That is wrong-headed, not just because of the impact of exclusion on the children and their prospects in education and employment but because of the impact on society, which is estimated at a cost of £370,000 per child excluded in lifetime costs. It is not much of a surprise to learn that 58% of young prisoners were permanently excluded from school. I know that the Government are conducting a review of exclusions, led by the very able Ed Timpson, so I was really very disappointed to see that response. I was also disappointed that the criticism focused on just one area, which formed only part of our Committee’s inquiry. That means that people might have missed other aspects of our report, to the detriment of highlighting some of the remarkable work that goes on in alternative provision, as well as some of the gaping holes that the children involved can fall through. I will come to that in a bit.

Forty-one children are permanently excluded from our schools every day—the figure has gone up 40% in the past year—and 2,010 pupils are temporarily excluded every day. The latest Government statistics show that pupils with special educational needs account for around half of all permanent and fixed-period exclusions, and pupils who are eligible for free school meals account for 40% of all permanent exclusions. In a number of recent reports, The Times has highlighted the fact that other children are being off-rolled—that is, informally excluded by being encouraged to move to a different school or to be home educated.

Ofsted has warned that half the 19,000 pupils who left a school between year 10 and year 11 in 2017 did not reappear on the roll of another state school, and it is currently looking at around 300 schools that have high numbers of pupils leaving in years 10 and 11. These are the pupils the Committee is concerned about: pupils with special educational needs whom schools exclude because they cannot meet their needs, or without having tried to meet their needs; pupils whose results might have a negative impact on their school’s Progress 8 score and are therefore encouraged to move to a different school; victims of bullying who are moved to internal exclusion; and pupils who are excluded for minor infringements of a uniform policy. We are concerned that those pupils and their parents are vulnerable to poor choices, hasty decisions and a lack of knowledge about their options.

To be clear, we are not saying that schools should not exclude pupils, or that schools must include pupils who are violent and dangerous and pose a threat to the safety of the school, but we do say that schools should be inclusive. They should support children with additional needs, not off-roll or exclude them without trying to meet those needs. If they do exclude, they should remain accountable for their pupils’ results, which we hope will encourage schools to think much more carefully about the type of provision that they are sending their pupils to.

Our report looked not just at the reasons why pupils are excluded and attend alternative provision but at how alternative provision is commissioned and how pupils are referred to it, as well as at the quality of provision and the outcomes and successes of pupils. Unfortunately, we found that while many pupils have excellent experiences, that is not true across the board. There are real weaknesses in the system that educates some of our most vulnerable children. We do not think that pupils should not go to alternative provision, but we do believe that pupils who need to be there should attend, and that they should do so at the right time. We spoke to young people during our inquiry who said that it took failed moves and internal isolation before they found a suitable place to go to school.

We see our report and its recommendations as a bill of rights for pupils and their parents. We believe that if our recommendations are implemented, the experience of pupils in alternative provision will improve. That is why we are calling for more information for parents and pupils; an inclusion measure to incentivise schools to be more inclusive; changes to the weighting of Progress 8 and other accountability measures; and a senior person in local authorities, similar to the existing role of the virtual school head for looked-after children, to champion these pupils and oversee the decisions being made by schools.

We know that 82% of teachers in alternative provision are qualified, compared with 95% in mainstream schools. Vacancies are between 100% and 150% higher in alternative provision than in mainstream schools, and pupils in alternative provision and special schools are twice as likely as their peers in mainstream schools to be taught by a supply teacher. Teachers are inspirational, and children in alternative provision deserve to be taught by inspirational teachers. Many of them are, but alternative provision is too often seen as the poor relation. We think that trainee teachers should experience an alternative provision or special school setting, and that mainstream schools should buddy with alternative provision schools so that they can share expertise, experiences and training. There are also pupils who are being taught in unregistered provision, and we are concerned that there is not sufficient oversight across the board to ensure that pupils who are attending are receiving high-quality, safe schooling. But we recognise the importance of it, and we recommended that any provider that wants to educate pupils for more than two days a week should be registered.

I should like to end this speech with the report’s final recommendation. It is a vital one, and it brings out something that surprised me during our inquiry. There is no statutory duty for local authorities to provide alternative provision post 16. We want to see resources allocated so that alternative providers can keep pupils until they are 18 or provide outreach to help pupils to settle in post-16 education. It is absurd that we bring children into alternative provision, acknowledging their need for a style of schooling that is indeed alternative, and then expect them to survive in a further education environment that is much larger and busier than their current provision. If we gave these pupils a little more time, a little more support and a little more nurture, they might achieve higher GCSE grades and go on to a bright future.

Pupils in alternative provision should not be written off. No matter the reason for their attending, they deserve access to a high-quality education and to qualifications of which they can be proud. They deserve the chance to climb the ladder of educational opportunity, but at the moment we are providing too many pupils in alternative provision with a ladder whose rungs are too far apart, not closer together.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

Does the Chair of the Education Committee agree that the point of providing state-funded schools is to get children into them, to keep them there and to educate them? The idea of off-rolling children seems to have blossomed dramatically over the past couple of years, and the Minister for School Standards said in evidence to the Committee that off-rolling was “unlawful.” Can we ensure that that process is brought to an abrupt end? We must ensure that youngsters are getting the opportunities that they should get, not just being palmed off and, euphemistically speaking, home educated. To be frank, some good home education is going on, but it is rare. The growth in what is being called home education just cannot be sustained as an educational process.

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this “Forgotten children” report, and I absolutely agree with him. The Minister was right to say that the practice is illegal, but the fact that Ofsted is inspecting around 300 schools—I gave some other figures—and that The Times has done report after report into the matter shows that it is clearly a scandal that the Government must crack down on. I hope that the Ed Timpson review will make some clear recommendations.

Technical and Further Education Bill

Debate between Robert Halfon and Ian Mearns

Ping Pong: House of Commons
Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon]

The crucial point is that the vast majority of level 2 and 3 apprentices are paid more than £6.30 an hour, and 90% of them go on to jobs or additional education afterwards.

The apprenticeship programme already supports low-income groups. The funding system gives targeted support to the participation of care leavers, and this year we are making £60 million available to training providers to support take-up by individuals from disadvantaged areas. We are committed to ensuring that high-quality apprenticeships are as accessible as possible to people from all backgrounds. We will take forward the Maynard recommendations for people with learning difficulties and our participation target for black and minority ethnic groups.

With regard to the amendment’s suggestion of a bursary for care leavers, I understand that some young people have greater challenges to overcome. That is why we are providing £1,000 to employers and training providers when they take on care leavers who are under 25. We will also pay 100% of the cost of training for small employers who employ care leavers. There is scope for apprenticeships to benefit social mobility even more. We are working across Government to use the apprenticeship programme to extend opportunities.

I am grateful to Lord Storey for tabling Lords amendment 6, which introduces a new clause into the Bill to require Ofsted to take into account the quality of the careers offer when conducting standard inspections of further education colleges. I welcome the work that Ofsted has already done to sharpen its approach. Matters relating to careers provision feature in all the graded judgments made by Ofsted when inspecting FE and skills providers. Destination data—published in 16 to 18 performance tables for the first time this year—are also becoming an established part of college accountability. Those are important steps.

I pay tribute to the good work that is already being done throughout the FE sector to prepare students for the workplace. Ofsted’s annual report for 2015-16 cites the excellent work of Derby College, which has set up employer academies so that learners benefit throughout their course from a range of activities, including workplace visits, talks from specialist speakers, masterclasses and enterprise activities. However, Ofsted noted in the same report that the quality of information, advice and guidance in FE providers can vary and does not always meet the full range of students’ needs. That is why I want us to take this opportunity to go further.

Lords amendment 6 signals our determination to ensure that every FE student has access to good-quality, dedicated careers advice, which I know this House supports. That is vital if we are to tackle the skills gap and ensure that we make opportunities accessible to everyone. We have proposed some drafting changes to the amendment to ensure that it achieves its intended effect. The amendment makes it clear that in its inspection report Ofsted must comment on the quality of a college’s careers provision. I urge hon. Members to accept the amendment. FE colleges are engines of social mobility, and this is our chance to ensure that students from all backgrounds can access the support they need to get on the ladder of opportunity and to benefit from the best skills education and training.

I will now turn to the amendments that the Government are asking the House to accept without any further amendment. The Government support Lords amendment 2, which requires schools to give education and training providers the opportunity to talk directly to pupils about the approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships they offer. I would like to place on the record my significant gratitude to Lord Baker of Dorking for tabling the amendment, and for his unstinting support for the Government’s technical education reforms. As I have explained, high-quality careers advice is the first rung on the ladder of opportunity and will play a key part in realising our ambition for high-quality skills education and training. The amendment will strengthen the Bill by ensuring that young people hear much more consistently about the merits of technical education routes and recognise them as worthy career paths. I urge the House to agree to it. I hope that never again when I go around the country will I meet an apprentice who was refused access to the school they were taught in to talk about apprenticeships.

[Ian Mearns (Gateshead) (Lab)]

I actually welcome that proposal. We have heard lots of evidence that schools are not allowing FE colleges and apprenticeship providers to access their students and to tell them what the options are post-16. That, of course, is because of the “bums on seats” funding regime for post-16 studies in schools. How are we going to get around the deep-seated culture in schools that prevents careers advisers and others from providing that independent, impartial advice to young people in schools?

[Robert Halfon]

The hon. Gentleman speaks a lot of sense on this issue. Every time I meet an apprentice, wherever I am in the country, I ask them, “Did your school encourage you to do an apprenticeship?” Nine times out of 10, they say that their school taught them nothing about apprenticeships and skills. We have already changed careers advice so that schools have to offer advice that includes apprenticeships and skills. I believe that Lords amendment 2 will make a huge difference, because technical bodies, apprenticeship bodies and university technical colleges will be able to go into schools, and schools will publish policy guidance on this.

I agree that a huge part of this is about cultural change. That is why my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State always talks about parity of esteem. Until we ensure that we have parity of esteem between skills and technical education and going to university—that is also a wonderful thing to do—we will not achieve the cultural change that the hon. Gentleman talks about.

[Ian Mearns]

There is a problem with that, because training providers themselves have a vested interest—just as much as the schools do—in securing those students for their courses or apprenticeships. Is it not true that we need a much more robust process for the provision of impartial advice and guidance that does not include anyone’s vested interests?

[Robert Halfon]

We are looking at careers guidance in the long term, and at how we can make it more independent and skills-focused. I think that the work of the Careers & Enterprise Company in getting more people to do work experience, along with the money we are investing in these things, will help, but there are no easy answers. There are some great private providers, FE colleges and university technical colleges that I would love to see going into schools. However, I think that this is an important step forward to change the culture and ensure that pupils have the access to learn about apprenticeships and the technical education and skills that they need.

Lords amendment 3 introduces a new clause specifically providing for regulations to be made about the delivery of documents about an insolvent FE body to the registrar, and how those documents are kept and accessed by the public. Essentially, the new clause allows for the proper management of the paperwork of an insolvency procedure for an FE body.

I am pleased that the Government were able to accept amendment 4 in the other place, which deleted the words “if possible” from clause 25(2). The original drafting of subsection (2) was intended to offer reassurance to creditors and the education administrator that the education administration would not continue indefinitely while we waited for the education administrator to achieve the impossible. Instead, it caused concern, both in this House and in the other place, that student protection was in some way lessened. That was not our intention. Having sought the confirmation of lawyers that there was no change to our policy objectives, we were content to delete the words in order to address those concerns.

Lords amendment 5 replaced the original clause in the Bill with a new version in order to fully apply, rather than replicate, the Company Directors Disqualification Act 1986 to further education bodies in England and Wales. The new version of clause 40—formerly clause 37 —still allows the court to disqualify any governors whom it finds liable of wrongdoing from being governors, and now also from being company directors in any part of the UK. It fully prevents disqualified individuals from being able to repeat the mistakes they have made in a different way, potentially at the expense of another FE institution. We have amended the clause to close a potential loophole in the Bill and more fully protect learners at FE institutions from the potential actions of any governor who acts recklessly.

--- Later in debate ---

[Robert Halfon]

I thank the hon. Member for Southport (John Pugh) and the shadow Minister for their speeches. I understand that the hon. Member for Southport is stepping down. He is an experienced Member of the House, and I send him every good wish for the future.

To answer the hon. Gentleman we are essentially accepting de facto Lords amendment 6, which was suggested by Lord Storey. We have just made it tighter for legal reasons and, in fact, stronger. Ofsted will now be required to comment on college careers offers in its reports. However, we accept the principle of Lords amendment 6.

I set out earlier the Government’s position that the majority of the Lords amendments serve to strengthen the measures in the Bill and ensure their success in practice. I urge hon. Members to accept all the amendments made in the Lords, with the exception of Lords amendment 1. As I explained earlier, that amendment is subject to financial privilege and I ask Members to reject it on that basis, while noting the work I have set out, which demonstrates our commitment to finding the most effective ways to address barriers and support the disadvantaged into apprenticeships.

The shadow Minister said, in essence, that we should put our money where our mouth is. It is worth remembering that we have 900,000 apprentices at the moment, which is the highest on record, and that 25% of apprentices come from the poorest fifth of areas. The Careers & Enterprise Company has more than 1,300 enterprise advisers going into schools, and they are set to target something like 250,000 students in 75% of the career coldspots in the country. The National Careers Service is there to give careers advice and CV advice, and to provide personal contact either face to face, over the telephone or on the internet. The bodies have different roles.

I ask Members to accept our amendment in lieu of Lords amendment 6, on which many noble Lords spoke. I spoke earlier of the positive activity at Derby College. It is by no means the only college taking active steps to provide high-quality careers advice to students. I have seen incredible work in my own college in Harlow and in Gateshead in the north-east of England. We want to ensure that all young people can access such support, and I ask Members to support that ambition by accepting the amendment in lieu.

[Ian Mearns]

I know that the Minister is determined and full of good intentions, but good intentions do not provide sound careers advice and guidance to young people who are in the system now. We need to see more urgency from the Government in backing up his decent intentions, to make sure that young people get the impartial advice and guidance they so deeply need as soon as possible.

[Robert Halfon]

Let me give the hon. Gentleman our intention. Given the financial climate, £90 million is no small sum of money to spend on careers, predominantly with the Careers & Enterprise Company, which has enterprise advisers going into schools. There is £20 million for mentoring services in schools. As I mentioned, enterprise advisers are going up and down the country to coldspots. The National Careers Service alone is getting more than £75 million this year to advise on careers. That is real financial backing for two very important services.

[Ian Mearns]

I am listening to the Minister. I was a member of the National Careers Service national association board prior to the invention of Connexions. I seem to remember that the national budget for careers at that time was something like £130 million. That was more than 15 years ago. In the current climate, the figures the Minister is talking about are inadequate.

[Robert Halfon]

Given the financial climate, the £90 million to be spent predominantly with the Careers & Enterprise Company and the £77 million that is going to the National Careers Service this year alone are sizeable sums of money. As I have said, we are developing a careers strategy. Obviously the election is occurring, but I hope very much that we will see careers with much more of a skills focus, and do much more work in schools on mentoring and on work experience.

I have said that the Bill is a Ronseal Bill. It is very much part of our reforms to create an apprenticeships and skills nation and to give millions of young people the ladder of opportunity to get the jobs, security and prosperity that they need. It is a Bill to ensure that technical education is held in the regard it deserves. In the unlikely event of a college insolvency, students will be protected. The measures in the Bill make vital changes to support young people to build the essential skills that our nation needs, and they provide the right support to enable young people to climb that ladder. Many Members on both sides of the House and in the other place have spoken in support of that ambition, and I take this opportunity to thank them for their ongoing commitment to the Bill and for supporting all our young people to reach their potential.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 1.