Schools White Paper

Debate between Simon Hoare and Lucy Powell

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell]

I am happy to clarify that the Government propose to remove the requirement for parent governors. If the hon. Gentleman wants to have a semantic debate about that, it is in the White Paper, on the page to which he referred. The Secretary of State will have the opportunity to talk about that in a moment.

That brings me to the evidence for and the performance of multi-academy trusts—MATs—or chains as they have become better known. It may come as a surprise to many Conservative Members that the Government’s free school and academy agenda has quietly but significantly shifted in policy and practice from stand-alone academies to MAT or chain models. That shift was made clear in the White Paper, in which the policy preference is emphatically for schools to become part of chains. Indeed, Department for Education guidance issued yesterday said:

“We expect that most schools will form or join multi-academy trusts as they become academies.”

There is evidence that schools do better working collaboratively with clusters of schools, especially where they are clustered geographically, as many do in local authority areas.

However, the evidence for the performance of chains so far is mixed. There are some notably good academy chains, but there are many more that are not good. Of the 850 current MATs or chains, only 20 have been assessed, and just three have proved more effective than non-academies. The chief inspector of schools, Sir Michael Wilshaw, wrote to the Secretary of State only a week before the Budget highlighting “serious weaknesses” in academy chains. He went on to say that, in many cases,

“academy chains are worse than the worst performing local authorities they seek to replace”.

To continue with forced academisation of all schools after such a damning letter is frankly irresponsible.

There are major questions for the Government on capacity too. Academy chains are in their infancy and clearly require a closer look, yet the Government want them to take on thousands more schools. Maybe that is why the Secretary of State cannot rule out poorly performing chains being given otherwise good schools under the proposals. One of the main reasons why the track record of many chains is not good is the dearth of any real oversight or accountability.

I share the concerns expressed by many Members of all parties, including my near neighbour, the hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale West (Mr Brady), who said that we are in danger of creating distant, unaccountable bureaucracies for schools. That the Department for Education, via its small group of schools commissioners, can provide robust oversight and accountability of all schools in the country, is frankly for the birds. It is an impossible job, and it is also not desirable.

The Secretary of State seems hell-bent on cutting out communities, and cutting out parents from having any say over how their child’s school is run. First, let us take the Tories’ plan to scrap the requirement for parents to sit on governing bodies. Abolishing parent governors and removing any role for parents in choosing whether their child’s school becomes an academy and what type of academy it becomes has unsurprisingly been met with a huge outcry. I understand that the Secretary of State wants to take this opportunity to clarify that parents can still be governors. However, as she well knows, under her plans, there will no longer be a requirement for governing bodies to have them. I do not think that that is the kind of clarification parents are looking for. Perhaps she would like to take the opportunity to go further. In any case, she and I both know that in a world of academy chains, the role of the individual school governing body is greatly diminished and key decisions are taken by the two new levels: the board of trustees and the member board above that; bodies that are all too often appointed by the head or the chief executive whom they are supposed to be holding to account.

If we want to avoid more scandals such as Perry Beaches, Kings Science Academy and E-ACT, to name just a few, and if schools are genuinely to be held to account, we need a much more robust governance regime than remote trustee boards appointed by their executive, held to account only by a regional schools commissioner, who is responsible for overseeing thousands of schools.

There are also very real issues on the ground about accountability and responsibility for excluded children, placing children with SEN and admission policies. They all have very real problems under the fragmented schools system. Such a system of oversight also needs to have recourse to the needs of the local community. We cannot have a situation where the needs of the local area are not considered, such as the case of Knowsley, where the last A-level provision across the entire borough is about to be lost, based on a decision taken by one school. There has to be a better-joined up approach to school improvement and local oversight, involving school leaders and councils as well as parents.

The Government claim to lead the devolution revolution, so their centralisation of schools is both wrong-headed and contradictory. In places like my own, Greater Manchester, the Chancellor talks of releasing the combined authority and elected Mayor to create a northern powerhouse. That the skills and education of the next generation are being taken away at the same time shows what a sham that project is.

That point leads me to one last argument the Government make, which is that it would be simpler to have one funding system. That argument is nonsense and certainly does not support the £1.3 billion reorganisation of the schools system that is being proposed. It is also disingenuous of the Government to link the proposals to the fair funding consultation. There is broad support for a fairer funding model, as long as deprived areas and areas that require improvement do not lose out. Forcing all schools to become academies does not need to be linked to that.

[Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)]

The shadow Secretary of State was absolutely right to say at the start of her remarks that this should not be a debate about quality. Does she agree that if we reach a certain tipping point in the number of schools recognising the direction of travel and academising, it is sensible to have a discussion about what, if any, future role there should be for LEAs as we understand them, and what the future of education planning will be for the next 20 or 30 years? It seems to me that we have arrived at that tipping point and so it is right to have that debate.

[Lucy Powell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, but disagree that we have reached that tipping point. We certainly have not done so with primary schools, as only 17% are academies. A longer-term look would be welcome, but an arbitrary timetable set by the Chancellor and Prime Minister as part of their legacy is a totally false track. For decades, we have had a multifaceted funding arrangement for our schools. There is no real reason why that cannot continue.

The proposal to force all schools to become academies and part of academy chains is a costly reorganisation that schools do not want or need. Heads are dealing with some very real and big challenges, such as teacher shortages, significant real-terms cuts to their budgets, flux and chaos in assessment, and insufficient school places. Asking them to take time out to change their legal status and to become an academy against their wishes is wrong, and will impact on standards.

This agenda is not about school improvement, as most of the schools affected are already good or outstanding. It is not about more autonomy or more choice, as a one-size-fits-all approach is being forced on all schools. It is not about parents, as they are being cut out of the picture. It is not about devolution, but centralisation. There are real and serious concerns about capacity, oversight and accountability under the Secretary of State’s plans.

There is a growing alliance of heads, governors, parents, teachers, politicians from all parties and many of the original advocates of the academy programme against forced wholesale academisation. Yet this Government, who used to say they were all for choice, profess to be about standards and claim they are on the side of parents and schools, seem to be ploughing on regardless, without a single coherent argument or a shred of credible evidence to support them. They still have time to listen, pause and reflect, and today’s debate gives them a chance to do just that. I commend the motion to the House.