Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 1st December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 4. As I have said at all stages of this Bill, with the support of the NSPCC, every single child entering care should receive an automatic mental health assessment in addition to the physical assessment they currently receive. Children in care should then immediately receive the subsequent necessary support to help them to deal with the issues of mental health identified in the assessment. There should be regular monitoring of children’s mental health while in care to inform what support that child receives and ensure that it contributes to their improved well-being. These provisions are essential to strengthen the Bill because they will help towards making significant savings for the NHS, the prison services and society in general.

The NSPCC, myself and many others welcome the Government’s announcement of an additional £600 million for mental health and see it as a great opportunity to make sure that more of the most vulnerable children get access to the mental health support that they need to overcome the trauma they have experienced. As I have said time and again, childhood lasts a lifetime, so let us give all children the best start in life, including children in care and children in the adoption system. They need to be cared for and looked after in every way possible. We owe it to them, so I hope that the Minister will include these provisions in this important Bill.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 3, 4 and 5, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, which focus on improving the mental health needs of children adopted from care. I thank noble Lords for raising these issues. As the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said, we had a detailed discussion in our previous debate in Committee, when I set out that improving the mental health of both looked-after and adopted children is a key issue for the Government. Following the debate, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools sent a letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, describing in more detail the actions that we are taking to improve the assessment and support that these vulnerable children receive.

As the noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Watson, said, I set out that the Government have committed £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years through the implementation of Future in Mind, the report resulting from the Government’s review of child and adolescent mental health services. I can give noble Lords an assurance that we are now working closely with the Department of Health and NHS England on the implementation of Future in Mind. The NHS England guidance on completing local transformation plans stipulates that they should cover the needs of the most vulnerable children, such as looked-after and adopted children. Key to this is that local areas must work together to understand the vulnerabilities of these children and young people and transform their services accordingly. We are absolutely committed to looking at the needs of children and making sure that they are properly addressed. This will include addressing the important point made by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about filling in the current gaps in services.

Local NHS clinical commissioning groups, in developing their local transformation plans, have worked closely with their local health and well-being boards and partners in local authorities, youth justice and education. All clinical commissioning groups have now submitted their plans, which are currently being assessed by NHS England. Improving the assessment of and support for looked-after children will be a key priority for our programme of work. I agree with all noble Lords and with the NSPCC, which has been cited a number of times in this debate, that getting the assessment right when children enter and leave care for adoption is important.

All looked-after children already have a health assessment at least once a year which must include an assessment of their emotional and mental health as well as their physical health. That assessment, which informs the development of their health plan, should take account of the information provided from the strength and difficulties questionnaire that is completed by their carer. I accept the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that for some young people with a range of problems, a follow-on referral to a specialist health service is required.

Turning to the provision of a mental health assessment prior to adoption placement, when an agency is considering adoption for a child, it should immediately consult its medical adviser to determine whether the health information obtained through the most recent health assessment is sufficient, up to date and as broad-ranging as it needs to be. Where a new health assessment is needed, this should be organised in time for the medical adviser to complete their part of the child’s permanence report. That is because, as a number of noble Lords have mentioned, permanence is key.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I hesitate to break the noble Baroness’s flow. She mentioned that a new health assessment will be undertaken, but she did not specifically mention a mental health assessment. That is the point. The physical assessment is always done, so why should the mental health assessment not always be done at the same time or immediately afterwards to make sure that any problems are spotted at the earliest opportunity?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

The broad health assessment will include those elements. It must include a summary by the agency’s medical adviser of the child’s current physical and mental health, so both are included. When an application is made to a court for a placement order, the agency is required to submit the summary as part of the application. Local clinical commissioning groups should use these assessments of looked-after children and adopted children to inform their local transformation plans to ensure that they can meet the needs of their local population.

At the national level, the Department for Education hosted a roundtable event last month bringing together children’s social care and mental health stakeholders to discuss how to improve mental health services for looked-after children and adopted children. As a result, we are considering how centres of excellence, possibly linked to regional adoption agencies, might enable the mental health needs of looked-after children and adopted children to be better met. Following that roundtable event, Edward Timpson, the Minister of State for Children and Families, met Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for Community and Social Care, to discuss how to ensure that mental health services can meet the particular needs of these children and young people in an effective and timely way. I should like to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that the two departments are working closely together.

In addition, we are providing £4.5 million of funding in this financial year to accelerate the development and implementation of regional adoption agencies. Adoption support, including mental health, is a key element of that. We are clear that regional adoption agencies should have a focus on improving the assessment of adopted children’s mental health needs and the provision of appropriate mental health support services. I should also mention the government-funded adoption support fund. More than 2,000 families have already benefited from £7.5 million of therapeutic services provided by the fund for adopted children and their families. We know that getting a high-quality assessment of need is critical, and local authorities are increasingly using the fund to pay for specialist assessments and, where appropriate, specialist therapeutic support.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised concerns about this Government’s focus on adoption. We are engaged in comprehensive reform, but we are also doing a number of other things. For instance, we have established a programme of reform for social work, including the development of new assessment and accreditation systems for three levels of professional practice for children’s social workers in England. We have created the children’s services innovation programme and we have introduced “staying put” to allow children to remain with their former foster carers after the age of 18. We are engaged in reform across children’s services that will benefit all looked-after children.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, asked about getting CAMHS into schools. We heard from head teachers who came to the briefing a few weeks ago that one of the benefits of multi-academy trusts is being able to recruit professionals to work across a number of schools, so we are seeing improvements in that. Alongside this, the Future in Mind report says that there will be mental health training for health professionals and others who work with children and young people, such as staff in schools, to help them to identify problems and ensure that young people get the help that they need. So it is something that is on our agenda and we are continuing to look at how we can improve that.

I hope that the explanations I have given will reassure the noble Lord that we are committed to meeting the objectives of these amendments, and that he will be feel reassured enough to withdraw his amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I understand that there are some drafting issues with this amendment, but I will still speak to it and we can perhaps resolve those in later amendments. I have always believed strongly that it is important that every pupil or student should have a qualified teacher. That does not prevent the opportunity for those members of staff who are preparing to become qualified and it does not prevent those teaching assistants who have NVQ level 3 or 4 from teaching.

Sorry, am I on the right amendment here?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

No.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

Are you in the right Room?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Storey]

I will speak just to Amendment 34 in this group, which seeks to develop the work we did on the Children and Families Bill, where quite important progress was made on the whole issue of adoption. There was an important amendment from the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, about the increasing length of time that children stayed with foster parents.

Let us build on that: Amendment 34 seeks to support that progress by saying that children in the care of local authorities are perhaps the most vulnerable children. Many of them have mental health problems. In fact, the figures—I will not repeat them now—are really alarming. Many local authorities and agencies which carry out the role for local authorities make tremendous progress with those looked-after children. But there are real concerns, and this amendment suggests that we should always have those concerns in the front of our minds through having an annual report on the support we are giving those young people, so that we can adjust our provision and policies where we need to. I hope the Government might consider supporting this amendment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, Amendments 33, 34 and 32ZA raise important issues about ensuring that any use of the power given to the Secretary of State in Clause 13 is transparent and considers the impact on voluntary adoption agencies, other parts of children’s social care and the provision of post-adoption support. The amendments require an annual report to be laid before Parliament and enable the Secretary of State to direct local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to jointly determine who should deliver adoption functions.

I thank noble Lords for raising these issues and I agree that we need to be clear about how this power is used, and what its impact is, so I appreciate the intent behind the amendments. First, I assure both noble Lords that any use of the power will be transparent and fair. Decisions will be informed by input from the affected agencies and other agencies operating in the local area, including voluntary agencies. However, I believe that laying an annual report before Parliament on the use and impact of the power would be disproportionate, and that directing local authorities and voluntary agencies to make decisions jointly will not work in practice. I will go on to explain why.

First, I assure the Committee that we have carefully considered the impact that moving to regional adoption agencies will have on other parts of the care system, and on the provision of post-adoption support. We have been clear that regional adoption agencies need to consider how adoption support functions will be carried out and how links with other parts of children’s social care will be maintained. This includes ensuring that adopted families have access to appropriate mental health support to meet their children’s needs. We will come to that in more detail in the next set of amendments. We see regional adoption agencies as an opportunity to deliver improvements in these areas. We are also encouraging innovation. This may well include broadening the regional approach to include wider permanence services, where this has potential to drive improvement.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Clearly, the noble Baroness has given considerable reassurance to the Committee, but how does this all fit with procurement policy? The reason I ask that is because we know that the Cabinet Office has been leading very hard-driven, centralised procurement and there have been complaints that, despite the Cabinet Office also having a policy to encourage SMEs, those have been squeezed out by the prime contractors. I think that the Cabinet Office is reviewing that at the moment.

It struck me from what the noble Baroness was saying that although Ministers clearly recognise the role of the smaller voluntary agencies, particularly the specialist ones, one of the problems is that once you create regional entities, inevitably they adopt a bureaucratic process. I worry that the smaller agencies may find this very overbearing. I do not think this is a matter for statute but rather one of reassurance that the regional agencies understand that they cannot develop processes that make it almost impossible for these very small agencies, often with very limited infrastructure, to get agreement to be part of the new agencies in the future.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We think that the VAAs should be involved in early conversations about regional adoption agency design. We will issue procurement guidance for projects shortly, so it is in our minds.

Finally, the noble Lords raise important points about the proportionate use of this power. It is important to emphasise that we are committed to supporting local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies to move to regional adoption agencies voluntarily in the first instance. These powers are only backstop powers to be used for the reluctant few.

As I have already said, we are delighted that the sector has already seized the opportunity to be involved. We have announced 14 regional adoption agency projects that we are working with this year, which, as I said, will involve more than two-thirds of all voluntary adoption agencies and local authorities. In the rare cases where the power is needed, decisions will be made following extensive discussions with all those involved or affected, including voluntary agencies. Prior to making a final decision, we will write to any relevant local authority formally requesting its views on the matter. I therefore reassure noble Lords that all those involved will have the chance to comment on the proposal before a final decision is taken.

I take this opportunity to mention the role of the national Adoption Leadership Board, which meets quarterly and has a remit to drive significant improvements in the performance of the adoption system in England, and which will also have an important role to play in shaping decisions and overseeing service development. This board has already been paramount in driving forward our reform programme, and that role will continue. The board is made up of the most senior officials from key organisations in the system, including representatives both from local authorities and voluntary organisations. The Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies, which represents all voluntary adoption agencies, is a key member. Board members have been appointed to represent their sector and to take responsibility for galvanising performance improvements within their respective areas. Involving the board in any decisions about regionalisation will therefore be vital. This is another indication of how we are trying to bring all parties together.

This is a practical and proportionate approach to ensuring that the powers are used appropriately and that all interested parties are involved in decision-making. In view of this, I hope that noble Lords will feel reassured enough not to press their amendments.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for that reply, which was to a large extent warm and, I am sure, encouraging to voluntary adoption agencies. She talked of them being involved in 14 of the regional adoption agencies that are in the process of being established—that is all very well and good—but that is the start. We look some way down the road and it may not happen. What if some local authorities or some regional adoption agencies decided not to involve voluntary adoption agencies? It is quite unlikely that none would be involved, but the agencies themselves remain concerned—it is not those of us on this side of the Committee who need to be reassured, it is the voluntary adoption agencies. For whatever reason—well, the reasons I have outlined, to be frank—they are not yet confident that that is how it is going to be into the future, and it is the future that concerns them rather than the present.

The Minister did not say specifically what was wrong with Amendment 32ZA. I do not see why it cannot be added to the Bill. It would simply add nine more words and ensure that voluntary adoption agencies were fully involved. If that is the Government’s intention—and I have no reason to doubt that it is—why not just write it into the Bill on that basis? It is disappointing that the Minister is not willing to do that, because I cannot see that it would have any real effect on any other part of the adoption system.

On the annual report, the Minister talked about transparency and about the agencies being fully informed, but transparency is also important as far as Parliament is concerned. You may say that Members of this House or another place can read the reports that are made available—no doubt, they will be put in the Library—but Parliament has a right to expect that such information be made available to it. If there was a need for a debate on these issues—it would not be every year, by any means—that could take place. If I noted the Minister correctly, she said that this would not work in practice. I may have missed it, but I did not hear from her why that would be the case. Yes, it would perhaps be a little bureaucratic, but only a little bit. I think that it would have a much wider benefit, not just for parliamentarians but for the agencies involved. The Minister’s response is therefore disappointing. Perhaps the Government could further clarify why they seem resistant, particularly in respect of including voluntary adoption agencies in the Bill. I know that that is what they want for reassurance and it is what we want with this amendment. But given what the Minister has had to say, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

I will quickly say why I support Amendments 32A and 34. I am very sorry for not having been here earlier, but I am on the Select Committee on Communications; we are looking at the BBC charter renewal and were just questioning John Whittingdale, the Secretary of State.

I am here because we must ensure support for all options for looked-after children that are considered, whether they remain in care, leave care independently or live with a special guardian. I support Amendments 32A and 34A because they will create provision in this Bill to improve the timeliness and quality of mental health assessment and support for all looked-after children. Looked-after children have significant needs, and improvements are needed to ensure that their emotional well-being is better promoted.

We have an increased focus on children and young people’s mental health, but we must not forget children in care, who are sometimes the most vulnerable children. One young person told the NSPCC recently that the trauma associated with the abuse that she experienced was not picked up on her early entry into care. She felt that she did not receive help until she reached crisis point. She said:

“We shouldn’t have to do crazy things before people notice we need support and do something”.

That is why I put my name to the amendment. I see that it is not on the list, but I did put my name to it because I feel very strongly that it should be given as much consideration as possible. It creates such provision in the Bill that will make sure that children’s mental health is assessed automatically and supported much earlier in the adoption system.

Another young adult, Liza—not her real name—told the NSPCC that before turning 16 she had around 15 placements and between 20 and 25 placement moves. This caused her so much stress and trauma because she had to travel around from place to place, which was extremely tiring, both physically and mentally. Reflecting on this experience, Liza made it clear to the NSPCC that she would have benefited from easier access to therapeutic services which would not have required her to travel long distances. Liza’s experience is not untypical of that of many children in care who struggle to find the right therapeutic support. Amendment 34A, which I support, would require the Secretary of State to oversee an increase in the quality and quantity of therapeutic support services and would create provision in the Bill to stop more children having the terrible experience that Liza outlined.

Almost two-thirds of looked-after children have experienced some sort of abuse or severe neglect, and 45% of children in care have a mental health disorder compared with just 10% of the general child population. We know that looked-after children are four to five times more likely to attempt suicide, less likely to attain good results at school and more likely to end up homeless. However, the mental health needs of children in care often go unassessed and unidentified and there is a substantial lack of mental health support for these children.

Current guidance from the Department of Health and the Department for Education on mental health assessments for looked-after children does not go far enough. The BBC—I have the BBC on my mind; I am sorry. The NSPCC believes that the important aspect of quality support in Amendment 34A relies on quality assessment as outlined in Amendment 32A, so the two go together. Looked-after children’s initial health assessments rarely include the involvement of mental health professionals, thereby reducing the chances of identifying their mental health needs. Furthermore, there should be direct contact with the child and their carer to fully explore the child’s emotional and mental health needs. We have to make sure that children know that they are being considered, no matter where they are from.

I welcome the Education and Adoption Bill but urge the Government to include specific measures around mental health in particular: all children entering care should receive an automatic mental health assessment in addition to the physical assessment that they currently receive; children in care should then immediately receive the subsequent necessary support to help them deal with issues of mental health identified in the assessment; and there should be regular monitoring of children’s mental health while in care to inform the support the child receives and ensure that it contributes to their improved well-being.

The NSPCC recently released figures which show that more than a fifth of all children referred to local specialist NHS mental health services, including children with problems stemming from abuse, are rejected for treatment. This cannot go on. Children who have been abused or neglected could face serious long-term mental health problems because of the lack of support. The NSPCC recently stated that this is a serious “time bomb” because it is getting worse, not better. So I hope that the Government will take on board the things that I have said and support this amendment. This is something that we need to address in the best way possible. I hope that the Government will consider the amendments in the constructive spirit in which they are intended as the Bill moves through Parliament.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, Amendments 32A and 34A, spoken to by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, raise important points about the mental health needs of children adopted from care.

I absolutely agree that the mental health of adopted children is a key issue, as all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate have said, and one that we expect to be central to the development of regional adoption agencies.

The Government have committed £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children and young people over the next five years through the implementation of Future in Mind, the report resulting from the Government’s review of child and adolescent mental health services. The report included a section on vulnerable children and makes specific recommendations about looked-after and adopted children. This includes improving access to services, working better with parents and carers and support for children who have suffered trauma in their early life.

We are working very closely with the Department of Health and NHS England on the implementation of Future in Mind. Locally, clinical commissioning groups have been—

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

On that Future In Mind document, the Minister said that the chapter on vulnerable children makes specific reference to proposals for looked-after children. I do not expect her to respond now, but could she write to me pointing it out? As I said, I could find the word “adoption” used only once in that chapter.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Clinical commissioning groups have been working with their local authority partners to develop local transformation plans to improve their local offer based on the recommendations. These plans, alongside additional government funding, will cover the full spectrum of mental health issues, including, crucially, addressing the needs of the most vulnerable children.

Improving assessment of and support for looked-after children will be a key priority in our programme of work. We welcome the recent report on this issue from the NSPCC, as mentioned by a number of noble Lords, and agree that getting assessment right when children enter care is critical. All looked-after children already have an annual health assessment, which must include an assessment of their emotional and mental as well as their physical health. That assessment, which informs the development of their health plan, should take account of the information provided from the strengths and difficulties questionnaire which is completed by their carer. The guidance also sets out clear expectations that all looked-after children should have targeted and dedicated support through child and adolescent mental health services and other services according to their need, arranged by CCGs, local authorities and NHS England. However, I accept the point made by the noble Earl that, for some young people with a range of problems, a follow-on referral to specialist health services is required.

The Department for Education hosted a round table last month, bringing together children’s social care and mental health stakeholders, to discuss how to improve mental health services for adopted children. As a result, we are considering how centres of excellence, possibly linked to regional adoption agencies, might enable the mental health needs of looked-after and adopted children to be better met.

At the moment, the specialist support that many adopted children need in order to address the effects of abuse and neglect in their early years is simply not available in their area, as the number of adopted children at local authority level is too low to ensure that the right provision is there. Assessment and commissioning of specialist support on a regional scale will allow providers to expand their services, provide better value for money for the taxpayer and help ensure that all adoptive families receive a consistently high quality of assessment and provision.

In addition, we are providing £4.5 million of funding this financial year to accelerate the development and implementation of regional adoption agencies. Adoption support, including mental health, is a key element of that. We are clear that regional adoption agencies must have a focus on improving the assessment of adopted children’s mental health needs and the provision of appropriate mental health support services.

Regional adoption agencies will be able to make use of the government-funded Adoption Support Fund, as the noble Earl mentioned. More than 2,000 families have already benefited from £7.5 million of therapeutic services provided by the fund for adopted children and their families. We know that getting a high-quality assessment of need is critical, and local authorities are increasingly using the fund to pay for specialist assessments and, where appropriate, specialist therapeutic support.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about harder-to-place children. We are providing £30 million to help pay the interagency fee to both local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies so that harder-to-place children might be adopted more quickly. More than 200 children have already been placed through this new scheme. On recruiting adopters for harder-to-place children, we believe that recruitment from a wider geographical base than simply a local authority, which takes into account the needs of children across a number of local authorities in a regional recruitment strategy and uses specialist techniques for recruiting adopters of harder-to-place children, will have an important effect.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, said that schools needed expertise in supporting looked-after children and children with mental health issues. We made changes in the Children and Families Act to introduce a virtual school head for looked-after children. This measure was designed specifically to ensure that looked-after children receive the support that they need at school.

I hope that noble Lords will see from this range of initiatives the importance that this Government and the previous Government have attached to ensuring that our most vulnerable children receive the support that they need, and that we are already committed to meeting the objectives of these amendments. I hope that the noble Earl will feel reassured enough not to press them.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in the debate on these amendments today and for the supportive comments made by many of your Lordships. I am also grateful for the care with which the Minister has responded: to some extent, I am somewhat reassured. I was interested to hear what she said about centres of excellence and that seems most welcome. In Wales, for instance, a fostering charity that provides services has to find its own mental health professionals, because there simply is not enough of a CAMHS in that particular area of Wales to provide for it. I can imagine, as the noble Baroness says, that there will be areas where there is a deficit of expertise, and therefore the principle of drawing in from the best elsewhere—as provided in the academies programme—is a good principle to utilise.

The noble Baroness referred to the strengths and difficulties questionnaire and to the fact that the initial and ongoing health assessments look at the emotional and other needs of young people in care. That is welcome. However, given the experience of these children before entering care and that that they are pulled away from their families into the care system and have that trauma too, I feel that that is not sufficient. They need at the very beginning to see a specialist and to have a specialist assessment. I do not want to push that too hard but, as we speak, I remember a young woman who had been through the care system and whose brother was in the care system with mental health difficulties. She must have been 22 or so and she said to me that what she would have liked to have had when she first went into care was a therapist to speak to and somebody to stick with her through the care system—they had one mental health professional to stick with her through the system—and she wished the same for her brother, who was having difficulties.

I am going to make a slight detour and I hope that your Lordships will forgive me. These are difficult issues. In the past, the Department for Education used to employ civil servants who had a long tenure and a lot of experience in one particular area. For instance, the recently deceased Rupert Hughes was one of the chief civil servants behind the Children Act 1989, under Baroness Thatcher’s Government. I used to serve with him as a trustee for several years. One did not realise his important background from meeting with him but from hearing about it from others and seeing how important his memorial service was to so many people who knew of him. He was a hugely important figure. In dealing with these systemic responses to the difficult questions that we are discussing today, I wonder whether the Minister might consider what more might be done to ensure that there is a continuity of experience within the Civil Service to deal with these difficult problems over time. I do not think that it was this Government—the Conservative Government—who got rid of these longer tenure civil servants but in the past they frequently had more people like Rupert Hughes.

I am sorry for the digression. There is much to be welcomed in what the noble Baroness has said and in the investment that has clearly been made by the Government. I thank her for her helpful reply and other noble Lords for their comments. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

The noble Baroness will be pleased to know that that is not what I am saying. I have been an advocate of full inspection for academies ever since the last Bill was introduced, and I still take that position. That is the way in which academies should be judged; have no doubt about that. I do not think it likely that we will deal with that in this Bill but the noble Baroness asked me what my position was, and that is it.

What I am saying is that the Bill deals with coasting schools in the maintained sector and, if that is so, there is a bit of a problem if we are going to deal with the issue by simply recreating that. I simply record my reservations. The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, was right to say that as it stands the clause may not achieve all that it sets out to, and if it comes back again I would be very interested to have a look at it. Still, I have these reservations and wanted to put them on record.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, this new clause would allow a local authority to establish a committee to review and scrutinise the provision of education in coasting schools, where such schools make up more than 10% of schools in the local area.

First, I shall touch on the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, about the accountability of academies. Our view is in fact that the accountability structure for academies is stronger because it reflects their status as both charitable companies and public bodies. This means that when it comes to matters of good governance and financial management, which, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, noted, are very important, they not only have statutory responsibilities under company law but explicit accountabilities to Parliament. Because of this dual layer of accountabilities, academies have a stronger financial framework and are held up to greater scrutiny than most other types of schools.

[Baroness Pinnock]

I wonder whether we are at risk of thinking that accountability for children’s education—their one chance to get a good education—is all about balance sheets, audits and professionals coming to some conclusion having looked at attainment levels. At their heart, parents are concerned about whether their children are happy in school, whether bullying is dealt with and whether they get opportunities outside school for extensive education—creative, artistic or sporting. Those are the sorts of things that they take into account as well as their child’s academic progress. That is the accountability that I am talking about, not some dry, dusty PwC audit report that parents may not be able to understand. They do understand what happens to their children’s experience in schools. Where can they ask the questions?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I mentioned that because the noble Baroness specifically talked about academies suffering financial failures, so I was addressing that point. I will come on in due course to talk about some of the other issues that she has raised.

We believe that the amendment is not necessary as the Bill gives regional schools commissioners, working on behalf of the Secretary of State, the powers to work with, and intervene in, any school that is coasting. Both the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, mentioned health scrutiny committees as a potential way of looking at this issue. The structure that we believe will work best is that of regional schools commissioners, and I will go on to explain why. I am sure that we will come back to this matter time and again this afternoon but I will attempt to put down the first marker as to why we believe that the Bill has devolution at its heart.

First, the Bill is concerned with improving schools that have failed. Decisions will be taken by regional schools commissioners, who are immersed in their local context—a point highlighted by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, from the conversations that he has had and from what he has seen. They are also advised by outstanding local heads. So there is local accountability and I will come on to talk a little more about that in due course.

Secondly, one of the main measures in the Bill gives greater power and responsibility to education professionals. The thrust of the Government’s agenda is to devolve power down to the very local level, trusting head teachers to know what is best and to do all the things that we want to see in good schools, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I am sure that we will return to this in later amendments.

As I said, the Bill provides RSCs with additional intervention powers for maintained schools so that RSCs can directly tackle schools that have been allowed to fail, or indeed coast, under the local authority’s watch. This means that all coasting schools will come under the scrutiny of regional schools commissioners. The RSC will work with each coasting school in their area to identify whether the school has the capacity to improve sufficiently by itself, which is one option, or whether additional support, including potential intervention, is needed. Such additional support could come from a national leader of education. Alternatively, the RSC may consider that the school should become a sponsored academy, or, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, mentioned, there might be a partnership between the existing school and other local maintained schools or local academies.

The work of RSCs will go beyond what is suggested in the amendment. RSCs will not wait until 10% of schools in an area have been notified that they are coasting before reviewing the education provision in those schools. Their work in relation to coasting schools needs to be continuous and thorough, with the aim of intervening swiftly where necessary. RSCs are strategically placed around the country to make decisions about coasting schools while, as I said, being immersed in the local context.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, asked about the role of local authorities. They will work very closely with RSCs, and I will come on to that. However, in terms of provision, local authorities can run competitions to set up new schools in areas where there is such a need. So there is still a role for local authorities, and many around the country have been active, although perhaps not enough due to the places issue that we are facing.

As I said, we expect RSCs to work closely with local authorities, and we have already seen evidence of effective partnerships. For instance, in Suffolk, the regional schools commissioner, Dr Tim Coulson, meets the local authority every month to discuss schools of concern. The RSC has strongly encouraged the authority to use its existing statutory intervention powers, and over the last 12 months Suffolk has issued 22 warning notices to poorly performing schools. The RSC has brought into Suffolk a number of new academy sponsors with proven track records of success. Overall, 17 underperforming Suffolk schools have become sponsored academies since September 2014 and a further five are in the process of converting. Also, this month the RSC is meeting the leader of the council to discuss establishing a school improvement board with the aim that every school inspected by Ofsted over the next two years will improve by at least one grade.

As to accountability and parents, the Schools Causing Concern guidance which is currently out for consultation makes it clear that local authorities should already alert the relevant RSC when they have concerns about standards, leadership or governance in an academy or a free school. Parents can, and already do, write to RSCs when they have concerns. As I have said, RSCs are very clear about the need for community and parental engagement.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I am sorry to intervene but I am getting rather confused. Did the Minister say that parents can write to the RSC?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Yes.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Why is it not the other way round? Why does the RSC not convene a meeting of parents? I am quite concerned about the letter from the Minister to the noble Lord, Lord Lang, which says that this,

“shows our absolute determination to create a school led system and to devolve decision making to experts on the frontline as far as possible”.

Who are the experts on children on the front line—are they not parents?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Indeed, and also teachers. RSCs, for instance, go to meetings in schools to talk with parents about what is happening. At the last sitting, due to concerns about clarifying how the interaction between parents and RSCs will happen, we also committed to considering whether we can be more explicit in the guidance about what that interaction will look like; so we will come back with more to say on that.

As the Committee can see from the examples I gave, RSCs are already scrutinising the schools in their area that they have concerns about, with a view to intervening swiftly where necessary. In addition to the new powers for RSCs as set out in the Bill, I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords that we will be actively monitoring and reviewing all coasting schools and intervening when appropriate. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

How many of the schools identified for intervention are academies?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We gave figures at the last sitting. I do not have them to hand now but can get that information to the noble Baroness.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

Is the noble Baroness aware that 25% of all failing schools are academies?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

That is because a number of state-maintained schools have now converted to become academies; so they have shifted into being academies.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

Is the noble Baroness seriously saying that the only failing academies are ones that have just transferred?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 15A and I agree with the sentiments espoused by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. It is surely sensible that a school should not be the subject of an academy order until or unless a sponsor has been identified as appropriate for that school as an academy. The alternative is for the school to be placed in a form of limbo, which as I see it cannot possibly be of any benefit to the children, parents or teachers or anyone else associated with the school. Can the Minister say, concerning the Bill, how many schools have already been designated as ready to be academised but have not yet been moved to that sector because for whatever reason it has been impossible to find an appropriate sponsor?

It is not clear what the DfE or perhaps the regional schools commissioner would do in such situations. Do they seek a local maintained school to take the failing school under its wing? Does the Minister anticipate that the suggestion made in the amendment relating to a local authority should apply in those situations? It would seem that there are good reasons why it should. I imagine that he will reject the amendment, however, so can he tell us what would happen if in these circumstances a sponsor cannot be found? I will have more to say on the question of sponsors in the sixth group, but for the moment I look forward to the Minister’s response.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I would like to respond to Amendment 15A, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Sharp. This amendment concerns whether and how a regional schools commissioner would identify the most suitable sponsor for a maintained school that had failed.

Clause 7 makes it clear, as did our manifesto, that for any school judged inadequate by Ofsted an academy order must be made. The RSC will take responsibility for this, identifying the most suitable sponsor and brokering the new relationship between that sponsor and the school. RSCs are already responsible for approval of sponsors, subjecting prospective sponsors and their trusts to thorough scrutiny before they can be approved to take on sponsored academies. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, that they consider all new sponsor applications in their region against robust and uniform criteria which are available, and they approve those which can demonstrate that they have the capacity and expertise to turn underperforming schools around. Through this rigorous assessment process, supported by the advice and challenge of their head teacher boards, RSCs ensure that prospective sponsors have a strong track record in educational improvement and financial management and that their proposed trust has high-quality leadership and appropriate governance.

RSCs are also responsible for monitoring and holding academy trusts and sponsors to account for their educational performance. They do this robustly through Ofsted inspection reports on the schools within a trust and published performance data. Trusts are also held to account for their financial management, governance and compliance by the Education Funding Agency. Information about MATs in these areas is transparent, with academy trust accounts audited and made publicly available. Where it is clear that a trust is not improving a school, the RSC will not hesitate to take action and re-broker it to a stronger trust.

As I have described, RSCs take a wealth of data and intelligence into account when identifying which sponsor should take responsibility for turning around a failed school. The tabled amendment requiring RSCs to take account of value-added performance and progress measures when identifying a sponsor for a failing maintained school is unnecessary. RSCs already look at a sponsoring school’s performance and, of course, in the future our new Progress 8 measure, by which secondary schools will be held to account, is a value-added methodology. In fact, the department has led the way in using added value to assess performance, publishing proposals on using such measures for chains and local authorities back in March.

The amendment also proposes that where there is not a sponsor of a high enough quality available, a failing school should be sponsored by a local authority maintained school or, indeed, directly by a local authority. This amendment is unnecessary because RSCs will ensure that a failing school is matched with an academy sponsor. To reassure the noble Lord, Lord Watson, RSCs have a wealth of good sponsors available already. There are 778 approved sponsors, all of have been subjected to the rigor described and the criteria I have outlined. RSCs are continually identifying and supporting additional outstanding schools in their area to become new sponsors. That is one of the benefits that RSCs have already brought to the programme.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for the figures she has just given us but is she saying that there have not been cases where a school has been designated to be an academy but has not been able to continue because there is no sponsor? She mentioned some 700 sponsors. Are these organisations just waiting in the wings for a letter saying, “Will you take over this school?” or is this a plan for if and when this Bill is implemented? It is not clear what the figure of 700 involves.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

There are 778 approved sponsors and about 20% are waiting to be matched with schools. The noble Lord asked which schools may need sponsoring. The precise number will vary from year to year and will depend on Ofsted inspections and test and examination results. We anticipate that as many as 1,000 failing maintained schools could potentially become sponsored academies under the new measures.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

I think the issue about how long schools wait before they find a match with a sponsor is very important. I had heard anecdotally—so this is the Minister’s opportunity to put it on the record—that quite a number of schools are now known as orphan schools because they have been taken away from one sponsor and have not yet been given another one. Does the department have a target time in which an alternative or a first sponsor should be found? What is the department’s record on achieving that target?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

We look for a sponsoring match to happen as quickly as possible but one of the issues that this Bill is attempting to address is the delays caused by the very process that schools have to undergo at the moment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I think it would be best if I wrote to the noble Baroness as I do not have the figures directly to hand.

The academy trust structure also brings greater autonomy with a strong accountability framework. International evidence has shown this drives up standards. Academies operate under a robust accountability framework under which we are able to hold the trust directly to account for their school improvement and we have clear routes to intervene should concerns arise. We would not have the same robust accountability if a maintained school or a local authority took over responsibility for a failing school.

It is also not just about the freedoms and stronger accountability, though; it is also about some of the substantial advantages of operating in a multi-academy trust, which the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, identified. It is acknowledged that the best way to improve schools is through local school-to-school support, and the best, most rigorous, efficient and accountable way to do that is through such a multi-academy trust. People who run multi-academy trusts talk about the advantages of the freedoms, the sense of being in control of one’s own destiny, the career opportunities as people are employed across a group of schools, the ability to retain good staff and, crucially, the ability to share best practice. They talk about leadership development, the enhanced CPD and, on the operational side, the economies of scale and purchasing power of being in a MAT. They talk about the ability to have common school improvement, behaviour management systems, a common curriculum, common teaching pedagogy and systems and the limitless benefits of pupils moving from primary to secondary when a MAT has both types of school in its family.

[Baroness Pinnock]

What I am concerned about in what I am hearing is that the Minister is suggesting that that does not occur in the maintained sector. There is sharing. The schools forum, which all local authorities have to have, brings head teachers together to discuss the very things that she has just described: a common approach to training, personal development for teachers, the sharing of best practice and being able to determine the “destiny” of schools, as she puts it—I hope that in fact we are talking about the destiny of children within them; it always worries me when people talk about the schools rather than the children. None of the factors that she listed there is relevant only to academies. They apply also to maintained schools, and we ought to recognise that.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I did not say that they did not, but we are talking here about multi-academy trusts and why for failing schools it is a good option for them to be involved. Local school forums do indeed have a role but I think that many head teachers would talk about the positive benefits that they have found in setting up a multi-academy trust. That is all I am saying. I am not saying that local maintained groups of schools are not able to form good partnerships themselves.

[Baroness Pinnock]

Would the Minister therefore support outstanding local maintained schools becoming a sponsor for these schools? As she has just said that they can also behave in the same way, there does not seem to be any argument against a local maintained school becoming a sponsor for a failing school.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

They could certainly become an academy and do that, but they would have to have the same legal structure. I shall come on to that in a second.

Given that 65% of our secondary schools are now academies, it is increasingly sponsors for primary schools that we are seeking to source and develop. In small primary schools the MAT structure is even more critical, again making it necessary for sponsoring schools to be academies themselves that are able to form such a MAT rather than leaving small sponsored primary schools standing alone. We would certainly hope that any maintained school with the expertise, capacity and enthusiasm to support a struggling school would consider converting to academy status in order to do this, in the process unlocking all the benefits and opportunities that I have described.

We also anticipate that as more schools become academies and local authorities have fewer maintained schools left, as many already do, we will see members of local authority teams who are skilled at school improvement spinning out to set up their own MATs, and this development would be most welcome.

In conclusion, I shall quote Maura Regan, CEO of Carmel Education Trust, who attended our sponsor event last week. She said:

“We have to accept that what has happened historically in many local authorities has not worked. We are about revolution—we need to take a break from the past and embrace a new model whereby school leaders are increasingly in charge of their own destinies”.

In light of that, as well as my explanations, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I was interested in what the Minister said about the sponsorship process. I would be interested to learn a bit more about it—how sponsors are selected; how they are inducted; and how they are qualified. I guess there is a certain sensitivity in that one wants people to sponsor, so one does not want to place too much of a burden upon them; but on the other hand, it is important that if they sponsor, it is a success and there is not a clash of cultures but complementary working together. The Minister may like to write to me, or perhaps she will say a few words now about that process and particularly about induction so that we ensure that sponsors perhaps spend time in a school sitting at the back of the class so they have a sense of what it is like at the coalface—the chalkface, I should say.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I am very happy to write to the noble Earl on that point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, Amendment 18, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, concerns provision for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities at schools which have been judged inadequate by Ofsted and will therefore become academies with the support of a sponsor. This amendment would mean that before a sponsor could take on a failing school, it would have to submit detailed plans about how it proposed to support pupils with SEN and disabilities, both those with an education, health and care plan and those without. Where there is doubt that the individual school would be able to offer specialist provision for these pupils, the Secretary of State would have to provide guidance to the sponsor about how collaboration with other schools could provide this. The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that when a school has failed there will be swift, decisive action to bring about urgent transformation. We do not want this to be unnecessarily delayed.

In response to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, we have set out in the draft Schools Causing Concern guidance that the number of pupils with SEN should be one of the factors that RSCs take into account when determining the best course of action for a coasting school, so they will consider it. While I recognise the noble Earl’s concerns in this area, we believe that this amendment is unnecessary and I will set out the reasons why. I reassure noble Lords that we have a robust system in place to ensure that academies are identifying and addressing the needs of pupils with SEN and disabilities—a system that we reformed extensively only last year. All academies are subject to the same requirements and expectations as local authority-maintained schools in their provision for pupils with SEN and disabilities.

To address the concern that the noble Baroness raised on behalf of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, we are not just talking here about those students with more complex needs, who qualify for education, health and care plans. We have also strengthened requirements on schools in relation to how they support all students with SEN. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, asked about that system. It includes the requirement for schools to produce an SEN information report, which must be published on their websites. The report must describe the kinds of special educational needs for which provision is made at the school and information about the school’s policies for making provision for all pupils with SEN. The report must also describe how it involves other bodies, including health and social services bodies, local authority support services and voluntary organisations, in meeting the needs of pupils with SEN and supporting the families of those pupils.

As I have said, academies must follow the same requirements on SEN provision that apply to maintained schools. The sponsor taking responsibility for the failing school must therefore ensure that the school complies with all these requirements. This means that information about the academy’s provision for SEN and how it will collaborate with other organisations as part of that provision must be available, even without this amendment. Sponsors taking on a new school will have to give careful consideration as to how the needs of pupils with SEN at the school are met and whether they can put any additional support in place.

An example, particularly drawing on the collaboration that the noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned, is Dorothy Barley Junior School and Special Needs Base, which became a sponsored academy in 2013. The sponsor identified for the school, REAch2, has “inclusion” as one of its founding principles, and took care to consider the potential impact of academy conversion on SEN pupils. REAch2 committed to make provision for children with SEN through inclusion in mainstream classes and, where necessary, outside class. The trust already included a number of primary schools with specialist units providing support for children with SEN—including a specialist speech and language unit at Aerodrome Academy in Croydon, a centre for children with autism at Tidemill Academy in Lewisham and a specialist unit for children with autism and ADHD at Hillyfield Academy in Waltham Forest—so it had strong experience of delivering SEN provision and managing specialist units. We entirely agree that collaboration really helps in this area. Local authorities will of course retain responsibility for services such as education, health and care plans and for the assessment and monitoring of SEN provision once a school becomes an academy.

Academies are inclusive schools which play a full part in providing for children with SEN and disabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, asked for some figures. Sponsored academies have a higher proportion of pupils with SEN than the average across all state-funded schools. In January 2015, 17.3% of pupils in sponsored secondary academies were identified as having some form of SEN, compared to 14.3% of pupils in all state-funded secondary schools. In relation to sponsored primary academies, 17% of pupils were identified as having some kind of SEN, compared to 14.4% of pupils in all state-funded primary schools.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked about exclusions. I can reassure him that there is no trend suggesting that academy exclusions are more likely to be overturned. Academies and maintained schools have the same rate of reviews resulting in the independent review panel directing a school to consider reinstating a pupil.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for raising in her amendment the matter of collaboration. There are certainly many benefits, as I have mentioned, and many MATs already have common SEN policies across their schools or share specialist provision. We therefore do not see that it is necessary to require this in law. We believe that it is right to leave it up to the professionals to decide exactly how best to meet the needs of pupils with SEN, and where collaboration between different schools would be of benefit. It is in the best interests of children with SEN and disabilities, as it is in the best interests of all pupils, for the failure of a school to be addressed as swiftly as possible. On the basis of these reassurances and my explanation of what is already occurring, we hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I am very grateful to noble Lords for participating in this debate. I thought it was going to be just a quick debate; I am delighted to have the support that I have had around the Committee. I thank the Minister for her response, which, as I expected, was a reassurance that these procedures are already in place.

I will raise just one issue with her. Perhaps she might take this away and think about it. As she will know, with the transfer of so many schools into academies, many local authorities have run down their capabilities of coping with special educational needs and providing help. Increasingly, it is left to outside consultants to provide that help. I know that quite a number of authorities are struggling to meet the demands that are required in reviewing the education, health and care plans, and something of a backlog is building up. There is also a question of whether they have the capabilities to do the monitoring that is now written into the Act; the local authorities are required to monitor these facilities in both local authority state schools and academies. If they are to do this monitoring, it is important that they actually have the capability to do it. Perhaps the Minister and the Chief Inspector of Schools might need to think about this. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I take a slightly different view. I shall be brief. I am quite sure that the Government cannot intend that when this process moves forward there is no communication between the school and the other stakeholders, in particular, the parents. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that I am no education expert, but I know a great deal about children and children’s advocacy. My great worry is that often we worry about the status and needs of parents over and above those of children. I come from a pretty tough working-class background, and if my school had not, if you like, overridden my parents on occasion, I would not be standing here. As we are into personal anecdotes, I am giving one.

I think that both things need to happen. There has to be quick action when a school does not meet the needs of children. You cannot spend a long time discussing matters with parents who may be comfortable about what is happening, although it will not benefit their children in the long term. However, I do not think that that prevents good communication, and I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and his team intend that.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord was right when he noticed that I would be responding to this amendment. I shall allow him and the Minister to continue their debate next week, when no doubt we will cover these issues in more detail, and I will focus on the amendment.

Amendment 4 proposes that a governing body must inform parents that a school has been notified that it is coasting. We firmly believe that, once a school has been notified that it is coasting, we should trust the governing body to engage parents as they see fit, exactly as the noble Baroness said. That is what we would expect of a school. In practice, we envisage that where a school meets the coasting definition, the governing body will voluntarily inform parents. Issuing a communication to parents is already the normal approach taken by schools following the publication of exam results or Ofsted inspections. In fact, schools are not required to notify parents of Ofsted judgments but they do, and we would expect schools to adopt a similar approach in this situation. We would certainly expect governing bodies to be as open as possible with parents.

In the modern day and age, with social media and the availability of lots of websites, we would also—

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I note what the noble Baroness said about schools and Ofsted inspections but I have certainly come across cases where schools and governing bodies have been very reluctant to release this information because they do not like what it says. I agree with the noble Baroness about parents and children, but there ought to be a guarantee or requirement that parents will receive information, whether it relates to Ofsted or is about coasting. I am afraid the fact is that some schools do not do the right thing when they get an adverse Ofsted judgment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I hope that the noble Lord will be pleased to know that I was going to go on to say that, in view of the concerns that have been expressed, we will consider how we can ensure, through the Schools Causing Concern guidance, that parents are sufficiently aware that their child’s school has been identified as coasting. We absolutely agree that that is important. Of course parents need to know. Our feeling is that governing bodies will provide such information but, in the light of the concerns raised, we are happy to consider being a bit more explicit. I hope on that basis that the noble Lord will withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I am delighted to hear what the noble Baroness has said. She couched it in terms of “considering” but I await the schools guidance with interest. She said that governing bodies regularly notify parents of a number of issues. That is so but, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, some do not, and our proposal would make the notification mandatory. If it is going to be mandatory in terms of guidance, why not put it in the Bill? I do not see any reason not to tie it down in that way.

There is the further question of what happens after the parents have been told. I was rather surprised by some of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. I accept that the needs of children have to come first but most parents are very concerned about how their children are doing at school and they want education to be as beneficial to their children as possible. I do not see that the needs of the parents and the needs of the children necessarily diverge. If we could make the assumption that they were absolutely the same, that would be very positive. I accept that we cannot; none the less, we have to trust parents to some extent as well, and surely they have the right to make representations about something with which they are unhappy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I have some sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Watson, said about teacher recruitment. A potential crisis is arising. I know that the Minister does not agree with that—we had a Question in the House the other day about precisely this issue.

I want to take the amendment at face value rather than preach about what is likely to happen with teacher recruitment. The amendment states:

“Prior to defining a school as coasting, the Secretary of State must undertake an investigation and report on the current level of teacher recruitment and retention in that particular school”.

That brings me back to the previous amendment, where I talked about how important it was that schools should build trust with parents and work in cohesion with them. I say again that a happy school is one where there is a stable staffing situation, without children being subjected to constant changes of teacher, sometimes halfway through a term, with supply staff brought in who have no knowledge of the young people whom they are teaching. Such teachers are often ineffective because they are coming in halfway through term and trying to pick up where other teachers have left off.

As I said earlier in relation to the first group of amendments, many underperforming schools are those which have suffered from a long interregnum in recruiting new head teachers. A new head who is finding their feet in a new school may be doing good things, but it takes time nevertheless to turn a school round. It requires at least a year, if not longer.

My reading of the regulations is that the regional schools commissioner must have discretion to look at the situation in which a school finds itself. It is not in a school’s interest, particularly where a new head is bedding down, to throw the whole thing into turmoil again by enforcing academisation, with a new senior management team, a new board of governors and so forth.

It seems useful in these circumstances to make it clear, perhaps in regulations rather than in the Bill, that the regional schools commissioner has discretion to look at teacher recruitment and retention. Teacher shortages still vary enormously from region to region and within regions. It is silly to require a new senior leadership team in a school which is coasting, as distinct from having positively failed, if it is going to be almost impossible to recruit a new senior leadership team. That is certainly true of parts of the south-east, where it is extremely difficult to get head teachers—I was talking about that earlier.

It would be very useful if we could have this spelled out in regulations. It need not necessarily be in the Bill, but there seems to be a lot of sense in it. In that sense, I support the amendment.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Watson, is right that the recruitment and retention of high-quality teachers is crucial to achieving our goal of educational excellence everywhere. As I explained at Questions yesterday—the noble Lord may dispute the figures—the number of teachers in post is at an all-time high and the number of teachers leaving the profession remains low, with around three-quarters still in the profession after five years’ service.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, rightly said, there is an overall challenge, but in some areas of the country there is a struggle to attract, recruit and retain high-quality teachers. That is why we are actively supporting schools to take a leading role in the training of new teachers and have given schools greater flexibility to attract and retain good teachers through the pay system. It is also why the Secretary of State on Tuesday announced the creation of the National Teaching Service with the aim that by 2020 it will deploy 1,500 high-performing teachers and middle leaders into underperforming schools in areas that struggle to recruit. There are already many outstanding teachers and leaders working in challenging areas, but we know that more needs to be done to help them and we are committed to giving them support.

My noble friend was clear that when we are discussing coasting schools, regional schools commissioners will consider whether the school has the capacity to secure sufficient improvement without formal intervention. In some cases, a school which falls within the coasting definition may have a new head teacher, governor or leadership team who can demonstrate that they have an effective plan to raise standards sufficiently. In these cases, the school will be left to improve.

This amendment suggests that where a school fails to ensure that pupils reach their potential because there are retention and recruitment issues at the school it should not become eligible for intervention. We feel this is counterintuitive. These are the very schools that require additional support to address those problems in order to improve outcomes for their pupils. This Bill will provide that support. We have made clear in the Schools Causing Concern guidance, on which we are currently consulting, that RSCs will take a range of contextual factors into account when looking at coasting schools. They could include looking at teacher recruitment and retention. Where this is identified as an issue, the RSC will be able to work with the new National Teaching Service to bring teachers into the school to work alongside the existing teachers to make the improvements needed. Other measures, such as encouraging schools to participate in School Direct partnerships, which allow them to train and employ high-quality new teachers, might also be appropriate.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, raised several issues around School Direct, so I will cover some of them briefly. Completion and employment rates from teacher-led teacher training are higher than from university-led provision, but we agree that universities remain an important part. In fact, the move to school-led teacher training is helping to encourage collaboration because 70% of School Direct places are delivered by universities. As I said yesterday, a school-led system is not a university-excluded system. We want to see collaboration.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I welcome what the Minister has said. I am not suggesting that the two are mutually exclusive, but figures show that universities are now less certain about the number of students they will get. They are also less certain of the relationships they will have with schools. School Direct seems to be the preferred choice of the DfE. That may or may not be the right way to go, but universities need some reassurance. Why are university departments closing? Why are education student numbers at universities falling if there is not a problem as I outlined? It is not a question of either/or. Surely the two should be working together.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Absolutely. We are seeing growing collaboration. The noble Lord is right that we are looking at teacher training on a year-by-year basis because we believe that schools should be at the heart of thinking about where they want to get their best training. The best universities will be extremely attractive. They are still the only organisations that can award PGCEs, which remain extremely popular. While we think that the school-led system is the way we want to go, we see that the collaboration is working within the system.

This year we hit our primary recruitment targets. We made good progress on secondary and are ahead of last year in some key subjects, such as English, maths and physics. The noble Lord also mentioned STEM subjects. Again, we want to attract the best graduates into teacher training, which is why we are looking at generous bursaries from next year, up to £30,000. We are also looking at some of the issues that teachers tell us worry them most once they are in a job, such as unnecessary work-flow and poor pupil performance, so that we can help to ensure that when teachers are in the profession, they stay in it. Again, teacher retention remains good and has remained pretty stable for the past two decades.

I hope that the House realises that we take the issue of recruitment and retention very seriously. As the Minister has already said, high-quality teachers are absolutely crucial, and the impact that they can make on young people is huge—so we take this seriously, and we believe that we are already taking steps to support schools when this impacts on the progress that pupils make. I therefore ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I thank the Minister for her remarks. I certainly welcome the fact that she has acknowledged the importance of teachers and underlined that they are key to future development of education and to raising standards. There is no point in bandying figures back and forth, because I suppose that she will cherry pick figures that suit her. I hope that I am not doing the same, but it has been quite widely reported that 50,000 teachers left the profession in the last year, which is the highest ever level. She said that the figures were down, so there is something not right there. To me, that is the most worrying statistic, because it means not that all teachers are reaching 60, or whatever age at which they choose to retire, but that they are leaving the profession because, for some reason or other, it is not giving them what they want, or they feel that they cannot put in what they want to improve children’s education. That is a very worrying statistic. The Minister said that primary recruitment targets have been met this year. That is obviously to be welcomed but there are, understandably, greater challenges in secondary schools, which must be pursued.

If I caught the Minister’s remarks correctly, she said that the amendment suggested that schools should not be eligible for coasting until teacher recruitment and retention was a problem. That is not what I said and it is not what the amendment said, and I certainly did not mean to say it, if I did. Attention should be given to the whole teacher recruitment question, and that was the whole point of the amendment. She will understand that, as with most amendments in Grand Committee, it is a probing amendment, and I wanted to get these issues discussed and on the record. I am pleased that we have been able to do that.

The Minister said that the regional schools commissioner would take into account contextual factors when considering whether schools should be designated as coasting. She said that that could include teacher recruitment and retention—but why would that not automatically include those things?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Through the metric that we have discussed, when a school would be considered to be coasting, teacher recruitment and retention would be taken into account—it is about what intervention may be needed in terms of what support the schools may need when they have been identified as coasting through the measures that we have discussed. It may well mean additional support—and we have talked about the National Teaching Service coming in and helping with high-quality teachers. So it is about bringing that to bear, as to how best to help the school improve.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I think that we have covered the issues that I hoped we would cover. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

In relation to this amendment, while we have some sympathy with the notion that there should be an appeal when a warning notice is issued, we are by no means convinced that the First-tier Tribunal is the right place to go.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 13 and warning notice appeals. The Bill proposes that the governing body of an underperforming school should no longer be able to make representations to Ofsted about being given a warning notice. The amendment would restore an appeal route, although not the same route. The amendment would require the Secretary of State to make regulations that would allow a school to have a warning notice reviewed, or allow it to appeal to the First-tier Tribunal, which could then revoke the notice.

The amendment would not preclude the local authority or regional schools commissioner from issuing a revised notice to that school, but we believe that it oversteps the mark and builds into the process delays and arguments that are a distraction from the important business of getting the school to improve. Indeed, appeals to the First-tier Tribunal would lead to the clock stopping and months of delay ensuing while all avenues for appeal are exhausted. During this time, children will be in a school that is causing serious concern and they will not be given the education that they deserve.

To clarify, any complaints about the decision made by a regional schools commissioner may be directed to the schools commissioner. If a formal complaint is lodged, it will be dealt with in accordance with the department’s formal complaints procedure, which involves an independent officer, an official, investigating the complaint and making a recommendation. One formal complaint about a regional schools commissioner’s decision has been made so far and has been considered but no evidence was found to uphold it. Ultimately, the process for appealing a decision made by a regional schools commissioner is to apply for judicial review via the courts.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to warning notices. Our figures indicate that we have issued 112 formal notices to underperforming institutions. Ninety- eight of these were issued to academies associated with 53 individual sponsors. We have also changed sponsor arrangements for 100 academies and free schools where there has been underperformance.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

What period does that cover? Is it just since the regional schools commissioners were established or does it go back to 2010?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

It is since the academies came in, so it applies to a wider period than since the regional schools commissioners have been in place. I reassure the House that we believe the process as set out in the Bill is fair and reasonable and that there are appropriate safeguards built in where schools have concerns. Regional schools commissioners and local authorities already have to act reasonably in carrying out their functions on behalf of the Secretary of State. The revised Schools Causing Concern guidance, on which we are currently consulting and seeking views, also sets out clear processes and expectations for the giving of warning notices. This is guidance which local authorities and regional schools commissioners will follow. The Bill requires the local authority to notify the regional schools commissioner if it issues a warning notice and vice versa. Regional Schools Commissioners can therefore already review a local authority’s warning notice and, if they believe that it is not appropriate, they can issue their own that would render the local authority’s notice redundant.

Although I understand the sentiments behind the amendment, it builds in additional process in primary legislation which is unnecessary and time-consuming and is not helpful in supporting schools to improve in the best interests of children. In the light of this, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw their amendment.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

If this is all just a distraction, will the Minister tell me what she thinks the role of school governors is?

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

Obviously, the role of school governors is to hold head teachers to account to ensure that the school is providing the high-quality education that they are looking for. They have an oversight role and have to be involved in the school by going to visit and making sure that they know what is going on.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

But do they have no right to comment in situations where warning notices are being issued? This seems to me to be saying that they have no meaningful role, as it is being taken away from them. Surely that cannot be a positive step.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

No, as I said, any complaints about a decision made by the regional schools commissioner can be directed to the schools commissioner. If a formal complaint is lodged, it will be dealt with through the process that is in place. Ultimately, the end process is judicial review.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I noted the noble Baroness’s remarks that delays and arguments are a distraction to the process of bringing about change in a school. The whole underlying ethos of the Government’s approach to the Bill is that people who might not agree with the proposal are simply to be sidelined. They are to be silenced—gagged—and to have no input, because they might delay the process. I do not think anybody has said anything other than that change needs to be brought about as quickly as possible. But at the same time the Government must consider the fact that some people have different views from those they may have. Those views should be considered.

The Government do not have, despite their victory on 7 May, the right to ride roughshod over people’s views, particularly those of local people, on such important issues. It does not serve the Government’s case to suggest simply that complaints can be made to the regional schools commissioner or the schools commissioner, or through judicial review. Yes, of course judicial review is open to anyone anyway in any situation, but that is not the point. This is a specific proposal that relates to the role of a school’s governing body, which is being taken away from that body. As I said earlier, it is difficult to see why anybody would want to be a school governor, because they are being disfranchised and disempowered, and basically being told that what they say does not matter. I am disappointed that neither Minister is willing to consider this. We may return to this issue on Report, but at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my name to those welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to his place in this House. In doing so, I want to say how grateful I am to your Lordships for allowing me to speak in the gap and for the opportunity to take part in this debate. At this late stage in the proceedings, I will keep my contribution relatively brief and restrict my comments to the education sections of the Bill. I will also be posing a few questions for the Minister to consider as I go along.

As a former teacher, I always welcome moves to attempt to improve the performance of pupils, teachers and schools, and, at first glance, these attempts to define and improve failing and coasting schools may have some merit. However, I join many colleagues from this side of the House in expressing a certain amount of scepticism. Are these moves a genuine effort to improve standards in our state schools or are they another step on the road to achieving the Government’s ideological ambition of complete academisation of the education system in England? The Bill presents a significant increase in the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in schools and, in a great many respects, diminishes the powers of local authorities.

At this point, I should like to comment on one of the Government’s proposed measures for defining coasting and inadequate schools. I have always had some doubts about the value of the five A* to C GCSE grades as a means of judging the performance of schools, although, as a gold standard, it probably gives a headline impression of a school. However, I have to admit to a certain amount of approval of one of the Government’s assessment measures: the Progress 8 measure. Based on students’ progress across their eight best subjects and using key stage 2 results in English and Maths as a baseline, this measure gives a far clearer indication of a student’s attainment across their secondary school career. The measure includes a double-weighted GCSE mathematics component and a double-weighted English component, and I welcome the inclusion of the three highest grades from the EBacc subjects studied. These can be science subjects, computer science, geography, history and languages.

However, for me, the most welcome aspect of this measure is the inclusion of the best three grades from any of the remaining subjects included in the “open group”—a group which, importantly, can include three vocational subjects. This gives a far fairer indication of the pupil’s progress and of the progress of the school in educating the child as a whole. It also gives a far clearer indication of the breadth of the curriculum within the school. Perhaps most importantly, it gives an indication of the success of a school in preparing pupils for the next stages of education.

I talked earlier about the Secretary of State’s powers of intervention in failing and coasting schools. It is estimated that there could be some 2,000 such schools across England. I would be interested in knowing from the Minister the cost of supporting schools where it is deemed necessary to intervene, the cost of the regional schools commissioners and the boards of head teachers which will be necessary to assist them, and the cost of converting the remaining schools into academies—and, indeed, whether the capacity exists within the academy system to deliver all this. The commissioners are responsible for more than 4,000 academies, 141—

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness has spoken for three minutes.

[Baroness Humphreys]

I am sorry. Perhaps I may just finish my sentence. How will the commissioners cope with the extra responsibilities that they will have?

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 14th October 2015 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

7: Clause 1, page 1, line 6, leave out from second “child” to end of line 10 and insert “—
(a) who is under compulsory school age,(b) who is in England,(c) who is of a description specified in regulations made by the Secretary of State,(d) in respect of whom any conditions relating to a parent of the child, or a partner of a parent of the child, which are specified in such regulations, are met, and(e) in respect of whom a declaration has been made, in accordance with such regulations, to the effect that the requirements of paragraphs (a) to (d) are satisfied.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 8, 9, and 10, which concern eligibility for the extended entitlement.

The additional childcare provided for in the Bill builds on the existing entitlement to 15 hours of early education for three to four year-olds and disadvantaged two year-olds. The Government’s intention with this extended entitlement is to support working parents with the cost of childcare and to enable them, should they wish to do so, to return to work or to work more.

I will first address Amendment 10, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler. While I understand that the noble Baronesses would like working parents of children aged between one and two to benefit from additional childcare, I can assure them that there is already a significant amount of support for parents of children in this age group. In the last Parliament we introduced the entitlement to 15 hours free childcare for disadvantaged two year-olds. We have legislated for tax-free childcare, which will save around 1.8 million working families with children under the age of 12 up to £2,000 per child per year. We have committed to increasing childcare support within universal credit by around £350 million, to provide 85% of childcare costs from next year, rather than the current 70%, where a lone parent or both parents in a couple are in work. The Government’s clear commitment is to increase the hours of free childcare available to working parents of three and four year-old children, when many parents feel more able to return to work.

Turning to those children that the Government intend to benefit from the new entitlement, our intention is that the criteria for accessing the entitlement will include conditions relating to paid work undertaken by the child’s parent or the parent’s partner. The criteria will be set out in regulations, rather than in the Bill, but our intentions are clearly signalled by Amendments 7 and 8. As set out in Committee, the amount of work parents will need to undertake will be set relatively low. Children of parents who earn at least the equivalent of eight hours per week at the national minimum wage, including those who are self-employed, will qualify for the extended entitlement. In the case of lone-parent households, the same threshold will apply. That makes this a significant offer of additional support.

We have considered carefully the debate in Committee about parents who may not be in a position to meet the minimum income threshold, for reasons which may be connected with incapacity for work, caring responsibilities or because they are temporarily away from the workplace. That is why the Government’s policy statement, published at the beginning of this month, set out further information on the circumstances in which we think that children of such parents should nevertheless qualify. The amendment we have brought forward would enable the Government to specify the circumstances in which a person should be regarded as in paid work for the purposes of the new entitlement. This would enable the Government to include, within regulations, those parents who are out of work or temporarily away from the workplace.

In summary, the Government intend that the additional entitlement should be available in the following circumstances: where both parents are employed but one or both parents is temporarily away from the workplace on parental, maternity or paternity leave; where both parents are employed but one or both parents is temporarily away from the workplace on adoption leave; where both parents are employed but one or both parents is temporarily away from the workplace on statutory sick pay; where one parent is employed and one parent has substantial caring responsibilities, based on specific benefits received for caring; or, finally, where one parent is employed and one parent is disabled or incapacitated, based on receipt of specific benefits. The Government believe that including parents who meet these criteria within the entitlement provides an appropriate balance in supporting parents to work where they can do so but also avoiding undue disruption to providers and children due to short periods of parental absence outside the workplace. I hope noble Lords will welcome the Government’s intention to include these circumstances in the eligibility criteria for the extended entitlement, which includes a number of groups specified in Amendment 9 tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig.

Turning to parents on zero-hours contracts, as mentioned in the Opposition’s Amendment 9, we recognise that the system needs to reflect the variety of working patterns of families across England. I should therefore like to reassure all noble Lords that the contractual position of parents will not determine whether they are eligible for the additional childcare. Parents on zero-hours contracts will be eligible in the same way as anyone else if, on average, they earn at least eight times the minimum wage per week as determined by information held by HMRC on parental earnings.

For parents who are not in work but are undertaking work-related training, in addition to the existing entitlement for three and four year-olds the Government already provide support to help with the costs of childcare to parents in recognised education courses. This includes schemes such as the childcare grant which offers parents support of up to 85% of their childcare costs depending on their household income. We believe that that is already a significant contribution to childcare costs while a parent is studying. Children whose parents are students but who are also in work will qualify for the extended entitlement in the same way as any other parent, as long as they meet the eligibility criteria. I would also like to mention very specifically here that parents on an apprenticeship, who by definition will be working full time, will be able to benefit from the extended entitlement.

As I have already explained, it is our intention that where one parent receives benefits for undertaking caring responsibilities, in the case of couple families they will be regarded as if they were in paid work as long as the other parent is working. This will mean that in such families they will be able to receive the additional entitlement supporting the other parent to remain in work or extend their hours of work. The entitlement is intended to help parents work. In the case of single-parent carers, should they work in addition to their caring responsibilities, they will be entitled to the additional childcare, like other parents.

I should also like to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and noble Lord, Lord Touhig, that it is not our intention that children of parents who lose their job unexpectedly should be disadvantaged. If a parent’s circumstances change their child will remain eligible for the extended free entitlement for a short period. We hope that within this time the parent will be able to regain employment and continue to declare that they expect to meet the criteria that I have just set out. If that is not the case, and after the grace period the parent is clear that they no longer expect to be in paid employment, they would become ineligible. We expect to provide further detail on how this will work in regulations and statutory guidance but a common-sense approach would be for children to keep their place for the remainder of that term.

The Government recognise the importance of volunteering and the role that volunteers play in improving their local community. However, the purpose of the extended entitlement is to help parents go out to work if they want to. As I have explained, entitlement is based on working the equivalent of eight hours, which means that parents who work part time and wish to combine this with some voluntary work will, of course, be able to do so.

Today, and in our policy statement, we have aimed to set out who the Government intend to benefit from the extended entitlement, but I am aware that noble Lords may question why we do not intend to set this level of detail out in primary legislation. As explained, eligibility will broadly align with that for tax-free childcare. The Childcare Payments Act 2014, which established tax-free childcare, sets out general conditions of eligibility, including the need to be in qualifying paid work. However, it is secondary legislation which sets out what is meant by qualifying paid work and when a person is to be regarded as being in such work. Those regulations are obviously highly technical, cross-referring to benefits, allowances and credits established under a number of pieces of primary legislation. Similarly, the approach that the Government have taken in this Bill is to signal in primary legislation that parents will be expected to meet conditions as to paid work in order for their children to qualify.

By taking a power to specify in regulations the circumstances in which a person is to be regarded as in such work, we have also signalled a clear intent to cater for circumstances in which a parent does not meet the paid-work condition, for example because they are temporarily away from the workplace due to sickness or parenting responsibilities, but their child ought nevertheless to qualify. However, we think it is appropriate that the technical detail as to which allowances will mean that a parent can continue to be regarded as being in paid work ought to be left to secondary legislation, and we feel that this strikes the right balance. This will also mirror the approach taken to the entitlement to 15 hours of free childcare for certain eligible two year-olds, where the detail as to which children are eligible is set out in regulations. The secondary legislation for the new entitlement will be laid and approved by each House using the affirmative procedure on their first use, therefore providing the opportunity for debate in both Houses.

I hope noble Lords will recognise that the Government have given careful consideration to the question of eligibility and, through their own amendments, have addressed the key issues raised in Committee and provided a clear explanation for why some groups mentioned by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord may not be eligible. I therefore urge the noble Lords not to press their amendments and I commend Amendments 7 and 8.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Pinnock, for their very helpful and clear contributions. As I explained earlier, the Government have attempted to set out clearly which children will be eligible for the new entitlement. We are making provision to ensure that parents who are temporarily away from the workplace as a result of other vital duties, such as caring for a new baby or adopted child, will be able to continue to receive their free place, reducing any disruption that short-term absences could cause to providers, and most importantly to the children.

The Government’s commitment is clear. I am afraid that this provision is for working parents of three or four year-olds and that is the entitlement that we intend to keep. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, asks why we will not define eligibility in primary legislation. As I explained, the details are technical and the nomenclature of the various underlying benefits and allowances may change. By putting this level of detail in regulations, we will be better able to amend eligibility to ensure that we continue to provide places to those whom we want to benefit. We provided substantial details of our intentions in our recent policy statement, which I have put on record in the House today. The House will have the opportunity to debate the detail of the regulations, which will be affirmative.

Amendment 7 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

22: After Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Childcare duty: consequential amendments
(1) In section 99 of the Childcare Act 2006 (provision of information about young children: England), in subsection (1), omit the “and” at the end of paragraph (aa) and after paragraph (b) insert “and
(c) any other person who provides early years provision for the purposes of section 1(1) of the Childcare Act 2015 (Secretary of State’s duty to secure 30 hours free childcare available for working parents),”.(2) In Chapter 4 of Part 2 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (financing of maintained schools)—
(a) in section 45A (determination of specified budgets of local authority), after subsection (4B) insert— “(4C) For the purposes of this Part, a duty imposed on a local authority in England under section (Discharging the section 1(1) duty) of the Childcare Act 2015 (duties in connection with Secretary of State’s duty to secure 30 hours free childcare for working parents) is also to be treated as an education function of the authority.”;
(b) in section 47ZA (free of charge early years provision outside a maintained school: budgetary framework: England), in subsection (3), for paragraph (a) (but not the “and” after it) substitute—“(a) for the purpose of the discharge of—(i) the authority’s duty under section 7 of the Childcare Act 2006, or(ii) a duty imposed on the authority under section (Discharging the section 1(1) duty) of the Childcare Act 2015,”.”

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, this new clause makes amendments to existing provisions of primary legislation that are consequential on the new duty on the Secretary of State under Clause 1 of this Bill and the Secretary of State’s powers to make regulations for the purpose of discharging that duty.

The proposed amendment to Section 99 of the Childcare Act 2006 would enable the Secretary of State to require childcare providers who deliver the extended entitlement to supply basic information about children receiving free childcare to local authorities and to the Secretary of State. Since 2008, childcare providers who deliver the current early education entitlement have been required to provide individual child-level data to local authorities and the Secretary of State through the school census and the early years census. The information collected enables the department to monitor take-up of free places and measure the success of the early education entitlement. Take-up rates are then published annually.

Take-up rates are key to ensuring that funding for the early entitlement is properly allocated to local authorities and, in turn, to providers. This also enables us to identify any children who are accessing more childcare than they are entitled to, which is vital in order to guard against abuse of the system. We wish to do the same for the new extended entitlement. Providing basic information about children in their care, such as their name, date of birth and the number of government-funded hours they take up, does not place an undue administrative burden on providers, as it is information they hold as a matter of course.

I should also like to reassure noble Lords that robust safeguards are in place that prohibit publication of the data in a form that names or identifies individual children. The collection and use of data by the Secretary of State, local authorities and other specified persons is, in any case, also bound by the provisions of the Data Protection Act. I am sure that noble Lords agree that making provision to enable local authorities and the Government to collect data on children accessing free childcare is key to enabling us to monitor the successful delivery of the entitlement.

Secondly, I turn to the amendment to the School Standards and Framework Act. That Act, together with regulations made under it, sets the legal and budgetary framework for the allocation of financial assistance by local authorities to maintained schools, and to private, voluntary and independent providers of free early years provision in their area. This amendment extends that legal framework to financial assistance provided to settings delivering the new entitlement to 30 hours of free childcare for working parents.

I hope that noble Lords agree that it is important that we monitor take-up of the extended entitlement and that the existing legal framework for the allocation of funding by local authorities to childcare providers is updated to reflect this new entitlement. I urge noble Lords to accept this amendment, and I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, will the data give information about the number of homeless families that are taking up the entitlement, for instance, or about the number of families with children in income poverty taking up the entitlement? If it is helpful to her, I am happy for the Minister to write to me.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

I will happily write to the noble Earl.

Amendment 22 agreed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I support these amendments. In essence they follow on from our earlier debate about funding. The noble Baroness has made a compelling case for the payment schemes being fully funded. This is important for providers and local authorities, who do not want to discover that once again, they are being expected to cross-subsidise the free places from other budgets or income streams. It is particularly important for children living in deprived areas, for whom additional funding from another pot simply might not be available.

We also support the strong case being made for an element of capital funding being included in the local authority grant. If part of the Government’s strategy is to increase demand and bring new people into the jobs market, rather than simply provide a higher subsidy for those already in work, extra capacity will need to be found. We cannot rely on the market to fill this gap, particularly in the poorer areas, so local authorities will need to step in and help.

The last thing that we want as a result of this Bill is for the gap in provision between the more affluent areas and deprived ones to widen, but if we are not careful that could be the consequence if the places are not fully funded. We support these amendments and the certainty that will arise from the commitment to funding being enshrined in the Bill.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 24 and 25, tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock and Lady Tyler, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has just referred, and to which the noble Baronesses, Lady Andrews and Lady Howarth, referred earlier in relation to cross-subsidy.

On Amendment 24, I thank the noble Baronesses for highlighting the need for the rate paid to be sufficient for providers delivering the extended entitlement, and for bringing to my attention the need to secure provision for children in deprived areas. I understand the concerns they are seeking to address through these amendments, and the Minister mentioned earlier that we share the aim of getting the funding for the entitlement right. We are clear that this funding must be sufficient to ensure that providers are funded adequately to be able to deliver the additional requirements set out in the Bill.

We have listened to providers’ concerns that increasing government-funded hours will limit their ability to cross-subsidise from parent-funded hours and that delivering at current rates may not be sustainable. That is why the Prime Minister has committed to increase the average hourly funded rate paid to providers. As was mentioned earlier, we are the only party to have made this commitment. We have already committed £840 million of new funding to deliver the extended entitlement, and that is before we deliver on our pledge to increase the hourly funding rate.

My noble friend Lord Nash has spoken at length about the review of the cost of providing childcare, the purpose of which is to provide a robust analytical underpinning for a funding rate that is fair and sustainable for providers and delivers value for money to the taxpayer. I confirm that the review will include in its consideration the needs of children in deprived areas. I also assure noble Lords that the Government understand the importance of early years education for children from disadvantaged households.

We know that high-quality early education can lead to higher attainment later but there is a persistent gap between children eligible for free school meals and their peers in the proportion achieving a good level of development in the early years foundation stage profile. This is why we introduced the early years pupil premium in April this year, which provides extra funding to early years settings for each three or four year-old child from a disadvantaged household. We have estimated that there will be around 170,000 children eligible for this extra support in 2015-16. We expect to receive the first data on take-up of the early years pupil premium by the end of this year and will consider these very carefully and take them into account when we develop future policy.

Turning to Amendment 25, the Government aim to deliver a quality free childcare entitlement, with capacity created cost-effectively without driving up costs to parents. The majority of working families with three and four year-olds already use more than 15 hours of childcare. This means that many children will already be in a childcare place and will not require a new one. Rather, the new extended entitlement will pay for the additional hours parents are already purchasing from an early years setting themselves, helping working families with the cost of childcare.

There is natural growth in the childcare system but we can, and should, encourage new providers to enter the market or existing providers to expand. Collaborative arrangements across different types of providers and increased flexibility for providers are important elements of this. That is why, for example, under the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act, childminders will be able to provide childcare on non-domestic premises.

The Government have already made a £100 million investment of capital in early years to support the expansion of provision for two year-olds. We believe there is existing capacity in the system to help deliver the new entitlement, and we are continuing to talk to local authorities to increase our understanding and evidence of where this is. The Government are committed to funding the extension of the entitlement at a level that ensures choice and flexibility for parents, is sustainable for providers, and is fair to the taxpayer. Decisions on the level of funding, including any capital, will be made in the forthcoming spending review. I therefore urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Pinnock]

I thank the Minister for her commitment to the capital element and to focusing on areas of deprivation and disadvantaged families in future deliberations. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Monday 6th July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I would like to speak to Amendments 21, 23 and 24 on the flexibility of the extended entitlement to childcare for working parents. I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Pinnock, Lady Tyler and Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, for highlighting this important issue. I hope that the noble Lord has fully recovered from his daughter’s wedding last week.

Enabling greater freedoms and flexibility for providers to meet the needs of parents has been an important part of the steps that we have already taken to help delivery of the existing funded entitlement. The regulatory framework for the early years was thoroughly reviewed in 2012 and unnecessary red tape and burdens were stripped away. Steps have already been taken to ensure that parents can more easily access a place with a willing provider of their choice if that provider meets the quality standards set by Ofsted.

We have enabled and encouraged all parts of the market to grow, because we believe, as my noble friend Lord True pointed out, that diversity in this sector is extremely important. This is being done through, for example, the creation of childminder agencies and enabling childminders to deliver childcare on non-domestic premises, and measures to help school nurseries expand or work in collaboration with private, voluntary and independent providers. As the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, set out in Amendment 21, it is important that the 30 hours of free childcare for working parents of three and four year-olds is made available at times that provide sufficient flexibility to parents working outside the hours of 9 am to 5 pm and during holiday periods. I would like to provide reassurance that there is already flexibility in the system to accommodate both of these. Providers are not constrained to providing the existing funded hours over 38 weeks of the year or during standard working hours. They can instead make a “stretched offer” available. Working-tax credits, universal credit and, later, tax-free childcare will also enable parents to budget and pay for childcare throughout the year.

Under an existing duty, local authorities have to ensure, as far as is practicable, sufficient childcare for working parents who require it. In carrying out that duty, local authorities should take account of the different patterns of demand in the area, which will include childcare out of hours and during the holidays. Local authorities should encourage existing providers to expand their provision and encourage new providers into the market to help parents to find suitable provision. A similar approach is needed for early years provision during the school holidays. It can be less of an issue for parents of children who have not yet reached compulsory school age, but we will continue to work with schools to encourage and support them to extend their nursery offers and hours outside term time.

I turn to Amendments 23 and 24 about adult child ratios for childminders and non-domestic group providers such as day nurseries. All early years childminders and group providers registered on the early years register must meet the early years foundation stage framework requirements around child development and welfare and well-being, including ratio and qualification requirements. The existing ratios give the flexibility to deliver the 30-hour entitlement in a safe, secure and welcoming way that contributes to child welfare and child development. We will not tolerate any provision that is detrimental to this, and provision will be regulated.

As noble Lords will be well aware, the English childcare system has some of the highest adult-child ratio requirements in the world. The current ratios and qualifications for early years childminders, group providers and the additional requirements referred to in the amendments are already set out in the early years foundation stage statutory framework. Ofsted is already able to determine that a provider must observe a higher staff-child ratio if needed to ensure the safety and welfare of children. These ratios provide significant flexibility for registered providers. For example, for children aged three and over in provision where a person with a suitable level 6 qualification is working with children, a 1:13 ratio can already be used.

With support from government, the National Day Nurseries Association produced case studies to help practitioners make use of the flexibility already available to them. The amendment seeks to enshrine ratios in primary legislation for the extended free childcare entitlement. As I have said, ratios for all providers are currently set out in secondary legislation, and this allows the flexibility to respond quickly if changes are needed to ensure that children are kept safe and well cared for. As we set out in the preceding Committee session, next year we shall consult on draft regulations and draft guidance for the proposed new duty.

The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised the important issue of what we mean by quality. The EYFS statutory framework recognises that together good parenting and high-quality early learning provide the foundation that children need to make the most of their abilities and talents as they grow up. Of course continuity of care is important, but I hope that we can take strong reassurance that Ofsted inspectors take account of the need for the well-established key person system that helps children to form secure attachments and promotes their well-being and independence.

In conclusion, I reiterate that delivering flexibility for parents is a vital principle of the Bill. I hope that noble Lords and noble Baronesses will have been reassured by my response to their amendments, and I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendment and to the comments of the noble Baroness and the noble Earl. What the Government are proposing in terms of redefining child poverty is an absolute disgrace. What we need is not a change to the definition of poverty but a plan to deal with poverty. The truth is that, after child poverty fell under the previous Government, last week’s Households Below Average Income DWP statistics show that more than 4 million children have plunged into absolute poverty under this Government. The Government seem to be determined to disguise the fact that they are on course to miss the target of abolishing child poverty by 2020 by changing the statistical goalposts. So what assessment have the Government made of the DWP statistics? Do they accept that the number of children in absolute poverty is increasing?

Following on from the Oral Question on the Family and Childcare Trust report, Access Denied, how will the provisions of the Bill contribute to meeting the child poverty target when children in disadvantaged areas are expected to miss out disproportionately on the early years provision? Does the Minister accept that families on low incomes frequently work on unstable contracts both in terms of the hours they are offered each week and the length of contract? These are the points that we rehearsed in the debates last week. So how can we be assured that low-income families will benefit from these proposals rather than being penalised —or even possibly criminalised—by their uncertain working patterns, where, for example, shifts are cancelled at short notice and the eight-hours criterion is not always met? This is a real challenge for us. How are we going to measure the progress that we are making on these issues? How can we be assured that disadvantaged children are not going to miss out disproportionately once again through these proposals? I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 34, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. I recognise that, following recent announcements, noble Lords will be seeking to debate the wider issue of child poverty in the fullest way and I have no doubt that there will be further opportunities in the future. As the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions confirmed in the other place last Wednesday, the Government will be bringing forward legislation to remove the existing measures and targets in the Child Poverty Act, as well as the other duties and provisions. When this legislation is brought forward, there will of course be further opportunities to debate the many specific details. However, the legislation will at the same time introduce a statutory duty to report on measures of worklessness and educational attainment. We do not underestimate the importance of income and its impact on children’s life chances, but we are clear that the current low-income measures do not drive the right action to tackle the root causes of child poverty, which are what we really need to focus on. That is why we have set out our proposals for new measures.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 35 and 37 to Clause 3. I welcome the noble Lords’ interest in this clause, which will help parents and prospective parents to access information on childcare and other services in their area by allowing regulations to require local authorities in England to publish prescribed information at prescribed intervals in a prescribed manner.

Parents and prospective parents currently face an information deficit on childcare. A recent report that the Department for Education commissioned found that parents are unsure where to find information and often are unaware of the range of childcare provision in their area. This is particularly important for parents returning to work, so that they can make decisions based on all available information.

Under Section 12 of the Childcare Act 2006, local authorities are required to establish and maintain a service—commonly known as a family information service—to provide information, advice and assistance to parents, and information for the benefit of children and young people. In operating their service, local authorities receive and collect certain information about childcare providers and other services and facilities in their area. This includes details of the overall picture of childcare offered and details of wraparound care on offer.

Where local authorities establish and maintain a good service and make information available it is extremely valuable for parents and prospective parents. However, local authorities are not required to publish this information. By putting local authorities under a specific duty in the Bill, we intend to change that. Therefore, we will set out in regulations the information that local authorities will have to publish. We are considering the information that we will prescribe for this purpose and I can reassure my noble friend Lord True that we do not currently envisage that this will be very different from the information collated under existing regulations. Of course, we are very happy to have further conversations with him outside the Chamber to further reassure him of this.

Of course, not only parents have an interest in accessing this information. Agencies and other organisations that provide information, advice and guidance to parents all need up-to-date and reliable information to share with service users. All, including partner agencies of the local authority and children’s centres, will be able to access and benefit from the publication of information and data that local authorities are already collecting. We will set out in regulations when and how local authorities will be required to publish information.

I also reassure my noble friend Lord True that it is not our intention to enable or require local authorities to interfere in the normal day-to-day business of childcare providers, including nursery schools. Our focus is clearly on the publication of information that will help parents with their childcare choices. We entirely understand the importance of getting these details right and draft regulations will therefore be subject to public consultation in 2016.

I hope that noble Lords agree that this clause is a necessary and important step forward to help parents have access to the information they need to make the right childcare decisions for their families. On that basis, I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Pinnock]

It is, yes. I have been concentrating hard. I support everything that the noble Baroness said because it follows on from the earlier debate about quality. You cannot deliver quality unless you have a well-trained staff working in the childcare sector. I wanted to make it clear that there is support on our side. We have no critical comment to make but welcome the amendments that have been moved.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall also speak to Amendments 13, 17 and 36, on the early years workforce. I thank the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, for bringing forward these amendments. They are wide-ranging and cover a review of the workforce and workforce strategy, together with specific issues such as training, qualifications and pay.

I am sure we would all wish to pay tribute to the commitment and dedication of the early years workforce. Their hard work and devotion does not go unnoticed, and the support they give to children in the most important years of their lives is critical to ensuring that every child gets the best start in life. The Government are committed to ensuring that childcare hours are of high quality and, of course, the workforce is key to that.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has moved an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to,

“lay a report before both Houses of Parliament setting out her strategy for developing the early years workforce”.

We covered this issue in an earlier group of amendments. I set out that strategy and some of the initiatives that the Government have introduced, so I do not propose to repeat those.

The noble Earl also moved an amendment to make explicit requirements for the use of graduates in early years settings. We are committed to continuing to raise the quality of the early years workforce. We have already set the bar high for the qualifications of people working in childcare, including early years teachers, who must meet the same training course entry requirements as primary teachers. Since 2007, 15,422 early years teachers have been trained. I also assure the noble Earl that we will continue to support expansion of the graduate workforce through the provision of early years initial teacher training routes and through providing funding support for trainees.

Regarding the noble Earl’s amendment to develop a strategy to increase the number of maintained nursery schools, we recognise that they have been shown to deliver high-quality early years education. However, we must of course also recognise that many private, voluntary and independent providers also deliver quality. At 31 December 2014, the proportion of all providers on the early years register rated good or outstanding by Ofsted was 83%.

While we agree that many nursery schools offer high quality, we also think that the diversity of the childcare sector is one of its strengths as it offers choice and flexibility to parents. We want maintained nursery schools to play their part in a diverse early years sector in years to come, delivering high-quality, sustainable provision that is responsive to the needs of parents in their local area.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, that I have indeed read the report to which she referred and we will certainly reflect on some of the findings laid out in it.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, has also tabled an amendment which would require early years settings to provide a specified number of training hours per year to each member of staff. While I entirely understand the intention behind this amendment, to support staff training and development, we think this is a matter for individual employers and the sector to lead on. We will continue to support the sector in doing so, but do not believe that specifying a one-size-fits-all model would be helpful. Given these reassurances, I hope the noble Earl will withdraw his amendment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has tabled an amendment which would require a review of the qualifications and pay of staff. It specifically addresses the assessment of progress of level 3 qualification standards, the assessment of progress in introducing early years career paths, recruitment and retention, pay levels and the number of black and minority ethnic staff at different levels of the profession. I will take each of these briefly in turn.

We have a robust set of standards for level 3 early years educator qualifications. The quality of the workforce is increasing year on year. We know that the proportion of paid staff with at least a level 3 qualification increased between 2011 and 2013. The sector shares the Government’s ambition to see staff in key positions holding good GCSEs in English and Maths, as this can only be to the benefit of the children with whom they work and the status of the profession.

We recognise the importance of clear progression routes within the sector to attract and retain good-quality staff, and will be looking further at how to ensure that the current and prospective early years workforce can take advantage of the varied and rewarding careers that are available to them. I know that the Minister for Childcare and Education is looking closely at the qualification frameworks and rules to ensure that they are enabling the development of a high-quality workforce.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, also raised the important issue of recruitment and retention. It is important that experienced and skilled early years professionals want to stay in the profession, a point made by the noble Baroness. The Government recognise that settings, the majority of which are private businesses, manage this themselves in the context of their staff employment and deployment responsibilities.

There are many reasons why staff turnover may increase, including local economic factors which are beyond the control of providers. Making staff turnover information available at a local level to parents could lead to the information being misinterpreted and lead a parent to dismiss out of hand a good-quality setting that is doing good work to support staff. That is not what anyone would want.

The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, tabled an amendment on local authorities publishing turnover rates of early years staff. We already collect and publish information on staff turnover through the Childcare and Early Years Providers Survey, which was last published in 2013 and is publicly available on GOV.UK. We think this is the right level of information about turnover, and that it is not appropriate or necessary for local authorities to publish further information.

As regards the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on reviewing pay, all private, voluntary and independent providers are free to set their own pay scales. This means that those working in the sector can be paid as their employer sees fit. Only those defined as “school teachers” under Section 122(3) of the Education Act 2002 are legally entitled to the pay and conditions specified in the School Teachers’ Pay and Conditions Document. With respect to the noble Baroness’s amendment to assess the numbers and qualifications of black and minority ethnic staff, it is the responsibility of early years training providers and employers to ensure that they do not discriminate when recruiting trainees and employees, and they must comply with the requirements of the Equality Act 2010. Information published on the representation of ethnic minorities reveals that school-based providers in nursery schools have the highest level of BME staffing, at 17%.

In conclusion, while we sympathise with the intention behind these amendments, we do not think they are necessary. Work is already under way to look at how to support the continued improvement of the early years workforce. I therefore urge the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, to withdraw their amendments.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Baroness for her careful reply and for what she said about the availability and additional funding for early-years initial teacher training. However, I must say that I still do not feel reassured. The noble Baroness stated that it was important to leave parents to choose what suits them, to allow them the flexibility to decide what needs to be done. I am afraid that research I have seen indicates that parents tend to choose price over quality. We are putting them in a difficult position: they are desperate to get out to work, and we are saying, “We will leave it to you to choose. You have to make the choices, without necessarily having all the information”.

I understand what the noble Baroness says about not publishing the turnover figures. Will she be good enough to write to me with a breakdown of turnover levels, ranging from the turnover of staff in nursery schools to group settings in children’s centres, and looking at privately, voluntarily and local authority-run settings? I would be grateful to see the range that is available.

I understand that there is always a balance. The Government do not wish to be overly prescriptive, to unnecessarily hinder businesses from doing a good job, or to interfere too much with the market. On the other hand, I am not sure that the balance is right here. It is so important that children get the high-quality care that they need; the Government may have to go further to persuade noble Lords that the additional care offered will be of the necessary quality. Nevertheless, I am grateful for the noble Baroness’s response and I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord True]

My Lords, I raised this matter at Second Reading and, having raised it, it had rather more publicity than I expected. I had a very large number of expressions of concern on the subject. I had tabled an amendment but, seeing that the Opposition had also put one forward, I saw no need to persist with it. However, I think that a very clear answer is needed both on the range of possible forms of entitlement, which we discussed in relation to an earlier amendment, and in relation to the informality of a number of the settings which I described when debating the previous amendment. The fear of criminal offences and potential imprisonment is quite chilling for people who work in this sector.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, and the noble Lord, Lord True, seek the removal of a power to create criminal offences. The Government’s position on this issue was set out in the policy statement that was made available to all Members of this House last week. We take the security of personal information seriously, which is why Clause 1(5)(k) enables regulations to make provision for any criminal offences in connection with the provision and disclosure of information or documents mentioned in subsection 5(i) and (j). These paragraphs relate to the sharing of information and provision of documents for the purpose of checking eligibility for the free childcare provision.

Childcare Bill [HL]

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 4, 7, 15, 20 and 33 regarding the quality of childcare and early years education. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, my noble friend Lord True and the noble Baronesses, Lady Tyler and Lady Pinnock, for tabling these amendments and for leading the debate on this important issue. I also thank other noble Lords for their contributions.

First, I will reassure all noble Lords that children are at the heart of our thinking in this area and that they will always be at the forefront of what we are trying to do. The Government are committed to driving up the quality across early years provision for all children and ensuring that the current early education entitlement is of the highest quality. The current entitlement ensures that all three and four year-olds can access 15 hours a week of quality early education free of charge to prepare them for school and improve their life chances. It also ensures that children are kept safe and well and that their individual needs are met. The purpose of this Bill is to build on the popular current package and to help families further by reducing the costs of childcare and supporting parents to work.

A number of noble Lords rightly focused on the needs of deprived families, but we all know that work is a key route out of poverty, which is why that is a focus of these measures. We are clear that the extended entitlement is intended to help families by reducing the cost of childcare and supporting them to work. We want to make sure that this is delivered in ways that meet the needs of working families and their children. We think that it is important that the extended entitlement is flexible for parents to access and can be delivered by a range of providers. But again—this point was made by many noble Lords—what is of equal importance is the quality of childcare and the impact that it has on child development. It is absolutely imperative that childcare is delivered in a safe, secure and welcoming way that contributes to a child’s welfare and development. Of course, a large number of parents already use significantly more than the 15 hours of formal childcare that are provided. All a child’s time spent in such registered early years settings is looked at by Ofsted.

I turn first to Amendments 2, 4 and 20. The quality and welfare standards of all early years childcare, and this Government’s expectation of providers to deliver it, is already set out in regulations under the existing Childcare Act, and, crucially, through the requirements of Ofsted’s regulatory and inspection regime. Ofsted has announced a new, improved common inspection framework to come into effect from September this year, which will bring more consistency to inspection approaches across education and registered early years settings assessed under the early years foundation stage statutory framework. There will be an increased focus on children’s outcomes and the quality of teaching and learning, and on whether appropriate continuous professional development to improve staff practice is in place. Once again, I stress that children’s welfare and safety remain paramount and are key elements of the inspection regime.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, asked about the strategy for workforce improvement. We are committed to ensuring that we provide a clear and overarching framework of regulatory accountability and high-quality standards for childcare providers, alongside raising the bar on the calibre of staff via more demanding qualifications and qualification entry requirements. Within this framework, childcare businesses are incentivised and supported to self-improve. We think that this is the right approach for a largely private market and respect the fact that professional practitioners and owners of settings are best placed to recruit and retain a workforce that delivers the childcare that the Government, but, most importantly, parents, want.

The Government therefore are continuing to support the development of the sector by providing £50 million of funding through the early years pupil premium to support providers to raise the quality of provision for disadvantaged children, including supporting workforce development, £5 million to teaching schools to work with local providers and £5.3 million to voluntary and community sector organisations this year, many of which will focus on the upskilling of the workforce by offering training and development.

The noble Baroness, Lady Tyler, also asked about quality being reflected in the regulations. This was a key theme that ran through many noble Lords’ contributions. As we have said, we are talking to parents about their requirements for taking up the new entitlement, including quality. These views will be reflected in the regulations that we will consult on in 2016.

I turn to Amendments 7 and 15. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for raising this issue. I think that we can agree on the importance of attachment in early childhood and its implications for long-term social and emotional development. International and UK studies have shown that the foundations for virtually every aspect of human development are laid in early childhood. What happens to a child from the womb to the age of five has lifelong effects on many aspects of health and well-being from obesity, heart disease and mental health to educational achievement and economic status.

The environment for a child in their early years is fundamental to their development and for secure emotional attachment. We know that infants become securely attached to adults who are consistently sensitive, loving and predictable in social interactions with them. With the security of knowing that their primary care giver is emotionally available, children grow in confidence and explore the surrounding world, including the learning opportunities of nursery and school. The Government are committed to supporting the promotion of developing secure attachments between young children and their parents. As well as increasing the number of health visitors, we have raised the standards of qualifications, including the introduction of early years teachers and early years educators and we want to ensure that practitioners have a strong understanding of child development issues such as attachment.

The early years foundation stage sets the standards that all early years providers registered on the early years register must meet to ensure that children learn and develop well and are kept healthy and safe. The statutory framework also recognises that good parenting and high-quality early learning together provide the foundation that children need to make the most of their talents and abilities as they grow up, and, of course, continuity of care is very important. I reassure noble Lords that Ofsted inspectors will take into account the need for the well-established key person system mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, among others. It will help ensure that children form secure attachments and promote their independence and well-being. While I recognise the intentions behind the amendments I have discussed so far, I hope that we have sufficiently reassured noble Lords that they will agree to withdraw them.

I turn to the amendment spoken to by my noble friend Lord True, who raised the position of parents who choose to stay at home. I assure him that the Government recognise that it is a matter of choice for parents to decide whether they want to work or not, and that we have already implemented additional support for such parents, such as shared parental leave. The new marriage allowance will allow people who are married or in a civil partnership to reduce their partner’s tax by up to £212 a year. I understand his concern that for many parents the choice to stay at home, offering their own quality of care and love to their children, will be the right one to make. He will also be aware that those families are, indeed, entitled to the first 15 hours for three and four year-olds and to the 15 hours for two year-olds from disadvantaged homes. All in all, that adds up to a substantial package.

The principle that the additional entitlement is for working parents is, however, an important one, which I have already mentioned. It offers greater choice to parents who wish to work additional hours and for those who may wish to return to work, and it supports the Government’s goals of supporting hard-working families, reducing the cost of living and ensuring that fiscal goals can be met. However, it does not stop anyone choosing to stay at home and access the other support that I have outlined. I hope that the noble Lord is reassured by that and will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

In conclusion, the Government are committed to ensuring that childcare places are of high quality, as these have lasting benefits for children. The safety and welfare of children remain paramount. Children are at the heart of what we are seeking to do. I hope that noble Lords have been reassured by my responses and I ask them not to press their amendments.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, this has proved to be a very important and stimulating discussion on these amendments. I thank noble Lords for their support for the notion of high-quality, child-focused childcare, and the Minister for her response. However, I would be reassured if the words “paramount”, “important” or whatever appeared before the notion of children, because my problem is that I do not see the importance of the child being paramount on the face of the Bill, and I would like it to be there.

However, as I say, this has been a very interesting and important debate. Developmental stages have come up time and time again—that is, children’s personal, social and academic development—and high-quality childcare, from whichever source it comes, that responds to the child’s needs. I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who talked about a strategic approach, recognising that children are different. Many noble Lords spoke about this. Children have varied needs. As many noble Lords said, this may, indeed, require hard choices.

I mentioned earlier the report highlighting that some boys not only have poor literacy but are miles behind at a very early age. We need to focus on children who require special help; their needs are paramount. If the welfare of the child is at the forefront, as the noble Baroness has just said, I think that needs to be spelled out in the Bill, preferably at the beginning. That would reassure me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Academies: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not recognise the point that the noble Baroness is making. There is a clear appeals procedure in relation to SEN admissions which is followed most rigorously for all pupils with SEN.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the director of the New Schools Network. Under this Government, more than 1,800 new places have been created in free schools for children aged up to 18 with special educational needs. In light of the education, health and care plans, can the Minister tell us what consideration is being given to ensure that vulnerable young people up to the age of 25 have access to appropriate education to ensure that they are best prepared for their adult lives?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to answer my noble friend’s first question in your Lordships’ House. We know that some young people with SEN need longer to complete and consolidate their learning. That is why our reforms extend SEN provision to young people aged 18 to 25. Where needed, they can now get EHC plans from their local authority and receive the tailored support they need to remain in formal education. The code makes it clear that these plans should reflect their ambitions and enable them to make a successful transition into adulthood.