Education Bill
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(12 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I join others in welcoming many things in the Bill. In particular, I welcome the broad intention to give much greater autonomy to schools and colleges, and discretion to teachers and school and college leaders to take decisions and be accountable for them. All of us for too long have railed against the micromanagement of education, which has been exacerbated by a regime of constant changes to structures and standards. My noble friend the Minister mentioned the report published not so long ago by the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of this House on the accumulation of guidance and directions that were headed towards schools, and the very fact that each year some 4,000 pages of guidance and directions were sent to school leaders, which absorbed a disproportionate amount of the time that they should have devoted to running their schools and improving performance in them.
That said, I also worry that in the Bill and in the process of simplification and doing away with quangos—the name of the game—we are giving too many powers to the Secretary of State. Has the Department for Education really got the capacity to absorb all the functions of the GTCE, the QCDA and the other two quangos that we are in the process of abolishing? In Clauses 23 to 25, is it really sensible not to have an arm’s-length body to set up and advise on the national curriculum? The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, spoke of a curriculum changing at the whim of the Secretary of State. There are dangers in the Secretary of State being too close in terms of setting the national curriculum. There are those who are writing about the nationalisation of education in what is happening. Although I know that this is certainly not the intention of this coalition Government, there are dangers that we may be moving in that direction in one or two of the moves that we are taking.
I declare an interest in that I am chairing a commission for the National Institute of Adult and Continuing Education, the AOC, and the 157 Group on the role of colleges in their communities. I have been busy visiting a lot of colleges around the country and I shall be visiting more. One thing that has impressed me is what some of the colleges are achieving in terms of forging partnerships with local organisations, such as employers, PCTs, community groups, churches, football clubs, schools, universities, and Sure Start centres. You name it, and partnerships are being formed. An important element has been partnerships with local authorities. Many of these colleges are now central to the creation of new local enterprise partnerships. I am, in some ways, rather sorry to see in Schedule 12, which is enacted by Clause 48, that the duty on colleges to co-operate and promote the well-being of their local economies and communities is being dropped. I recognise that the AOC has argued that colleges do not need to be told to do this, but it is no bad thing to be reminded that it should be one of their duties.
Similarly, I am sorry to see in Clauses 30 and 31 that the duty on schools and colleges to co-operate is being dropped. Schools and colleges have a prime duty to serve their local communities with co-operation and partnership in the local areas. It is a key aspect. I would argue that local authorities play an important strategic role in this, and that that role should not be ignored.
I should like to say a word about vocational education and pick up the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and the noble Lord, Lord Layard. There is a real issue, because in Clause 28 we are dropping the duty on local authorities to ensure that they have diploma courses available. I weep no tears at the departure of some of the hybrid diplomas, but I worry about the curriculum we are putting forward for those young people who are not totally academic in nature. The noble Lord, Lord Baker, knows that I very much welcome the development of the university technical colleges. I, too, endorse this notion that the move should be at 14.
As the noble Lord, Lord Layard, said, there has been a shocking neglect in our schools of that group of young people for whom the academic curriculum does not necessarily provide what one is looking for. This really links up with the question of apprenticeships. I do not regret so much that there is no longer a duty on the National Apprenticeship Service to find apprenticeships, but there is a very real problem, as the noble Lord mentioned, in finding apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds. I ask the Minister whether any thought is being given to providing a one-year pre-apprenticeship training in colleges. One of the problems that employers raise is the lack of work readiness on the part of these young people, and they are rather loath to take on 16 year-olds into apprenticeship places.
Finally, I would like to say a word about the Careers Service. Again, as the noble Lord, Lord Layard, mentioned, there is a real problem about young people learning about the range of opportunities open to them. In particular, I regret the dropping of the obligation on schools to provide knowledge for young people about the apprenticeship opportunities open to them. This is very much a retrograde step.
I am also very worried about what has happened to our Careers Service. Just the other day in his evidence before the Select Committee of the other place, Mr Tony Watts, one of our experts on the Careers Service, said:
“We are seeing the collapse of all the help that is available to young people in terms of their career planning”.
I hope the Minister can assure us that with the one-year gap before the new all-age careers service is developed, and the danger of losing all the knowledge there in the Connexions service and the Careers Service, with the laying off of these people by local authorities, that something will be done to make sure that we do not lose that expertise.
Education: Vocational Subjects
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
My noble friend raises a number of interesting points. One issue that the Government are going to look at concerning employers offering apprenticeships for 16 to 18 year-olds is where the funding goes and whether there should be, as I think Professor Wolf suggests, consideration of some kind of subsidy to employers. We certainly need to make sure that, in moving forward with these proposals, the role of employers in helping to construct good qualifications is fully allowed for. Ultimately, if we construct qualifications that employers do not want, we will not do anyone any service at all.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, perhaps I may thank the Minister for repeating the Statement and say how pleased I am that, among other things—although this is not mentioned in the Statement—the government response equates QTLS status in schools to QTS. There has long been a need for that if we are to get high-quality teaching in vocational subjects. Perhaps I may bring the Minister back to the EBacc and the two-tier system. He has emphasised the degree to which the Government see the EBacc as opening routes to higher education, yet surely one reason why we are anxious to see high-quality vocational education is in order to open up progression routes through different pathways. For example, the university technical colleges, which the noble Lord, Lord Baker, has been espousing and whose expansion we are all quite glad to see, are precisely the sort of route that we want to be developed. Very high-quality vocational education has also been a route to technician training, and from technician training on to degree-level training and even on to PhD training.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with my noble friend’s first point about QTLS and I am glad that she welcomes that. I also agree with her basic points about progression, about making sure that vocational qualifications have esteem attached to them, and about there being clear progression that people can see.
Children: Early Intervention
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, it gives me enormous pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Storey, and I congratulate him on a really excellent maiden speech. As he made clear, he has been a headmaster for 25 years, and he is a great expert in early childhood development. As well as guiding the development of many a young person in Knowsley, he has also been instrumental—he did not really say very much about this—in regenerating the proud city of Liverpool. He became a councillor in Liverpool in 1973 at the age of 23, and he has been a councillor for 37 years, becoming leader of Liverpool City Council in 1998 and lord mayor in 2009-10. It was during his leadership of Liverpool City Council that the city was transformed, becoming one of the best performing local authorities, having been one of the worst.
It was at my noble friend’s stimulation that the city bid to become the European capital of culture, and he was part of the team that delivered that most successful year of culture in Liverpool. He subsequently secured world heritage status for Liverpool. He brought to Liverpool, and Liverpool won, the largest leisure and retail development in Europe, as well as the new arena and conference centre which those of us who are Liberal Democrats enjoyed at our annual conference last September. He has also brought the cruise liner terminal and the science park to Liverpool. Indeed, under his leadership, Liverpool has emerged as one of the leading cities in the UK, and he has been very much responsible for its wholesale regeneration. We are delighted to have him here in this House; he will contribute a great deal to it and we look forward very much indeed to his further contributions.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Walmsley and must say how grateful I am to her for bringing this important topic to our attention yet again. We have had a number of debates on this subject in this House recently, but it is certainly a subject that is worth debating. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, said, not many of us need convincing of the importance of early intervention. The evidence is increasingly overwhelming; the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie, has already mentioned some of it. One has only to look at some of the work quoted by Graham Allen in his report and in Feinstein’s work on the cohort studies here in the UK to see how important it is that we intervene early and help children at the earliest possible stage. Indeed, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned, we have had a series of reports—the Allen report, which I mentioned, and the Munro report—and we will have reports from Clare Tickell and Frank Field.
I was much influenced by the meeting on shared parenting held by the APPG on Family Law and the Court of Protection on Monday 14 March, at which Dame Clare Tickell stressed that what young parents need to be taught about parenting is actually very simple and very basic: the importance of talking to babies, communication and language, learning how to manage conflict, the difference between right and wrong, and above all showing love and affection. As she said, all those can be taught very quickly, and young couples of men and women, or of teenage boys and teenage girls for that matter, are immensely receptive in the run-up to the birth of the child and in the year that follows. They want to know and to help their children to be successful. Their aspirations at this point are sky high, and that is the time to catch them and teach them. Sadly, until now, we have failed to do this, and still far too many children slip through the net.
I, like others, pay tribute to the previous Government, who turned the spotlight on the importance of the early years and began the rapid rollout of such programmes as Sure Start, but still far too many people arriving at school are unprepared and unready for the experience. As a reception class teacher in the school of which I am a governor told me, “It’s no good trying to teach children to read if they don’t know how to talk”. In essence, getting them to talk and communicate with each other is a very important part of the whole programme. It is therefore important that intervention happens not just with very young children and babies but at this early stage when they are learning to read in primary school.
In the little time that I have left I will mention just two initiatives for which I have enormous admiration. One is the reading recovery programme, which came to this country from New Zealand and was picked up and developed in the early part of this century. It has shown enormous gains for the young people involved. It involves one-to-one teaching. The noble Lord, Lord Adonis, was in the Chamber earlier but is no longer here. I remember asking a question three or four years ago about reading recovery. He said:
“it is a very expensive programme—it costs about £2,500 per child”.
I replied:
“My Lords, does the Minister not agree that it is well worth spending £2,000 on a six year-old if you are not going to have to spend £60,000 on him when he is 16?”.—[Official Report, 4/12/06; col. 960.]
The second programme that is thoroughly worth while is The Place2Be, which has allowed 172 primary schools to enjoy the services of a trained child psychologist as a counsellor in the schools, helping the children with all kinds of problems. It is vital for schools to be able to serve deprived areas by having the services of a counsellor. I recommend this programme to the Minister, and I very much hope that it will be extended.
Apprenticeships
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to the noble Lord for raising the Question in National Apprenticeship Week, as he said. I am very aware that few people in this House have done more to promote the cause of apprenticeships than him. I know that he takes a personal interest in this. During his time as a Minister, he and his ministerial colleagues did a lot to get apprenticeships taken seriously again and to increase the number of them. I personally, and the Government generally, are keen to build on that. In National Apprenticeship Week, we have already seen a number of employers in the private sector coming forward with new apprenticeship schemes. The Government should absolutely keep up the pressure on the public sector to do so. There is an exemption on apprenticeship recruitment in government departments—that is one way we can help. However, I agree with him that we all need to keep up the pressure. I would be very keen to work with him and other noble Lords to raise the profile of apprenticeships and do what we can to encourage the provision of more places.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, how far have the Government succeeded in finding employers to take up these new apprenticeships, and how many of them are college-based, programme-led apprenticeships?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I believe that 85,000 employers are involved. A number of large employers have increased their offers of apprenticeship places in National Apprenticeship Week. The National Apprenticeship Service can encourage more employers of all sizes—not just large employers—to become involved. There is a task for everyone in raising the profile and importance of apprenticeships, and in making it easier for employers to become involved. There is an issue around the bureaucracy involved in this. If we can make it simpler for employers to participate, we should do so.
Education: Pupils and Young People
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I, too, pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Perry for initiating the debate and for her very thoughtful and incisive introduction of it. I have spoken frequently in this House of my experience as a governor of a primary school in Guildford that serves a disadvantaged community there and of my experience as a member of the board of the corporation of Guildford College, but I do not think that I have ever spoken in this House of my experience over the past 10 years as a member of the local council —that is roughly equivalent to being a governor—of Guildford High School for Girls, one of the highest achieving independent girls’ day schools in this country. If one looks for an example of excellence in education, such a school provides it. It not only achieves extremely good results in academic terms but provides an all rounded education in music, the arts and extra-curricular activities ranging from working with Crisis at Christmas in London to canoeing in the French Alps. All told, it seems to me to prepare these young women not only to achieve good academic results but to be good citizens and to be able to enjoy life to the full.
When I read the title of this debate—excellence in education—I reflected on what contributes to that and how far that can be translated into the public sector. First, there is the whole question of parental background and parental advantage. The girls who attend Guildford High School come from extremely advantaged homes. Their parents talk to them when they are little and read to them. We know all this and we also know that, by the age of 18 months, the learning of children from very advantaged homes is three months more advanced than that of children from disadvantaged homes. Therefore, all the comments that various noble Lords, including my noble friend Lady Walmsley, have made about getting the foundations right are so true. We have to concentrate on the early years and put money into them because they are absolutely crucial. I do not want to say any more about that other than to reiterate the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, on the importance of these children being able to read and write by the age of 11, and, therefore, the importance of one-to-one tuition and the Every Child a Reader programme in ensuring that they are helped if they are lagging behind.
My second point concerns money. The fees for most of the top-achieving private schools equate each term with roughly what we spend per pupil in secondary schools—£4,500. I do not think there is any way in which the public sector can ever emulate that. The pupil premium of £2,500 per child—it will vary a little—goes nowhere towards compensating for this. What does it buy? It buys smaller classes and individual tuition, all of which is important. However, we need to think about three things here. The first is the quality of the teachers. Finland provides a good example in that regard as the aim there is to recruit top-quality people into teaching. I am absolutely delighted that teaching has now become a profession of choice for some of our top graduates and I pay tribute to Teach First, which has helped to achieve that. The second thing we need to think about is the training of teachers and continuous professional development, both of which are vital if the quality of our teachers is to be maintained. Today’s generation of teachers are excellent, but it is vital that their quality is maintained.
The third thing we need to think about is extra-curricular activities. It is important that state schools try to provide the range of activities that one sees at some private schools. The best of them do and I pay tribute to what they achieve. There is pressure on teachers and, given the hours that they have to teach, devoting time after school to extra-curricular activities is often difficult. However, these activities provide young people with all the attributes which the CBI is looking for, such as the ability to communicate and to work as part of a team with all kinds of different people. Therefore, sufficient money should be allocated to enable extra-curricular activities to be provided.
In conclusion, I do not think that we can ever compensate for home background but I am not sure that we ought to try the kibbutz experience of taking very young children away from home. Such attempts have not succeeded and the young children involved became very aggressive, difficult and mixed-up young people. It seems to me that we need to think about four things: first, the quality of teachers; secondly, giving those teachers the room to practise their professionalism, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said; thirdly, the importance of the early years experience; and, fourthly, the importance of extra-curricular activities.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, this has been mentioned on a number of occasions and I want to intervene very briefly. In the letter that the Minister sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, on 2 July 2010, he made quite clear the division of funding between what was going to be kept centrally and what was going to be distributed. Included in the funding to be kept centrally were educational psychology services; SEN administration, assessment and co-ordination, monitoring of SEN provision, and SEN transport. Included in funding to be distributed to the academies as a share of local authority funding was the funding retained from the schools’ budget for centrally provided SEN support services. This is the core of the issue we are discussing today. Services for deaf children, for blind children, and so forth, are part of these centrally provided support services. The problem is that if this share is taken away from the centre, there is not enough money left at the centre to provide these services adequately. The Minister has so far not been able to give us assurances that there will be adequate provision, and this is the core of the case that many of us are worried about. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says today.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I added my name to this amendment, which I strongly commend to the House. I share my noble friend’s concern about the analysis of the socio-demographic groups of the children in the schools that have shown initial interest in this experiment. I hope that the attraction of the programme will spread more widely among the schools in this country if individual schools find it the best option for them.
I am delighted that the amendment is not too prescriptive. Noble Lords have mentioned in the course of our debates many groups about which they have concerns. An opportunity for a vigorous debate every year in Parliament about, for example, the impact of the programme on children with special needs, children in public care, children who are themselves carers, children in primary schools and children with the major deprivations that concern us all will be a very good contribution to the further development of the programme. It is important that Parliament has a vigorous and widespread debate about the progress of this programme.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I, too, support the amendment. It is very important that if it is agreed, or if the Minister agrees to a similar amendment, it is enacted. It has been drawn to my attention that we have, in the various education Acts that we have passed in the past 10 years or so, quite frequently suggested that there should be an annual report. However, very few annual reports have appeared or been presented to Parliament. In particular, it was drawn to my attention that Section 38 of the Education Act 2002, “Communication with schools”, relates to a point that my noble friend Lady Williams raised about micromanagement. We were in the process of trying to limit the micromanagement of schools. That particular section requires an annual report, listing all the documents sent by the Secretary of State to governing bodies, to be laid before Parliament. I cannot find any evidence that such a report has ever been made, let alone laid before Parliament or discussed here. Perhaps I should have chased this up earlier. According to Hansard, the noble Baroness, Lady Ashton, who was the relevant Minister at the time, said:
“I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, who pushed and prodded us to the point that we have reached”.—[Official Report, 23/7/02; col. 249.]
I feel that, to some extent, I should have chased this report more than I have, but it makes the point that if we wish for an annual report, we should receive one and it should be considered before Parliament.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendment and apologise for not being present when the noble Baroness moved it. I know that, with his wife’s experience as a volunteer, the Minister is familiar with these issues. Recently I spoke to a teacher who had completed her first year working with teenagers with autism and she told me how exhausted she was. She had spent an outward bound weekend with them; they had been doing a school play the previous evening; and she had had to complete the school reports. She was utterly exhausted and told me how challenging these children could be. However, she said, “I love these children. It’s so satisfying to do this work”. We need to ensure that the professionals who work with these children get the best specialist support available. I share the concern raised by my noble friend Lord Low about the dangers of atomisation and fragmentation, and I know that the Minister will also very much bear that in mind. We all have to work in partnership if we are to achieve the best outcomes for these young people.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in supporting the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, in this amendment. Yesterday, when we had a debate about numbers and needs, we raised some questions about the funding formula. We also spoke about the ready reckoner which the Government have produced and which is on their website.
Looking in more detail at the ready reckoner, they make it quite clear that home-to-school transport, educational psychology, SEN statementing and assessment, monitoring of SEN provision, parent partnerships, prosecution of parents for non-attendance, individually assigned SEN resources for pupils with rare conditions needing expensive tailored provision, and the provision of pupil referral units or other education for a pupil will all be paid for by retained funding by the local authority, but the other general support services—this is the issue with which we are concerned here—will fall under the part of the funding that will be dispersed among the schools, or certainly the academies. Looking at the list of what comes under the local authority central spend equivalent grant, which is the one that is going to be shared out among the schools, the services and costs that are funded from local authorities’ schools budgets include things such as museum and library services, the costs of the local authority statutory and regulatory duties, and so on. In other words, it would appear that the Government currently envisage that this funding should come not just from the dedicated schools grant but from general funding which comes out of council tax, plus some money from the Department for Communities and Local Government which goes towards, for example, the funding of museums and libraries and outdoor education services.
There are very real reasons to worry. Yesterday, I asked the Minister whether we were raising the expectation of many of these schools that they would receive rather more funding than they will actually get. Looking in detail at the advice given on the website, I think that there is more to it than that. Questions arise about whether this money comes within the schools budget. As I said, we are looking at the fair funding formula and the problems that dispersing this money will cause local authorities. It will give them very real problems in providing those support services because of the loss of economies of scale and so on.
I also endorse what the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, said about the problems of following through on complaints in relation to the YPLA. As she said, the Minister suggested that voluntary organisations might do the monitoring. That is a very unsatisfactory reply. I asked the Minister yesterday about the capabilities and capacity of the YPLA which is a new organisation that is only just off the ground. It is still finding its feet and I wonder whether it has the capacity, as the number of academies grows, to fulfil these functions. I press the Minister to think further about the proposals made by the noble Baroness.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, first, I thank the Minister for his letter to my noble friend, which has been extremely helpful and has very much informed our debate. As I said in an earlier debate on SEN, the response that academies can buy SEN support services from their local authority, from neighbouring authorities or from other providers is in itself unexceptional. It is absolutely right that academies should be able to do that.
There could be a problem in two cases. The first, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is where an expensive support service is required for an individual student. Secondly—I am thinking of our previous debates on the role of governing bodies—I should have thought that when academies are first established their governing bodies will be very cautious when it comes to budget making. That will be entirely understandable. I can see that budgets for expensive special support services will be cut back as it will be the natural thing to do. By the time they realise that that was probably a mistake because they are faced with demands that must be met, the risk is that the kind of high quality services funded at present by local authorities will have gone out of business. That is why the Government need to reflect carefully to ensure that good services are protected.
I know that the noble Lord has talked about partnerships and we would all like to hear more about that, but this is an area in which there could be a positive role for local authorities. Again I urge the Government to think carefully. If they do not take action in this area there will be a decline in the special support services that are required. Surveys will be undertaken and because the Government are taking local authorities out of the picture the problem will come right back to Ministers. They may think that in developing this new system they can withdraw and say that it is the responsibility of individual academies, but I can tell the Minister from bitter experience that in the end it will come back to Ministers who will have to have a response.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I support Amendment 11 in the name of the Minister and also flag up that we have complementary amendments coming up in the same group as Amendment 22. We have had a query from TreeHouse, which deals with autistic children, asking for assurances on the funding for non-maintained special schools. Under these arrangements, the funding will go directly to academies and not via local councils. Currently, local councils top-slice 7 to 10 per cent from the dedicated schools budget, which includes placements for children at non-maintained schools. Will the Minister reassure us about these arrangements?
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, will the Minister clarify the position of parents in relation to first-tier tribunals, SEN and disabilities? The annexe about SEN that goes with the agreement and that was circulated to us makes it clear that parents and pupils at academies have the same rights of access to first-tier tribunals, SEN and disabilities, formerly SENDIST. Most academies must comply with an order from the tribunal. Is there a notion of judicial review if there is still not compliance with the order from the tribunal?
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, said about health service reforms and the difficulty with regard to specialist health services. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children runs such a specialist service in Kentish Town, north London. It works with children who sexually harm other children. It is a very intensive service. If these children are not given the service that they need, they sometimes go on to become adults who continue to abuse children. It is a very important service, but it has proved difficult for the NSPCC to get the funding that it needs through applying to local PCTs. This is one example of where regional planning and funding can be very helpful. I hope that the Minister will keep in mind what the noble Lord said.
Lord Wallace of Saltaire
My Lords, I remind the House that we are on Report and we need to be careful not to repeat in too much detail arguments which have already been made in Committee. We are intended to deal with new points and those that require further elucidation, not to go over points that we discussed in Committee.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I rise to speak to Amendment 17A in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Garden. I entirely share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in relation to not being too prescriptive. We also very much share her view that school governors should represent the community that the school serves. In that respect, it is very important that parents, in particular, are represented. She said that only one parent was elected. However, in academies, the parent governor is currently appointed, not elected, and that is an important point.
I declare an interest. I am both a governor of a small primary school in Guildford and a member of the corporation—effectively a governor—of Guildford College, so I am actively a governor of schools at the moment.
Amendment 17A is different from the amendment put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, in three respects. First, rather than prescribe a percentage, we are suggesting specific numbers—a minimum of three and a maximum of seven parents, although obviously the figure will vary according to the size of the governing body, which itself will vary according to the size of the school. There has to be considerable flexibility here. Secondly, we are anxious to see representation from staff, including support staff, as well as from parents. Lastly, we also want to see representation from the local community, and what better way to do that than to have a representative from the local authority? In all three senses, we feel it is important that there should be representation of the community that is served by the school. Therefore, we thoroughly endorse the sentiments put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, although we have put a slightly different slant on it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I rise with some trepidation in case the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, intervenes to say that we are replicating what we discussed in Committee. However, I think it is fair to make the point that, first, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, said in moving the amendment, we did not feel that the Minister responded strongly enough. Secondly, we had a good debate yesterday on Report on the subject of primary schools and academies, and I refer to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on the role of governing bodies. Thinking back over the past 20 or 30 years to what governors used to do in schools compared with what they do now, there is no doubt that their workload and responsibilities have grown considerably, and I suggest that with academy status more corporate responsibilities will fall on the governing body. This is an important matter. It is also very important to have strong parental involvement, including on the governing body. However, the Bill does not provide for the right signals to be given.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, blames the previous Government for the existence of that responsibility, and it is well stated that this legislation on governing bodies follows the previous Government’s legislation on academies. However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, pointed out in Committee, there are reasons for that. We were talking then about developing academies essentially to deal with some of the most challenging situations and communities, and there was genuine concern that some schools would not be able to attract enough parent governors. We are talking now about the extension of academies to schools in general. I should think that it is right to give some kind of signal that we expect strong parental involvement. I therefore ask the Minister whether he will give further attention to this matter between now and Third Reading.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, I start by saying to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that I agree with her that—as everyone, including the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, said—governors are key. I agree with her strongly on the vital role that governors play in schools and, in particular, the important contribution that parent governors have to make. We have spoken before outside the House, and I am keen to meet her and the NGA. I apologise that I have not been able to do so so far, because I have spent most of my waking hours in the House. I should like to talk to her and the organisation about how one can attract more parent governors and whether there are current obstacles to that—restrictions placed on them, and so on. I hope that she will accept my apology if she feels that I have not sufficiently stressed the importance of governors, and of parent governors in particular, because I feel that very strongly.
There is no difference anywhere in this House about the importance of governors and parent governors. Where there is a difference of opinion, I find myself agreeing with the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton. The best way to go is to be less prescriptive and to trust people to get the right mix of people for a particular school. Should one set out from the beginning that there should be a certain proportion of different kinds of person whom one has to have, whether or not they are the best people for the job? As noble Lords might expect, I incline to the view of expressing the strongest possible endorsement of the importance of the role of governors and the wish to see parent governors involved, but leaving it to individual governing bodies and trusts to decide in their particular circumstances what is the best mix of people. Like many noble Lords, I have been a governor of a couple of schools for many years, and I have seen that having a broad mix of people tends to make for good governance decisions.
Where I take issue and am keen to resist, and where I know that I will not satisfy the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, and other noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam—I apologise if he thinks that I am clumsy—is the degree of prescription in the amendment. As has often been the case since I have been in my job, I have been happy to praise the former Government for things that they did right. One thing that they did right was to come up with an approach to governance for academies which was sensible and has stood the test of time. It still applies in the new circumstances in which we find ourselves.
The new free schools are a good example of parental involvement, and one would imagine that parent governors will be a high proportion of governors—so high that some in this House have argued that there will be too many parents involved in setting up a new school. In some ways, that illustrates the point: what is the right number?
I certainly stick to the point that there are many examples where academies have chosen many parent governors to sit on the governing body. We hope that that will continue. However, on a point of principle—in all areas, and where it makes sense; we think that this is an example—the Government do not want to go down the prescriptive route. We want to stick with the approach to the governing bodies of academies of the previous Government.
We touched on the specific question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, before. The answer to his question is that the arrangements for the election of a parent governor or parent governors of an academy will be set out in the articles of association. The election of parent governors must be by the parents of pupils attending the academy.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
Do the Government intend to move from parent governors being appointed to there being elections for parent governors? That would be a great step forward.
Lord Hill of Oareford
There will certainly be election. I must apologise, but I am not currently 100 per cent sure whether there is provision for election or not, and I will need to follow that up, but there will be election.
I was headed toward saying to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, that I am sorry not to be able to be more helpful. I understand her point. I hope that she will spare the time to meet me with the NGA to talk about the matter more generally but, at this juncture, I ask her most respectfully to withdraw her amendment.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I shall speak also to Amendments 12A, 19, 19A and 28A. The purpose of this group of amendments is to probe a little further the proposed financial arrangements in the setting up of academies. Amendment 2 has unfortunately been placed on the wrong line. It should have been on line 7 and would, therefore, have amended Clause 1(2)(b) to read:
“Subject to section 4(4) for a former maintained school, arrangements for Academy financial assistance”.
We are talking about the financial assistance route as distinct from the agreement route for former maintained schools. This amendment is linked with Amendment 28A, which puts the amendment in its proper place and becomes subsection (4) of Clause 4. It requires that where the Secretary of State makes a grant of financial assistance under Section 14 of the Education Act 2002,
“he must … secure the agreement of the governing body to the terms of the financial assistance”,
before the school can go ahead and convert into an academy.
The purpose of these two amendments is to ensure that all those responsible for the school are fully aware of the terms under which financial assistance is given. When we discussed this issue with the Minister in Committee, he made it clear that for existing schools, as distinct from new schools, the financial assistance route would be the exception rather than the norm. The financial agreement route requires the full co-operation of the governing board, which is kept informed all the time because it is party to the agreement. With the financial assistance route, Section 14 of the 2002 Act gives the Secretary of State considerable powers to decide unilaterally how much finance to give and to set the terms under which that finance is given. This amendment ensures that the governing board is aware of the terms that are being asked for by the Secretary of State before the terms of the grant are agreed. We think it only right that, just as with academy agreements, where the governing board is kept fully informed, when a school goes down the financial assistance route—the grant route—the school’s governing board should be kept in the picture and be informed about what is happening.
Amendments 19, 19A and 20 relate to numbers and needs. They elucidate the terms of financial agreements and financial assistance. The Minister made it clear that that part of the school’s budget that is retained by the local authority—funding for special educational needs and transport—will remain with the local authority. This is often the larger part of the moneys kept by local authorities. The remainder goes on such things as payroll and property management and general support services. However, included among general support services are important services; for example, educational psychologists and language and behaviour specialists. They provide valuable support, especially to smaller primary schools, particularly where special educational needs funding comes from the school for school action and school action plus. If the resources that are left are distributed evenly between schools on a per capita basis according to the number of pupils, schools with a disproportionate number of pupils with learning difficulties of one sort of another and pupils with other disabilities will receive less funding than they do under the present arrangements.
There are worries in two directions. First, will academies with a disproportionate number of pupils, as well as the remaining maintained schools, receive enough funding in these situations? Secondly, many of the schools that are outstanding and are therefore being fast-tracked to academy status are often located in better-off areas and have a relatively low number of children from disadvantaged homes. Dividing local authority funds on a straight per-pupil basis would give them rather more funds than they have traditionally received and would leave a lesser amount in the kitty to be shared out among the SEN services of other schools.
The key amendment in the group is Amendment 20, which stipulates that the funding should follow needs, not numbers. It also raises five additional questions to which I would like the Minister to respond. Will the Young People’s Learning Agency, which is to distribute funds to the academies, distribute the dedicated schools grant in the way that the local authority would have distributed it to each school, or will it have a separate funding arrangement? How accurate is the ready reckoner on the DfE website? Does the money proposed for the removal from local authority expenditure replicate the costs of services that schools will lose from their local authority? What will be the effect on those local authority services, including services outside children’s services, if a significant proportion of schools become academies? Lastly, the pupil premium is not discussed in this Bill. We presume that it will come up in the next Bill, but will the Minister elucidate?
Finally, Amendment 12A is different and arguably should not have been in this group, but I will speak to it now. It is fairly straightforward and brings us back to an issue that we raised in Committee: monitoring the characteristics of an academy as listed in Clause 1(6). In Committee, we asked who was going to monitor how far academies actually adhered to the commitment that they had made to retain those characteristics. The Minister assured the House that the Young People’s Learning Agency would be responsible for monitoring academies’ activities. We have some reservations about this. The Young People’s Learning Agency is very new; it got off the ground only in April. It will be responsible for distributing money to these new academies, but it is understood that it is to be a very lean agency and will not have large numbers of people. Will it have the capacity or the capabilities to monitor the characteristics of an academy? Would it not be better, as we have suggested, for some independent agency, possibly the schools adjudicator or someone like that, to act as monitor on such an occasion and to keep an eye on whether the academies are living up to their promises? I beg to move.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes)
My Lords, to the best of my knowledge, the amendment proposed is on page 1, line 8.
Lord Hill of Oareford
We discussed this point in connection with the free schools announcement, which was raised in the first group of amendments. It also relates to the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Phillips and the desire of people to have some reassurance that the effect to which the noble Baroness refers will be taken into account by the Secretary of State. One of the purposes of the free school measures is to ensure that a new school which proves attractive to parents is able to take funds from a failing school to which parents do not want to send their children. The purpose of the reform is to introduce competition of that kind into the system.
Continuing compliance with the characteristics and all aspects of the funding agreement is monitored by the Young People’s Learning Agency. The Secretary of State has intervention and, ultimately, termination powers that can be used if an academy is not complying with the fundamental characteristics. I say in response to the question asked by my noble friend Lady Sharp that the YPLA has the capacity and capability to do that, but we shall certainly keep it under review.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked about the ready reckoner, picked up on also by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. I understand that there have been issues with the ready reckoner. I shall write to my noble friend about the situation in York.
If anyone has concerns that an academy is not complying with its statutory characteristics or the terms of its academy arrangements, these can be brought to the attention of the YLPA or the Secretary of State, who will look into them and take such action as is appropriate.
I hope that I have provided some reassurance to the House generally and to my noble friends in particular on these matters relating to the funding arrangements. In the light of that, I ask them not to press their amendments.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I am grateful to the Minister for his response. I am glad that the governing boards will be kept informed about the financial assistance grants.
On needs versus numbers, I am still a little uncertain. If a free school is to be set up, it will have projections of how many pupils it will take but will not necessarily know how many it is going to enrol. How will the Government set its grant in the first place? Is the first year of grant taken from local authority funding when they do not know how the school is going to do?
Will the Minister copy to me the letter that he writes about the York ready reckoner? I am a little unhappy about that, because it seems to set expectations unduly high for a quite a lot of schools. The bulk of money kept back by local authorities goes to meet special educational needs and transport. When that is deducted, the sum likely to be distributed will not be very great. The ready reckoner is leading a number of schools to have quite inflated ideas as to how much they might receive. If the Minister is unable to respond to any of these issues now, perhaps he could write to me. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Academies Bill [HL]
Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, I, too, ask the Minister to give this important matter further consideration. One of the great strengths of our education system over the past few years has been the involvement of parents in schools through PTAs, voluntary work in schools or, indeed, helping in classrooms. In my experience and that of many others, strong parent governors can enhance the quality of governance within schools.
The noble Baroness, Lady Williams, made a strong point about why the circumstances that applied to the original academies and those that apply to the situation before us now, whereby many schools are projected to become academies, are quite different. I also remind the Minister that we are talking about academies that are to be established without formal consultation and without the involvement of the local authority. If we take that together with the fact that academies at the very least will not be encouraged to have a large number of parent governors and the fact that decisions by Ministers, who are taking a huge amount of power to themselves, will not be subject to parliamentary scrutiny, then the situation regarding parent governors begins to fit a certain picture.
My concern is that we are seeing the development of almost private institutions without sufficient scrutiny at either local or national level. One way to counterbalance that would be to come back to the Bill, either tonight or at a later stage, with a much greater reassurance about the involvement of parent governors on these governing bodies. I believe that the same argument applies to staff members. My experience is that by and large they add value to the institution and enhance the confidence of staff in the governing body. It is important that there continue to be links between the local authority and individual schools. Again, in my experience, the local authority-appointed governors often bring a breadth of experience to the governing body. It would be very disappointing if that were lost.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, perhaps I may add one small thought to the debate. As I understand it, the parent governor will be not elected but appointed by the board of trustees for the academy. I think that that is a retrograde step. It is important that we have parent governors but I think that they should be elected from among the parents rather than appointed.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Brougham and Vaux)
If either Amendment 88 or Amendment 89 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 90 and 92 for the reason of pre-emption.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 108 and 178 in my name and that of my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Garden. I need not detain the Committee long at this time of night.
Amendment 108 is slightly different in that it concerns the application to convert to academy status, and is very much probing. At the moment, there is no provision in the Bill to withdraw an application once it has been made. Will the Secretary of State allow a maintained school to withdraw an application, and what will be the latest time by which a school can withdraw it? Presumably there will be some point of no return prior to the conversion date or the date on which the academy order is issued, which is the date that allows the school to convert to an academy and therefore to negotiate a funding agreement.
Amendment 178 proposes one of a permutation of clauses—or, rather, it proposes the same clause with a permutation of times in it—and proposes that an academy, once established as an academy, can revert to becoming a maintained school. Its purpose is really to provide a mechanism for the school to revert to maintained status.
It might be of interest to the Committee if I note that the seven-year rule in the Bill came from the Education Reform Act 1988 of the noble Lord, Lord Baker. The rule was originally five years, and Lady Blatch, whom many people in this House will remember, moved as a Back-Bencher that this should be changed to seven years on the grounds that any young person attending what was then a city technology college should be afforded the opportunity to complete a full seven years—the period of secondary education up to 18 years of age. The assumption was repeated by the Minister of the time, the noble Earl, Lord Arran, and it might be worth asking whether it continues to be the assumption that academies will provide sixth-form education. Certainly our primary schools and many of our special schools will not necessarily provide sixth-form education.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, my Amendment 179 is also in this group of amendments. As the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has mentioned, probably a number of us were sent them and we have used them in differing ways, but they are in fact extremely similar. My proposal is very much, as we argued in the first place, that if you have to go through a series of consultations before you take the specific step of applying properly to become an academy, the whole procedure of consulting the parents, the staff and everyone—the kitchen sink, as it were—to become an academy is the same as the procedure before you decide to come out of the process. All of that indicates the concern about the whole process. There are without doubt, as originally set out, a number of reasons why a school, having suddenly leapt to the idea that becoming an academy is definitely the way forward, might regret converting to one, so it should have the option of returning to maintained status if that is best for the education of its children.
I therefore join other noble Lords in what they have said about these amendments, and I hope the Minister will be able to satisfy us on these points.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
Again, this is about teasing out more from the coalition Government about the practicality of how applications should work and the kind of criteria that the Secretary of State will be using to make decisions about whether a school can become an academy. I am sure that these are matters that have all been thought through.
I would be interested to know whether the Government have considered putting much more detail in the Bill. When we had an academies programme that started off with numbers in the tens, the academy funding agreement and the intensive coaching approach that the Department for Children, Schools and Families adopted was very appropriate. Then we moved on to academies in their hundreds and the YPLA was established, and so on from there. We increased transparency around the standard funding agreements and so on.
Is the Minister considering publishing the criteria for decisions around academy applications? Is he also considering putting more in the Bill as we start to think about a whole system that could be made up of academies rather than a small number focusing on school improvement?
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I shall speak to Amendments 112, 118, 123, 126 and 187, in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Garden. The key amendment among them is Amendment 123, which has two purposes. In the first place, it asks the Secretary of State to state the criteria for approving an academy order. This is both important and urgent. It is important because, as my noble friend the Minister has made clear, there remains a two-stage process for applications for state-maintained schools converting to academy status. First, they have to apply under the conditions set out in Clause 3 and, if approved, the Secretary of State, under Clause 4, issues an academy order. Once an academy order is issued, the school then has to begin negotiating an academy agreement or a funding agreement with the Secretary of State.
As I mentioned at Second Reading, the impact assessment suggests that only 200 schools a year will achieve academy status during the next three or four years. My noble friend the Minister made it clear that this was merely a guesstimate based on past experience. He has also told us that more than 1,700 schools, many of them judged outstanding by Ofsted, have expressed an interest in becoming academies. Even if you halve that, so that the number of applications received is 850, you have to ask whether all those which receive academy orders go on to negotiate academy agreements. The Secretary of State has indicated that all those judged outstanding by Ofsted will be able to proceed unless they are carrying a significant deficit on funding.
If this is so, the department will have to process many more than 200 schools, with not insignificant costs, not least because each school will receive a welcome present of some £25,000. Will all schools applying which have been judged outstanding automatically—unless they carry a large deficit—receive an academy order allowing them to proceed to negotiating a funding agreement? If not, what other criteria will be used to select those that are allowed to proceed? What about the schools judged good or satisfactory by Ofsted? They are also being encouraged to apply, albeit to a slower timetable. By what criteria will they be judged? Neither the Explanatory Notes nor the guidance to schools wishing to apply makes clear what criteria will be used to judge applicants. Amendment 123 would make the criteria public so that schools thinking of applying might be able to judge whether it is worth their while doing so.
The second aspect of the amendment is that it seeks to make it clear, where a school is under notice from its local authority under Section 30 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 or Sections 15 to 17 of the Education and Inspections Act 1996, that the local authority will cease to maintain the school. When GM status was introduced in the early 1990s, many schools sought it as a way of avoiding closure. How far is this likely to be considered by this Government? We face over the short term a very considerable drop in numbers at some secondary schools, especially those that deal just with the 11-to-16 age group, and closures and amalgamations are still very much on the cards. How far will they be allowed to use an application for academy status as an escape route from reorganisation?
Amendment 112 asks that, where a school is being converted to an academy because it is failing and not serving its community as well as it might, the decision is taken in conjunction with the governing body, and that, just as with other schools, the application is made by the governing body and not imposed on it.
Amendment 118 picks up the second issue raised in Amendment 123. This amendment was proposed to us by my honourable friend the Member for Bath, Mr Don Foster, and relates to school reorganisations. There were some instances where plans for a sixth-form reorganisation had been foiled by a key player opting out to become a grant-maintained school. The suggestion is that before a school opts out in this way an independent view should be sought on how it affects the provision of education within the community as a whole. Who better to provide such an independent view than the schools adjudicator, who has already had to look at the contentious admissions procedures? The proposal, therefore, is that when the conversion to an academy is contentious in a local community because of reorganisations, the schools adjudicator should be asked to look at the situation and the Secretary of State should have regard to his or her advice—not necessarily follow it, but have regard to it.
Lord Hill of Oareford
My Lords, this group of amendments deals with academy orders which enable the conversion of a maintained school into an academy. Amendments 105, 115 and 123 seek to place in regulations the process of applying for an academy order and to require the publishing of the criteria that the Secretary of State will take into account when approving academy order applications and entering into academy arrangements. As your Lordships might expect by now, we are unconvinced that it is necessary to prescribe in regulations the application process for an academy order, as this is an entirely administrative process. The Government have made it clear that they will apply a rigorous fit-and-proper-person test in approving any sponsors of an academy or promoter of a free school.
In response to one question raised by my noble friend Lady Sharp, I can confirm that the Secretary of State will publish on the department’s website criteria for deciding applications from schools which are not outstanding. I agree that it is important that people know where they stand. We will make sure that those are available when we have done some more work on that.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
Can the Minister clarify whether that means that every school that is outstanding which applies will automatically get an academy order, unless it has a deficit of over £100,000?
Lord Hill of Oareford
No, my Lords; I was coming to that. There are some exceptional circumstances where that would not necessarily happen. There may, for instance, be cases where further information or action is required, including where a school is subject to existing reorganisation proposals—such as those referred to in Amendment 123—and where, as my noble friend has said, the school has a deficit or its performance has changed significantly. The Secretary of State has that power and would want to review each case on its merits. There will need to be flexibility in the Secretary of State’s consideration of these factors to make sure that he can make the most appropriate decision in each individual case. Information on those exceptional circumstances is, I believe, available on the department’s website.
In a similar vein, Amendment 126 would require the Secretary of State to make an order through secondary legislation specifying the mandatory contents of an academy order. While each order will inevitably contain certain standard elements, each will be different and specific to each school depending on the circumstances of each case. I think that we touched on this briefly last week. The parliamentary Delegated Powers Committee report on this Bill, dated 17 June, concluded that it would not be necessary for Parliament to scrutinise academy orders, while the expectation is that the academy orders will be brief. Therefore, it is not our view that we need to set out in an order what those orders will contain.
Amendment 118 seeks to require the Secretary of State to seek the advice of the schools adjudicator before agreeing the conversion of a school from maintained to academy status. The local authority normally would decide proposals for changes to existing maintained school provision, including closures, alterations and new schools. Where the local authority itself is the proposer of a new school, the schools adjudicator may be called upon to decide the competition. The decision on academies has, however, always been the Secretary of State’s. Given that the process for converting to academy status will not result in a net change in provision available to parents and pupils in the area, we do not believe that involving the schools adjudicator would be necessary. It might, indeed, introduce another unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.
On the point raised by my noble friend Lady Sharp on Amendment 187, the Secretary of State does not intend to delegate to the Young People’s Learning Agency any decisions about, or the making of, academy orders. I can confirm that he has no intention of delegating this function, which goes hand in hand with the decision to enter into academy arrangements themselves and which he cannot delegate to the YPLA. Academy orders are made in respect of maintained schools; therefore it is not appropriate to delegate it to the YPLA, which is responsible for certain roles—funding, challenging and supporting academies—once they are up and running, but not before.
Finally, Amendment 112 would remove the power of the Secretary of State to make an academy order for a school that is eligible for intervention. Generally speaking, schools are eligible for intervention where standards are too low or there are concerns about performance standards. It is crucial that schools that are failing their pupils can be given the opportunity to convert to academy status and to do so quickly to improve their pupils’ chances. There is evidence that schools obtaining academy status can make improvements to raise standards for all their pupils. It is right to make sure that those schools have that opportunity, too. Removing that option would not be in the best interests of pupils. I hope this has provided some more information and factual answers on several of the points that have been raised. With that, I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment.
“( ) The Secretary of State before making a property transfer scheme shall consult with—
(a) the local authority;(b) the current owner, if not the local authority; and(c) any other such persons as the Secretary of State considers appropriate.”
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, the amendment is in my name and that of my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Garden. Clause 7 applies not to land but to items such as electronic hardware and software, furniture and cleaning or catering contracts. It permits the Secretary of State to make a property transfer scheme, which, in effect, transfers to the academy various property and contractual rights and liabilities that previously belonged to the local authority or, through it, the maintained school that the academy is replacing. As it stands, the clause makes no mention of any consultation with the owner of the property—whether it is the local authority or otherwise—or with people such as the catering contractors who might be affected by such a transfer. It seems natural justice that they should be consulted and the purpose of the amendment is to ensure that they are consulted. Will my noble friend also explain what subsection (6)(a) means? What sort of property rights,
“could not otherwise be transferred”?
I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
My Lords, I have been asked to speak to Amendments 171 to 174 in the name of my noble and right reverend friend the Bishop of Lincoln, who cannot be in his place today due to commitments in his diocese—although I dare say that his commitments will be over rather sooner than yours and mine.
I should like to speak to these amendments as a group because they relate to complications that could arise from the Secretary of State’s powers to compulsorily purchase the site of an existing church school as part of the academy formation process. The amendments are technical and are being put forward because of the extraordinary complications in respect of the ownership provisions of many voluntary schools sites—again, predominantly those held in trust by Church of England bodies.
As I am sure all noble Lords will know, the School Sites Acts of Queen Victoria are still in force and contain a technicality called a “reverter”. It is our view that reverters will be likely to apply to at least some sites dealt with under the provisions of this Bill and that in consequence the rights of the heirs of original donors will come into force if and when the school site is purchased by the state. Thus, the closure of a school in order for it to reopen as an academy may trigger reverter conditions, enabling the trustees to reclaim the land. Likewise, the original donation of the land in trust probably had conditions attached such as its use for church schooling only. In this respect, we do not think that the Government have taken into account the effects of the Schools Sites Act 1841 and of the Reverter of Sites Act 1987. Many of our school sites can be regarded as being part of the church’s historical assets and every effort needs to be made through discussion with the diocese and trustees to ensure that the transition is both smooth and a legitimate handing on of the asset in trust.
These are therefore probing amendments through which I hope to draw out the Minister to clarify the Government’s thinking on this arcane subject. They seek to protect trustees and heirs from the complications that might ensue and to protect the Government from a nasty and expensive legal trap if the issue is not clarified and addressed now.
The Lord Bishop of Exeter
I thank the Minister for those assurances and will not press the amendments this evening.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
I am grateful to the Minister and am glad that he is going to think about this. It seems to be natural justice that there should be some consultation with the owners of the property concerned. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
“( ) In section 133(6) (requirement to be qualified) omit the “or” after paragraph (a) and at the end of paragraph (b) insert “, or (c) an Academy”.
( ) In section 212(1) (general interpretation) insert at the appropriate place the following definition—
““Academy” means an Academy within the meaning of the Academies Act 2010;”.”
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I tabled this amendment to ensure that academy support staff are not excluded from the School Support Staff Negotiating Body, which was set up under the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009. The establishment of this negotiating body was supported on all sides of the House. There are concerns that, because academies have freedom to negotiate separate pay and conditions, their staff will be excluded from the negotiating body.
Many people will recognise that changes in educational practice over the past 10 years mean that support staff now play a very important part in schools. Over the years, we have treated them extremely badly. The negotiating body is the first move on the part of any Government in creating a proper career structure and providing proper negotiating machinery for support staff, who have been paid extremely badly. We are seeking assurances from the Government that academy staff can be included within this negotiating body. I beg to move.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, there are over 200,000 more support staff in our schools thanks to the investment put into school improvement under the previous Government. More than 123,000 of these staff are classroom teaching assistants, who support teachers in identifying and helping children who need extra support.
The previous Government established the School Support Staff Negotiating Body to ensure fair pay and conditions for hundreds of thousands of people whose jobs on the front line help to give every child the best start in life. This was part of a partnership that we built between government, employers, unions and staff, known as the Social Partnership.
A forum for real dialogue between government, the trade unions and school staff is something which I consider to be extremely important and which I am sure all of us in this Chamber can look back on with pride. Whatever else the coalition Government may disagree with us about, I hope that—in going forward with the previous Government’s approach—they do not forget that it is by working with, and not against, staff that you can drive change and raise standards in our schools. I hope that we can hear some very constructive language and views from the government Benches.
It is true that under the previous Government academies were not covered by the national pay and conditions structures, although they were invited to be involved in the school support staff negotiation process. As I understand it, the amendments in this group are not intended to represent reneging on that position. If academies are to become the norm for secondary schools in this country—if the majority of schools adopt academy status, as I understand is the Government’s view—these amendments are looking for an understanding that, rather than being a tool for driving improvement in a number of areas, it is right and proper that there should be a framework for collective bargaining, particularly for these important staff members who have made such a difference in our schools.
Giving a few schools in challenging areas the freedom to vary the terms and conditions is one thing, as it may help them to break down entrenched disadvantage and to attract new staff to schools where morale may have been low and staff turnover very high. However, by giving such freedoms first to the strongest schools may undermine the aims of the academy scheme and, therefore, the rationale for the approach to the rights of workers in the sector to collective bargaining. The rationale simply will not stand up. I hope that the Minister can respond with supportive language to these ideas. I look forward to hearing his views.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, I am disappointed that the Minister was not more forthcoming on these amendments. It seems to me that over the years support staff have not been treated well and this was a positive move to give them status. However, given the lateness of the hour, I shall not pursue the matter further. Perhaps the Minister and I can have words about it later. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.