Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Puttnam Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, Amendment 22 provides that an annual report should be made to Parliament on the quality of SEN provision in academies and seeks to ensure that academies are effectively doing their fair share. As we have discussed, I have sympathy with those aims but I believe that they will be delivered through different processes. Academies will continue to be, as they currently are, accountable for making provision for children with SEN and subject to the same accountability mechanisms as maintained schools. These mechanisms include published Ofsted reports that give judgments about the quality of SEN provision; the publication of attainment data, including for SEN pupils; and school census returns from which comparable data are published about the numbers of SEN pupils, including those with statements, in different types of schools. There will not be any reduction in the amount of information about academies that we make public but, as regards the report to Parliament—which we have spoken about in a different context—we want to reflect on the quality of SEN provision in academies.

On Amendment 44A, I take the points that have been made about design. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, that she has not had her letter sooner. We have been awaiting the announcement of an independent review of capital investment—this relates to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth—which is due to report to Ministers in mid-September. As the noble Lord pointed out, that review will include consideration of school design requirements and school premises regulations. I know that both noble Lords have strong views on that—the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, also has strong views about its membership—and their points on the design aspect ought to be made to the review. I am sure they will be. I accept totally the case that has been argued that the environment in which learning takes place must be conducive to education as far as possible, and that good quality buildings, classrooms and equipment are necessary for children to learn and to ensure that school is a place where they feel happy and secure in their learning.

No one is arguing for unnecessarily prescriptive building and design requirements—this may be a point made to me by the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, in a different setting—particularly in times of straitened financial conditions. The balance must be to ensure that we have effective regulation which delivers the design features that noble Lords have talked about but which is not bureaucratic, cumbersome and wasteful. There is a balance to be struck and we need to consider the evidence on it.

The core point is that it is our intention that the same standards should apply to academies as to maintained schools. As my noble friend Lord Wallace said in Committee, all schools are required to comply with the requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to draw up and implement accessibility plans which provide for the implementation of improvements to school premises to accommodate existing and future disabled pupils within a reasonable period.

Amendments 45 and 46 would require academies to alert local authorities when a pupil is identified with SEN. This is already a requirement on academies. Section 317 of the Education Act 1996 imposes an obligation on governing bodies of maintained schools to use their best endeavours to ensure that special educational provision is made. That would include notifying the local authority where necessary. Obligations under Section 317 are replicated in the current academy funding agreements and will continue to be replicated in the new academy arrangements. I can pick up on more detailed points with my noble friends.

I turn briefly to Amendment 52, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Low. I understand the purpose of the amendment, but there are legal reasons, as we touched on earlier, why the Secretary of State cannot take powers to vary the contracts unilaterally. They have been entered into willingly by both parties, so the retrospective change that the noble Lord, Lord Low, requests would be difficult. My main concern in thinking about SEN has been to ensure that, where there is a policy change and where there could be a reasonable number of schools converting, all those new academies are put on an equal footing. I believe that we have achieved that. It is a significant step forward which I know has been welcomed by the noble Lord. Existing academies which move to the new model funding agreement will also have to comply with our new requirements. Not all existing academies will have to wait for the whole period. Those which move to a slim-line funding agreement will automatically be covered by the new requirements.

I hope that that has dealt with the main points that have been raised.

[Lord Puttnam]

I thank the Minister for giving way. Perhaps I may make a general point which I suspect the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, whose experience is greater than mine, would agree with. Teachers are peculiarly sensitive people. They are used to being let down; they are used to being underappreciated. I used possibly the wrong word earlier when I said that a lot of what is going on at the moment is clumsy. I cite an example that my noble friend Lord Howarth mentioned. Use of Dixons and Tesco as advisers on school building gives the impression that there is an interest in shelf space as opposed to aesthetics. That is not a good impression. I suggest to the Minister—who has done very well during the passage of this Bill—that at every single turn he thinks through the message that is being sent out to the professionals. It is very important that the Secretary of State’s intent is understood, that it is couched in terms that they can empathise and sympathise with and that they do not feel that they are being bullied or taken advantage of.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I take the point that the noble Lord makes; I take also his point about aesthetics. He and the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, mentioned Tesco. I had better not be drawn into commenting on its designs since it has kindly agreed to serve on the review, but one thing that I know about it is that it is brilliant at finding ways of delivering what it is tasked to deliver in the most efficient and cost-effective way, learning each time and driving down costs. If one can find an approach that does not send those messages about aesthetics but enables us to deliver more well-designed school buildings for a lower cost, and if, as some people allege, Building Schools for the Future has been running 30 per cent over budget—

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Puttnam Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Puttnam]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a non-executive director of Promethean World, an educational technology company, and as chairman of Futurelab, Britain’s premier educational research trust—I can already hear the howls of outrage from just about every other research trust, but that is the way I see it. I add my welcome to the noble Lord, Lord Hill, not just to the Dispatch Box but to the House itself. I have known the noble Lord for some while in his professional life and I can attest to the fact that we are all fortunate to have gained him as a colleague. His intelligence and integrity will, I hope, inform this Chamber for many years to come.

It had been my intention to put in an appearance last week in response to the gracious Speech, but the vagaries of international travel made that impossible, which is unfortunate because I could have covered at least some of what I am about to say this evening. I had the privilege of spending eight very happy and, I hope, productive years in one iteration or another of the Department for Education, where, among other things, my task was constantly to take the temperature of the teaching profession and those who support it. One way or another, the best part of 1 million people, along with parents, in England alone are directly engaged in the world of education. I learnt very early on that when it comes to bringing about change, unless you can carry the vast majority of those people with you, you are unlikely to make anything like the impact that you might expect or even hope for.

My own party, when in power, consistently made four mistakes. The first was to confuse initiatives with progress and to interpret each and every swallow as heralding summer. The second was that, although it talked a great deal on arrival in government about evidence-based policy making, such evidence as there was quickly became subsumed, or sometimes even distorted, into promoting more ideologically driven solutions. The third was to pretend to consult when in reality far-reaching decisions had already been arrived at. Experience tells me that few things infuriate intelligent people more than being cynically dragged through the motions of consultation. It is demeaning to the point of condescension and it infantilises the very people whom you are pretending to consult. It is also somewhat dishonest. Last, and to my mind most inexcusable, was the failure fully to grasp and implement what just about every piece of education research had been telling us for the past Lord knows how many years: it is the quality of classroom teaching, not changes in structure or administration, that fundamentally determines educational improvement.

I mentioned evidence, and the Minister may be pleased to hear a little from his own Benches. Earlier this afternoon, an outstanding former Secretary of State was seated behind him: the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard. In fact, at one point, we had no fewer than four former Education Secretaries in the Chamber. I wonder how many other legislative chambers in the world can boast that level of experience and expertise.

In a new book that looks back on the educational successes and failures of the previous Government, the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, is quoted as saying:

“I came ingrained with the view, which I retain, that Ministers ... can say what they like about what teachers should do, but in the end teachers are on their own in the classroom and, therefore, they are the most important component in education”.

Here is another other eminent educationalist, the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, in the same book, making the same point:

“You can fiddle about with examinations; you can introduce targets and all the rest of it, but they’re not at the real heart of the thing. When, as a teacher, you get into the classroom and shut the door, it’s between you and the kids”.

Lastly—I know that this new Government lay great store by the views of captains of industry—here is a marvellous contribution from the private sector. No less a person than John Pepper, the former chairman and CEO of Procter and Gamble, had this to say in a speech just two months ago. He believes that,

“our single-biggest realistic opportunity for progress”,

is,

“significantly improving the preparation and continued professional development of principals and teachers … we must give them the quality education and continuing development we would expect in any profession”.

Here are three experienced and respected voices coming to exactly the same conclusion; or, as Bill Clinton might have said, “It’s the teachers, stupid”.

What has all this specifically to do with the Bill? The answer is everything. Here we are with a new coalition Government who are making exactly the same mistakes that we made 13 years ago and trampling on many of their most vaunted devolutionary principles in doing so. I will argue in Committee that, one way or another, the Bill as drafted repeats all the errors of judgment that I have painfully conceded we were guilty of. I will give an example: consultation. The Minister knows more than I will ever know about the corporate world and the way in which it communicates with the outside world. Can he imagine, in the case of a merger or an acquisition, anyone writing to the CEO of the target company, telling them of their intentions and putting a note to the chairman on the website? I can think of no faster way of ensuring that no such collaboration ever took place. At best, I would say that it was clumsy. Yet, in a sense, that is precisely what was done in the letters that went out to head teachers last week. Is it possible that we have learnt nothing in all the intervening years about how to communicate with this complex and interconnected profession?

Strange as it may seem to some of my colleagues on these Benches, I want this experiment in coalition government to succeed, if only because I believe that the only way in which this nation will claw its way out of its present problems is through a dramatic and well resourced improvement in educational standards. We need those if we are to make even a reasonable fist of what will be a highly competitive 21st century. Furthermore, we cannot wait another five years to get it right, as this would jeopardise the life chances of a further five cohorts of young people in the process.

As I hope is by now evident, I will have a great deal more to say when legislation reaches this House to, for example, abolish the General Teaching Council for England. I also intend to be pretty lively when it comes to consideration of the other educational issues of which the Minister gave us advance notice last Thursday. For now, I will simply ask two questions.

First, having listened to the debate this afternoon, and given the significant ramifications of this Bill, let alone the complexity involved in implementing it, does the Minister really feel that two days in Committee will sufficiently scrutinise the Bill and offer answers to the many, many questions that have already been raised? In this respect, I am not sure that he is being all that well advised and I suggest that he clears his diary for several weeks, if not months, ahead.

Secondly, will the Minister give this House a commitment that, in one form or another, the advancement of professional classroom practice will be the sine qua non of this and all future education-focused legislation that emanates from his Government? I ask this because, should that not be the case, with a heavy heart I must advise him that, despite all his best efforts, this Bill and this coalition Government will ultimately fail to enhance the life chances of several million children and young people in this country—but then it is quite likely that his mother, from her own experiences as a teacher, has already told him that.