Education and Adoption Bill

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Wednesday 16th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

Indeed. I recently participated in an interesting Adjournment debate on this matter with Conservative Members. We know that a funding crisis is building up as we speak, and alongside the problems with teacher training and supply, these are creating a perfect storm. There are going to be real problems over the course of this Parliament, and I put on record that we are pointing that out and that the Government should be acting more urgently to deal with the problems that are going to emerge.

New clause 1 would mean that schools could not be blamed for problems that had been initiated by policies of the Secretary of State for Education that had led to a lack of teacher supply in their area. Teacher supply would be a reasonable factor to take into account, rather than simply looking at raw data that tell us nothing about the struggle that a school might be having to recruit high-quality, well-qualified teaching staff.

New clause 1 would also bring academies into the scope of the provision. The Government appear to believe that maintained schools that are experiencing difficulties need a fundamental change of structure, but that that does not apply to academies. They seem to think that academy status is right for failing maintained schools, but it is also right for failing academies. That seems to be the Government’s policy. The Secretary of State’s position is that if an academy fails, the obvious solution is to turn it into an academy. That simply makes no sense.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend recently guided me through my first Bill Committee experience, for which I am grateful. As a novice, being mentored by someone of his experience will no doubt stand me in good stead. During the evidence session, Malcolm Trobe, a former secondary school headteacher and now general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, was asked about the distinction between academies and maintained schools and whether they should be treated differently. He replied:

“No. All schools should be judged effectively on the same range of indicators.”

He went on to say:

“I think we believe in fairness and equality and, therefore, all schools should be treated the same, whether they be academies or maintained schools.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 15.]

Does my hon. Friend acknowledge that expertise and agree that Malcolm Trobe was right?

[Kevin Brennan]

I thank my young apprentice for his intervention. He is a very quick learner, as he has just shown. He is absolutely right. The central point of our new clause 1 is that academies and maintained schools should be treated equally. There appears to be a presumption by the Government that academies are always superior to maintained schools, even when they are failing academies. In Committee, however, the Schools Minister, referring to me, stated:

“The hon. Gentleman is also wrong to say that we see schools as a hierarchy with academies at the top and maintained schools at the bottom. We do not.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 7 July 2015; c. 220.]

He denied it, but I am afraid that no one believes him. Every time Ministers open their mouth, they give the clear impression—through the frequency of their praise of academies over maintained schools, the frequency of their visits to academies and their singling out of one type of school over the other for legislation—that they do not see schools in the way that the Minister described. They see them arranged in a hierarchy by type, rather than by quality of education and performance.

Ministers’ powers over academies are to be found in the various funding agreements, and there is no consistency in those powers. There is also no mention of coasting in any of those funding agreements, so it is unclear how the Minister’s right to intervene in a coasting school, under his proposed definition or any other, could be applied to a coasting academy. People might start to believe his words denying a ministerial hierarchy if he were to accept our proposal to include all schools in this provision.

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[Neil Carmichael]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question, because it goes to the heart of the Bill. The Bill is largely about schools in which action needs to be taken to get them to a better place. Such action has to be taken urgently, it must be about leadership and governance and, where necessary, it must take the form of intervention. As I have said, the principal focus should be on whether pupils benefit from delay or from action to take their school to a better place.

I do not want to say that parents should not be consulted, because I think they should. For example, there is a strong role for parent teacher associations to play in the interface with the community about a school’s future. I spoke to the chief executive of PTA UK just a few days ago, and I was struck by the role that PTAs can play in such dialogue. When a school is failing, however, we must take action. That is implicit in the Bill. Action is absolutely necessary for any failing school.

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned meeting a representative of PTA UK, but is he aware that it submitted evidence to the Public Bill Committee? It stated that the Bill

“signals to parents that their views aren’t to be considered and positions them as unimportant despite the prevailing research that confirms their engagement as important to their child’s education.”

I invite him to comment.

[Neil Carmichael]

It is absolutely right for there to be engagement, but I think that we are confusing two different things. I would have thought that PTA UK was talking about engagement with the school more generally. I am referring to the issues in the Bill and the specific question of whether intervention should be swift and effective, and the degree of consultation that should be involved.

Of course there should be consultation and the Bill makes clear the role of regional schools commissioners, who should consult fairly widely. The Education Committee will look into the role and capacity of the regional schools commissioners. One question that we will ask is how that consultation process is undertaken. I do not think that that point is at variance with the spirit of the Bill.

On amendment 12, we cannot have coasting schools and when we see them we must act. In the last Parliament, the chief inspector produced a powerful report about the long tail of underachievement, which detailed the problem that many schools carry on coasting without being noticed. It is striking that many of those schools are in rural and coastal areas. That tells us that the mechanism is not in place to properly check what a coasting school is doing. I therefore believe that amendment 12 would take us in the wrong direction.

A coasting school is a very bad place to be. If a school is coasting along then, even if everybody thinks it is doing okay, it is not doing its job properly. It is therefore a real challenge for the teachers and governors to move it forward. Of course, we need to discuss in some detail the definition of a coasting school, but if the teachers and governors of a coasting school are not moving it forward, we must act. I therefore do not believe that amendment 12 is appropriate.

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[Louise Haigh]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Communication and consultation can only be positive, and significantly improve the process of schools’ conversion to academy status.

There is another perfectly legitimate reason why parents have a right to be involved in the decision. As we have heard, there is a stark variation between the performances of academy chains. Parents, teachers, local authorities and the school community could be handing a school over to a chain that might perform markedly worse than the existing maintained school.

In a report that is as detailed and comprehensive as any could be found, the much-respected Sutton Trust demonstrated that sponsored academies are twice as likely to be below the floor standards as other mainstream schools. Half the chains examined by the trust did less well than the mainstream school average. Indeed, in 2014, 44% of the academies in the analysis group covered in the report were below the Government’s new “coasting level”.

Our education system must be a collaborative effort between parents, pupils and schools, and Labour Members believe that it is the right of parents to have a substantial say in how their children are educated. The Conservative Education Act 1996 set out in law the general principle that

“pupils are to be educated in accordance with the wishes of their parents”.

That has been a principle in law since school attendance became compulsory more than a century ago.

It is strange that the Government’s talk of localism and involving service users in decisions does not apply to schools. After the election, the Chancellor of the Exchequer remarked in a speech on devolution that “the old model” of running things from London

“made people feel remote from the decisions that affect their lives. It’s not good for our prosperity or for our democracy.”

He will find some agreement among Members on both sides of the House on that general point, but perhaps the Education Secretary failed to get the memo, as she removed the right of parents and the local school community to have a say in the future of their schools. I ask once again, why are the Government so afraid of the voices of parents and the school communities?

My new clause would go a small way towards repairing the democratic deficit that is opening up as a result of a Bill that puts too much power in the hands of the Secretary of State, and far too little in the hands of our school communities.

[Peter Kyle]

It is great to be called for the first time under your stewardship, Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to support new clause 1.

I have already paid tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan); let me now extend my thanks to the Schools Minister, who sat opposite me for the many weeks of the Committee stage, and took my interventions very graciously during that period despite my frequent fumbling breaches of protocol.

No one, in Committee or today, has disputed the need to challenge coasting in any school—least of all me, because I went to a school which, by today’s standards, could be deemed to have been coasting. I left with very few qualifications, and, at the age of 25, I had to return to the same state secondary school and take my exams again. I spent a year in a secondary school as a 25-year-old. Anyone who has done that—spent a year with teenagers as a 25-year-old, and had the experience of going through education for the second time—will never, ever allow any other person to go through the same thing, or allow any other person to leave school without the right qualifications. It seems an irony that the school I left and had to return to is in the constituency of Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, because the Minister for Schools is the MP for that constituency. This has therefore come full circle now, and I hope that what was Felpham comprehensive school—I do not know what it is called now, but I presume Felpham community college—is doing much better today than it was doing then.

Nobody disputes the need to tackle coasting wherever it is, least of all me, and nobody disputes that academies are the answer in some cases, but only the Government think they are always the answer. That is the nub of why I support new clause 1.

The Government could not produce a single witness in the witness stage of the Bill to say conversion to an academy was always the answer to coasting. In fact their star witness, Sir Daniel Moynihan, a remarkable man who set up and is chief executive of a fantastic organisation, the Harris Federation, was asked directly by me whether he thought academisation is the only response to coasting. His answer was simple: “No,” and he went on to explain why in more detail.

The sum of that, of the experience there has been, and of the evidence given in writing and in person by experts is that academisation is one tool of many, and is not the only tool. I should make a declaration here: I am chair of governors of an academy that has fundamentally transformed the ability of young people to go through education successfully with fantastic outcomes.

My second point is that the regulatory framework that will underpin schooling as a consequence of this Bill is confused and complicated. Given this Government’s philosophical approach to deregulation, it is extraordinary that schools from different sectors—state maintained, academies and the private sector—are all regulated in different ways. This is absurd and it is becoming a regulatory nightmare which will produce some real absurdities.

For example, as a consequence of this Bill, a school could in future be rated as outstanding by Ofsted yet the Department for Education could deem it as coasting. What are parents going to make of this new world? How will they decide where to send their children?

We will have a regulatory framework where academies that are deemed to be coasting by every other measure are not allowed to be converted to another status. The Bill focuses on organisational status as opposed to what we now know works: a focus on standards and educational outcomes. All the international evidence throughout the world shows that a focus on standards is what drives up educational outcomes, yet this Bill completely ignores all that evidence. It is turning into an ideological Bill, which I fundamentally oppose.

It is extraordinary that someone who comes from my background and has been involved in the conversion from local authority-maintained schools to academies should stand here in such opposition to a Bill that refers to academies.

[Mr Gibb]

This has been a short, but high-quality, debate, with excellent contributions from Members on both sides of the House.

The Bill is the next step in this Government’s drive to change our education system so that every child, from whatever background and in every part of the country, receives the standard of education they need to succeed in a demanding and competitive world, and where every local school is a good school. The Bill builds on the sponsored academies programme, designed to tackle underperformance through new leadership and governance. It builds on the converter academy programme, designed to liberate highly successful state schools to allow them to flourish and spread their proven formula to other schools. It builds on the free schools programme, designed to encourage innovation and provide a break with failed education orthodoxies.

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[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that, and I was grateful for her involvement in, and contribution to, our deliberations in Committee. She knows what she is talking about, because she is chair at an extraordinary academy trust, the Michaela community school in Wembley, which was established by the formidable Katherine Birbalsingh. It is now into its second year and I recommend a visit to that school to any hon. Member who is interested in education. They will see a school that serves one of the most deprived parts of London delivering education of a quality that will astonish them. It is an astonishingly good school, and I am looking forward to its first set of GCSE results in three or four years’ time.

[Peter Kyle]

During the evidence session, the hon. Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) put the same question to Emma Knights from the National Governors Association. She got this response from an expert who studies this matter day in, day out.

“The main bit of evidence was produced by the National Audit Office last year and it showed that 60% of schools deemed inadequate did improve without any sort of formal intervention because they had exactly that: a school improvement plan, and that worked in 60% of cases. Sponsored academisation worked in 44% of cases”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 31 June 2015; c. 16, Q33.]

I thank the hon. Lady for allowing me to point that out and to add to her experience and also to make worthwhile the night that I spent putting tabs on to my evidence session notes.

[Mr Gibb]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Fareham (Suella Fernandes) via me, but I am delighted to respond. Of course sponsored academies are taking on some of the most challenging schools in the country. Where schools are coasting, we want them to do everything they can with the current leadership to improve, but there must be a fast-track method for dealing with schools that have been put into special measures. Our manifesto was very clear that we wanted to ensure swift, consistent action from day one in every failing school. When a school is failing, it needs, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael), who is the Chair of the Education Committee said, strong leadership and effective governance to ensure rapid improvements, which is delivered by academy sponsorship. That is why clause 7 places a duty on the Secretary of State to make an academy order for any maintained school that Ofsted has rated inadequate.

Sponsored academies have been hugely successful in raising standards in what were failing schools. In 2015, primary sponsored academies open for just one academic year have improved by five percentage points—from 66% to 71%—the number of children achieving the expected level in reading, writing and maths. Those open for more than two years have seen their results improve by 10 percentage points since opening. The proportion of pupils that gained five good GCSEs including English and maths was, on average, 6.4 percentage points higher in sponsored secondary academies that had been open for four years in 2014 than in their predecessor schools. Those are remarkable achievements for some of the most challenging schools in the country.

Trade Union Bill

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Sajid Javid]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That money belongs to hard-working people. They should know exactly what is being done with it and that is at the heart of the proposal. In fact, in Northern Ireland, members have had an active choice for almost 90 years and their unions are still perfectly able to operate and to organise. The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers and the Prison Officers Association still have more than four fifths of their members choosing to opt in. All we are asking is for a simple tick box on the same membership forms in England, Scotland and Wales.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

My union, Community, has used the political fund to challenge Governments of all colours and even took the last Labour Government to the European Court and won on behalf of its members. Does the Secretary of State accept that the political fund is not just about putting money into political parties, but about holding the Government of the day to account?

[Sajid Javid]

I therefore hope that the hon. Gentleman will agree with the changes, because they support union members and will introduce more transparency. They will still allow the unions to raise the funds, but they will just have to be more open about how they do so and what they do with them.

Education and Adoption Bill (Tenth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

Amendment 75 would require the regulations that will define coasting schools to use definitions already in use in other countries. We want to compete with the best education systems in the world, and we look closely at other countries to learn from international best practice. International surveys show that reform is essential. Our 15-year-olds are on average three years behind their peers in Shanghai in maths, as assessed by the Programme for International Student Assessment survey. We are the only OECD country whose young people do not have better levels of literacy or numeracy than their grandparents’ generation. This international evidence informed our recent announcement that when the new reformed GCSEs are taken for the first time in 2017, a good pass will be a grade 5 on Ofqual’s new grading scale. This means that the new good pass will be more demanding than the present grade C, and broadly in line with what the best available evidence indicates is average performance in high-performing countries such as Finland, Canada, the Netherlands and Switzerland.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The Minister mentions international comparisons and draws attention to the outcomes that are achieved by other countries. Is not the real lesson that these countries have a focus on standards, which has delivered their outcomes, whereas the Bill proposes a focus on organisational status?

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[Kevin Brennan]

Well, we will see. By the way, “leafy suburbs” is not my phrase; that is the phrase of the Secretary of State. It is hardly fair of the Minister to describe it as my “main concern”, since I am quoting the Secretary of State.

[Peter Kyle]

The Minister touched on the issue, saying that the Bill would pick up on underperformance and coasting in areas of affluence. I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the evidence given to the Committee by Rebecca Allen from the University of Central London. She said:

“My concern about the metrics that have been chosen to define coasting schools is that they display exactly the same type of what I call a social gradient. By that I mean that if a school serves an affluent community then it will not be judged to be coasting using these metrics.”––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 29 June 2015; c. 7, Q2.]

Does my hon. Friend agree that that is exactly the problem with this Bill?

[Kevin Brennan]

Yes, and my hon. Friend has cited in an exemplary way the oral evidence that we were given, in order to bring home that point. It is a real point, and I am sure it is one that will emerge very strongly during the discussion of the Government’s draft regulations. That is because these schools are supposed to be the “coasting” schools, as defined by the phrases used by the Secretary of State, and not the ones with weaker-ability intakes, which seem to be destined, as per the evidence we heard from witnesses at the oral evidence sessions, to be hammered by the new definition.

However, there was a big difference in the approach that we had proposed previously. There was an interesting article recently in Schools Week by Laura McInerney, which I will quote from:

“Labour define coasting schools as those with GCSE scores above a threshold BUT have below average progress. Labour’s plan specifically targets the schools doing well in terms of their GCSE pass rates but whose pupils, having come in with average-to-high ability rates, only come out with Bs or As – rather than A*s.”

She went on:

“This compares to the current Conservative definition which specifically protects these sorts of schools by stopping any school above a 60% GCSE pass rate threshold from being considered as ‘coasting’. As datalab’s research shows this helps stop schools in wealthier areas – ‘the leafy suburbs’ – from being hit.”

I know that the Minister will go on to argue that if this is a problem—he does not seem to accept that it is—it will all disappear after 2018, because at that time “coasting” schools will be defined only by a progress measure. So, if we have got a problem here, I assume he will say, first, that it is not really a problem, and secondly, that if it is a problem at all, it will go away in time.

The problem is that schools with high-ability intakes tend to progress more quickly than those without such intakes. We should all be passionately interested in why this is. I think we can agree that we want to find ways to tackle that. Presumably, the Minister is hoping that Government policy is the way to do that so that people from a lower start can progress as quickly as people who have started from a higher level. We can debate that and have different views about the best way to achieve it, but I am sure it is an aim that we all share. However, that is not what the Secretary of State was talking about in relation to coasting schools when she made her remarks. In the absence of any other approach to coasting, the Government will end up targeting only schools with poorer intakes, rather then those in the leafy suburbs, which I thought was supposed to be the central point of the policy, certainly according to what the Secretary of State said.

What do the Government intend to do about these schools once they have been identified? We are told:

“Those that can improve will be supported to do so by our team of expert heads, and those that cannot will be turned into academies under the leadership of our expert school sponsors”.

The suspicion remains that forced academisation is really what this is all about, particularly in view of the academy performance targets that the seven remaining regional schools commissioners have, and of the point that was made in the Conservative manifesto.

There is also no sensible account in these proposals about the interaction between Ofsted and these measures. This came up in our oral evidence sessions. Are we going to get schools rated good and outstanding one week, only to be deemed to be coasting the very next week? How will staff, parents and pupils make any sense of it if they receive a letter from the school saying, “Our school has been rated ‘good’” or “Our school has been rated ‘outstanding’” one week, and the very next week they get a letter saying, “Our school is deemed to be ‘coasting’”? How will they, let alone the general public or the media, make any sense of it? What kind of headlines would it produce in the local papers for Members of Parliament concerned about schools in their constituencies? Will the Minister explain how that kind of situation would be managed? Would it have been better for some kind of interaction to be thought through between Ofsted and the coasting regulations and the way in which regional schools commissioners react to the coasting definitions? Could they have been made to interact more effectively so that such apparent anomalies would not arise? Perhaps the Minister is not worried about it, but it seems to me that it will cause confusion in the system.

Education and Adoption Bill (Eighth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Gibb]

We are always crunching numbers when comparing schools and we are always looking at how individual schools and academies are faring. We pore over all kinds of crunched numbers the whole time. That is a particular role of the regional schools commissioners, who do similar analysis to identify schools, and indeed academies, that are failing.

We do take swift action when academies are failing. Thetford academy, for example, was put in special measures in March 2013. The sponsors acknowledged that they did not have the capacity to make the required improvements, so the Department brought in the Inspiration Trust, who took the school on in July 2013. Results in the next academic year showed that the number of students achieving five or more A* to C GCSEs including English and maths increased by 10 percentage points. In December 2014—just a few months later—Ofsted judged Thetford to be “good”, with outstanding leadership. Its report described the school as “transformed beyond recognition” and said that the trust’s leadership and support had

“created a strong culture where only the best is good enough.”

That demonstrates that we are equally as rigorous when dealing with underperforming academies as we will be when dealing with underperforming maintained schools under the Bill. The difference is that we have the powers to deal with underperforming academies through the funding agreement between the trust and the Secretary of State. We do not have similar powers for maintained schools; that is what the Bill is about.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

The Minister is generous in giving way. The example he gave was of a failing academy being removed from a chain. Do powers exist to remove coasting academies from their chains with the same enthusiasm? It has been reported to me many times that good academies trapped in bad chains struggle to get the same freedom to move between chains that he proposes for schools to break free from local authorities.

[Mr Gibb]

We will use the Bill’s definition of coasting schools to assess the performance of academies. The regional schools commissioners will start a similar discussion with academy trustees or the chief executives of those trusts where schools or academies in the trust are coasting.

There are no plans to allow schools to leave academy chains; that is not how they work. If we are unhappy with the governance of a school in a chain, it is the sponsor that we are concerned about. We would be concerned not just about that one school, but about every school in that academy chain.

[Peter Kyle]

It is interesting that the Minister outlined the process by which you can engage in conversation with governors at such times, yet previously you talked about the need for efficiency in dealing with maintained schools. Do you think that the process is more important when dealing with academies, and that, when dealing with a maintained school, efficiency is the priority?

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[Mr Gibb]

We are denying campaigns such as the “Save Roke” committee that call measures to improve a primary school a hostile takeover. Such ideologically-driven campaign groups are interested not in raising the academic standards in schools but in delaying the process. They are ideologically opposed to the concept of academies. My understanding is that the Opposition are not ideologically opposed to the academisation process; so I would expect them to support measures to increase the speed of the process when a school is demonstrably underperforming.

[Peter Kyle]

The example that the Minister gave has resonance for me because in my constituency before the election there was a similar debate and similar protests about a school called Hove Park school. During the lunch break, I introduced the Minister to some of its students. The campaign was vigorous and campaign groups from outside the school community used it as a political football in many ways, and I share some of the Minister’s concerns about how that unfolded.

However, the point for me, as I said at the time, was whether it was possible to deal with people driven by ideology separately from parents, students and teachers who have their own views, wishes and concerns. It seems to me that we do not want to exclude and punish the school community because people campaign for ideological reasons from outside it. Does the Minister agree that it is possible to take that approach?

[Mr Gibb]

I think that the hon. Gentleman is right that the community should be consulted when the governing body of a “good” or “outstanding” school wants to pass a motion that it should convert to an academy. I think that there is also a case for discussing an improvement plan with staff and governors of schools in category 3, rather than 4—coasting schools—where the regional schools commissioner wants to try measures short of academisation,.

However, when Ofsted puts a school into special measures it is an extreme thing. It affects a tiny minority of schools. When schools have reached that point of underperformance, we must act so swiftly that there is simply not time to engage in formal consultations. Why was the “Save Roke” committee not established a few years earlier, to try to deal with the underperformance of Roke primary school? I could say the same about Hove Park. It was a pleasure to meet year 9 students from Hove Park academy, if I have the name right.

[Peter Kyle]

Hove Park school. It did not become an academy in the end.

[Mr Gibb]

I understand that that school voluntarily applied to convert to academy status, so it would not fall under the measures in question. I could tell from the teachers I met that it is a good school that has voluntarily sought the freedoms that come with academy status.

Amendment 51 would require the Secretary of State to consult about the identity of a sponsor when there was a change of sponsor. In the vast majority of cases, the sponsor matched to an underperforming school would be successful in delivering the necessary improvements. Those successes include large sponsors such as REAch2, which sponsors the largest number of primary academies in the country. Its schools have improved, on average, at three times the national average rate. I pause in case the hon. Member for Cardiff West wants to jump in. He has not, so that is another fact that we can treat as established.

There are also successful local sponsor arrangements. For example, in the Tall Oaks academy trust, White’s Wood academy, an outstanding academy with a national leader of education as its head teacher, turned around Mercer’s Wood, which was previously in special measures. Since joining the trust, that school has been judged “outstanding”, too.

However, in the scenario where a sponsor is not improving the school, or not doing so fast enough, or where there is any other concern about the sponsor’s ability to support that school, we will not hesitate to take steps to intervene. Regional schools commissioners, acting on behalf of the Secretary of State, can issue warning notices demanding urgent action to bring about substantial improvement. Any such notice will set out what must be done to improve in a given timescale.

Education and Adoption Bill (Sixth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Gibb]

Welcome back, Sir Alan, after our short break. I will start by responding to the hon. Members for South Shields and for Sheffield, Heeley. First, the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley is absolutely right: the teachers whom she met on Friday are right about the workload that teachers endure at the moment. TALIS—the teaching and learning international survey—shows that teachers in this country are working significantly longer than the OECD average, perhaps by eight hours a week, yet the teaching hours that they work, according to that survey, are similar in this country compared with the OECD.

What is happening in those extra eight hours if it is not adding to the sum total of teaching in our schools? The answer is the sort of things that the hon. Lady is talking about: data collection, lesson preparation and marking. When we asked the teaching profession about its concerns about workload in response to TALIS and to what people were telling us, the issues that came top of the 44,000 responses were first, data collection and processing; secondly, the concept of deep marking; and thirdly, issues to do with lesson planning and so on.

We are taking measures to deal with these issues. We are setting up working groups, following that workload challenge, and looking at issues such as what is called dialogic marking to see whether that is the right approach. From my discussions with teachers, including the National Association of Head Teachers and other unions, I think that that is not the right approach to marking. We are absolutely looking at that to see how we can take away the pressure that is emanating from somewhere in the education world to insist that dialogic marking is used to give feedback on pupils’ work. We are also looking at data collection and resources that teachers use. We are absolutely committed to taking on the challenge of teachers’ workload, and we are determined to address it.

The hon. Lady referred to the explanatory notes, and again she is spot on. There is an error in the explanatory notes, which incorrectly refer to schools making representations to the local authority when, in fact, we are talking about representations made to Ofsted. She is right and that explanatory note will be corrected.

The hon. Member for South Shields referred to several issues where the Secretary of State will not have to answer. I have to disappoint the hon. Lady, but the Secretary of State does have to answer for everything that she does. She answers to us in the House at least once a month in Education questions, but also in other debates—Opposition day debates, Adjournment debates, Back-Bench debates and so on—so the hon. Lady is wrong to say that the Secretary of State will not have to answer, because she will.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend the Member for South Shields pointed out in her speech that teachers were feeling extra pressure from the additional inspection regime that will be added under the Bill. I notice that the Minister has not addressed that aspect in his remarks, and I wonder whether he will come back to it. As my hon. Friend expressed powerfully, in addition to the local authority and Ofsted, an additional level of inspection will put extreme pressure on some teachers. Will the Minister address that point before he moves on?

[Mr Gibb]

I was struggling to understand the precise point about Ofsted; there is no additional inspection regime under Ofsted. The coasting issue is outwith anything that Ofsted does. In fact, we will debate this when we come to clause 1, which should be very soon I believe. We have set out clearly the metrics for the definition of a coasting school; it is based not on Ofsted judgments, but on performance measures, both attainment and progress, as set out in the regulations. We will debate that when we come to clause 1, but it is certainly not based on Ofsted judgments.

Amendment 19 relates to the power that we seek under clause 2, which was discussed earlier today and which will amend section 60 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, to allow regional schools commissioners to give a performance standards and safety warning notice. Amendment 34 relates to the power that we seek under clause 5, which will amend schedule 6 of the Education and Inspections Act by adding proposed new paragraph 5A to provide that, where a local authority appoints an interim executive board, the Secretary of State, via the regional schools commissioners, could give directions on the IEB’s size and composition and on its members’ terms of appointment. This power will help to minimise the number of IEBs that do not work effectively—for example, they might be too big or not appropriately skilled—and help to ensure that they can make effective decisions on improving their schools.

Amendments 19 and 34 would achieve similar aims of requiring that any warning notice or direction about an IEB was made by an order contained in a statutory instrument under what will be section 181 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. Under section 182(1) of that Act, such an order would be subject to the negative procedure. I understand hon. Members’ desire to ensure that there is due process behind any intervention, whether issuing a warning notice or giving directions about an IEB. Amendments 19 and 16, however, would introduce a different level of scrutiny of the Secretary of State’s power to issue warning notices from that which currently exists for local authority warning notices. That would involve unnecessary scrutiny of IEB direction and serve only to create more delays and bring more complexity into the system, which we are trying to reform to reduce delays and complexity. As hon. Members will know, statutory instruments are more properly used for changes in regulations or closing motorway slip roads than for tackling school underperformance.

When a regional schools commissioner issues a performance standards and safety warning notice directly to the governing body of a school under the new proposal in the Bill, they will do so only when they are convinced that the underperformance, the problems with governance or the safety issues warrant taking such action. Similarly, any direction in respect of a local authority IEB will be made only when the RSC judges that such action would be beneficial for the school in question. RSCs will be advised, of course, by their headteacher boards, which are there to support them in making effective decisions. Therefore, an appropriate level of challenge will be built into the system. Using a parliamentary procedure for secondary legislation would be disproportionate. As RSCs are exercising the Secretary of State’s powers, the Secretary of State is, as I mentioned in response to the hon. Member for Sheffield, Heeley, already accountable to Parliament for the decisions that they make.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West made some references to Ofsted and the removal of the appeal to the chief inspector that is in this clause. Ofsted has had 40 representations against warning notices and has only upheld two of those appeals. The appeals process slows down action because the warning notice is paused while Ofsted considers the appeal, and the compliance period only begins again once the warning notice is confirmed.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Gibb]

Yes, but we are not talking about an appeal against a fine or a prison sentence; we are talking about an appeal against a warning notice to a school to require it to improve standards. That is a whole different ball game.

In any case, warning notices have to be reasonable. The Secretary of State will be accountable in Parliament for notices issued by regional schools commissioners. The Association of Directors of Children’s Services has long called for this step to be removed, as has Ofsted, which wants to see the process of warning notices streamlined and to ensure that schools take steps to improve as soon as possible. This is about swift action to ensure that school standards improve.

[Peter Kyle]

I do not want to try the Minister’s patience with my interruptions, but in recent weeks 40% of Ofsted inspectors have been released from their contract because they were not able to perform their duties to the standards expected. Does that not illustrate why appeals are so important? In the past, it might have been not the challenge that was incorrect but how that challenge was dealt with at the other end. We need to look at the appeals process, but now that we know that some of the inspectors making the judgments were, themselves, not up to the job, might the schools not have been right in the past?

[Mr Gibb]

We are talking about an appeal to Ofsted, so the hon. Gentleman’s query is rather strangely worded. What is happening at Ofsted is a reform process that Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector, has been preparing for some time. Inspectors are now directly employed by Ofsted, rather than through various subcontractors, which is a better way of managing inspections. It is a worthwhile reform, and I commend Sir Michael for what he has achieved in his determination to improve the quality and consistency of inspections. With those final words, I hope that Members now feel able to withdraw their amendments.

Education and Adoption Bill (Fifth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 7th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

I am grateful to the Minister for his intervention. I understand why he felt the need to put that on the record. When this Bill makes its short journey through Central Lobby to the other end of the building, I am sure their lordships’ Constitution Committee will look carefully at our deliberations and at the content and detail of this Bill. They will also note the way in which we have been conducting our business here.

We are on clause 2, having completed clause 13. Detailed regulations were not available in time for Second Reading or the beginning of Committee stage but were published at 10 pm on the evening before evidence sessions began. Our witnesses did not have the opportunity to look at the draft regulations before giving evidence, other than the one who stayed up for hours in the night to study and attempt to make sense of them. Those witnesses might have views about the constitutional propriety and legislative sense of doing business in that way, but we shall have to wait and see.

The amendments look at the period within which a governing body must issue warning notices, with the purpose of probing Ministers’ intentions. A warning notice is currently issued by a local authority to tell a governing body that it must take specific action, or further intervention will occur. The Bill provides that the Secretary of State can issue a warning notice to a maintained school directly. That notice will give the governing body roughly three weeks—15 working days, in effect—to take the action specified. The Bill does not set a time limit, and Ministers’ intentions are therefore not entirely clear. I hope that the Minister will be able to clear that up in his response to the amendments.

For example, Ministers might envisage much more significant actions being required during the period of a warning notice. If so, warning notices might be in place for much longer than currently envisaged. If that is the Government’s intention, will the Schools Minister elucidate the maximum time he envisages a warning notice lasting? We would like to have a reasonable idea of what period we are talking about. Is it four weeks, rather than the current three weeks? Is it six weeks, 12 weeks, six months, a year or years? As the Bill is drafted, we simply do not know what Ministers’ intentions are. Can the Minister give some examples of why it might be necessary to have lengthier warning notices than are currently issued? If that is Ministers’ intention, why is it necessary?

On the other hand, it is possible that the opposite is true. With the Bill effectively removing the right to object or appeal against warning notices, we want to be sure that the warning notice system is used fairly and transparently. In other words, do Ministers envisage a shorter period than 15 working days for a warning notice? Again, as the Bill is drafted, we do not know.

To probe that, amendment 14 proposes that the minimum period of compliance be restored, so that we can at least know Ministers’ intentions. If a longer period is appropriate, we would want the flexibility to achieve it, provided that we have the clarity I mentioned from Ministers about their intentions. If governing bodies are to engage seriously with the process of warning notices, they need assurance that they have the appropriate amount of time to do so properly.

There is only so much a school can do in 15 working days. Simple changes of rules or procedures could be possible within that period, but developing a complex action plan takes time, and implementing it takes even longer, as does negotiating with potential partners. It cannot be done quickly. That is why the requirements of a warning notice need to be reasonable, though no doubt Ministers always believe that they are reasonable in their actions. That is why amendment 15 would introduce reasonableness.

An example of a warning notice from Ministers is that sent by Lord Nash to the Gloucester academy on 16 December 2013. Hon. Members might be surprised that Ministers occasionally send warning notices to academies. Ministers usually say that academies are the answer to everything and that academising schools will solve all the problems of the education system. Surprise, surprise, it turns out that academies are also schools and just as likely to fall into problems as any other school, because they are institutions made up of human beings. They are not infallible and changing the name on the front of the institution from school to academy does not guarantee that they will not have to be subject to an intervention.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend’s point about academisation being the only solution was also raised in the evidence session. I point him to the response from Sir Daniel to my question. I asked,

“And you think that academisation is the only response to coasting…?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: No”.––[Official Report, Education and Adoption Public Bill Committee, 30 June 2015; c. 14, Q26.]

He then gave a list of other measures that can tackle coasting. Does my hon. Friend think that that relates to his point?

[Kevin Brennan]

It does, although we will deal with that in more detail when we get to the part of the Bill that relates to coasting schools. I am not surprised that my hon. Friend is anxious to reach that element since it is clause 1 and he might reasonably expect that by now we would have reached it. We are in a curious time warp, which the Government introduced, whereby we have travelled forward in time to clause 13, are now back to clause 2, will gradually move through clauses 2 to 12 and eventually re-enter the time machine to go back to clause 1 next week.

Education and Adoption Bill (Fourth sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

Currently, a child entering the care system is routinely subject to a physical health check but no corresponding mental health check, irrespective of the circumstances surrounding their entry into the care system. If the Minister indicated today that he was thinking of going further on this, it would respond to the concerns of many people up and down the country.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

By definition, young people and children are some of the most disempowered in our society. The young people affected by the Bill are even more so. Does my hon. Friend agree that the purpose of the amendment is to give power to some of those young people via statutory instruments and the agencies that have a duty to care for them? That is incredibly important for these young people, who are so excluded from society and from some of the support services that society offers other young people.

[Steve McCabe]

That is absolutely right.

We must remember that the reason for a young person being adopted is that we have concluded that there is no other possibility of providing a decent, stable chance at life for them. We have concluded that all other options are closed and that the best thing to do is to make a fresh start with new parents and a new family elsewhere. I assume that in the vast majority of situations, social workers do not arrive at that conclusion lightly. There has been criticism in the court about whether they could be more rigorous in how they pursue some of the options, but it seems inconceivable that someone could arrive at that conclusion lightly. That conclusion is arrived at because a judgment is made that the young person’s life prospects are pretty limited unless that deliberate, final step is taken. These young people need every ounce of support and help we can provide if they are to have any chance of making progress.

I was saying that it would be good if the Minister indicated that he was thinking of moving in the direction I mentioned on access to support and mental health assessments. I recognise that such a request is beyond the scope of this amendment so I will leave it there.

The amendment simply asks that if the provision of adoption support services is included in the functions that will be part of the new arrangements as directed by the Minister, such support services must include fair and reasonable access to support identified in any assessment. Otherwise, the child and his or her parents are being short-changed. They are permitted an assessment to determine what is wrong when they are not entitled to the help or support that might put it right. That seems to be a glaring omission—not one for which the present Minister should be held responsible but one that he, in his current position, has the capacity to do something about and put right. He could do that by accepting the amendment or by giving us his word that he will go away, look at the issue and propose a practical means of addressing it.

With all the focus on structures contained in this legislation on adoption, surely it is not too much to ask that there is some focus on the needs of the child. I hope that the Minister takes this opportunity to right a wrong and strengthen his legislation and the life chances of the very children we are all concerned about. The purpose of the amendment is to ask him to look at that.

Education and Adoption Bill (Third sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Steve McCabe]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. Let me clear: I am not saying that regional arrangements are bad. I suspect there is a degree of consent across the Committee that the direction of travel is right. What I am querying—and is central to the point that she makes—is what are successful regional arrangements or consortia? What do they look like? What are the factors by which we should judge them? She rightly stresses the point made by Mr Leary-May of Adoption Link, that adopters often feel that they, of all people, do not have enough say or consideration in existing arrangements. If implicit in the hon. Lady’s intervention is the suggestion that new regional arrangements could take into account that adopters need to be given further consideration and support and more involvement, then she and I are on the same wavelength. I repeat that I am not opposed to regional arrangements; I think the Minister is on the right track. I want to ensure that his end product meets his aspirations. That is the purpose of this debate.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

I note the cross-party consensus that devolution and regional powers are good because they take the necessary powers much closer to the young people affected by the Bill. We must also remember that the key thing we are trying to achieve is the relationship between the young people being adopted and the agencies. We must ensure that we do not focus so much on devolution to regions that we forget the relationship between adoption agencies, the young people being adopted and the local authorities. Is that not the point of amendment 13?

[Steve McCabe]

I recall that one of the last witnesses of the day made an apt point about regional arrangements and consortia. These arrangements must have sufficient geographic context for it to be possible for adopters to get in touch with the various parties. He warned against the dangers of a structure in which that simple point was overlooked. In that respect the hon. Gentleman is right.

As to amendment 13, which is grouped with amendment 7, I am, as I have said several times, conscious of the Minister’s wish not to be too prescriptive in the design of the arrangements that he envisages; and I am extremely conscious that it is not possible to insist on including a voluntary adoption agency in every set of arrangements that might emerge. I remember working many years ago for an organisation that adopted such an approach, and needless to say it got into considerable difficulty in trying to put it into practice; it is not possible.

Education and Adoption Bill (Second sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

Mrs O’Sullivan, can I ask you to raise your voice ever so slightly? It is not your fault; the acoustics are really bad in this room, as is well known to all the Members, and it would help us if you could speak up a little.

Alison O'Sullivan: I will speak up. The “Future in Mind” paper recently published about children and young people’s mental health and wellbeing services has a whole chapter devoted to recommendations to improve support to children with particular needs and it talks about adopted children. Arguably, some of the support that people might look to from the adoption support fund ought to be met through mainstream child and adolescent mental health services. If they are improved in the period to come then that will help.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Q 36 I have only one question. Andy, to follow up on a comment you made earlier, you described the failure to place, and powerfully described how that was not the fault of the child but the fault of the system. Who pays the price for failure, what agency pays the price—or does an agency pay the price for failure, as things stand? Will this Bill change that?

Andy Elvin: To take your second question first, no this Bill will not. Who pays the price? The child, first and foremost. The child pays the price through their blighted life. We then all, as society, pay the price because these are the young people who are in Feltham young offenders institution at this moment. They are the young people who are known to our mental health services. They are the young people who go on to become homeless, who do not have regular employment and who have chaotic lives. We are all paying the price, and the cost of that is far higher than investing in the young person when they are seven, eight, nine or 10 years old in a placement that will meet their needs and turn around their outcome so that they can achieve a life that is in line with the general population, which is all we can aim to do.

The reasons behind that are largely the way in which short-term funding rules the day in a local authority. On 31 March the world ends and it starts again in April—you are looking to save money in-year, whereas children have a pesky habit of growing older and carrying on until they are 18 and then 21 and just staying put. We really have to invest in the lifetime of the child. If we have to make a more expensive placement early on, yes, it may impact on the in-year budget, but over the course of the child’s lifetime—legislation is for the best interests of the child in their lifetime, not until financial year’s end—we will save an enormous amount of money.

The very welcome review by the Prison Reform Trust that Lord Laming will be leading will show again that the children who are more likely to offend are not children in care, but those who have had multiple placements and the associated disrupted education that goes with that. There really is no excuse for us to continue to have children in multiple placements. My concern is that the continued focus on one form of permanency ignores the other ones. We need to get it right for all 93,000 children in the care system across the UK, not just the 5,000 a year who go forward for adoption.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 37 So if you were in the fortunate position that we are in of being able to table amendments to the Bill, or to add something to this legislation, what would it be?

Andy Elvin: I would replace the word “adoption” with “permanency”, in the first instance, at all points of the Bill, then focus far more on support. I would add a part that looked at placement disruptions and the number of placements as being a key indicator on which local authorities should be measured. It is that part of permanency that is key, because when a child is into their fourth, fifth or sixth placement that is when we begin to see really toxic outcomes. We do not need to go that long to get it right for children, because foster carers and adopters and relatives who are capable of holding and caring for that child are available if the right support is there for them post-permanency.

The other thing I would like to see the permanency teams do, and I would like to see either the local authority or regional permanency hubs do, is offer support in a non-judgmental way. If the grandparent looking after a child sticks their hand up after five years and says, “Secondary transfer has come around; we are really struggling now”, support is provided speedily and in a timely, non-judgmental fashion. Too often, families have to go back through the child protection groups, and it is just not acceptable.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 38 I have other questions, but would the other witnesses like to comment on either the failure aspect or the contribution aspect?

Anna Sharkey: Obviously, what we are discussing is the adoption clause and the multiple placement changes in fostering. Having managed a fostering service for some time and knowing the sorts of complex areas being dealt with, I accept that adoption constitutes a very small proportion of the population of looked-after children, and it has had a huge amount of focus. There has been a lot of attention on adoption, but part of the reason is that the outcomes for adopted children tend to be good. The disruption rate is still very low. We know from Julie Selwyn’s research that there are families that clearly continue to have difficulties in their adoptive placements, but most of them hang on in there.

The outcomes for children are very good, and we know that the children involved will be those who have had the most trauma, because if they had not had the most trauma, more would be being done to try to maintain them in their family of origin. These are the ones where there is often absolutely no hope of achieving that within their family. Therefore, by definition, they are going to be the little people who have experienced the most difficult things. Adoption, by achieving what it does for them, is hugely significant. The fostering bit, and the whole role of public care, is another whole area and while I am not saying that it is muddying the water, I think it will get very complicated if we discuss it here.

Alison O'Sullivan: I would agree with the general direction of those comments. I have nothing to urge specifically for legislation, but perhaps for guidance and the manner of implementation. First, it is really helpful to have a spotlight on adoption, but we can do more than one thing at a time. We need to keep the spotlight on adoption, but also look more closely at permanency, as has been urged by the other witnesses—I absolutely agree with that. The second thing I would urge is that we make real the spirit of local determination, because there will not be one solution. It is important that as we do that, we keep a very close eye, collaboratively, on the impacts on the whole system.

This is quite a volatile, fluid market in some places and having an overview of that and how we manage collaboratively the dynamics in that market will be key to its success. Otherwise, we will have unintended consequences in creating something strong in this bit of the system washing back into another bit of the system. That is not what any of us want. It will be an art rather than a science, but I think if we work collaboratively we can do that.

My third point would be to build on the arrangements for collaboration. We have local adoption boards coming into place. I have been visiting the regions over recent weeks, and the boards are starting to gain traction. Many of them are looking broadly at permanence. They are keeping their eye firmly on adoption but looking at it within that broader context. By tying those together with national oversight we will be able to keep in view the important dynamics in the system.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 39 It strikes me that given that improved quality of parenting, higher aspiration, more stability and a better voice for young people who are looked after in care should, as ever, be our principles, we should have had some young people giving evidence to our session today. It is all of our faults for not making sure that that happened, as it would have been useful. If there is any written evidence, we should take very close account of it.

While you are here, Alison, I wonder if I might ask you as a director of children’s services who also has some responsibility for education—the Bill includes clauses on education—whether you think the regional schools commissioner in your area has the capacity to increase their oversight of schools as envisaged in the Bill, from 500 academies or so in your area to about 2,500 schools under their new responsibilities for issuing warning notices and, on top of that, having responsibility for dealing with coasting schools? Do you think they have the capacity to do that with a maximum of about seven staff?

Alison O'Sullivan: I do not imagine that the existing level of resource into that part of the system would be able to cope without some additional investment. It is not for the local authority to determine the support to the academy part of the system. What I would say is that there is an untapped resource of collaboration at a local level. If we look at the shared ambition that we have to drive up standards in all schools in all categories, we should be exploiting the potential to collaborate more closely across the wider system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Suella Fernandes]

Q 58 What is your experience of headteacher boards and what is your view of the impact that they can have on helping schools improve?

[Peter Kyle]

Q 59 In a follow-up to the shadow Minister’s question, you expressed concern about the confusion in the framework for monitoring and evaluation that could result from this. How would that play out in a school and what impact would having different authorities responsible for different areas of monitoring, evaluation and standards have on the leadership of the school?

Russell Hobby: Two quick responses. Headteacher boards are a good idea in principle, but I agree with one of the previous witnesses who doubted the capacity of the current framework to meet all the schools required. You probably need more regional schools commissioners and more boards to support and advise them, and in the long term, see how that plays out. You have to be really careful about conflicts of interest on the headteacher boards though. These are leading academy chief executives and headteachers who may have an interest in some of the decisions being made. I am sure that they all do it from the principle of what is best for the children, but they need to ensure that the perception is there as well. There is a lack of transparency in some of their deliberations and I think that they will need to ensure that they protect themselves against that.

In terms of the multiple overlapping accountability frameworks, I think that is one of the most difficult parts of the system. When you are getting different messages from different people—one inspectorate tells you that you are good, another group tells you that you are coasting—it damages the legitimacy of some of the accountability measures in the eyes of school leaders. What am I—a good school or not a good school? Who is right? One phenomenon that you get in the education system is an amplification of other people’s accountability. Knowing that, for example, as a “requires improvement” school you have three years to improve—it is a fair timescale—but your local authority, knowing that it will be held to account for your performance, may come in after two years and say, “That’s no longer good enough.” Your governing body, knowing that it will be held to account by the local authority, may come in after one year and say, “That’s not good enough.” What often eventuates is that otherwise reasonable timescales—because three years seems to me to be a reasonable timescale in which to demonstrate improvement in a school—get truncated because the same people are accountable to each other. We never chart the different pressures and how they are magnified coming through the system. A streamlined approach to accountability, where schools knew that they had one set of targets, one group of people judging and a right of appeal, would allow heads to concentrate on improving their schools rather than reporting to stakeholders.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much indeed. We will examine your remarks thoroughly and digest them. We may come back to you either on that or other questions. One or two other Members from both sides of the Committee have indicated that they would like to ask questions, so you might get a response back from the Committee. We thank you for your attendance. Members need to be aware that there is likely to be a vote any minute.

Examination of Witnesses

Nick Gibb, Edward Timpson and Lord Nash gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Nokes]

Q 73 I have a question for Mr Timpson about special guardianship orders. Concerns have been raised with me by adopters that the bar is set lower for members of family to take care of their extended family’s children. Will that be under review or will the Bill include anything on that?

Edward Timpson: One of the reasons why we have set up the review and the expert body that Andy Elvin referred to earlier in his evidence about special guardianship orders is that since they were introduced about 10 years ago—just under—there has not been a full analysis and understanding of what effect they have had. That means analysis of the effect not just on those children who have benefited from special guardianship orders but those for whom it has not worked out; of the types of children that are coming forward for special guardianship; and of how rigorous the assessment is of the carers who have taken them on.

That is all going to form part of the review, because there are some children who are placed under a special guardianship order who may have been subject to that order after only a six-week assessment of a member of their family or extended family, or friend of that family. Those are all issues that we need to look at; but it is true that as a consequence there are lots of children who achieve permanence through special guardianship, and that we need to understand better who they are—has it worked out and was it the right decision for them, and are they getting the support that they need post-placement?

That does not form part of this Bill, because it is specifically looking at the issue of adoption post-decision on permanence; but it is clearly an area that we need to understand better, so that we can be confident that going forward we have the right approach for children who come into care, when we seek to achieve permanence for them.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 74 Lord Nash, perhaps I could put a question to you first, because you did not have the pleasure of being here earlier. Witnesses made some interesting points. They had a huge amount of experience behind them.

We started with Dr Rebecca Allen, who made the point that we do not need legislation; Ofsted can tackle coasting and it should be tackling it. A later witness said that the approach in question would lead to a confusing accountability regime. We heard last from Russell Hobby, who said that the way it will play out will damage the legitimacy of the system in the examination and standards regime.

There was a clear consensus from witnesses, including Sir Daniel Moynihan from Harris, that the academies are one tool; they are part of the solution for tackling coasting, but not the only solution. Do you have any cause for concern that the Bill is too narrow in its focus?

Lord Nash: No.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 75 You do not; so you think that the only way of tackling coasting is by converting a maintained school to an academy.

Lord Nash: No, I do not. As we heard earlier, and as I think Minister Gibb said when he was on the other side of the fence talking to Russell Hobby, there is a graduated response. I think Russell Hobby talked about that. So the first question is, “Can the school uncoast on its own?” If it cannot, does it need help? Most likely that will be brokered from a national leader of education or another school and, only if after a period of time that does not work, it may well be that an academy solution is the right answer. It is not going to be by any means the only answer.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 76 You obviously accept that coasting happens in schools—grammar schools, private schools and academies as well.

Lord Nash: Yes.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 77 But you think there should be a different accountability scheme for each of those different schools—for what reason?

Lord Nash: I do not think that there is. In reality we are concerned about coasting in all schools, and we will set the same criteria.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 78 Can I ask you, then, why not have a Bill that tackles coasting in all schools, rather than a Bill that tackles coasting in one type of school: grant maintained, or—

Lord Nash: We obviously cannot. We are not going to legislate for independent schools. As far as academies are concerned, they are judged on a different regime, with their funding agreements; but the new model funding agreement will have the same definition of coasting in it, in the future.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 79 But it will be tackled through different ways.

Lord Nash: It will be tackled through the regional schools commissioners in exactly the same way. The regional schools commissioners will be responsible for local authority maintained schools that are coasting, but also academies that are coasting.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 80 Private schools that are registered with the Charity Commission, for example, will receive tax breaks paid for by the Exchequer or a licence granted by the Exchequer. You do not think there is any illegitimacy at all, or that there will be any impact on coasting in private schools?

Lord Nash: We have been through this many times in these discussions. Private schools are separate. They are where parents exercise their right to pay for a separate education. That is a much more market-driven system than the one we are talking about here.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 81 Perhaps I could ask Mr Gibb. You were here during the evidence sessions today and there was a clear consensus that the Bill was too narrowly focused. That was accepted, and I accept it. I am the chair of governors at an academy school that was a converter. It was a failing school and has seen spectacular results in the four years that it has been in existence. But there was a clear consensus that conversion is one tool, not the tool. Do you not think that the Bill is too narrow and should take account of what all our witnesses said?

Mr Gibb: No, because academisation is only one tool. If you look at the Bill, it has all kinds of other powers. We are asking for the regional schools commissioners to require that a school that is not performing well enough, for example, collaborate with another school or enter into contractual arrangements with somebody who can improve their school. They might join a federation or use the national leaders of education, thousands of whom are doing a fantastic job up and down the country. We want to increase that number to 1,400 and then to 2,000 by the end of the Parliament. Academisation is a backstop if those other interventions, which the regional schools commissioners will be arranging, brokering and discussing with coasting schools, fail. I expect a lot of schools that fall within the definition will have their own plans in place. There may be a recently appointed head with a range of plans to implement. She or he will find themselves below the measure of what counts as a coasting school, but they will discuss those plans with the regional schools commissioner, who will be absolutely convinced that the plan will succeed. That will be the end of the matter and the RSC can move on to another school.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 82 Following on from what Peter said, he referred to clause 7 of the Bill where the Secretary of State “must”, where a school is eligible for intervention, make an academy order. That is an assumption that will not even be considered for any other method of school improvement. Does that not fetter the ability of Ministers to take a decision based on evidence?

Mr Gibb: No. This is about schools that Ofsted has judged to be in category 4, either requiring significant improvement or requiring special measures, so those schools have had that time. They have had that discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 85 It is just tough talk, isn’t it?

Mr Gibb: It may be tough talk, but it is tough talk that has delivered. As a consequence of tackling failing schools in the previous Parliament, we now have more than 1 million more pupils in good and outstanding schools than in 2010. That is a remarkable achievement, and we want to build on that now by speeding up the process. Sometimes it can take more than a year to convert a failing school to an academy. We want to build on that further and tackle coasting schools where pupils are not being delivered their full potential. We want to make sure that every child, regardless of background or ability, is fulfilling their potential.

Lord Nash: It is more than tough talk. The regime we have at the moment is basically tough talk. As Minister Gibb says, it means that the average time a school takes to become an academy after being in special measures is more than a year. That is not acceptable. Often the delays are caused by adults putting their priorities ahead of children. We have taken these powers to make it absolutely clear that delaying tactics cannot be used.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 86 To be clear, you are talking about failing schools, but it is also about coasting schools.

Lord Nash: We are talking here about—

[Peter Kyle]

Q 87 I was talking about coasting schools.

Lord Nash: I think you had a bit of a crossed wire between you.

[Mrs Drummond]

Q 88 It is really good that schools are moving to “good”, and I can see that it is going to carry on. Can you see a point at which we only have “good” or “coasting” schools, because every school has got to “good”? “Coasting”, as I see it, describes schools that are doing well but could do even better.

Mr Gibb: I do not follow the question, sorry.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Berry]

Q 104 Secondly, the first set of witnesses we heard from on the adoption part of the Bill were broadly supportive of the Government’s proposals. The second set—to the extent that they were actually opining on the Bill; in other words, adoption rather than the wider piece—did raise some concerns, one of which was that small voluntary adoption agencies might be crowded out. Can the Government give any reassurance on that?

Edward Timpson: There are several ways in which I can reassure those voluntary adoption agencies. I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to speak to the Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies about this at their conference.

First, I put on the record—I will continue to do so throughout the Bill’s passage—my view and that of the Government: voluntary adoption agencies play a key and central role in delivering high-quality adoption services in England and, I am sure, right across the United Kingdom. They will be an essential part of the solution to excellent regional adoption agencies. Secondly, in the paper, “Regionalising adoption”, we have—I think on page 12—clearly set out why we say that that is the case. We will be working with local authorities, as they develop their regional adoption agencies, to ensure that they understand the benefits that they can draw from voluntary adoption agencies if they are not already doing so.

Voluntary adoption agencies that may want to have a different arrangement—obviously, we cannot force them to join the consortium—will still have a vital role to play in providing some of those specialised services for children for whom it has proved more difficult to find the right family. They could also have a role in the training of adopters, so that they feel confident with the challenge, which, I know from my own family, adoption can bring.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 105 I have a follow-up question to Mr Gibb. First, I would like to associate myself with some of the comments that you made about the protests that have emerged around potential converter schools. I returned to secondary school in my mid-20s because I went through a failing school the first time, so I feel this very personally. In my constituency, I have seen cases of people using individual schools as political footballs, which I think is appalling.

We are now moving from an era of rapid conversions of failing schools into one where parents will find out that their school has been declared coasting, and that might be a shock to them. A rapid process may emerge, which will invite this kind of protest, however rapid it is. We could lose any existing community engagement, which could have been harnessed. I am throwing you an olive branch. We all want zero tolerance on young people leaving school and emerging into an area where they will not get the second chance that someone like me did. Is there a way of finding a consultation process that harnesses parent power, rather than, by default, seeing it as an obstacle?

Mr Gibb: There are two questions. One is whether children should be involved in a child’s education and whether the community should be involved in its local school—yes to both. Secondly, should organised political groupings locally be able to thwart the conversion of a failing school into an academy? The answer is no.

I should add that in the Bill if a school is voluntarily converting—a good school that the governors have decided to convert—there is still a requirement for them to consult the stakeholders of the local community. It is only for those schools that have been categorised by Ofsted as failing. When Ofsted puts a school into special measures, it is the truth; it is a school that has not delivered properly for those young people. We cannot have ideologically driven groups deliberately trying to delay and frustrate the aim of raising standards.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 106 My point is that we cannot use that as an excuse to shut out parents. I understand about people making broad political points, but parents of students who are going to the school and the school community are actively engaged. We do not want to push them to one side for fear of a group that is somewhere else.

Mr Gibb: I do not disagree with you on that. It is about the legal process of converting a school into an academy. We do not want that process being delayed by a group of people who are being driven by politics and ideology. Regarding the parents who want the best for the school, are involved with the PTA, are governors and are involved with their children’s education, a good school will always want to embrace and involve them in the running of the school and the school community. Nothing in the Bill prevents that from happening.

[Kevin Brennan]

Q 107 We have talked about reasons for delays around academisation. Is it not the case that delays are more often due to departmental incompetence, PFI deals and lawyers arguing about public land, or does that never happen, Lord Nash?

Lord Nash: The answer to your question is that is does happen sometimes. Lawyers do argue on those issues, but they are not issues that result in extensive delays.

Education and Adoption Bill (First sitting)

Peter Kyle Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Graham Jones]

Q 24 That is the answer, then: extremely hard. We are not measuring it is the real answer.

Richard Watts: No, we are not—not adequately.

[Peter Kyle (Hove) (Lab)]

Q 25 Thank you all for coming today. I will jump straight in because we are pressed for time. Sir Daniel, in your answer you talked about failing schools, yet we are talking about coasting schools. What tools are there for tackling coasting, not failing?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: Clearly, with a coasting school, the legislation is not looking at an immediate conversion, but seeing whether the school can put an action plan together to improve itself within a reasonable amount of time.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 26 And you think that academisation is the only response to coasting, not failing?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: No, I answered in response to inadequate. In response to coasting, those schools may not realise they are coasting. They may be complacent, and if that is pointed out they may be able to get their act together and improve themselves. But there are clearly—

[Peter Kyle]

Q 27 Okay. That is the answer that I was curious to know.

Mr Malcolm Trobe, did you hear the previous evidence session?

Malcolm Trobe: Yes.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 28 It was interesting that throughout that evidence session, all of the witnesses spoke about schools per se; they did not make the distinction between maintained schools and academies. When it comes to coasting, do you think there is a difference between academies and maintained schools in coasting indicators?

Malcolm Trobe: No. All schools should be judged effectively on the same range of indicators.

[Peter Kyle]

Therefore—

[The Chair]

If you ask a question, you must let the witnesses answer.

Malcolm Trobe: I think you then have to examine whether the most appropriate indicators are being used. One of the concerns that we have is the initial use of attainment indicators, effectively for the first two years, in making the judgment before we move to a progress indicator. We believe a progress indicator is the most effective indicator for this system, because it looks at the progress that each individual child makes and is therefore dependent on their starting point.

We have a major concern, however, regarding secondary schools where even progress 8, which is a progress indicator, has a cap on it. Because the use of comparable outcomes to determine GCSE results is linked to key stage 2 schools, this means that even with a progress indicator, you can only improve to a certain level, because the number of youngsters achieving certain grades in all subjects is essentially fixed by the GCSE comparable outcomes system. This will therefore cap the system. The only way that some schools can improve effectively is for other schools to—on a measure—go down, so there is a need to have a better, closer look at the use of the progress indicator.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 29 If the problem affects all schools, is it not strange that the Bill focuses only on maintained schools and not every type of school?

Malcolm Trobe: As far as I am aware—the Minister will be able to answer the question—the term “coasting school” will apply to all schools.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 30 No, it will apply only to maintained schools.

[The Chair]

Read clause 1!

[Mr Gibb]

We will use the definition when we assess academies.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 31 The legislation focuses just on maintained schools. Does that not strike you as odd?

Malcolm Trobe: I think we believe in fairness and equality and, therefore, all schools should be treated the same, whether they be academies or maintained schools.

[Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)]

Q 32 I have a question on teacher recruitment specifically for Sir Daniel, but I am sure that others will want to chip in. Do you think that academies and multi-academy trusts find it easier to recruit good teachers and leaders?

Sir Daniel Moynihan: It is certainly the case that teaching schools—the Government set up a teaching schools scheme—like medical schools, can train their own teachers. Increasingly, multi-academy trusts have teaching schools within them, which are training large numbers of teachers outside the university system. We have got 94 trainee teachers for next September and we will be producing teachers not just for Harris schools, but for London schools. So in the sense that we now have the freedom to take teacher training into our own hands and deliver qualified teachers, it is easier to that extent.

Richard Watts: Although I would note that that power is open to all schools, I think that teacher recruitment is much more about geography and somewhere being an interesting place to come and work than about the governance status of the school.

Malcolm Trobe: One way in which multi-academy trusts and chains have a big advantage is that they work collectively, effectively to have continuing professional development programmes that run across the trust. They are able effectively to grow their own leadership and develop their own leaders and that, therefore, enables some movement of staff into key positions. So if you have a school in a multi-academy trust that is hitting certain difficulties, you have often got some flexibility to move teachers around.

The biggest difficulty is in schools, particularly those in coastal regions, that are isolated and do not have access to teaching schools. One might call these areas teacher education deserts: there is no provision for young teachers coming into them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

So to do an outstanding job you will need a little more extra resource is what you are telling us.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 61 May I also place it on the record—I should have done it before—that I am chair of governors of an academy?

Zoe Carr, based on your extensive experience, how important is parental involvement and community engagement to the long-term improvement of a school?

Zoe Carr: I think it is absolutely vital. The four schools that we serve are all in areas of very high deprivation, ranging from double to three times the national average. We have had success for a number of years and have employed our own staff to work specifically with parents. If you engage parents appropriately and get them involved and interested and upskill their knowledge and understanding of the education their child is having, that absolutely pays dividends in supporting the child. It is vital, particularly in areas of high deprivation, to break down the barriers. Often parents themselves have had a negative experience of schools, and the thought of going into a headteacher’s office can be daunting. We have staff to go between the parents and the headteacher, who the parents see as being on their side and wanting to get them into the school.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 62 Thank you. That is an interesting response. Conversely, removing parents and the community from the discussion about the future of a school could presumably hinder improvement in the long term.

Zoe Carr: I disagree with that point. The situation that we are talking about is where schools have failed and are inadequate. In my experience, the need to move quickly in relation to getting—

[Peter Kyle]

Q 63 May I make a distinction then, before we carry on, because time is pressing—I am sorry for interrupting you—about failing schools? The evidence from the previous panel was clear on this, as well. The shadow Minister put on record that the Opposition agree that, with a failing school, the price of removing parental engagement is worth paying for the short-term improvement and benefit that can result from academisation. Many of us have experience of that. When it comes to coasting, do you think the price of removing community engagement and parental involvement is worth paying for the potential increase in outcomes that academisation will deliver?

Zoe Carr: On coasting, it is about determining whether that school is fit to improve itself. In my experience, it always comes back to the leadership aspect. Sometimes parents have a certain view of the leaders of a school that may not always be accurate. As we have heard with governors, parents might not be able, because they do not have enough contact with the leadership, to determine sufficiently whether the leaders are suitable in turning that school around to lead to better outcomes for their children.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 64 May I put the same question to Dr Major? Do you believe that where a school is coasting—not failing—removing consultation with parents and the community is likely to produce beneficial outcomes?

Lee Elliot Major: It is difficult to say. I always come back to the evidence on that, and we have very little evidence. We know that parents have a huge impact on children’s outcomes, but we have little evidence of what interaction is supportive and what works and what does not work. It is not a fudge, but there is no evidence to know which way it would go.

[Peter Kyle]

Q 65 As a final question, I invite you to put forward other tools that could be beneficial in challenging coasting schools, in addition to academisation. Is there any other way that engagement could be brought forward to provide the jolt that is needed?

Lee Elliot Major: There are some brilliant academy chains that do transform lives. There are also academy chains that have not done so well. One thing I would say is that you have to be careful about which academy chain you engage with. There are other options that the Government are considering on coasting schools, such as working with the leadership to begin with—I would totally support that—and, as I understand it, looking at a number of options before going into the discussions on becoming an academy.

[Caroline Nokes]

Q 66 We heard from the last panel—apologies, but this is again directed at Zoe—that geography is important when it comes to multi-academy trusts and that the region had an impact. It was easier to manage academies if they were in close proximity to each other. From your experience, what do you think there is by way of capacity in your area, were a number of the primary and secondary schools to be required to become sponsored academies? Is there the capacity there in the shape of sponsors?

Zoe Carr: One of the successes of the regional schools commissioner board for the north of England has been to increase the number of small sponsors coming forward who are prepared to take on one or two more schools. That has been a real benefit of the work that our regional schools commissioner has been involved in with the wider board over the past year that they have been in office.

I certainly see proximity as an important factor. We have staff who I know personally, because I have worked in each of the four schools. If I see a particular need on leadership in a school, we bring together our teachers and our leaders at all levels to work together to solve the problem, or to coach or to mentor. In that way, I have seen the rate of improvement in our schools go up much more quickly than if we did not have that talent bank within our organisation to draw on.

It is important that, within that local context, you stay connected to the local area. One of our schools is a teaching school, and we have lots of schools within the alliance that are both academies and maintained schools. It does not make any difference to me where the support comes from. We work with outstanding maintained schools and with outstanding academies to serve our own ends. Wherever the support is most appropriate, that is where the support will come from.