Education and Adoption Bill

Lord Hunt of Kings Heath Excerpts

Tuesday 17th November 2015 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his helpful reply. I found it very reassuring in terms of my particular concern about sponsors. I think that he was saying that most sponsors will already have a track record, and they will be the ones who are being looked at.

Perhaps he could say what proportion is likely to be coming in new to the field, and answer this example. Let us say I ticked all the boxes to become a sponsor for an academy, and seemed to be a very good person to do the job, but I thought that schools were places for work, not play, and that school playtime should be quite short. What would be the process to enlighten me that that is not the case or to weed me out and keep me away from the academy? How much influence might I have? I am thinking here of the story of an academy, which may be apocryphal, that was built without playgrounds for some reason, as somebody believed strongly that that should be the case.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, is the noble Earl aware that 28% of five to 15 year-olds are either overweight or obese? Is that not the point that he wishes to stress on this issue?

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the noble Lord for saying that. That is a very important point which, with his health background, he would raise. I am simply trying to give an example of a possible candidate and how he might be processed by the system. But from what I heard from the Minister just now I am very much reassured that most of these academy sponsors will be experienced and will have a track record, and we can have confidence in them because of that.

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[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

I have declared my interest as chair of Wandsworth Academies and Free Schools Commission. We interview every prospective sponsor. We look at their track record; we listen to what their aims and objectives are; and we listen to their views of education. We can then offer advice from the local authority to the department. I know that the department’s evaluation of every potential sponsor is very detailed. Of course, local authorities will no longer be asked to comment—so my little commission will disappear—but I know that the regional schools commissions will do an extremely thorough job before they hand over any school to a new sponsor. They will have looked carefully at every aspect of the sponsor: its aims, its objectives, its track record, its vision of education and its proposals for what it will do with a school and so on. We sometimes try a little too hard in this House to nail everything down in legislation instead of having more confidence in what professional people will do.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, like the noble Baroness, I see the noble Lord’s three amendments as being essentially about the quality and standards of the academy chains being considered to take over individual schools. As a matter of principle, it does not seem unreasonable to require that information be available to those who make decisions and to parents and teachers about the record of that academy chain. I take the point that one does not want to write everything into primary legislation and to instruct Ofsted in everything that it should do. On the other hand, one of the themes through our debates is whether maintained schools are being treated on a level playing field with academies. The suspicion arises because the Government seem to convey the view “Academies are good; maintained schools are bad”. That is why some of us want to see something in the legislation to ensure that academies are dealt with equally, and looking at the past performance of the chain seems to me to be particularly important.

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We absolutely believe that smaller, very specialist VAAs continue to have an important role to play. The service they provide in recruiting adopters, particularly for some of our most vulnerable and complex children, will still be very much needed in the new regional agencies. We will keep this area closely under review and will monitor it because we are determined to ensure that the excellence and expertise offered by voluntary adoption agencies is at the heart of this new agenda.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

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

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

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park]

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

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

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

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

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

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I shall speak also to my Amendment 34A. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, regrets not being present and would have liked to support these amendments—she spoke eloquently on these issues at Second Reading. Perhaps I may also say how good it is to see the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, in his place. When he was Education Minister many years ago taking through Parliament the Children (Leaving Care) Act, he listened to the concerns of noble Lords and extended protections for children.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

I should just correct the noble Earl: for some reason, they would never let me near the Department for Education. I took the Children (Leaving Care) Act through as a Health Minister. Of course, I well recall our debates, because the noble Earl eloquently and consistently raised the issue of the poor outcomes of children in care, and we were concerned about the transition from care into adulthood and about making sure that there was still a duty on local authorities to support. We made some progress but, alas, the figures speak for themselves as regards the outcome for children in care. That is why this issue of mental health is so important.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I could not agree more. If we are reflecting for a moment on the past, Governments have invested a huge amount of money and resource into young people in care, and perhaps that money might have been better spent if more thought had been given to ensuring that mental health was fully integrated with all the educational support that is given to young people in care.

Amendment 32A extends the ability of the Secretary of State to allocate functions and includes the provision of child and adolescent mental health services for children in the adoption system as well as an assessment of their mental health needs. I suppose that the Secretary of State might say of a charity such as the Brent Centre for Young People, “They do a very good job—maybe they should do it more widely, and maybe a certain local authority needs them to give it help in this particular area”.

Amendment 34A ensures that the quantity and quality of mental health support provided for in the adoption system will be maintained or improved by these steps to ensure that there is a movement forward, not backward, in any changes made. The headline I put to your Lordships is that, while this is quite narrowly focused on children in the adoption system, I hope that the Minister might allow me to make a plea for improved mental health support for young people coming into care. In particular and most important, currently, children who come into care have a health assessment by a GP, which is welcome. I will expand on this later, but they really need a mental health specialist or perhaps a clinical psychologist to give them an assessment that is focused on their mental health. Following on from that assessment, they need the services that follow to help them meet the need to recover from the trauma that many of them will have. Therefore, that is the headline I put to your Lordships: an appropriate clinical professional at the very beginning, the services to follow up, then ongoing monitoring to ensure that those services are being provided, as well as of the mental health of the young people. That would make a huge difference.

I am most grateful for the many measures that the Government have taken to improve the adoption system, in particular with the assistance of my noble and learned friend Lady Butler-Sloss with regard to the adoption support fund. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how that will apply to this particular area, and on accelerating the adoption process so that children get to a loving family more swiftly than in the past.

There are challenges. As the noble Lord, Lord Storey, said, 60% of children who come into care have experience of neglect or abuse, and 45% have a mental disorder in care as against 10% of the general population. Therefore it is not surprising that they will have often experienced trauma in their lives before arriving into care. Being taken into care—being taken from one’s family—is a traumatic process in itself; then there may be further trauma as regards shift of placements in care. Therefore, there is a huge mental health element to the work that needs to be done here as well as the educational attainment, which is being better grasped for.

It is very welcome that the Children’s Minister, Edward Timpson MP, is well aware of these issues. His father has written on the issues of attachment in the past and, of course, Mr Timpson has siblings who are adopted. He is very sympathetic and has been meeting with the NSPCC and young people who have left care recently to discuss these particular issues. I commend him for paying such attention to this area.

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[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I will be brief. I know how important transparency and accountability are to the Minister. This amendment is to do with the cost of conversion to academies. If, as the Prime Minister says, by the end of this Parliament all schools will become academies, it will put an enormous burden on resources to make that happen. Will those resources be available from within the existing budget or will extra resources be needed? Can we be assured that any school that becomes an academy will get the same financial advantages as academies currently do or will there be a reduction in that provision? I beg to move.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, there were some pertinent questions in the noble Lord’s short introduction to his amendment. One might think that the Explanatory Notes to the Bill would provide some helpful information in that respect but I pay tribute to the drafting of officials in the Minister’s department because they elegantly provide no information whatever.

The Explanatory Notes acknowledge, as the Minister has done, that this policy is bound to lead to increased expenditure by the Minister’s department. They say:

“The cost of any additional intervention will be considered as part of the normal Budget and Spending Review process”.

We will know the outcome of that next week. I do not know when we are coming back on Report but I assume that by then the department will have worked out the consequences for its own spending programme over the next three years, and that we might get some reassurance that we will be given some more information on Report. In the expectation that the noble Lord receives no comfort this afternoon, perhaps he will bring this back on Report to probe a little more on it.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, Amendment 35, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, seeks to require that the Bill cannot be commenced until a report on funding the costs of the academy conversions resulting from this legislation has been laid before Parliament.

In the light of the ongoing spending review it would be inappropriate for me to speculate on the future costs of academy conversions. As I am sure noble Lords will appreciate, the spending review will determine the Department for Education’s total settlement and it will be that which determines the final cost. I will be delighted to comment more on the DfE’s total settlement on Report, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, suggested.

Of course, while I cannot provide specific details of the future funding regime, the existing grant rates for schools converting to academy status are already publicly available and published on GOV.UK.

As the published guidance sets out, there are various types of grants available to schools becoming sponsored academies. There is a grant awarded to all schools prior to opening as an academy to cover costs such as staff recruitment, project management and legal costs. There are three flat-rate amounts for this, depending on the level of transformation the school requires. In the most serious cases of concern, sponsored academies may also receive a small capital grant to improve the school environment and indicate a fresh start for the school. Overall, in the academic year 2014-15, the department paid nearly £20 million to academy trusts in pre-opening grants. We are committed to ensuring that funding for academy conversions results in maximum value for money. Since the days before 2010, we have very substantially reduced the costs involved. Funding amounts are regularly reviewed to ensure that the grant levels are appropriate.

The purpose of the Bill is to ensure that, where a school has failed, there will be swift and decisive action to bring about improvements. We anticipate that this equates to up to 1,000 inadequate schools converting to academy status over the course of this Parliament. The exact number will vary depending on Ofsted judgments, but it is important to emphasise that this number represents a continuation of the trend we have seen over the past five years. When the previous Government came to power in 2010, there were 203 sponsored academies and now there are more than 1,500. Including converter academies, there are now more than 5,000 open academies overall.

I turn to the assertion made by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the Prime Minister’s vision was that every school would become an academy during this Parliament. In fact, he did not say that he expected that to happen: he said that his vision was for every school to become an academy, but he did not put a timescale on it. As far as coasting schools are concerned, as we have already discussed, that is not a default option.

Alongside failing schools, the Bill also proposes that schools that have been notified that they meet a new coasting definition should become eligible for intervention. When we discussed coasting schools earlier in Committee, I went to some lengths to stress that regional schools commissioners will exercise discretion to decide whether and how to act in coasting schools, and that not all coasting schools will become academies. As noble Lords will be aware, we are currently consulting on our proposed coasting definition and no school will be identified as coasting until after the final 2016 performance data have been published. It is therefore impossible to predict, before the definition has been finalised and the tests have been set, exactly how many schools we expect to be labelled as coasting. We expect, however, to identify hundreds of schools which can be challenged and supported to improve.

In light of the assurances that I have given about the existing costs of conversion and the number of schools we anticipate will become sponsored academies, I hope that the House will agree that a report on the future costs of conversion is not necessary and I urge the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.