Education and Inspections Bill

My Lords, this has been a long and interesting debate and, at times, a very passionate one. We have covered a wide range of topics, but the Bill itself covers a wide range of topics. In general there has been a welcome for the Bill, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, noted, the House is, in some senses, split down the middle, with perhaps more supporters of the Bill on the Opposition Benches than on the Government’s own Benches. We Liberal Democrats remain the only party which is generally opposed to the Bill, but even we welcome some parts of it, which I am sure the Minister will be pleased about. My noble friend Lady Walmsley mentioned that we are pleased to see the issues dealing with the youth matters agenda; we welcome the clarification given to the role of local authorities; we welcome the strengthened code of admissions and the recognition and priority given to looked-after children; and we are pleased, as the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, has just mentioned, to see the development of the Tomlinson agenda incorporated into law. Nevertheless, parts of the Bill are very perplexing. My noble friend Lady Williams and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, noted that, for the more contentious proposals, the Government do not need this legislation. They already have the required powers under the Education Acts 2002 and 2005; they need very few new powers if they wish to push through trust schools. The Bill extends the accelerated procedures for establishing foundation schools to primary and special schools, but that is the only aspect in relation to trust schools that is remarkably new. My noble friend Lady Williams described these proposals as crossing the Rubicon of marketisation. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, talked of a new generation of independent state schools, set up to be run by charitable trusts. It is significant that this new generation of independent state schools will shift power from the coalition of local authorities, teachers and parents, which has effectively run education and schools throughout the post-war period, to outside voluntary bodies. We on these Benches find difficulty in accepting this change, not just because we are conservative, with a small ““c””, but because, to pick up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, we believe that education is a system and that schools serve their local community and work together to provide for the needs of that community. The great danger with the trust model is that it fragments what should be brought together. The noble Lord, Lord Kinnock, talked about the fragmentation caused by these proposals; they will set school against school and parent against parent. That is not satisfactory, because schools should be a central feature within their community. Collaboration comes naturally to them. Nursery schools should work with primary schools, primary schools with secondary schools and secondary schools with further education colleges. That is the natural system of education that exists within a community. We fear that trust schools will break up that system. The noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, made the point that diversity is important because it means competition, and competition stimulates innovation. There is plenty of competition within the state school system, as there has been throughout the post-war period. There are good schools and bad schools. One of the advantages of partnership and collaboration—in fact, of school improvement partners—is that best practice can be carried from one school to another. When local authorities were independent of each other and autonomous, the North Riding of Yorkshire, for example, was seen as one of the leading local authorities, which had all sorts of new and innovative ideas. Sadly, we have lost a little of that innovation. Nevertheless, I believe that the education system is vibrant and full of innovation. I remember arguing with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, that we do not need to legislate to innovate. So our first objection to the Bill is that it will break up communities. Our second objection is that we do not think that there is any evidence to support the contention that trust schools perform better. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, if you look for the strong performing schools, they are the schools with good leadership. Where that coalition of interests that I mentioned—the local authorities, teachers and parents—see eye to eye and work together, the school works well. We all know of schools that work well in deprived areas. It is usually where that coalition of interests comes together. What evidence there is shows that, where schools are their own admissions authorities, as has been the case, there is a tendency for some schools—many of which opted out earlier to become grant-maintained and then foundation schools—to serve disproportionately middle-class communities and middle-class children. Inevitably, middle-class parents, given the choice, opt for such schools. It has led to the phenomenon of very popular schools side-by-side with sink schools—with one serving the middle-class community and the other the less advantaged community. We welcome the strengthened code of admissions, and we would go even further and call for an anonymised set of admissions and increased powers for local authorities to ensure that special educational needs and looked-after children are given first choice within the admissions procedures. However, if truth be known, we are still very uncertain how far it will really be possible to run a parental choice system side-by-side with a managed admissions system. Thirdly, we are very unhappy about the governance of trust schools. Why should a group of outsiders—a business, consultancy or university—be able to form a charity and effectively take over a school? What public accountability is there? Who runs the school and owns the buildings?—the board of governors. Who appoints the board of governors?—the foundation. Who is the foundation? Dig down and you may well find that behind it are shadowy figures such as Edison, the US company specialising in consultancy to schools. The schools budget is £25 billion a year. If all schools are to become trusts or academies, who, except the Secretary of State, is accountable for the spending of that money? Fourthly, we are worried about the lack of a parent’s voice. It is ironic that for a Bill that preaches the importance of taking parental views into account, it does not trust parents to hold a ballot about whether the school should change its structure. The model is one that proposes to reduce the number of elected parent governors on the board of governors from one third to only one elected member, with other parents being appointed; not elected. There will be a parent council, but the parent council has no teeth and is purely advisory. It is a PTA, and why do we need a parent council if we have a thriving PTA? Fundamentally, those are the reasons why we are unhappy with the core proposals in the Bill, but I would like to move on to one or two other issues which worry us and which we would like to see developed in our further discussions in Committee and at subsequent stages. The first relates to local authority powers. Although we welcome the clarification of the local authority role, which ironically is in many cases strengthened over its present role, there is nevertheless one aspect which has not been mentioned in the debate but which worries us—Part 4 ““Schools causing concern””. We are greatly concerned that the legislation calls for local authorities to place even more demands on schools causing concern. The guidance that was published by the Government during the passage of the Bill through the other place states that schools should be given only 15 days to draw up an action plan and demonstrate improvements. Otherwise, the local authority should consider sacking the head and the school leadership. In some cases that is already happening. Schools, particularly those in challenging circumstances, find it difficult to recruit heads. The threat of instant dismissal if the school does not improve immediately will discourage people from applying for headships. The change of head does not necessarily lead to improvement if other factors dominate. The principal focus must be on support for schools facing difficulty. Turning around underperforming schools in a way that endures takes time. It cannot be done in 15 days. It is doubtful whether it can be done within one year. It is, however, done quite frequently by talented heads, and we have many of them in this country. It requires a team of leaders supported at every step along the way, not the local authority peremptorily coming in and sacking the head. We are also somewhat concerned about the entitlements—the vocational diplomas, as they are called. We welcome the general implementation of the Tomlinson agenda here. It is important to recognise, though, that alongside the core subjects of English, maths and science, which students at key stage 4 will be studying, and what are termed the ““foundation”” subjects of information technology, physical education and citizenship, there are these entitlement areas. At that point the 14 year-old has to opt either to study the academic subjects and do GCSEs in those, or to go the diploma route. Our understanding of the Tomlinson report was that at this stage there should be a chance to mix and match; that the academic pupil should be able to study a vocational subject and put the two together. My reading of the Bill—perhaps the Minister will clarify this—is that this will not be possible. Once students embark on the diploma route they are tied into it for two years. That may lead to a level 3 qualification in the same vocational area, but mixing and matching will not be as easy as was envisaged within the Tomlinson proposals. This again opens up our sadness that the broader Tomlinson proposals for an overarching diploma, which would embrace achievements within GCSE and vocational areas but also the areas of sport and citizenship, have not been taken up by the Government. The diploma would be a school-leaving diploma, identifying all that a pupil had achieved at the school, but that has not been developed as standard policy within our secondary system. Tomlinson hoped that the diploma would be a move towards an English baccalaureate, and there are ways in which such a system could easily be converted into that. I urge the Government to think along those routes. I shall finish by drawing attention to the proposals for the enlargement of Ofsted. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, and the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, also mentioned this point. Responsibilities with regard to children are taken from CSCI, inspection responsibilities have been transferred to it from CAFCASS, such as the inspection of secure training establishments, and, on top of that, there is the incorporation of the powers of the Adult Learning Inspectorate. What a mammoth body this creates. Ofsted already has responsibilities throughout the childcare sector. Is big really better here? There are many questions to be asked, and I look forward to our discussions on that issue. I should like to speak briefly about our disappointment on the discipline front. It is constantly the more disciplinarian parts of the Steer report that are incorporated in the Bill. Those who have read the report may remember that it is very positive and sensible. The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, mentioned that many of those who are excluded have special educational needs, particularly behavioural and emotional problems. In chapter 8 the report suggests support and guidance for pupils and parents and refers to learning support units within the schools and parent support workers. One of the recommendations was that as many schools as possible should establish internal learning support units as part of the positive behaviour management policies, together with the establishment in all schools by September 2007 of pupil-parent support workers or other staffing structures to provide pupils and parents with support to meet the objectives of the Every Child Matters agenda. I would love to see the Government implementing this more positive part of the Steer agenda instead of just having the more negative parts. As I say, it is a long and complex Bill. There is much that we will have to look at. As noble Lords know, the contentious parts of the Bill had much discussion in the other place. The less contentious parts of the Bill—the detailed parts—received practically no scrutiny at all. There is a mighty job for your Lordships’ House to do.