Education and Inspections Bill

I stand between your Lordships and dinner, which is a slightly perilous position to be in. I have to overcome my temptation to be very brief, because the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, raised some important philosophical issues that require me to reply to them. I cannot let them pass, not least because my noble friend Lord Judd also raised the same issues in some ways and asked whether we were sufficiently committed to the principles of inclusion and investment in our most challenging communities. We are, and I should say a few words about that at the outset. My best way of replying to the noble Baroness is to say that I believe that she has two misconceptions about the Bill, which I shall describe, if I may. The first is understandable; it has been quite common in the debate, and was reflected in the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. It confuses the legal category of core community school, which is simply a school with a certain set of governance arrangements about the precise composition of its governing body, about who does and does not own the assets, and about how admissions are and are not administered, with the concept of a school that plays a full part in its community and is absolutely inclusive and community-minded in the way in which it approaches its mission. I entirely accept that when secondary moderns and grammar schools were a normal part of the system it was argued—indeed, the noble Baroness sought as Secretary of State to promote policies to change this as we moved towards comprehensive schools—that whole categories of schools were not community-minded because their whole philosophy in interacting with their community and admitting pupils did not seek to embrace the community which they served, although I accept that the community which schools serve is to some extent a fluid definition. As the noble Lord, Lord Skidelsky, says, we do not have narrowly defined communities. However, and I cannot make this point sufficiently strongly, all the categories of schools in the Bill are absolutely community-minded in their mission. All the incentives on them are to be so. There is no distinction in that respect between schools that are called community schools and those that are called foundation schools, academies or trust schools. They all have to operate within the same framework of admissions and local duties, which they may perform better or worse in each case. The noble Baroness said that, and I fully accept that, but there is no particular reason why a school called a community school will simply, by virtue of its governance, be more likely to be better or worse in those respects than another school. All these schools have duties to promote community cohesion, and there is no inherent reason why one should perform better at that than the other. All of them have a duty to do so. The question is: which form of governance in the particular context of the school that we are talking about is most likely to produce a good school and do more to promote cohesion and the engagement of its community than any other? I took my noble friend Lord Smith, who as leader of a local authority has more experience of this than other noble Lord, to be saying that you sometimes have to be prepared to take really quite drastic action in the governance and leadership of a school. Such action might include a change in the school’s legal category if you want to relaunch it in a way that will bring a completely new infusion of governing energy. Indeed, my belief is often that changing the category to one that gives much more of a sense of ownership of objectives on the part of the governors, which you are more likely to get in categories other than community schools, may be worth while. But that does not mean that any of these categories of school are less community-minded than others, or that they have any fewer of the duties towards special educational needs and disadvantaged pupils, to whom the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, referred and who are so dear to the heart of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. I hope that I can establish that as a first point and invite the noble Baroness to reflect on it. The second point made by the noble Baroness, which I strongly refute, is the notion that the Bill somehow creates an unlevel playing field in the unfair distribution of resources between schools. I absolutely refute that notion. On revenue funding for schools, all schools, whether academies, voluntary-aided schools, community schools or trust schools, must be subject to the same fair funding arrangements that apply to other schools. Local authorities determine what their fair funding arrangements should be. They have to produce a formula that must respond to essential requirements that are laid down by central government, but those requirements give a weighting to such things as deprivation factors and ethnicity. Beyond that, the local authorities determine the fair funding formula. That formula then applies equally to all categories of school. In so far as central government intervene over and above that on the revenue support side, they do so to help to tackle disadvantage through programmes such as Excellence in Cities and the London Challenge, which cross my desk every day—allocations that we make that go overwhelmingly to schools in deprived areas that face challenging circumstances, often to support the kind of turnaround strategies to which my noble friend Lord Smith referred. The overwhelming majority of those schools are community schools, because that is where the largest category of schools is. On the capital side, however, the noble Baroness is right that certain priorities are set in the allocation of capital funding. Academies have been given priority in capital funding, not in revenue funding, because overwhelmingly they have been subject to failure, often acute failure, in the most deprived communities in the country. We think that it is right as a matter of policy for those schools to be able to get access at the front of the queue. They are almost overwhelmingly community schools—they become academies to give them a governance structure that is more likely to raise standards—and get that access to capital so that they can get the buildings that we want all schools to have in due course. Even in that respect, the overwhelming bulk of our capital programme in the next 10 years will go to a programme called ““Building schools for the future””. Our commitment to the renovation of the school system, particularly in deprived areas—my noble friend Lord Judd can preach this to the students at the London School of Economics—is without precedent in the history of Labour Governments. We are now spending £5 billion a year on capital renewal in our schools, compared with the £700 million we were spending as a country in 1997, and that figure will rise significantly further in the next few years. The criteria for allocation in the ““Building schools for the future”” programme, which is where the overwhelming bulk of the funding is going, are focused first on areas of greatest need, such as those in my noble friend’s authority. Large numbers of very deprived areas are getting the allocation. The programme is in those areas prioritising the more deprived schools, the majority of which are community schools by legal category. I therefore completely refute the notion that there is an unlevel playing field in the allocation of public resources either in revenue funding or in capital funding. In capital funding, discretionary decisions have been taken, but all those decisions have been taken in favour of schools in the most deprived areas that face the greatest challenge so that they can become better community schools in the true meaning of community schools, which are schools that serve their community well and provide a high standard of education. I hope I have given the noble Baroness some things to reflect on and which go the heart of this debate in its widest sense. We do not believe that the specific elements in the amendments are necessary, because we believe that they are embedded in the duties in Clause 1 and in the legislation in any event. The key aims underpinning the Bill are to increase equality of opportunity and access to high standards of education for all. Clause 1 accordingly places explicit new duties on local authorities to ensure fair access to educational opportunity and to promote the fulfilment of every child’s potential in addition to the existing duty to promote high standards. We want to ensure that every school provides an excellent education and that every child achieves their full potential, and nothing we can do will help schools better to promote social and community cohesion in their work than by succeeding in eliminating education inequalities based on class and background. We believe that we achieve that purpose in the Bill. Elements of discrimination, such as disability, race relations and the treatment of different ethnic groups, which might threaten cohesion, have not come up in the debate, although I understand the argument that we need to go beyond them. Schools, like other public institutions, are covered by statutory duties in that respect. They are also covered by the new disability legislation, which includes a requirement on all schools, whatever their category, to produce disability equality plans—a new legal requirement that will bite from this December. They are of course also subject to the Race Relations Act 1976 to eliminateunlawful discrimination and to promote equality of opportunity and good relations between persons of different ethnic groups. On the competition requirements in respect of completely new schools, we could not be more categoric. The regulations and statutory instruments that we have laid on the operation of school competitions to replace failing schools, which have closed in the sort of circumstances referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, state that those putting forward proposals for new schools, whatever the legal category of school, must provide: "““(a) a description of what the proposals are intended to deliver in terms of community cohesion;""(b) the objectives which the promoters intend to set to further the aims of inclusiveness and partnership working””." In the draft statutory guidance for decision makers on competitions for new schools—also made available to Members of the Committee—Section 7 on community cohesion, inclusiveness and partnerships, sets out factors which should be taken into account, including, first, "““the extent to which, and how satisfactorily in the circumstances of the community, the proposals [for new schools] address the need to promote community cohesion””;" secondly, "““the extent to which the proposals take account of the needs of families and the wider community””," and, in particular, satisfy the need for extended services identified in the authority’s notice inviting proposals; and, thirdly, "““the extent to which the proposals contribute to delivery of the Every Child Matters agenda, including the health, safety, enjoyment and achievement of children””." That is in the guidance that we have put out. I do not believe that it could be more explicit in meeting the particular concerns raised by the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Dearing. On the basis that I may have helped to dispel some misapprehensions about the Bill and made clear that the commitments to community cohesion are there, I hope that it will not be necessary to pursue the amendments.