Education and Inspections Bill

I have tabled Amendments Nos. 35 and 42 in this group, which I shall discuss together. The first concerns the incompatibility issue, to which reference has been made already. The proposal is that if, after two years, it is clear that the relationship is not working, the governing body should be able, if the local authority will not agree to a change, to make application to an adjudicator for a decision on a change. That would not be saying that a person would be unsuitable to be a school improvement partner, but that he would not fit in those circumstances. If this is going to work, the two people must be partners and critical friends. I have to admit that people whom I have dealt with in my career and whom I have admired greatly would not be the kind of friends who would get on with me. Imagine the reaction of some right honourable gentlemen who have been Secretaries of State if some other right honourable gentleman had walked through the door and said, ““I have come to help you for 19 days””. Some relationships just do not work, although they may involve admirable people. So, when the relationship is not working, it is necessary to have the provision proposed by my amendment. Amendment No. 33, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, refers to that point—as did the right reverend Prelate. We are talking about some 20,000 appointments. If you get 99 per cent right, you would still have 200 disasters—and 99 per cent would be a high score. So there must be a way out of a relationship when the governing body says, in all conscience, after two years, ““Look, this isn’t working””. Perhaps I may comment en passant on the money side—the £2,000 for the 19 days. It works out at very much the same rate of pay as that of a dinner lady at £6.50 an hour. It seems a trifle light and I suspect that a lot of money will have to come from another pocket—not £20 million, but something like £60 million—to pay for this. So I hope that the Government will be responsive to that practical suggestion. I have seen excellent people in both industry and commerce. People at the head are often strong-minded and opinionated, and they do their magic in very different ways. If you put two wrong kinds of magic together, you get hell. My second amendment is practical and echoes what the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, said about time. Some schools do not need much help, while some need a lot of help, although they may not realise it. The local authority should have power, after consultation with the governing body, to say, ““In your case, there should be X amount of time, and in the other case, there should be much more than X””. There should not be a standard ration. Some schools desperately need the help of a wise partner, while other schools need very little, and we should say, ““Thanks very much for all you are doing and we will leave you to get on with it””. So I hope that the local authority will have the power in some cases to insist on more time, while in others to say that so-and-so time is enough.