Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 66: Page 7, line 23, at end insert- ““(6A) The Secretary of State may by order suspend the operation of this section in relation to invitations by local education authorities of proposals for the establishment of an Academy during such period as may be appropriate for the evaluation of the success or otherwise of Academies in achieving high standards.”” The noble Baroness said: In moving the amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 88, which is grouped with it. The amendments seek to place a prudent and sensible brake on the irresistible march of the academies project and ensure that where one is being is considered the local authority must have regard to the impact on the other schools in the area and not just consult them. Any bright shiny new school is going to be attractive to parents andpupils but in the current climate of falling roles the impact on other schools will be even greater. The Government say that they want parents to have choice, but without the amendments they could end up taking choices away from parents and children through the closure of other schools that might become unsustainable. Amendment No. 66 asks for a proper evaluation of the existing academies before any more are established. Given that handing over £20 million and the control of the school to some unknown body that does not necessarily have any track record in running an educational establishment is a radical step, I would have thought that a proper evaluation was only a reasonable and prudent measure to take. The Education and Skills Select Committee in another place reported last year on academies after a two-year inquiry into secondary education. It questioned the average £7,000 per pupil extra cost of establishing an academy and described the current programme asan untested model. It recommended a halt to the programme pending proper evaluation given its lack of coherent strategy, inflated cost and the impact of academies on neighbouring schools. Many but not all of the academies take over failing schools and we on these Benches are not averse to directing extra resources towards helping the pupils in such schools to achieve their full educational potential: quite the reverse. We believe that we should spend more on them, as long as the money is carefully and wisely spent. But we question the wisdom of throwing quite so much money at a set of managers who have not yet proved themselves. Why do the Government think that being able to run a large retailer, manufacturer, service industry business, charity or Formula 1 motor racing competition qualifies a person to run a school? Of course it is accepted wisdom that the leadership in a school is an important factor in its success, but by leadership we usually mean the head and management team, not some person or organisation that promises £2 million funding to sponsor a school and then does not deliver it, as many of them have not. The Select Committee found that the link between schools with different kinds of governance and improving standards was not proven. We have to look at the intake. Academies showed mixed results and many were below the national average at key stages 3 and 4. Many academies take over low attaining schools but they do not all show the progress that we should be able to expect at such a high cost. The cost is not just financial; the loss of accountability to the local community and the impact on other schools should be added to the financial cost. The Times Education Supplement recently analysed the GCSE results of academies using the new measure of including English, maths and science in the benchmark of A to C grades. In 2005, only 16 per cent of academy pupils achieved that; an increase of only 3 per cent on predecessor schools. Two of the three longest opening academies had worse results on the new measure than the schools they replaced. When GNVQs were removed, the percentage fell by at least half in eight of the 14 academies studied. At Walsall Academy the achievement of five good A to C grades slumped from 67 per cent to 7 per cent when the Times Educational Supplement used that measure. That calls into question the use of GNVQs in skewing the apparent achievements of some schools. Research undertaken by York University quoted by the Select Committee suggests that academies are raising their standards by improving their intake rather than by doing better with the same pupils, which is what they are supposed to do. Even Ofsted has suggested that standards in some academies, such as Unity City Academy in Middlesbrough and West London academy are a cause for concern. The Government make two conflicting arguments: on the one hand they argue that academies need more time to improve having taken over failing schools; on the other hand they argue that academy results are so good that they need to push on to expansion without delay. They cannot have it both ways. Which of these is true? If academies need more time to improve, why is not the same amount of time to be given to or maintained schools that are failing? All in all, academies are an unproven model—and it would be reasonable for the Secretary of State to halt their expansion until the various factors that contribute to their success for failure are properly evaluated. When that evaluation is done, it should be done on accepted scientific principles of comparing like with like. It would be only fair to compare each academy’s performance with that of a similar school under normal local authority governance in a similar locality that had had the same amount of money thrown at it. Indeed, my Liberal Democrat colleagues in Liverpool have already volunteered some of their schools for such an experiment. They would welcome the extra money, and they are confident that given the same amount of resource they could do at least as well as any academy, and probably better. Will the Minister take up that challenge? In his response to Amendment No. 16 on the first day in Committee last week, the Minister said that the Government’s structure of academies was more likely to raise standards. What shred of evidence does he have to justify such a claim? There has been no study to justify any such statement. If there is no evidence, I call on him to accept Amendment No. 66 forthwith and to commission a fair study with a level playing field to see whether such evidence exists anywhere, except in the Prime Minister’s dreams. I beg to move.