Education and Inspections Bill

Lying behind Amendment No. 184 is the concern that we in the Joint Committee on Human Rights registered about this part of the Bill. The purpose of the amendment is to make all the relevant statutory protections for pupils at maintained schools available to pupils at academies and city technology colleges. The committee was deeply concerned about whether there would be the same protection for pupils at city technology colleges and academies. We wrote to the Minister and, as I have said before, received a very full, considerate and detailed reply from him, which we very much appreciated. In that reply, the Government’s position seems to remain that academies and CTCs should not be defined as maintained schools. The Government’s position is that they are regulated not through statutory requirements but rather through funding agreements with the Secretary of State. As we understand it, the Government suggest that it is incorrect to put forward the view that the protections offered to the pupils are inferior. On exclusion, for example, the Government argue that the model academy funding agreement requires the academy to have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance on exclusions as if the academy were a maintained school and requires that appeals panels must be impartial and constituted in accordance with that guidance. As we understand it, too, the Government argue that the same principles apply to SEN and admissions, and they hold to the same argument that, although the arrangements may be different in detail, in effect the pupils are at no disadvantage. Most academies have adopted the model academy funding agreement without any amendment. The committee welcomed the Minister’s response in so far as it implicitly accepted, in principle, that protections enjoyed by pupils at academies and CTCs in relation to exclusions, admissions and SEN should be no less than those enjoyed by pupils at maintained schools. We also recognised from the Minister’s reply that the Government accept the importance of the rights that are at stake—for example, the right to a fair hearing before being permanently excluded from school, and the importance of not treating pupils at academies and CTCs less favourably than pupils at other state schools in respect of their enjoyment of rights such as the right to a fair hearing. Now we come to the rub. Having gone so far in welcoming the Minister’s reply, we remained unconvinced by it, which is what led me and my colleagues to table Amendment No. 184. We are not persuaded that regulating academies and CTCs through their funding agreements with the Secretary of State is conducive to ensuring that equivalent protections are enjoyed by the pupils at those institutions. I want very briefly to give the three examples that we gave in our report, which I commend and which I am sure all noble Lords have read in great detail. Just to indicate how hard we work in that committee, I should say that it is the 21st report of the current Session. First, the model funding agreement suggests having a term in the agreement providing that, in discharging their duties, the head and governors will have regard to the Secretary of State’s guidance on exclusions, as if academies are maintained schools. As the Government appear to have accepted in the context of the admissions code, a duty to have regard to guidance is very much weaker than a positive requirement to act in accordance with guidance. It seems to us that there is a problem. It is a formulation that presupposes that departures from guidance may, in the end, be justifiable. Secondly, even where actual funding agreements contain the wording recommended in the model agreement, the agreement itself might contain certain provisions that are inferior to the protections available at maintained schools. The funding agreement between the Secretary of State and Haberdashers’ Aske’s Knights Academy, for example, specifically provides for a final right of appeal to the governors against permanent exclusion, but the governors are clearly incapable of being an independent and impartial tribunal. Thirdly, whereas a maintained school is required by statute to admit a child with a statement of special educational needs, there is no equivalent requirement on academies to do the same. It is because of those points that we are anxious that the Minister should look at this again to see whether the Government can move further to give substance to their general claim that pupils at such institutions are at no disadvantage. Certainly, we in the Joint Committee on Human Rights are not convinced on that point.