Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, I am delighted to respond to an extremely important debate. With the Committee’s forgiveness, I will take time to go through the points that have been raised. In some ways, I am speaking to the Committee, but I also speak to those outside the House who have made a great contribution to the education of children and young people in this country through their involvement in the academies movement. I strongly believe that this Government have made a hugely significant impact on school improvement in this country. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we have transformed the performance of our schools. Back in 1997—although I do not have the exact numbers in front of me—the number of schools that failed to achieve more than 30 per cent of pupils with five good GCSEs was measured in thousands, whereas now the number of schools qualifying for national challenge status is well down to the low hundreds. Academies have played an extremely important part through their innovation, strong leadership and fresh resources, as well as through the work that they do. I pay tribute to them, their leadership and their sponsors—and, of course, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, reminds us, to the teachers serving in them. I hope that I can give the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, some reassurance, too. She asked whether we could put right some of her concerns. I hope that, if I can make some of the tweaks that she mentioned, I can look forward to her support in taking forward the new shape of the clauses that would flow from those tweaks. I am delighted that there is a perception that middle-class children are attending academies, but I want to remind the Committee that academies have a higher proportion of children who are entitled to free school meals. They serve, as the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, explained so eloquently, some of the most deprived and challenged communities. We strongly support the work of the Harris academies, to which she referred. I repeat that there is nothing that we are doing that would inhibit the great contribution that academies have made and will make in the future. I believe that I can offer the reassurances that noble Lords are looking for. As we have heard, the provisions in this Bill are designed to help us to move forward towards our target of 400 strong, high-performing academies. We are committed to preserving all those innovations in academies and the autonomy that has made them so successful in delivering better outcomes for pupils. We do not believe that the proposals will undermine that success. I want to explain how they will, in fact, strengthen the academies programme and enhance the support that we are able to offer academies. These provisions are enabling. They allow the Secretary of State to make academy arrangements with the YPLA; they do not require him to do so. We know that some sponsors and principals have doubts about how the arrangements with the YPLA will work in practice, particularly, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, in connection with the commissioning of sixth-form places. I understand that we have to provide reassurance at this stage. I accept that this a new way of operating. However, we are strongly committed to consulting academies on the details to make sure that we get this right. Over the past few months, we have held a number of consultations and meetings with those concerned and will continue to do so. We have established a reference group of academy sponsors and principals—it has already met and is scheduled to meet again tomorrow—which will focus in particular on sixth-form commissioning and funding. We will also consult widely with sponsors, particularly those running a number of academies where their particular expertise has a lot to offer. We want to hear their specific concerns so that we can address them and clarify any uncertainties. I can commit to providing, by Report, an outline of what we plan to include in the Secretary of State’s policy guidance to the YPLA in relation to academy arrangements. That outline will also set the key principles that should govern the way in which the YPLA operates in relation to academies. I would expect those principles to include absolute respect for the autonomy of academies that noble Lords have spoken about. In the other place, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats said that the current way of working was unsustainable—we have also heard that today—and would not ultimately serve the long-term needs of academies. We have heard in detail about that. Sponsors also agree. Dan Moynihan, the chief executive of the multi-sponsor Harris Federation, said in the oral evidence sessions, as many noble Lords will have read: ""It makes sense for the Department to have an agency to take care of academies. Clearly the Department was never meant to be a local authority, so we are perfectly happy with that"." There is common ground among us that the department should not end up being the biggest education department in the country. Simply removing Clause 75, as in some ways we are debating now, would leave us in the current position, which academies and others both agree is not suitable. Ultimately, that would risk the quality of the education that pupils receive. The question, as the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, posed, is: what is the right agency? I understand the position of those who argue for a separate stand-alone agency to undertake academies’ functions, but that approach would be misguided at this stage. Such an agency would be relatively small, but it would still carry all the overheads of establishing a separate organisation. We estimate that having such a separate agency, rather than the YPLA, would add costs in the region of £900,000 per annum. The noble Baroness, Lady Verma, asked whether we had considered this and we have. I will set out what the YPLA can offer and how we can build on what we have already put in place to reassure academies. We intend that the YPLA will continue to provide the same sort of funding, challenge and support services to academies as the department does now. Peers were very generous about the contribution that DCSF staff have made to developing and working alongside academies. We have every intention of creating absolutely the right environment for the change so that those people can remain and will choose to move to the YPLA. As the programme grows, we see scope to enhance that service, with the benefits that critical mass will bring. That will be achieved through a regional network of YPLA offices which will allow much better awareness of the local context, particularly around the quality of local provision across the board, but also around local demographics and learner trends. We very much want to learn from the multi-academy sponsors about how they work with their academies in school improvement. There is much to learn there. We are very mindful of the need to ensure that academies are properly represented in the governance structure of the YPLA. The YPLA board will reflect the partners, sectors and young people it serves, including academies. As noble Lords know, this is set out in Schedule 3, which ensures that, in appointing a member, the Secretary of State or YPLA must have regard to the desirability of appointing a person who has relevant experience in any of the YPLA’s functions. In addition, and subject to the successful passage of the Bill and the approval of the Commissioner for Public Appointments, we expect Les Walton to become the chair of the YPLA. Les brings a wealth of experience to the role with his close links to the academies programme and extensive experience in education. I can confirm that we have established through the LSC a YPLA committee to advise the LSC and the DCSF on setting up the YPLA, and on any transition issues that the new arrangements require. This committee already has significant representation from academies in the form of David Wooton, principal of the Grace Academy in Solihull, and Pete Birkett of Barnfield College, sponsor of two academies in Luton. In addition, the YPLA will be recruiting and appointing a director of academies who will report direct to the chief executive. This person will have credibility with academies and the expertise to be able to champion them. I know that concerns have been raised about the extent of the YPLA’s involvement in new academies, and some of the amendments that we are debating seek further to clarify the position. Let me reassure noble Lords that under these arrangements, academies will continue to enter into, and be governed by, funding agreements with the Secretary of State; there is no intention for the YPLA to enter into funding agreements. Therefore, to close the loophole that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, talked about, we are prepared to bring forward on Report a government amendment which will prevent the YPLA entering into a funding agreement to create an academy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, says, we also know that there is nervousness about post-16 commissioning but, as I have said, the Secretary of State will continue to make decisions about new sixth forms in academies, having consulted the local authority. Nothing is changing here, compared to where we are now. We appreciate that sponsors and principals are concerned about potential disagreements between the academy and the local authority over additional places in an existing academy sixth form, as described by the noble Baroness, Lady Verma. We expect such disagreements to be unusual, since academies would be playing a full role in shaping local provision alongside other providers in local 14 to 19 partnerships. The YPLA will play a full role in helping to facilitate such agreements, but it will do so as the agent of the Secretary of State. We believe that academies and local authorities will agree the appropriate level of provision between them in the majority of cases, but even here the YPLA must ratify agreements as the decision maker. I am drawing to a close. The bottom line here is that, under the proposals in the Bill, the YPLA will be the body responsible for funding academies and will therefore make the final decision about the number of places to be funded. The YPLA will be the agent of the Secretary of State and act under his guidance. Please note that the Secretary of State’s continuing legal responsibility for academies would mean that any interested party could complain to the Secretary of State about the YPLA, and he would have to look into whether or not the YPLA had acted reasonably in the circumstances of the case and rectify any problems. We are prepared to consider, after further discussions with academy sponsors and principals, and the opposition parties, whether we could table on Report any further government amendments that would make these arrangements clear in the Bill, including those in relation to the complaints mechanism that I have just described. Turning briefly to the government amendment, given our concerns, last week we tabled Amendment 169. It clarifies that the YPLA will not have the power to take responsibility for making subordinate legislation in relation to academies. We do not intend that the academy functions carried out by the YPLA will include the making of regulations, as I am sure noble Lords would expect me to say, having heard my remarks so far. The amendment clarifies this by excluding academy functions from the definition in the Bill. In speaking to Amendment 169, I hope that noble Lords will feel able not to move Amendments 155B, 162 and 168. As I have said, we are prepared to consider tabling further government amendments on Report to provide further reassurance on what we believe to be the concerns underpinning the amendments that we are debating now. I look forward very much to further discussions. I have spoken for rather a while and am aware that there are a few points that I have not addressed. I am happy to follow those up in writing if necessary.