Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, the main thrust of the clauses is to provide for the establishment of children's trust boards on a statutory footing and give them the responsibility of providing a children and young people's plan. I have listened very carefully to the amendments proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and I look forward to the Minister's response. We, too, think that it is important to address the issue of who will be the relevant partners involved in a children's trust board. I would be very interested to hear what the Minister thought about involving the local housing authority. I would also be interested to hear her views on involving local GPs and Sure Start centres on the boards. It is a point of fundamental importance that merely making the boards statutory will not solve any underlying problems. We also need to address the issue of who sits on the boards and who the significant, useful and relevant partners should be. We have therefore tabled Amendments 276AA and 276C. A demand for the independence of academies has been constant from these Benches so, again, the amendments are designed to ensure the autonomy and independence of the academies. We believe that it is essential that academies should have the right to be represented on children's trust boards. It may be mutually useful for them to be represented there. Nevertheless, we believe that academies are independent organisations and should not have a duty of co-operation with the boards. The Independent Academies Association has expressed concern about the duty of having to be a relevant partner, when surely it would be more productive to turn that duty into a right, which would allow them, to cite the White Paper, to be, ""able to influence the strategic direction, commissioning and delivery of services for children"." As a right, academies would have their independence preserved, but would also have the capacity to be relevant and useful partners. I await the Minister's response with interest.