Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

During the Bill's time in the other place, a number of amendments were tabled, as the Minister has explained, to the clauses relating to the YPLA, but none of them has answered our fundamental concern about its suitability to carry out academy arrangements—that is, for the YPLA to be used as the oversight body for academies. This is very important. The Government have amended clause 75 to make it clear that the academy functions being transferred to the YPLA do not include the body's ability to take the Secretary of State's place in signing a funding agreement with an academy or its ability to make or confirm subordinate legislation. That clarification is certainly welcome, but it does not address the central issue of the YPLA's suitability for this role; nor does it deal substantively with the very serious concerns of academy providers. There is now a growing consensus that the Secretary of State does not understand or believe in the importance of academy autonomy. He professes to support academies when it is politically convenient to do so, but the policy detail belies those expressions of support. When he was an adviser at the Treasury, he used his influence to undermine reforms in the public services that promoted autonomy or choice, both in health and education. Since his appointment as Secretary of State, a clear trend in policy has become apparent. He has required more involvement by local authorities in the sponsorship, establishment and operation of academies. He has reduced their freedoms over the curriculum; their autonomy has been steadily eroded. It is this very autonomy that is the crucial decisive principle behind the success of these schools and it is the reason why they are improving faster than other types of school, giving pupils from some of this country's most deprived areas an outstanding and rigorous education. This year, for example, 85 per cent. of the pupils at Mossbourne academy in Hackney—one of the most deprived parts of London, with half its pupils qualifying for free school meals and with 40 per cent. having English as a second language—gained five or more GSCEs at grades A* to C, including English and maths. Last week, Ofsted reported that the Harris city academy at Crystal Palace in south London was the first to receive a perfect Ofsted report under the new reporting regime. Before the school was taken over by Lord Harris in 1991, it managed to get just 10 per cent. of its pupils achieving five or more GCSEs at grades A* to C. As Lord Harris said:"““When we took over this school no one wanted to come here. Yet in our first five years, we increased the number of GCSE pupils getting A to C grades from 10 per cent. to 54 per cent. Since then, we've gone on improving and that figure is now 99 per cent.””" The school receives 2,000 applications for 180 places each year. That is what academies can achieve, yet it is an approach that appears not to have gained the genuine support of this current Administration. Academies do not need to wait for authorisation before attempting an innovation. They are free to focus on their core work—the education of pupils—without being distracted by a welter of Government advice and guidance. They place teachers firmly in control of the school, and the freedoms, the ethos of transformation and the high aspirations they create are the reasons for academies' success. That is why it is so important that those freedoms are not undermined. The frustration and anxiety of academy providers over the Government's direction of travel was accurately summarised in a letter to the then Minister on 23 February from Mike Butler, chairman of the Independent Academies Association. He wrote:"““It appears that with every consultation, each missive and even new legislation from the DSCF there comes further erosion of the independent status of academies.””"