Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

Performance management, ultimately, will be done by Ofsted; it will draw problems to the attention of local authorities, Ministers or the sponsors. Indeed, some academies welcome Ofsted and conduct Ofsted-type inspections of themselves to see how they are performing, and how their improvement programmes and strategies are working. We have said that the YPLA will provide better value for money and that a dedicated agency would help to save nearly £1 million. The existing regional infrastructure will allow quicker, more focused support resulting from better knowledge of the local context and more regular contact. Academy funding functions fit in with the YPLA's main remit: the funding of education and training places for 16 to 19-year-olds. We are working and will continue to work with academies to make sure that they are supported in ways that work best for them. We have built in safeguards. The Secretary of State will remain legally responsible for all the academies' functions, including negotiating and signing the funding agreements, as I have said. The Secretary of State will be directly involved in key decisions, such as terminating a funding agreement or appointing new members to the governing body. Academies will have the same legal remedies available to them as now if they are unhappy with how they are treated. There will not be a loss of academy autonomy. The YPLA will not have the power to impose new duties on academies and it will be required to exercise its academy functions in accordance with arrangements and guidance set out by the Secretary of State's key principles. I do not see that the amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton is appropriate or necessary. We have said that the YPLA board should represent all the responsibilities that the YPLA has, so we would expect significant—not ““majority””, as his amendment proposes—academy representation. Also on that body would be sixth-form colleges, local authorities and further education colleges. We have set up an academy reference group, and we regularly meet academies and academy hosts. We have a director of academies who will now work within the YPLA, so we are trying to address what the amendment is getting at: the need to ensure that the YPLA, important as its work will be, does not have an adverse impact on the autonomy of academies, does not slow down the real progress that academies are making in tackling educational underachievement and does what we want. In opposing the hon. Gentleman's amendment, but in supporting the Lords in their amendments, may I say that academies are and will remain a fundamental part of our educational reform programme? We believe that their autonomy within a collaborative framework is important, and that importance is shown, as he pointed out, by the excellent results being achieved in many of those academies in areas where that excellence simply did not exist before—all of us, whatever the type of school we wish to see introduced, want to see that. This evening's debate, as well as the one that has taken place alongside this Bill, will help all of us to bring about the educational transformation that we all wish to see. Lords amendment 72 agreed to. Lords amendments 73 to 117 agreed to, with Commons privileges waived in respect of Lords amendments 87, 91 and 105.