Academies Bill [HL]

I always try to be as helpful to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, as I can. I certainly echo what she and my noble friend said about the importance of support staff and the contribution that they make. On this occasion, I fear that I shall not be able to be as supportive as she perhaps would like and as my noble friend might like in substantive terms. Our view is that the freedom over staff pay and conditions, which has been extended to academies in relation to teaching staff, is an important freedom and it is one of the reasons why schools have wanted academy status. Our view is that if it is good enough for teachers, it is good enough for support staff. I suspect, although I do not know because it was before my time, that at the beginning, when academies were given greater discretion over pay, there may well have been concerns that it would lead to staff at academy schools in some way being done down because they were not part of national agreements. Over time, those fears have not been realised. There is no reason to believe why the same should not happen as regards school support staff. Academies could use their greater freedom to treat them well and perhaps to treat them better. We believe that those freedoms have been vital to academies’ success. They allow them to make changes to the school, to drive up standards and to employ the best staff. It is one of the core freedoms. On this occasion, I certainly feel that academies ought to be able to have those freedoms in relation to school support staff.