Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, it is a bit of a forlorn hope that I can capture the Chamber’s attention at this time of night for a group of people who have not been mentioned at any other point during today, although they were mentioned at an earlier stage by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. I am very much on the same wavelength as her. Among the groups that my amendment on consultation would cover are the teaching staff in general and teaching support staff in particular. This has been an area of expansion of employment in schools—in old jobs such as school secretaries and wider management roles, and in new jobs such as classroom assistants, paraprofessionals and other specialists. Because they are a relatively recent phenomenon, the terms and conditions under which such staff are employed are variable and are not on the same basis as other groups of staff within schools and local authorities. Local authorities of all political persuasions, the LGA and the unions got together over the past three years to establish the support staff negotiating body and establish a national framework for the terms and conditions of such staff. This has proved beneficial to the management of schools which previously had found difficulty in having to manage individuals under separate terms. In some cases, there were serious conflicts. This is not just a trade union point; it is a point about how smoothly schools can be managed and how we can avoid conflict in those schools. The problem of when academies are created under the Bill is that without consultation and the normal processes, public servants will be transferred into what will, in effect, be the private sector in terms of the employers they have to deal with. There would be an element of stability in that process if academies were to remain in the support staff framework. It is true that existing academies do not have to be in that framework, although they can opt to be, but it would be helpful to the management of schools which will face all sorts of more complex matters of self-management, once they become academies, if they were to remain or be assumed to remain within that structure. When the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, raised this at an earlier stage, she was told by the Minister that it was not deemed appropriate since the market would determine the rates—that would be the situation with teachers and what was good for teachers must be good for all other staff. Actually, it is the opposite situation. Academies will compete for teaching staff who are specialists or good teachers or teachers in subjects where teachers are scarce and thereby improve their conditions above the norm. In the area of support staff, what is likely to happen is that they will undermine what has previously been the rate in the continuing maintained schools in the local authority area, and will provide pay and conditions that are worse than they were prior to conversion to academy status. That will cause unnecessary conflicts between the management of the schools, the staff and in most cases their unions. This amendment would provide an element of stability. I hope that the Minister will consider the implications as we go forward with the Bill. I beg to move.