Education Bill

My Lords, on the status of the teaching profession, I agree with everything that has been said. The issue that we are debating today is whether professionalism can be captured only in some national regulatory body or whether it can be found in other parts of the wood. I was very struck at Second Reading when the noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke of the success of Teach First as being great achievement of the previous Government. He could have spoken about the work of National Leaders of Education or Local Leaders of Education, or the work of the National College, which are all very good examples of professionals working to raise standards and help other professionals. He could have mentioned the growing numbers of academies taking on responsibility for helping other schools in chains or clusters. Those all seem to be aspects of a profession taking responsibility for itself. I may be wrong because I was not around at the time, but I am not sure how prominent the role of the GTCE was in taking forward Teach First, National Leaders or partnership working between schools. Having a national body of that sort does not deliver professionalism, raise standards or deal with important issues about continuous professional development. The Government believe that we need a regulatory system that is credible, effective and provides value for money—I think that there is acceptance for that today. I do not take any particular pleasure in the ending of the GTCE. I know that it was started with high hopes and that there were many who had wanted it, as we have already heard, from 19th century. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, both today and at Second Reading, spoke eloquently of the practical problems that it faced at its birth—I think that the phrase he used at Second Reading to describe his appointment was ““hospital pass””. However, what is clear—I do not want to labour this too much—is its record. Since the GTCE was formed in 2000, nearly two-thirds of local authorities have never referred a case of incompetence to it, despite employers having a statutory duty to do so. Since 2001, the GTCE has concluded only 82 competence hearings and struck off 15 teachers for incompetence. The majority of our teachers, we know, are highly competent professionals, and we would not question that, but it seems unlikely that in the whole 10 years there have been only 15 incompetent teachers. One fact that struck me as evidence of the attitude of teachers towards the GTCE was the point raised by my noble friend Lord Lingfield; that is, of the modest £36.50 annual registration fee, the taxpayer has to subsidise £33. That does not seem to be a very powerful sign of a profession that feels strongly about the role that the GTCE performs. The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made reference the views of the NASUWT. I recognise that its views can change over time, and they clearly did, because the general secretary of the NASUWT has said: "““I have frequently said that if the GTCE was abolished tomorrow few would notice and even less would care. I have absolutely no doubt that the Secretary of State’s decision will be warmly welcomed by teachers across the country””." The key question is that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam; namely, what should replace the GTCE if one accepts that it has not delivered in the way that he and others had hoped at its beginning? Perhaps I may set out what we are proposing. It is, in essence, the following. A smaller, more cost-effective body, the teaching agency, would deal only with matters of misconduct. Hearings would be heard by a panel made up of representatives of the profession and independent lay people, with a right of appeal, as now, to the High Court. Issues of incompetence would be dealt with separately. I have always thought that that the GTC’s current sanction for incompetence was a surprisingly nuclear option. Rather than a slow, cumbersome process that led painfully to a national process and ultimately—for 15 teachers—to barring from the profession, we think it would be better to have a much more flexible, local system whereby issues are resolved more quickly. We can all think of people who have not made a go of it with one employer, but who flourished somewhere else. We are therefore keen to move to a system with all the same protections in employment legislation whereby employers can exercise judgment, address problems more swiftly, and help teachers to improve. We have been carrying out a review of the professional standards for teachers, which will give employers clearer national benchmarks for performance and conduct. We are currently consulting on simplified arrangements for performance management and tackling poor capability. That will streamline the system and remove the current duplication that employers have found is a barrier to tackling performance issues. We will also strengthen the training and support available to school leaders, so that head teachers and aspiring heads are better prepared for their management role through a revised national professional qualification for headship. We think that these measures will leave the powers to deal with teacher incompetence in a more appropriate place and help head teachers to exercise those powers more effectively than the current regulatory system does. So far as conduct is concerned, none of this is to say that we think there is no role for a national regulator. On the contrary, we are clear that where teachers are guilty of serious misconduct, they should be referred to the national regulator for potential barring from the profession. That mechanism is cumbersome for head teachers and the regulator, because every case where a teacher is sacked for misconduct must be referred, even though the vast majority of these cases do not warrant barring. The new arrangements will be more effective by giving employers discretion, while still ensuring that the most serious cases are referred. Where cases are referred to the regulator, the Bill gives the Secretary of State a new power to make interim prohibition orders. This power was always intended for use in the very rare cases where it is in the public interest to bar an individual from teaching while an investigation is underway. Amendments 64AA, 65A 65B and 65C have been tabled by the Government in response to your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations that the safeguard for this power be put in the Bill. Noble Lords have asked for reassurance that the element of discretion that we are introducing will not lead to a weaker and less consistent system. It is of course important that the new system protects pupils and maintains confidence in the teaching profession. Let me say straight away that the proposals make no change to the duty on all schools to refer any cases of serious misconduct relating to children to the Independent Safeguarding Authority. I should also draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that the Bill provides for referrals to the Secretary of State from members of the public. Where a parent or other member of a community disagrees with the judgment of a head teacher who has not referred a teacher dismissed for serious misconduct, they may make the referral themselves. This provides a further safeguard that teachers in the most serious cases will not in some way slip through the net. I turn to the important issue of the Register of Teachers, which a number of noble Lords raised, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, my noble friend Lady Jolly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. The Government said in another place that we would consider the arguments in favour of making available data about teacher qualifications. We have listened to what the head teachers’ unions have said—that point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I have also listened to the case eloquently made today by noble Lords, particularly by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. It is right to say that the teaching agency will maintain a database of teachers who have attained qualified teacher status and who have passed their induction period. That seems to be an eminently sensible point and we will take it on board. That database will be available online to employers from April 2012. Some amendments concerning surveys and statistics—CPD and so on—were spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The Government will continue to commission research and to support the effective management, assessment, planning and development of the teaching profession. We are in the process of considering what the data and research needs of the new teaching agency and the department will be. The CPD part of the GTCs’ work is currently shared with the TDA, and in future work on CPD will form part of the remit of the new teaching agency. However, as I have already said, over time we would tend to see more and more of that work being delivered by schools. With regard to some of the more technical issues, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, raised the question of information-sharing between the GTCs in the devolved Administrations. Officials in the department recently met their counterparts and the GTCs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to discuss this issue. We have an agreed approach to sharing information between the four nations and will continue to meet regularly to discuss that. On cash reserves, I agree with the noble Baroness that, if money was originally paid to the GTCE for the benefit of teachers and some of that money is still available, it should continue to be used for a similar purpose. If there were any cash reserves, we would use them for the benefit of teachers and the teaching profession—for example, to contribute to the continuing administration of the regulatory function, which a large proportion of the GTCE’s fees was spent on. I recognise that my answer is disappointing to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I never like to disappoint the noble Lord, for whom I have great respect. I hope that what I have been able to say about the register will provide some reassurance to noble Lords who I know were concerned and that, taken together, my response will enable the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to withdraw his amendment.