No, democracy can be suspended where it is in the interests of the children. Rather than us proposing a democratic deficit, we are seeking to stop the abuse of the democratic process that takes place by vested interests. In addition to Downhills and Pimlico causing vast loss of educational opportunities, delays happened in the cases of The Warren, Camden Juniors, Twydall Primary, Roke, Bydales, Eton Porny, Manor Primary and many, many others.
The noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Storey, expressed their views about the inspection of academy chains. I agree that it is critical that multi-academy trusts are held to account for their performance. At his most recent appearance before the Education Select Committee, the Chief Inspector of Education, Sir Michael Wilshaw, was clear that the current arrangements, whereby Ofsted can inspect batches of schools within an academy trust at the same time, are appropriate.
The Government do not consider that Ofsted should have an additional role in judging a trust’s central functions or operating model. As part of its assurance role, the Education Funding Agency already assesses the financial and governance arrangements of academy trusts to ensure that they are operating in line with the Academies Financial Handbook and the terms of their funding agreement. A point was made about parents. Through our free schools programme, parents are driving this and free schools are more accountable to parents than any other kind of school. Parents have often fought for the development of a school of a certain type or with a certain ethos.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who cut swiftly to the chase in his speech. I was impressed with his concept of pace and impatience because it is the feeling of pace and impatience which characterises our most successful sponsors. Regional schools commissioners will identify as soon as possible those schools which are coasting, seeking to bring about change for the better as quickly as possible. The five years he referred to of course include two years of history which have already passed, and sadly we cannot put the clock back. As far as his comments about IT are concerned, I wholly agree with the importance of this area in helping to assess the progress and attainment of pupils, and in identifying those pupils who are not being properly served.
I pay particular tribute to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Ely for his work in the Diocese of Ely Multi-Academy Trust; he knows that I share his interest in the importance of character development. I also share his concerns about consistency of practice, and I hope that the Schools Causing Concern guidance will provide considerable clarity on this. I also look forward to working with him on refreshing the memorandum of understanding that we have with church schools. We had a helpful meeting this morning and I will work with him to ensure that we achieve the consistency that he desires. The right reverend Prelate succinctly summarised the importance of school-to-school support, as did the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes.
The noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, made an extremely eloquent maiden speech and I welcome him to your Lordships’ House. I had the very great pleasure of meeting him for the first time this morning and sharing some thoughts. I am delighted that he has become the chair of the David Ross Education Trust, which sponsors more than 30 academies. I am sure that the trust will benefit greatly from his involvement.
During the last Parliament we created hundreds of local multi-academy trusts based around one local outstanding school and we focused national chains on local hubs. It is acknowledged that the best way to improve failing schools is through local school-to-school support. The Government believe that the evidence is clear that the best way to provide such support—the most rigorous, the most permanent, the most efficient and the most accountable support—is through a multi-academy trust. People who run multi-academy trusts, some of whom were very against academies in the first place, talk glowingly about their advantages: a sense of being in control of their own destiny; the ability to
retain staff they know they would have lost if they were running only one school; the career development opportunities through the ability to move staff around schools; the enhanced CPT opportunities; the ability to finance far higher-quality people; the economies of scale achieved through purchasing efficiencies, standardisation of assessment, and many more.
We now have enough multi-academy trusts performing really well to know that there is a gold standard out there to which all can aspire. This has been recognised by many commentators, including the Sutton Trust. People such as Outwood Grange, REAch2, Harris, the Inspiration Trust and smaller groups such as WISE and Tudhoe are setting the bar really high. With strong oversight from the RSCs, we will ensure that poor performing groups up their game, and the RSCs are holding many events where strongly performing groups such as Outwood Grange share their experiences and methodology. Outwood Grange’s record is superb. It has been holding a series of roadshows around the country and it has put its entire school improvement methodology on to a memory stick. We want to do far more of this kind of development. The Sutton Trust has said that the best academy chains are outperforming and some are substantially outperforming. The job of the regional schools commissioners and my job is to spread good practice and intervene in failure so that all groups raise their game towards the standards of the very good, and this Bill is about helping them to do that.
I was very interested to hear that my noble friend Lady Eaton is a trustee of the Sir Simon Milton Foundation because Sir Simon was a truly great man whose ambitions for the academy programme and for the children of Westminster were enormous. He was also extremely courageous. I am grateful for her words of support in relation to our adoption proposals because I know that she is extremely experienced in that field.
The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, spoke eloquently on a number of points. I am always very interested to hear her remarks because she is always worth listening to. We had many constructive discussions during the passage of the Children and Families Act 2014, and this is our first discussion since then. I have to say that I have missed her. I agree entirely that structure is not the be-all and end-all. What really matters is what is taught in the classroom and how. She also talked about the advantages of collaboration. We believe that the freedoms provided by academy status in a mapped structure as I have just outlined are the best way to ensure such collaboration. Why do we need a power to issue our own warning notices when we can direct local authorities to do so? Unless a school is in category 4, it is because the regime that follows the warning notice is entirely at the discretion of the local authority. As Ofsted has reported, there are many examples where local authorities’ use of warning notices has been found wanting.
On the comments of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Morris, about the only route out of failure being academies, I must respond by saying no. As I said in my opening remarks, we may well encourage many schools to stop coasting by using NLEs and seeking support from other schools which may not be
academies, and as far as devolution is concerned, we see the regional schools commissioners and their elected head teacher boards as giving control over the school system to school leaders. On co-operating with other areas of the school system, we have a very good model in Birmingham through the Birmingham Education Partnership under Sir Mike Tomlinson, which is across all sectors.
The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, talked about the capacity of regional schools commissioners. I can assure her that we will be very focused on the capacity that they have and on the capacity of sponsors. The noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Northbourne, talked about the coasting definition. On 30 June, the Government published illustrative regulations setting out how we propose to define coasting. This sets out the database definition which will be used to identify coasting schools. As I have said previously, this is focused particularly on secondaries and will be increasingly focused on Progress 8. I was very pleased to hear the remarks made by the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, about that, as we move away from what Tristram Hunt called the “great crime” of the C/D borderline. Shortly, we will launch a consultation on this definition and the Schools Causing Concern guidance, setting out how we propose that RSCs will tackle failing coasting schools. I reassure the House that this document and the consultation will be available for Peers to scrutinise during Committee stage.
This Bill is about schools causing concern but a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Morris, raised points about the performance of converter academies; that is, schools which are approved to become academies without a sponsor. The latest data from Ofsted show that almost 90% of converter academies are good or outstanding, which is a greater percentage than local authority maintained schools. The latest primary and secondary schools also show that the performance of converter academies is continuing to rise. In particular, secondary converter academies have improved their performance by double the rate seen in maintained schools.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, talked about teacher retention. Almost 90% of teachers continue in the profession following their first year of teaching. This rate has remained stable since 2006. Recent reports suggesting a 40% leave ratio are completely inaccurate. Almost 75% of new teachers are still in the profession after five years. More than half of teachers who qualified in 1996 were still teaching 18 years later. The proportion of the teacher workforce that leaves each year has remained low over recent years. Just 10% of those teaching in 2013 were no longer in the workforce in 2014. Teacher retention has remained stable over time with very little variation over 10 years. I am delighted to arrange for the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, to visit a sponsored academy soon.
As regards governing bodies and parents, all academies and multi-academy trust boards must have two parents on them. My noble friend Lady Perry talked about leadership, which is incredibly important. We have developed the future leaders MAT CEO course, which the department sponsored across 24 CEOs. This is being rolled out with 30 more going on the course this
month and 30 next month. I am delighted that the Church of England is developing its own leadership development programme, which is so important.
The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, talked about mental health support for children in care. All children and young people deserve to grow up feeling safe and supported, and the Government are committed to improving the mental health of the most vulnerable. I assure noble Lords that the Government are determined to deliver the transformation we need to see if we are genuinely to improve children’s mental health. We are working across government departments to respond to the challenges set out in the Future in Mind report. The Department of Health has identified £1.25 billion to improve mental health services for children, young people and new mothers over the next five years.
It is vital that we provide the best possible start in life for every child. That is why we are here today and why we need these reforms. The measures in this Bill are essential to ensuring high standards of education across the country and permanent loving homes for some of our most vulnerable children. I know that Members of this House have considerable expertise and have passionate views on how we should tackle these issues, which has been shown by tonight’s debate. I also know we agree on the objective that lies at the heart of the Bill and that every Member of this House has high expectations for our children.
The Bill demonstrates the Government’s commitment to real social justice and making a real difference to giving children the chance to aim for a brighter future. We have heard so many noble Lords speaking passionately about their own journey. This is an ambition which I am sure is shared by all who are here tonight. I look forward to debating this Bill further and I hope that all noble Lords who are interested will accept my invitation, which I will issue shortly, to attend a meeting on 2 November at 3 pm to meet with some regional schools commissioners and chief executives of academy trusts. Some noble Lords in particular might find that helpful.
I commend this Bill and I ask the House to give it a Second Reading.