Schools Bill [HL]

My Lords, I remind your Lordships of my registered interests, including as chairman of the Chartered Institution for Further Education, chairman of the Centre for Education & Finance Management and several other charitable bodies concerned with education. I have been conscious for a long while that there have been lacunae in the 2010 and 2011 academies legislation, and I am glad to see that some of the concerns that many of us have had are to be addressed.

Just before the last Recess, I was grateful for the opportunity to move in Grand Committee a Motion to Take Note on academy schools. On that occasion, I was able to call to mind that they began, in fact, with the Education Reform Act 1988, from my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking, which created grant-maintained schools, which I had the privilege of leading for some six years. These morphed into city academies and thence in 2010 to converter and other academies as we know them today. In my view, it is vital that any new regulations that affect academies ought to take into account their founding philosophy, which can be summed up in one word—autonomy.

In 2010, heads and governors told us that they wanted to be as free as possible from local and central government restrictions. Their conviction that they could raise the standards in their schools if decisions were taken by governors, heads and professionals on the spot and not in Whitehall or the town hall has largely proved to be correct, and my noble friend Lord Eccles alluded to this. Autonomy is also clearly still what schools want today, some 12 years later, in order to serve their pupils as best they can.

Research published by the Department for Education last November shows this definitively. It revealed that 90% of stand-alone academies—that is, those not in multi-academy trusts—reported that their reason for converting had been to gain a greater degree of autonomy. They had looked for

“greater freedom over decisions”

and

“more autonomy over their budgets”

to give

“improved outcomes for pupils”.

Their reasons for not joining a multi-academy trust were fear of a loss of autonomy, loss of control over their spending and the loss of the school’s individual identity.

Multi-academy trusts were originally conceived of not as an end in themselves necessarily but as staging posts for many schools towards the autonomy of which stand-alone academies today make such great use to raise standards. I accept entirely that some schools entering academy status would find it very difficult to go it alone without the support of a multi-academy trust and could need some years of back-up support before they could survive adequately. I accept also that many primary schools would be more comfortable grouped around a secondary school in a small local trust which could provide shared resources, certain central functions and good financial management.

Autonomous schools can swiftly adjust themselves to local needs, including employment requirements. The larger the multi-academy trust, the less that is possible, especially as some have schools in them, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, reminded us, that are spaced many miles apart and no longer have individual governing bodies.

I asked a Written Question of my noble friend in December, and that was to inquire

“whether it is possible for a school in a multi-academy trust … by resolution of its governing body to”

opt out of the trust. The answer was no. But last month, she indicated, I believe, that a consultation on that issue would take place. I hope we shall head towards the point where schools that have, in family terms, grown up enough to do well by themselves will be able to do so and via an uncomplicated process.

It seems quite proper that among the freedoms that academies and multi-academy trusts have should be the right to decide salaries. Given that there are a number of trustees who earn between a quarter and half a million pounds each year—which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, reminded us earlier, has been very controversial—in my view, those governing bodies that wish to award salaries over a certain sum, possibly £150,000 or £160,000, should make out a case to an independent panel of the funding agency. I believe my noble friend is to look into this matter. If so, that is welcome, as the optics are not good.

Our long-term aim should not be, as was implied by the recent White Paper, the conversion of all schools into membership of multi-academy trusts with a minimum of 10 schools in each. In my view, the larger the trust, the less likely it will be responsive to local needs and the more susceptible it will be in the long term to mediocre standards and even failure. The maximum number of schools in any trust should be about 10 as the system matures.

However, I welcome the framework changes, which will introduce powers to intervene where academies are likely to fail, as long as they bear down only on

those that are doing badly and do not unnecessarily constrict those schools, such as the majority of our stand-alone academies, that are doing so very well.

6.37 pm