| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Christopher Leslie (Shipley) rose--
Mr. Willetts: I am quoting the comments of the chairman of a school's governing body and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will listen. He said:
- "We are . . . placed in the difficult position of having to question the extent to which our schemes of work should comply with the demands of the regulations when our previous approach generated clear benefits for our children, whatever their ability."
Mr. Willetts: I shall tell the hon. Gentleman exactly what our policy is. Instead of applying another indiscriminate initiative to all schools--however well they are doing--the Government should instead target the literacy strategy on schools that clearly have a problem. We do not believe in imposing an indiscriminate compulsory literacy hour that takes no account of how a school is performing in that area. If schools are delivering high literacy standards, it is not the role of the House or of politicians to go nosing into the classroom saying that those schools must stop teaching reading in a way that works simply because they have passed a regulation stating that it should be done differently. That is no way to raise standards in the classroom.
Let us look not just at the class size pledge or the literacy strategy, but at performance-related pay. The Government pride themselves on their public relations skills, but the debate on performance-related pay, initiated in the past few weeks, has been a shambles. The Government have been trying a hard cop, soft cop act--the trouble is that the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister cannot seem to decide who is the hard cop and who is the soft cop. The Secretary of State described teachers as "snivelling cynics" while the Prime Minister praised their "awe-inspiring dedication". This is yet another intrusive, bureaucratic and heavy-handed method of trying to increase pay for teachers in the classroom.
Helen Jones (Warrington, North):
In light of the hon. Gentleman's remarks, would he care to comment on a recent opinion poll conducted for the NAS/UWT which revealed that 57 per cent. of teachers are in favour of linking pay to appraisal? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that teachers working in our schools are wrong?
Mr. Willetts:
The hon. Lady knows very well--or she ought to know--that not one single representative body for teachers supports the Government's proposals for introducing performance-related pay. It does not matter what it says in the crib note from the Government Whip, the fact is that no teacher in the land will support a proposal that will cost £250 million in administration and in appointing external assessors before a single pound reaches the pay packet of a single teacher. That is the cost of the bureaucracy involved in the Government's proposals.
Mr. Julian Brazier (Canterbury):
Did my hon. Friend note that the point raised by the hon. Member for Warrington, North (Helen Jones) was completely
Mr. Willetts:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right: the fact is that neither the NAS/UWT nor anyone else supports the proposal. We oppose it because it is cumbersome, bureaucratic and wasteful.
Mr. Derek Twigg (Halton):
If the system is so wasteful and wrong, why did the previous Government introduce performance-related pay into the civil service, including the Department for Education and Employment?
Mr. Willetts:
We are talking about the largest single performance-related pay scheme to be introduced anywhere in the world. Its scope and its intricacy go way beyond any arrangements that we introduced into the civil service or elsewhere. The fact is that it simply will not work. As the Government are so proud of the 16,000 responses that they have received to their consultation document--there are doubtless many more to come--will the Minister concede that it will clearly be impossible to introduce the first stage of performance-related pay this autumn? The Government should at least delay implementation in order to consider the legitimate criticisms levelled by teachers who say that the measure will be an extraordinary waste of time for teachers and head teachers.
It has been estimated that, in a large secondary school with perhaps more than 100 teachers, a head teacher could spend half a day a week simply doing the external appraisals that will be required by the Government's cumbersome and complicated scheme. What about finance? [Interruption.]
Mr. Deputy Speaker:
Order. Government Front Benchers must not keep interrupting the debate with remarks from a sedentary position.
Mr. Willetts:
I have referred to the class size pledge, the literacy strategy and to performance-related pay. I must mention also the way in which the Government are changing the financing of schools and education in this country. The story is the same: it is about heavy-handed bureaucracy and centralised control from Whitehall.
We know what the Government are like: it is very convenient to pop up on the "Today" programme and announce another initiative and another little pot of money that is supposed to finance it. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State are always announcing another little gimmick that they hope will get them 48 hours of good publicity. However, schools up and down the country must then waste time and effort submitting bids for penny packets of money when the administrative costs involved in preparing the bids often exceed the amount that schools may receive at the end of the day.
The Minister set up a task force on bureaucracy, and one of its first recommendations was that bidding could be used as a selective basis for encouraging initiative in education. However, it cannot be used time after time as a means of supposedly delivering national policy objectives because it will end up undermining the ability of head teachers to manage their budgets. We must trust head teachers to decide whether it would be best to spend
money on more books for the school library, on increasing the maths teacher's pay in order to retain him or on refurbishing school buildings. There is no point in saying that, if schools want to achieve those desirable aims, they must apply to the Secretary of State for a personal cheque from the Department for Education and Employment before they can do anything. That is no way to run a school.
Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willetts:
No, I want to make progress.
If the Minister is honest, she will accept that head teachers refer again and again to the problems in their schools caused by the Government's policies.
Mrs. Anne Campbell (Cambridge):
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willetts:
No, I shall make progress.
That is why the Government keep announcing that they are trying to cut bureaucracy. The process began on 21 May 1997, within three weeks of the Government arriving in office, when they announced: "Blunkett cuts red tape." Just like every other initiative from the Government, that was relaunched and repeated, so that, by the end of July 1997, red tape was to get a "caning", according to the Minister of State.
By 16 January 1998, the Government were announcing:
Mrs. Campbell:
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Willetts:
No, I want to make progress.
All that I am doing is quoting press notices from the Minister's Department, which has claimed again and again that it is taking action to reduce bureaucracy.
On 13 April 1998, the announcement was:
The reason is to be found in the terms of reference for the working party on bureaucracy set up by the Government. The first paragraph of the working party's report makes it clear what was the problem. It says:
"Morris cuts through the red tape".
We might have hoped that the hon. Lady was making progress by then, but, instead, the Government realised that they needed someone else to blame and announced a month later:
"Government orders investigation into £142 million taken from schools for local authority red tape".
Much of the time, local authorities are simply having to comply with the instructions and demands sent by the Government.
"Government takes action to cut bureaucracy".
One might have thought that at least that was the end of story, but on 1 June, the Department announced:
"Blunkett pledges action to tackle needless red tape".
It became a pledge for the future. Only last week, the Minister announced that the Government were
"keeping performance red tape to a minimum".
However, seven press notices and six relaunches later, we are still nowhere near tackling the problem.
"This report reflects the agreed conclusions that the Group reached within the constraints it was advised that its remit imposed. Inevitably, some individual members would wish to go beyond that and change the statutory framework in ways which reduce teachers' workloads."
That is the crucial point--the working party was not even allowed to consider the real source of the problem, which is the primary and secondary legislation that the Government have passed. They set up a working party on bureaucracy, but did not allow it to consider the real problem. That would be like a Home Office leak inquiry that could not interview Home Office Ministers. There is no point setting up an inquiry on bureaucracy and then refusing to allow it to consider legislation.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |