Examination of Witness (Questions 180
- 199)
TUESDAY 23 MAY 2000
RT HON
DAVID BLUNKETT,
MP
180. With regard to the pay gap, you said it
was not a fair choice but what do you think Vice Chancellors should
do about the fact that on average women academics at all levels
are paid ten per cent less? What resources can you identify for
them to use to tackle that problem, if you believe it is a problem
and an outrage?
(Mr Blunkett) I think there is an issue to be addressed.
I think there is an issue to be addressed whatever the settlement
in the Spending Review and I have said so both to Vice Chancellors
and to the AUT and NATFHE. The issue is again one of securing
sufficient resources to ensure that when those decisions and priorities
are made by the employers in higher education, because it is their
job to do so, they do so with a knowledge that there is sufficient
resource to be able to balance those priorities intelligently.
Equal opportunity all the way through the system is something
that is a vital part of modernising higher education and I said
so at the AUT Conference in Eastbourne a couple of weeks ago.
It strikes me that this is an issue that has to be addressed in
terms of top level management as well. There are only five women
Vice Chancellors, for instance, there are no Vice Chancellors
from ethnic minority groups. The older universities have some
quaint ways of appointing Vice Chancellors which I hope they will
now review.
Mr Foster
181. In Worcestershire, one of the live education
issues is the review of the Standard Spending Assessment. What
is your Department's input into the DoE's review of the revenue
support grant distribution?
(Mr Blunkett) As Michael Bichard will have spelt out
last Tuesday, the Green Paper will be out over the summer presenting
a range of options. My Department is obviously placing into that
Green Paper the options and the discussion which we think is relevant
to ensuring that there is fair transparent funding that ensures,
firstly, that sums that are allocated actually reach the point
for which they were allocated, namely the schools; secondly, that
it is on a transparent and open basis; thirdly, it recognises
the rights of youngsters at different key stages across the country;
fourthly, that we take advantage of the historic debates that
have taken place around how to assess disadvantage to try to modernise
the way in which we reflect that as well as area costs or sparsity
factors. We are vigorously pursuing this because we clearly get
this day in, day out, not just through our postbags but in every
visit that we make to schools or localities. I have to say that
I have never met anybody yet who wanted to see their Standard
Spending Assessment reduced in order to offer a lifeline to some
other part of the country. That is probably why the Local Government
Association had such difficulty two years ago in coming up with
a programme of their own which would have assisted Government
in making more substantial change than was possible at the time.
182. The Chief Inspector's recent Annual Report
calls for a more transparent funding mechanism. Do you think there
is any educationally justifiable reason for the current wide variation
in the SSA per head?
(Mr Blunkett) There may have been historically a justification
in the way in which the system developed. Your advisers will have
spoken to you about the wonderful development of the system through
the regression analysis and I remember it well from when I was
in local government. I dug out a quote from home, not from a computer
but just from an old box, which is just as effective sometimes
in finding things, a quote from Tom King in 1980 who was then
the Environment Minister, saying that the Standard Spending Assessment
which was being introduced in its new form was not intended to
be an accurate assessment of the needs of individual localities
or authorities. I think 20 years on we should reflect carefully
on that.
183. Finally, there is a call for extra resources
that go into education spending to be geared towards raising the
bottom education authorities' SSA per head to a median level.
In your input to the Treasury on the Comprehensive Spending Review
have you put that forward as a suggestion?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I have not got to the stage yet,
I can honestly say, which is a great relief, of actually putting
forward detailed proposals to my Treasury colleagues or furnishing
the text of the Green Paper in a form that would lead me to say
that at this stage. I can honestly answer your question, which
is a great relief. Let me just make it clear, however, it is not
as simple as simply the bottom funded authorities. In the bottom
40 least well funded authorities lie some extremely wealthy areas,
just above them lie some deeply deprived areas with very, very
poor per capita allocations in terms of schools' budgets. I want
to try to ensure that we are fair to those who have the biggest
challenges in terms of the socio-economic make-up of their area.
Judy Mallaber
184. Secretary of State, following on from those
questions, in principle would it be possible to have one factor,
such as a standard level of spending per pupil, say at the current
median level, outwith the regression analysis and other factors
that will be taken account of in the rest of the SSA formulae,
so that at least there is a base level of funding?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, it would be perfectly feasible
to do that. You would have to make a judgment as to how much money
was going into that uplift compared with targeted resources in
achieving other goals, including the ones that we have already
established for schools and for education authorities. The difficulty
then arises as to whether you are competing with the top-up in
terms of deprivation or area costs, or whether you are competing
with a general uplift in education and schools spend generally.
There is going to be a cost to this and it is a balance as to
how far you go and how much that takes away from your potential
for doing other good things within the system.
185. Are you able to give any estimate, putting
you on the spot here, of what that cost would be, say on bringing
authorities up to the current median?
(Mr Blunkett) No, I am not.
186. If you can send that to us it would be
helpful.
(Mr Blunkett) I will take a look at how that affects
the— Yes, I will write to you.
Mr O'Brien
187. Good morning, Secretary of State. I represent
a Cheshire seat which of course sits very low in the table you
have just been referring to. Apart from the easy headline that
it is a third per capita spend on each pupil of, say, Tower Hamlets,
it is also a fifth less of equivalent counties. That is causing
great concern because there is a widespread belief among schools
and teaching staff that there is an in-built bias under the Standard
Spending Assessment, particularly when you take into account the
serious pockets of deprivation in catchment areas around schools,
such as I have in parts of Winsford. One of the questions is how
much can the review take account of school catchment areas rather
than simply being measured by the areas which reflect political
and administrative authorities?
(Mr Blunkett) Of course there are two elements to
this. Firstly, the distribution within authorities and what flexibility
they are currently using to respond to those pockets of deprivation,
to use your term. The second is a question of how hands-on and
centralist we should be in picking up the discussion we have just
been having in terms of a per pupil entitlement and how that might
then be uplifted in terms of schools or school communities with
the deprivation. It does vary enormously. You will recall this
very well, that when I came to the by-election I went to the most
wonderful school that had a swimming pool. They were doing very
well and they took a very large number of special needs children
but they did so because the head and the staff were committed
to doing that, not because anyone was directing them to, it was
a gesture of commitment on their part. I wonder, given that the
councillor who is in charge of the Local Government Association's
finance education picture is here this morning because I met him
as I came through the door, just how much that would take into
account pressure on authorities to be much more imaginative about
how they share resources that are available to them between schools?
188. I know the school you are referring to
and there are some issues about the refusal of a Lottery application
to do just that, to try to improve school facilities so they belong
much more in their community.
(Mr Blunkett) I claim no control over the Lottery.
189. I fully accept that, Secretary of State.
The concern that is coupled with all that is the rise in the Standard
Spending Assessment in real terms is at a lower rate as announced
by Government than the rise in the overall Departmental budget
because of the amount that has been kept under central control.
The Local Government Association Report, being published this
week, criticises the Government for its bureaucratic and inflexible
approach to this. Certainly in many of the visits I am making
to schools in my constituency, teachers are feeling that a lot
of this grant bidding approach is very much on a whim, ad hoc
and often too late for them to take full advantage of it. Are
you aware of these difficulties and tensions that are penalising
what many schools feel is their ability to access what are announced
new funds?
(Mr Blunkett) Yes, I am aware of the pressures and
the need for change and I will address those. There were two reasons
why we felt that it was important to develop the Standards Fund.
Firstly, because it enabled us to overcome the historic inequity
of the distribution factors within the SSA, which we have just
spent quite a few minutes addressing, and enabled us, therefore,
to be able to target resources where they were most needed. Secondly,
it enabled us to ensure that the agenda for raising standards
and, therefore, the focused attention on literacy and numeracy
on the one hand, inclusion for instance on the other, would be
achievable because we would be able to put the resources in directly
in a way that would not be possible through other funding mechanisms.
I make no apology at all for the Standards Fund. However, I do
accept that there is a need to address the issues around the way
it is administered, the bidding system and its subsequent distribution,
so that we can slim it down. I will be addressing that shortly.
I have to say, and Members may not be aware of this, there are
fewer bidding channels now under the Standards Fund than there
were under the former GEST Programme—the Grants for Education,
Support and Training. It is interesting that whilst the issue
of bureaucracy and pressure is understandably and rightly on the
agenda, it is worth taking historic looks at what actually was
happening in the past rather than people simply taking a snapshot
of the present.
(In the absence of the Chairman, Mr Barry Sheerman was called
to the Chair
Mr Sheerman: Secretary of State, we are not
trying to confuse you but it is Barry Sheerman in the Chair for
the moment. I am going to call Charlotte Atkins.
Charlotte Atkins
190. Secretary of State, following on from that
answer, is it possible to break down total school spending by
pupil as with the SSA? If that has been done, does it demonstrate
that those LEAs disadvantaged by the SSA are compensated by other
Government monies, like the Standards Fund? Has that exercise
been done by the Department?
(Mr Blunkett) That exercise is being done at my request
by the Department taking into account the specific funding, for
instance, the 50 million that I allocated from our own internal
savings that was added to this year's schools budget as well as
the earmarked funding of the 296 million from the Budget in March
as well as the development and delivery of the Standards Fund
which, if my memory serves me correctly, forms eight per cent
of the total. Added to that, of course, will be the specific funding
for the teachers' pay uplift from this autumn. All of these items
together make quite a complicated assessment of how individual
schools and their host education authority have benefited, because
it does vary between schools within authorities as well as between
education authorities. For the reason that was enunciated a moment
ago, there are substantial pockets of deprivation and challenge
that are receiving extra funding in areas of relative affluence.
(Mr Derek Foster resumed to the Chair)
191. Will those figures be published and when
can we expect them?
(Mr Blunkett) I am happy to publish the figures when
they are available. I have got no problem in terms of open government
on that front.
192. When can we expect them?
(Mr Blunkett) I cannot give you an answer to that.
I will write to you and give you an indication.
Charlotte Atkins: Thank you.
Valerie Davey
193. The discussion we have just had on the
Standards Fund and on direct allocation seems to leave a huge
question mark over the future of LEAs. Can you tell us where in
your Department the future of LEAs is being considered and is
it being done in the context, as you mentioned earlier, of transparency
in funding or in raising of education standards?
(Mr Blunkett) It is being taken collectively by myself
and ministers together with our colleagues in DETR and, of course,
at No.10 where undoubtedly a period of tranquillity is allowing
a great deal of reading and thinking to take place at this very
moment.
194. Concern about education perhaps.
(Mr Blunkett) Education is critical. The future of
education authorities is critical to their contribution to the
role of the authority as a whole. I spelt out some principles
at an Education Network Conference a couple of weeks ago that
received virtually no publicity, just to show that we do not spin
everything, although they have put the speech on the Internet
so Members undoubtedly will be rushing out desperate to read it.
The principles are that if we did not have education authorities
we would have to invent them but we would invent them for the
21st Century, not for the beginning of the 20th, and we would
do so in terms of the changes that have taken place over the last
15 years with the introduction of a national curriculum, with
the development of local management of schools and its further
refinement under this Government, the way in which schools clearly
control schools and are responsible for the delivery of their
targets. Clearly they would be responsible, and will I hope in
the future be clearly responsible, for issues which cannot be
dealt with, whatever speeches are made by politicians or others,
by individual schools, such as the development and delivery of
special needs education or, for that matter, school transport,
which in rural areas would be in complete chaos if there was not
an overall organisation. We learnt a lot from the Funding Agency
for Schools, a lot of good things and a lot about what an agency
based nationally cannot do or is unable to do in terms of operating
not 1,100 but 24,000 schools. We will want to take that into account
in working with the Local Government Association and others in
terms of ensuring we get it right. Getting it right means that
the education authority of the future, the education service,
has to be a vehicle for both delivery of support to schools but
also in terms of being able to co-ordinate and work on initiatives.
It may well be that authorities would want to facilitate the availability
of a service and not necessarily, as was the case in the past,
consider that they had lost their role or their purpose or their
status if they did not deliver it themselves. For instance, Shropshire
and Telford share the delivery of some of their services consequent
on local government reorganisation, so one undertakes special
needs for both authorities, the other undertakes the library and
the development of the information and communication technology
services for both authorities. There are authorities now directly
providing services to schools in other authorities, which is an
interesting development. There are schools in Islington buying
services from Cambridgeshire.
195. I am encouraged by what you say. How can
we get this positive debate going and not simply have something
subsumed in the Green Paper this summer on finance?
(Mr Blunkett) I think the debate is out there and
I understand that all parties are about to engage with it, so
it should make it an interesting few months. I would like to do
so in a way that actually addresses the needs of pupils and the
school community and the broader role in terms of Lifelong Learning,
the contribution that will be made alongside the Learning and
Skills Councils, because the development of family learning and
of adult learning is now re-emerging from a dark period, so that
we recognise what is taking place around a school and in co-operation
with a school can have an impact on the effectiveness of the teaching
in the classroom, which is the central feature of raising standards.
There had been a drift away from the recognition of both, I hope
we can get that balance right.
Chairman: Secretary of State, we are going to
turn our minds to some questions on Public Service Agreements
now.
Mr Sheerman
196. Secretary of State, I wonder if I can push
you a little on the whole emphasis in the Department on measurable
targets. I know in the past your Department has been very keen
on measurable targets and I understand that, my management interests
suggest that the mantra of "if you cannot measure it, you
cannot manage it" applies to education as it does to much
outside education. How helpful is measurement? Do you think measurement
takes you away from some of the essence of what education services
ought to be delivered?
(Mr Blunkett) I like the old adage "we should
learn to measure what we value and not just value what we can
measure", I think that is quite a neat way of summing up
how I feel about it. The importance of service agreements is to
have very clear bench marks as to what it is we are aiming to
achieve and the calculations on the level of resources to make
that possible. I am entertained by the agonies which officials
in Government Departments and the Treasury go through in order
to be able to prove their own particular point of view. One day,
subject to the 30 year rule of course, memoirs will deal with
such esoteric matters in great detail. It does strike me that
the emergence of both PSAs and Service Development Agreements,
so there are internal and clear routes and targets, are focusing
minds in a way which is extremely helpful both in terms of making
people think through what it is they are trying to do but also
in terms of trying to assess whether they have delivered it.
197. Is there a sense out there that the Department
does not really trust LEAs to measure accurately enough for your
purposes and in fact, and I have heard this out there, what the
Department is building up is an alternative delivery of measuring
the system through the Learning and Skills Council that into the
21st Century might be the alternative to using LEAs?
(Mr Blunkett) I just want to make it clear, so there
is no doubt, we are not establishing Learning and Skills Councils
to deliver education authority services. We are developing Learning
and Skills Councils to provide a co-ordinated, coherent route
for funding, planning and delivering of skills for post-16 and
for the nation as a whole. To take the central point, historically
there has been very poor data collected in terms of its relevance
to standards. There was lots of data collected within education
authorities and for central Government, but not a lot of it related
to the requirements internally. For instance, asset management
plans, which are now being developed as part of the overall Education
Development Plan, are actually for the first time in some authorities
assessing the real need for investment in property and in the
environment in which people do their jobs. The Rainbow Pack, which
was developed by the Funding Agency for Schools, and we had long
discussions with those who were involved with it when we were
first elected, was a very, very good piece of work in terms of
what was required to understand what was happening in the school
and the need for support. I have now got the alternative, the
update of the Rainbow Pack, out through education authorities
and my next step is to get education authorities to use that pack
with schools in an effective fashion. This is not some sort of
tirade or centralist approach, it is desperately trying to get
what is best practice applied across the country so that, for
instance, authorities providing specifications for contracts do
not feel that they have to have multiples of particular elements
to assess the type of grass or the size of a tree, so we can get
a bit of sense into all of this and people do not feel it to be
a threat.
Mr St Aubyn
198. Secretary of State, may I apologise for
being slightly late coming to the meeting.
(Mr Blunkett) I thought I had missed your dulcet tones.
199. Regrettably I was detained by my health
authority with the latest health cuts imposed by this Government.
May I ask the Secretary of State, you say we should measure what
we value, but how much importance do you attach to the skills
gap?
(Mr Blunkett) I attach extreme importance to it. It
was with great regret that I discovered when I first went into
the Department, consequent on the dismembering of the Manpower
Services Commission and then the changes that subsequently took
place, that the Department did not even have a unit dealing with
the development of skills and the work that needed to be done.
We now do have that and we will have a Basic Skills Unit in place
in the next few months as well specifically geared to this approach.
The Learning and Skills Councils will enable us, with business,
to be able to focus directly on the gap that exists in particular
sectors and particular regions and localities. We will be able
to direct resources to where they are needed, we will be able
to stimulate from providers the modern up-to-date forward looking
approach which trains people for the years of the 21st Century
rather than historically, which is to train people for things
that are just going out. I remember the Treaty of Paris arrangements
for the coal and steel areas which were very imaginative and trained
people just in time for something that was just about to make
thousands of people redundant in the same area.
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