TUESDAY 8 APRIL 2003

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Members present:

Diana Organ, in the Chair
Mr David Borrow
Mr David Curry
Mr David Drew
Mr Austin Mitchell

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Memorandum submitted by Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs

and Department for Education and Skills

Examination of Witnesses

RT HON ALUN MICHAEL, a Member of the House, Minister of State (Rural Affairs), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; and MR STEPHEN TWIGG, a Member of the House, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, Department for Education and Skills, examined.

Chairman

185. Good afternoon and welcome to the Sub-Committee's investigation into the delivery of education in rural areas. It is always a pleasure to have the Rt Hon Alun Michael before us, who is a regular visitor, however I do not think we have had the pleasure of having Stephen Twigg before us, who is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools, but we like to have joined-up working as well as joined-up thinking so I hope it will be an interesting afternoon for all of us. Can I start, first of all, by asking you how often you meet? Do you actually work together and how many times have you met as Ministers, say, since June 2001?

(Alun Michael) I think it would be difficult to put a number on the meetings. For one thing there is a difference between the formal meetings and taking the opportunity to discuss issues as you pass in the division lobby and the corridor. I must say that our discussions with colleagues in education are one of the most fruitful. We have started a system of trying to ensure that government departments look at the way in which they deal with issues in rural areas in a way that is sensitive to the differences between rural and urban areas. In the first year of DEFRA's existence that meant the Rural Advocate, Ewen Cameron, and myself meeting separately with ministers in government departments. What we have done over the last winter is to meet ministers in each government department jointly, to have joint meetings of officials leading up to those ministerial meetings and indeed I think in many ways the Department for Education and Skills is an exemplar in this regard. When I had that meeting along with Ewen Campbell, the Secretary of State took the meeting himself, and indeed felt that there were so many issues that came out which were worthy of being pursued that we agreed to meet on a regular basis every six to eight weeks, which we do. We have also had meetings with a number of the junior ministers in that department on issues like the Youth Service in rural areas, Connexions, work in respect of employment, and a variety of other issues. We also from that meeting with the Secretary of State have a shadowing task force of officials from DEFRA and the Department. All of this is a new approach but it is one that I think is bound to be productive and is already getting to the point of achieving a good deal of understanding about the issues that affect rural areas.

(Mr Twigg) Can I add very briefly to that. I joined the Department in May of last year and took on the responsibility for work with rural schools in one of our reshuffles in the autumn, so I have been working on this for less than six months, but in that time I have had a number of discussions and meetings with Alun. I had responsibility at first for Connexions and there has been a very close working together between the two Departments. My predecessor Cathy Ashton, who had responsibility before me, undertook that we would establish a Rural Schools Group and this has now been established and has had its first meeting. This is cross departmental with representation at official level from DEFRA and DFES. I chair it but most of the people on it are from schools or from local education authorities.

186. What does the DEFRA team on education actually do?

(Alun Michael) I think the first thing we have got to be clear about is that DEFRA is not there to second-guess or act as a second Education Department (and this applies not just to education). In fact, the first question I recall when DEFRA was set up and we met journalists was should you not have planning powers, to which the answer was, no of course not, because that is something for the planning department. Education and skills in rural areas is as important as in urban areas, it is part of the mainstream, it is not an after thought, it is not something separate. Our role as a Department is to look at the particular interests of rural areas and to seek to assist in a joined-up approach between different government departments, between education and health and the delivery of services in some of the smallest communities. I think one of the points that has to be made is the dispersion and the size of the communities that we are dealing with in rural areas. We are dealing with something like 8,500 parishes, for instance, which is a massive number of small communities compared to the concentrations in urban areas. That means you need to approach things in a different way. For instance, to take one of the initiatives that I think again is an exemplar on this, Sure Start looks at the interests of youngest children starting out in life. That in terms of mainstream responsibilities lies with education and health. Our interest both in terms of DEFRA and in terms of the Countryside Agency was saying how do you make sure that children in rural areas get the best start in life? As I say, I think that is a good example where at ministerial level there was commitment to say what is different about rural areas, you do not have the sort of concentrations you have in the big urban areas, it is not as easy to see the concentrations of deprivation and I think the examples of good practice around rural areas arising out of Sure Start are an inspiration to people who are looking at a variety of other issues of service delivery in rural areas, so our responsibility, as I say, is not to duplicate the expertise that is there in terms of people in education or other skills, but is to say what is different in terms of rural areas, how can we ensure that the mainstream delivery is done in a way that is appropriate in rural areas, how can we, in other words, help our colleagues in a department like education (it would apply to other departments as well) to make sure that delivery is as good as it can be in rural areas just as we want it to be as good as it can be in urban areas too.

187. That being said, and there is obviously quite a lot going on between departments, I wondered why the Rural Affairs Forum had not considered education at any of its sessions to date and why is there not a sub-group specifically on education?

(Alun Michael) There are a number of issues that we chose to go first on. There is a group, for instance, on children and young people. It is the sub-group that had been established with the support of the Countryside Agency looking at the interests of children and young people generally and that group, in fact, led the discussion in the Rural Affairs Forum yesterday, so there is a focus on the interests of children and young people. To some extent it is not so much the mainstream education and what happens in schools or that there are serious school issues, but things like out of school activities, issues of distance and being able to take part in things beyond the school curriculum that very often are the issue for the children who live in dispersed settlements. It is not surprising that there has not been a focus, for instance, on the National Curriculum, that would not come at the top of the priorities for the Rural Affairs Forum.

Mr Drew

188. I think that the presumption against closure of rural schools has been welcomed by everyone connected to rural areas, particularly those MPs who represent rural areas, but there is criticism that on the one hand you have got this presumption against closure but the budgetary considerations for smaller schools are still not right and in particular where you have got a smaller school with a declining roll, which of course can be through no fault of its own, it really is hit by a double whammy. How can you try and defend policies in a way that seems to be contradictory?

(Alun Michael) Can I say firstly, it is a balance between the community value of the school and the value of the children in the school and we would not want to say that one is totally overriding. What we would want to make sure is that there is a proper consideration of all the issues.

(Mr Twigg) I think, David, your opening point is an important one because the presumption has made a very dramatic difference from a position where prior to 1998 something on average of around 30 rural schools a year were closing, we are now in a position where that is averaging around four a year with 20 such closures in the last five years since the presumption came in so that is a significant shift. Obviously that on its own is not going to deal with some of the other issues, particularly those schools that have falling rolls. To an extent this is where some of the other programmes within DFES and other government departments could come into play, for example looking at greater collaboration, looking at the use of ICT to achieve greater collaboration, looking at the possibility of extended schools and schools working much more closely together. The other resource strand that we have is the Small Schools Fund which although it is for small schools, whether they be rural or urban, it is mostly a fund that is spent on rural schools and that has given the opportunity for some extra money to go into smaller schools, particularly in rural areas.

189. We have all seen reports (which one takes to be true) that there are schools of two, three or four pupils, we have not quite got a school with one pupil yet. Is that educationally acceptable in as much as if it were in an urban setting we would have dealt with the issue when it got down to well over single figures? What are the dynamics of this in terms of measuring community values, if you like, which you mentioned, as against pure educational attainment? With the best will in the world, even though you have got one-to-one tuition, you cannot pretend that you are going to get a really good educational outcome from very small schools.

(Mr Twigg) I think a school with one pupil would be perhaps quite exciting for that pupil, you would get some amazing adult/pupil ratios in the school, but I am aware there certainly are schools with very small numbers of pupils. I think the answer to it is very much what Alun said in answer to your opening question, it is about balancing the different needs of individual pupils and the wider community. I think we could have circumstances where it is in the best interests of a small number of pupils in the community within which they live for such a school to remain open and then we have to consider what other resources and networks exist to enable links to be made, for example, with other schools to give support to those pupils.

190. In a sense you are signing up there to federation because in reality it is very difficult to deliver the National Curriculum?

(Mr Twigg) Absolutely and this is where some of the issues which I know you have addressed with other witnesses around access to ICT, broadband and so on and so forth come in. Part of the debate and discussion around that is about how we can give that access both to pupils in more remote rural schools but also, in particular, to pupils in smaller schools where by their nature their ability to provide specialist teaching and so forth would be more limited.

191. The National Association for Small Schools are adamant, and they reiterated this in the evidence they gave to us, that insufficient account is taken of the quality of education in small rural schools and they would argue that educational attainment is higher. Has any research been done to compare outcomes, trying to disaggregate issues such as class, which is going to be quite difficult? Is this something that is being actively pursued either within the Department or with the knowledge of the Department elsewhere?

(Mr Twigg) To be honest, through you Chairman, I do not know the answer to that question but I will look into that and perhaps write to you.

192. Because that is what they claim and it would be useful to look at it. Can I look at the other side of things. Having taken the position of the smaller rural schools, understandably in a county like mine in Gloucestershire there is some resentment of what they see as additional resources for small schools particularly from the larger schools in the market towns, dare I say, in a city like Gloucester or indeed Cheltenham, where you will get the necessity of providing much larger units of education. Is this an on-going debate that you have nationally, because certainly that debate is being held locally and clearly it is the argument that it is not just about community values in terms of the village school you are saving there but whoever else might be asked to make a sacrifice?

(Mr Twigg) Absolutely, and it is clearly at the heart of discussion within the Department but also between the Department and others, our colleagues at DEFRA and ODPM. I am wary of raising it but it was clearly at the heart of the debates around the nature of the local government settlement that is just coming into effect in the coming year, how you strike the balance between the different factors that affect different communities - sparsity on the one hand and many different languages being spoken in the school on the other, various different forms of deprivation - and I think all the time we are seeking to get this right so we do have a sparsity factor in the funding formula for primary schools and we have a sparsity factor in the LEA funding formula to cover some of the costs of home to school transport, particularly for secondary schools in recognition of some of the greater costs that they can bring, but all the time national experience is the same as yours, it is striking the balance between that and some of the other demands which are often greater on some of our inner city schools.

193. We are going to be looking at transport later so I will not go into that now, but surely in a sense that is the role of the Department, that it has got to arbitrate when clearly it will be very difficult at that local level because essentially you are robbing Peter to pay Paul?

(Mr Twigg) It is partly our role and that is why we have within our formula the element for home/school transport costs in the LEA funding formula. I know that it does not always meet the full costs and that is partly down to the discretion that local authorities have about their own schemes at the local level. All the time what we have got to try to do is strike a balance between what we can determine nationally and what can best be determined at the local level. We can set a framework and have a formula but many of these decisions are, quite rightly, made at local level because in Gloucester or in the wider Gloucestershire area they are going to have a better view about what the balance should be with their local formula than we are going to have down the road from here in Whitehall.

(Alun Michael) That word A balance@ is the right one. I am a little hesitant about accepting the idea of robbing Peter to pay Paul. In a sense if the formula provides for the fact that there are differences between areas, there is a difference between the urban and rural in size, and takes account of the balance, then that should allow a balanced decision to be taken. We do not take the view that you defend absolutely every small school and that that is the answer. It must be a balanced judgment between the community value of the school and the quality of education for individuals. Of course, that needs to take into account the role of that school in the wider community and I am conscious, as a former community worker, that it is very much the place where parents meet as well as where children get their education and has a lot of values that are difficult to quantify. That is why I think the approach that is now being taken of seeking a sort of balanced estimate of all the pros and all the cons is the right way to approach it rather than saying absolutely every small school has to be kept open or absolutely every small school has to close.

Mr Borrow

194. In most rural communities the school is at the heart of village and plays a key role in the community. To what extent is the Government actually doing work to support rural schools as the hub of the village and also to what extent do you think schools are being maintained because of that role rather than on balance because of any education role?

(Mr Twigg) I think it is critical generally, not only in rural areas - and I am sure Alun will say more specifically about the role in villages - and we are very keen as a matter of general policy in DFES to place a far greater emphasis on the role the school can play and the facilities that a school house can provide in the broader community, in urban communities as well as rural communities. One of the vehicles we have for that is this whole idea of the extended school which is a fairly elastic concept because most schools provide facilities outside of their normal 9 to 3.30 day, or whatever length the day might be, but a lot of schools are providing far more facilities than others and we want to give support and encouragement to that. We also want to encourage local communities and local government to sit down with schools to look at how that can be enhanced in the most effective way, and that is why we have at the moment 25 Pathfinder projects, six of which are in rural areas which are looking specifically at how extended schools can provide a broader range of services on a school site for the local community. That will sometimes be health services, it will sometimes be adult learning, it will sometimes be services such even as a post office, and those Pathfinders are currently being conducted and we will be considering their outcomes shortly. My colleague, Cathy Ashton, our Lords Minister in the DFES, leads on this and what she is looking to do is to build up the numbers of extended schools over the years to a point where in 2005-06 we will have at least one extended school in every local education authority area. We want to ensure that we have the flexibility so that they are meeting the real community needs, which are bound to be different in a rural area to inner city London.

(Alun Michael) Certainly part of my past as a county youth officer was looking at the use of village schools for young people in those areas and very often it is the only place that is available to meet, and the interface between primary education and facilities for both adults and older young people in the community can be absolutely crucial. I am very pleased that there is such a positive approach being taken by the Department of Education and Skills now on that one. I think the extended schools idea is a particularly important one in rural areas so the more that that can be pursued the better. I think it is also a question of looking not only at what is available within the education system but looking more widely. For instance, I visited one school recently where the school house was actually on the front of the premises, which were partly quite elderly and some newer, and no longer was there somebody living in the school house, and with the assistance of a variety of different bits of funding that building had been converted giving a training room for the staff but also creating a computer room. That computer room was dedicated for use by the children in the primary school for part of the day but then for adults, including would-be returners and elderly people, in the afternoon and in the evening. Similarly, the village hall, which was quite close, had been renovated and they were looking at the use of that for a crèche in order to enable mothers to be able to take a training course and all the rest of it. It seems to me that is the sort of situation where not only is the school a vital part of the local community but it is enabling a lot of other things to take place. Within education I think that is very close to something else that we have been exploring across government departments which is the issue of co-location. The Secretary of State, Margaret Beckett, opened the national exemplar at Waters Upton - and I have to mention this otherwise Peter Bradley would not forgive me in this appearance - just a fortnight ago, which is an excellent example of bringing commercial and non-commercial services together and by increasing the footfall and leaning on each other making them viable. We should have no boundaries on where we look at what combinations will work best because, as I indicated earlier, we have got these 8,500 parishes to be served. They are not going to be served in a variety of things by just doing things in the way that they have always being done, saying there must be a post office, there must be a shop; we need to enable them to have sufficient footfall to be viable in all sorts of ways. I have gone a little wide of the specific question of the school but it seems to me the school is a very good example of something which is at the heart of the community and where if you make the connection between the school and the other things that people need in the village community we will be able to go back to a really joined-up approach to how the community works.

195. I will come back to that in a moment, I want to follow on. I think the extended schools initiative has got a lot to be said for it but the criteria in terms of making decisions as to which schools get it is based on deprivation and therefore there is some criticism within rural areas that it is difficult to actually measure pockets of deprivation to actually qualify, but even if you do it fairly on deprivation, the majority of money from the initiative is going to end up in urban rather than in rural areas, which then raises the question which I have thrown to Alun, which is if from a rural affairs perspective the extended school initiative has great advantages for rural areas, should there not be some pump-priming money coming from DEFRA to piggy-back on the money that is coming from the Department of Education to give some rural proofing to what I think is a very good initiative?

(Mr Twigg) On the first point we are obviously still to some extent feeling our way as to what the precise criteria will be for the extended schools programme. We have the Pathfinders, as I indicated. I am acutely aware with my responsibility for rural schools of the importance of having a set of criteria that is fair for the rural schools. This is one of the issues that we touched upon at the first meeting of the Rural Schools Group, how some of the deprivation indicators may not always work to the benefit of education in rural areas, and I did undertake that we would take a further look at that and it would be discussed at the next meeting of the Rural Schools Group.

(Alun Michael) My response is that it is early days in respect of this. I mentioned earlier the example of Sure Start. That started off looking at provision in urban areas and went on to say are there not rural areas that ought to be considered as well? One has to be careful. One of the problems is the inadequacy of the information base that we have in terms of the problems in the rural areas. There is very strong evidence anecdotally of social exclusion in respect of some young people in rural areas, some old people in rural areas, but in terms of the statistics it is not as simple as it is in urban areas and, again, from my own professional background I spent a lot of time trying to analyse the problems and, by and large, you could predict a pyramid with the larger numbers towards the bottom, perhaps smaller numbers at the very bottom of the chart, but basically smaller in terms of the more prosperous and larger lower down. There is a much greater variety and less predictability in terms of the profile in rural areas and indeed there are many occasions where you may have comparatively small numbers of people within what is a ward or even at a sub-ward level which you would look at as a prosperous area on average, so we are doing a lot of work now with some of the academics and with economists and statisticians and with colleagues in other government departments to try to get a better fix on where the problems are that need to be addressed in rural areas. Obviously there are some rural areas that are under-performing economically and that is why it is part of our objective to address that. There are some rural areas, particularly those that are rural areas but post-industrial in one way or another, where there may be quite considerable problems. In a sense those are easier to identify. I think there is an underlying issue here about how you identify what the problems really are and address them rather than simply saying we need to tilt the balance between urban and rural. It is a question of being targeted and understanding the problems and targeting at the genuine problems.

Chairman

196. You have mentioned Sure Start twice and I think it has been widely recognised as an excellent programme. How many of the programmes of Sure Start, it has altered slightly from now on, are in rural areas rather than urban areas?

(Alun Michael) I could not give you the numbers off the top of my head.

197. Could you send us a note?

(Alun Michael) I would be happy to do so.

198. We would be interested in that.

(Alun Michael) You might be interested in some of the newsletters which have been produced that have shared experience and certainly one of the things that comes out is the extent to which it has been liberating and enabling as far as the mothers are involved as well as giving the children a good start.

199. What I think we would be interested in is the number of Sure Start programmes that are in urban areas vis-à-vis those that are in rural areas.

(Mr Twigg) I am sure what it will show is that there are still far more in urban areas than in rural, but I think it will show something of the shift to which Alun referred, that initially this was a purely urban programme and as it has developed lessons have been learnt.

(Alun Michael) But there are examples in each of the regions. I have seen some in the north-east and a particularly early one in the Somerset area, a very dispersed community, so there have been some good examples of teasing out how to reach those who need help.

Mr Mitchell

200. I would just like to hear a bit about this because, coming from Grimsby, I am an urban sophisticate compared to the rural-proofed people around me.

(Alun Michael) That is what they all say in the county when you visit there.

201. Last week we had rather a good case put by the Head of North Linsley College and I wonder if there is not a strong case for encouraging sixth-form colleges. I know there are problems of distance, but sixth-form colleges could become centres of community excellence as well as teaching because of the opportunity for using IT and bringing in the community involved and the opportunity for bringing business, start-ups even, and providing them with facilities. Here is something which could serve a very useful combined purpose surely. Why are you nudging?

(Alun Michael) I was just going to say that given my previous role as an official of the All-Party Group for Tertiary Colleges, I think I ought to leave this to Stephen.

(Mr Twigg) I read the evidence from last week and I think there was some really interesting stuff in there and some information I would like to take back to colleagues in the DFES. I think that there is great potential there and when we are looking at extended schools, we should not simply be thinking about existing primary and secondary schools. Of course the learning and skills councils, I know this was gone into in some length last week, are conducting strategic area reviews where they are taking a look at the balance of provision in an area and I do not see any reason why they should not be partly looking at some of those wider facilities and the potential to use educational buildings beyond schools as a focus for other forms of learning, but also for some other services and facilities that we have been talking about.

Mr Borrow

202. On information technology, this morning another sub-committee of this Select Committee held a hearing into broadband in rural areas, so many of us are particularly interested in that area. Initially, have you got figures for the number of rural schools that have got broadband access? I think there has been some difficulty getting access to those figures in the past, so is there any particular reason or a particular problem?

(Mr Twigg) I suspect it is difficult in that I do not have the figures and the extensive briefing I have had for today= s appearance has not given me those figures either, so it may well be that we have not collected them on that basis, but what I will do is look into that and write to the Committee with the outcome of what I look into.

203. What analysis have you carried out looking into the costs of providing broadband access to schools in urban as against rural areas? Have you got any information on that?

(Mr Twigg) Well, as you are probably aware, we have the regional consortia that are working at the local and regional level to try to deliver this. I do not have to hand an analysis, but I think there is a good argument which was, I think, put last week in some of the evidence about how the costs can be greater in rural areas. The commitment that we have made to link up all schools by 2006 is a very firm commitment and one which, as a Department, we want to see achieved and I think that demonstrates that we are willing to use the resources that we are putting up to ensure that schools in rural areas achieve the same broadband connection that is achieved by schools in urban areas even though that would be at a greater cost.

204. Has the Department got a specific policy on the nature of that broadband access, whether it needs to be a terrestrial link or whether it could be through either a wireless link or a satellite link?

(Mr Twigg) I look down at my notes when it gets to these sorts of technical questions about technology. I think what we are saying is that there are a number of ways in which some of the benefits of broadband can be achieved in the interim via, for example, satellite and wireless connections, but that ultimately the commitment is to the terrestrial connection for full broadband to get all of the benefits that broadband can bring. Therefore, whilst we might look at satellite, for example, as an alternative in the interim, we are looking ultimately at that solution right the way across the country.

205. On the point of broadband links into rural schools, one of the things that you were speaking about earlier was about how we can bring together different parts of the public and private sectors within rural communities to get something greater. To what extent is DEFRA involved with the Department in looking at ways in which broadband access to schools can actually be used to develop broadband access on a broader basis within rural communities?

(Alun Michael) We are certainly working with the Department for Education and Skills on that and regard it as a very important opportunity if you look at both the access in terms of schools and the access in terms of health centres and the Health Service generally. The other thing that we are doing is we have recently agreed to second a member of the DEFRA team into DTI to be part of the Broadband Task Force and I have currently also got a member of the Rural Affairs Team seconded to one of the regional development agencies, actually Yorkshire and Humberside, to work with them on broadband delivery so that we have got some first-hand experience on the ground. We regard this as very important, but I have to say there is not a quick fix on it. It is both technically challenging and an expensive issue where the commitment that the Government has put into education we would like to help them to get the widest benefit to non-educational approaches as well. Also I think sometimes people are a little simplistic about treating broadband as if it is going to be a quick fix, a magic wand that is suddenly going to transform everything. It is an extremely powerful instrument, but it is very important for people to think what is the purpose of having that access and that is one of the things we are trying to give as much weight to as the access itself.

Chairman

206. Why is the Government so fixed on a fixed-line solution for broadband when, particularly in rural areas, we could probably roll it out much quicker if we were using wireless or satellite technology?

(Mr Twigg) My understanding, and I cannot say I have an in-depth expert knowledge on this particular area, but my understanding is simply because of some of the broader benefits that it can bring in terms of some of the facilities that wireless or satellite might not be able to provide. If a case is put to us by schools in an area that all of those facilities can be provided in that way, then I am prepared to take that away and have a look at it. My understanding is, for example, that some of the possibilities of two-way link-ups and video-conferencing are more limited.

207. And you think primary schools are going to be wanting some of these services?

(Mr Twigg) Yes, I think so. I have seen interesting examples of primary schools, for example, doing video link-ups with primary schools in other parts of the world as part of the modern foreign languages strategy, so in some cases that would be the case, yes.

(Alun Michael) Obviously the demands on secondary schools are higher, but that is why the Government= s targets are higher in relation to secondary schools. I think as well satellite links have been around for a while and I saw the use being made of satellite links by a primary school in Pembrokeshire about five years ago which showed, in a very, very small school, some really imaginative ways of expanding the curriculum. Indeed in our discussion with the RDAs about access for commercial as well as educational usage around the country, I do not think anyone is closing their eyes to satellite, but it is expensive, it is not totally equivalent and I think the question is to make the best use of what is suitable in the particular circumstances.

Chairman: All I can do is recommend that you read the report when it comes out on broadband. You might find it a bit of an eye-opener.

Mr Curry

208. The Education Minister and myself have about the same grasp of broadband which, in DEFRA terminology, is probably best described as broad and shallow! Can I ask Mr Michael what representations did DEFRA make to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister over the elaboration of a new system of local government finance?

(Alun Michael) Well, we take part in the normal processes of discussion through Cabinet committee on the ways those things are developed.

209. So you will then have formed a view, if you have done that, on the impact of the central feature of the new local government system, which is the introduction of something called > resource equalisation= ?

(Alun Michael) I would not pretend to be an expert on the system of resource equalisation, but certainly, as a Department, we looked at it and we looked at the impact of the proposed changes on rural areas.

210. Well, if you have done that, you will have formed a view as to what the impact on rural areas was of resource equalisation. Could you summarise for us what conclusions you came to about the impact of resource equalisation on the funding of rural areas?

(Alun Michael) No, I am not going to talk about the impact of resource equalisation. What I will say is that ----

211. No, but I am asking you to talk about the impact of resource equalisation because that is what you are here for. We ask the questions.

(Alun Michael) Well, in that case, I will say no, but if you wish me to respond specifically on resource equalisation, I am happy to let you have a note on the topic.

212. It is particularly important, is it not, because you said just now that you have taken part in the discussions within government about it? Resource equalisation has a particular impact upon the shire authorities because it is based upon an assumption about the available council tax to finance services. That is what the whole principle of resource equalisation is about. You will equally know that there is a great rumpus going on about the level of council tax increases not merely in rural areas, but elsewhere as well, and resource equalisation is one of the major factors which is at the root of this rumpus, so surely you must have some view as to what the impact was upon funding for shire authorities and the effect it has had in practice, if not in intention, of dragging funding out of the shire areas.

(Alun Michael) Well, I am certainly aware that there has been a lot of opinion expressed in various places about the local government settlement. I have been involved on both sides of the equation both in terms of local government finance as the recipient of government grant and on the other side of the equation, and of course one always hears from those who believe that they are losing out from a particular equation. We looked at the impact of the most recent settlement on rural authorities and that was looked at in detail by my officials and the assessment that they made was that there did not appear to be an unfairness to rural authorities.

213. Why do you think that the rural authorities, and we are talking about counties now, not the districts because their services are not relevant in this particular discussion, so why do you think that virtually unanimously the shire counties then came to a different conclusion?

(Alun Michael) As I have indicated, there is a tendency for those who lose out in any way or see themselves being squeezed to complain about the impact of the change in the formula, but given that I was not aware that you wished to talk about the local government funding formula, I have not gone over my notes from the time when we were looking at it this year, nor did I come prepared to respond to questions on it.

214. With respect, the local government funding formula is the essential component of the allocation of resources to local education authorities which is then allocated to the schools so that that formula does govern the distribution mechanism both mechanistically in the sense of the pupil numbers, for example, but also > evaluatively= because various weightings are made about the importance which certain factors carry. Now, one of the ones which has been a perennial subject, just to move away from resource equalisation, has been sparsity. You mentioned, Mr Twigg, earlier on that there had been some changing in the weighting according to sparsity, so can I ask you, do you think that has gone far enough? Did it respond to your concerns about that or do you think that there is still some further work to be done, whichever of you prefers to answer, about the role of sparsity, knowing that, at least as far as Mr Twigg is concerned, he has got to look after education as a whole, so in a sense he is in the robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul position, whereas Mr Michael is paid only to look after the rural bit, as it were, so he can do the robbing without any conscience.

(Mr Twigg) Well, I suspect that there is always further work to be done in looking at local government funding and no one is ever going to quite reach the right answer on it, but certainly from our point of view what we sought to do was to look at where the need is greatest in terms of sparsity and the view that we formed, as a Department, was that there was a need to have a particular line in the funding which would assist primary schools and would assist the sparsity factor for primary schools and clearly that has a benefit for rural areas. The amount of money, I think I am right in saying, that goes through that in our funding of local education is , 440 million. If you ask me if that is enough, I think we need to monitor it and to see what the impact of that is on funding.

215. I do not think anybody would always suggest that more is needed because you cannot run a government at the end of the day on that hypothesis.

(Alun Michael) No, but you did ask the question about information and it is always the case that it is helpful to have more information about the exact impact so that one is working not on presumptions. You will recall that when I was at the Home Office, I instigated research on the impact of sparsity on rural police forces which led to the Rural Police Grant because that was based on very clear differences as distinct from assumptions. It was something that rural police forces had talked about for a long time, but without precision.

216. Well, you will be happy to know, or you may be indifferent to know, that the North Yorkshire Police Authority has just levied a 76 per cent increase in the amount of the police grant, taking it from the bottom to the top of the league table, I think, in one fell swoop, but therein hangs another tale. You mentioned, Mr Twigg, the Small Schools Grant, which is part of the Standards Fund, and you will also know that as part of a new government formula, the Standards Fund then becomes incorporated, or A embedded@ perhaps is the word we should use now, in the main grants and that has also caused concerns because what was a grant now has to be funded from the more general fund and is one of the reasons cited for the relatively high increase in the council tax. There is a problem, is there not, when things start as a grant and then do become sort of rolled into the general formula and, as part of that, more weight of the funding of that falls upon the local authorities?

(Mr Twigg) Without doubt, there is a real issue with this and what we have done, as a Department, is we have responded to a lot of criticism of DFES that a lot of our programmes in recent years have been delivered through ring-fenced grants, some of which had to be bid for, so there is a deliberate shift away from that and towards the main formula funding. Now, in general people welcome that, but clearly when it comes to some of the specific programmes that target specific areas, then there can be a loss. One of my other responsibilities is working with schools in London and some of the Standards Fund changes that we have made, not on small schools, but some of the other factors, have particularly affected some of our London schools, so yes, there will be problems in the interim, but the ultimate goal is to have a system where a larger proportion of the funding goes through local education authorities, enabling more flexibility at the local level, and I think in general that has been welcomed.

217. On that subject, tomorrow, it will not have escaped you, is Budget day and in previous Budgets we have had what you might described as A Brown= s bonus@ . In other words, the Chancellor of the Exchequer has dished out a specific sum to the headteachers and governors of all the schools in the United Kingdom. First of all, do you think that in practice, although less spectacular, that money would have been more welcome as part of the general grant to local authorities to be used at the discretion of the local authorities or within their normal distribution and, secondly, in the present, more difficult circumstances, do you expect to see it again tomorrow?

(Mr Twigg) On the second question, I am certainly not going to speculate. I wait with bated breath on that one. On the first question, I suspect that the LEAs would prefer that that money went to the LEAs and the schools are very pleased to receive it as a direct grant into the schools, and I know that a lot of schools have used what you described, David, as A Brown= s bonus@ , the School Standards Grant, to great effect and have found that having that bit of extra money is something really positive that can support some of their additional activity on top of their core budget from the local education authority.

218. Although you say, and it is true, that the Government have said they wish to see less use of direct grant, to revert to the principles of non-hypothecation.

(Mr Twigg) Absolutely, yes.

219. Although in fact your Department is a massive sinner in that regard of course through its insistence on passporting, so there is a serious contradiction between the general statement and the specific statement. But, as far as your proposed School Support Staff Grant is concerned, how are you intending to monitor the uses of those funds and how are you intending to look at what appear to be the best outcomes from it so that at least we get the best bang for the buck?

(Mr Twigg) We obviously have a range of ways in which we monitor the expenditure, partly through our own field force, as a Department, partly through the work we do with local education authorities, and of course partly through Ofsted, and Ofsted will look at the use of support staff within schools as part of their inspections. It is true to say that, as a Department, we have been a user in recent years of these ring-fenced grants, including the Standards Fund, and concern has been expressed in the education sector and in government more widely and that is why we have made some of the changes this year which I think in the long run will be beneficial, but do create some difficulties in the short run and it would be absurd of me to deny that.

Mr Mitchell

220. Can we talk about transport because we are all familiar with all these kind of romantic stories about people who will tell you, as they used to tell me when I used to make films in the Dales, about how they had had to walk 18 miles to school in all kinds of weather and it was like an extended Hovis advert. We are presumably agreed that it is desirable to remove obstacles that might deter people from going to school and to provide transport on as generous a scale as possible. How does DEFRA see its role in relation to homes-to-school transport in rural areas?

(Alun Michael) Well, the primary role as far as education transport is concerned lies with the Department for Education, as with other things. I think our initiatives are basically to try to get people to think laterally, so, for instance, to see whether we can combine approaches, whether we can get people to think differently. One of the great successes in recent times, for instance, was the Wheels to Work programme which relates to getting young people who are unemployed mobile so that they can actually get to training to work, and it is something which has been supported by colleagues at Education, at the Department for Work and Pensions, supported by the Countryside Agency and by local authorities. The sort of communities where there is a problem for children in getting to school, and possibly the issues in relation to out-of-school activities, are also the sort of communities where there are problems in older people getting to the surgery or to town or whatever, therefore, we are very keen for the issue not to be seen all the time in silos. The ministerial group which has looked at transport and social exclusion in recent months has tried to tease out some of the answers which could be available. We have also made grants available to parishes, the Parish Transport Grant, to try to enable local communities to have a sum of money with which they might try taking a different approach in the local community.

221. Can you tell us about the Parish Transport Grant?

(Alun Michael) Well, the idea there is to make money available which a parish council can apply for to enable them to provide a parish solution. In fact take-up was initially a bit slow because I think people find it difficult to think of ways of doing things, but it could be through, I think one example is, a voucher scheme, another is through helping in the sharing of vehicles and that sort of thing. None of that relates directly to education transport. As I say, I think our contribution is to try to think laterally and to work with colleagues at Education, Health and Transport to say to what extent can we bring a benefit to a rural community by co-operation.

222. Yes, but you also have a concern for rural transport, as a Department, and thinking laterally includes innovative ways of dealing with things, like buses carrying mail and passengers and that kind of thing, so could school bus services not be used in the same kind of way? What lateral thinking have you actually done on innovative ways of getting kids to school?

(Alun Michael) As I say, what we have been trying to do is to give the opportunity for communities to think of their own ways of joining up on some of these issues. The direct financing of public transport, the Public Transport Bus Grant and that sort of thing, is the responsibility of the Department for Transport and the direct education responsibilities lie with Stephen= s Department. I think transport is a big issue for all rural areas and for all services in relation to rural areas, including the question of who do you bring in one direction, who do you bring to the service and what services do you bring to the people, the sort of issues of co-location that I was talking about earlier.

(Mr Twigg) I think clearly Alun is right that there is an opportunity for us to look at this in a cross-governmental way, but there is a responsibility on us, as a Department, to get this right. We have a policy approach to this which is, how shall I put it, longstanding, dating from the 1944 Education Act in terms of the free provision of transport for pupils who live within two miles of school if they are under eight and within three miles if they are over eight, and this is the basis upon which we fund local education authorities to provide free transport. There is then discretion and different local authorities exercise that discretion in different ways in terms of providing something on top of that minimum. The Department of Transport have been piloting a number of other schemes. I think there is a Yellow Bus scheme in north Yorkshire that is being piloted at the moment and the analysis of that will start soon and we will be looking at that with our colleagues in the Department for Transport to see if there are other ways in which we can provide a service perhaps more flexibly than the one that was dreamt up back in 1944. The other aspect of this of course is about post-16 education and the importance of removing barriers to those particularly from families where there is not a tradition of staying on in education, and the Education Maintenance Allowance has been used in some cases to give specific support to people with significant distances to travel with their transport costs, and the analysis seems to suggest some benefit in that, so as that becomes a national programme next year, I think that could be a contributor to reducing the barriers to 16-plus students, perhaps particularly 16 to 19-year-olds, going to further education, sixth form or other forms of education and training.

223. Are some local authorities meaner than others?

(Mr Twigg) Yes.

224. There does seem to be a wide variety of spending, like north Yorkshire.

(Mr Twigg) There is a huge variety between authorities.

225. Why is that? Is that local authority meanness?

(Mr Twigg) It is history, I suppose, and different patterns which have built up over years or even decades. I made the reference to 1944 and the statutory conditions were set out in the 1944 Act and since then different authorities responding to different local concerns and different priorities have responded in very different ways. Some simply fund that policy that I have just described and others are a great deal more generous.

Mr Mitchell: Well, north Yorkshire is one of the most sparse areas in the country. Folk are sparse in north Yorkshire, are they not, and north Yorkshire spends less than all the others? You are being very diplomatic, may I say, in the history and devolution, but is it not also a product of stinginess?

Mr Curry

226. It is also how much you pass down to the schools and how much you retain in the central budget.

(Mr Twigg) That is certainly an element within it. I think, by and large, these are services that are funded in that way. I think some authorities provide some additional funding from outside their schools or even education budget. I may be being diplomatic. The other thing I can do is provide that information to the Committee in terms of how much is spent by each authority and that could be useful for you.

Mr Mitchell

227. It is quite an interesting point. As I said, there is this romantic vision of people walking 18 miles to school in all weathers. Have you made any assessment of whether kids can be assumed to walk or get there under their own steam, by bike or whatever, without being financed for transport, and the degree to which that reflects modern conditions?

(Mr Twigg) There is work going on on this and we are looking at this in conjunction with colleagues and officials in the Department for Transport. I know a lot of concern has been expressed perhaps in terms of safety issues for children with the requirements that we have got from the 1944 legislation and that is something that we are working on and it may be that there will be announcements on that in due course.

228. So is that something which is kept under review like everything else or is something real being done?

(Mr Twigg) I think we are looking at it a bit more actively than that.

Chairman

229. Because different local authorities have different levels of meanness about their transport spend, has any work been done in the Department of Education about truancy rates and staying on post-16 rates vis-à-vis those authorities that spend more or less on transport? In other words, how difficult are we making it for them to get to the institution of education and if it is easier to get to because there is a lot more transport available either through the EMAs or because of what the local authority is providing, or does it make any difference, has any work been done on that?

(Mr Twigg) I do not know the answer to that, so I will find out and contact you. Commonsense says there must be some kind of association in both areas. How strong it is, I do not know, but I will look into where we have done some specific work on that and come back to you.

Mr Curry

230. A little while ago I asked the Secretary of State if he would set out a table for school balances. It is quite interesting, but some local authorities think that up to 9 per cent of budgets were being held in school balances, so it would be interesting if we could have a quarterly analysis of who was holding the balances and for what purposes and to what extent they are being drawn down because in north Yorkshire, I know, the local authority is getting extremely twitchy about the level of school balances and is actually asking schools to spend the money. The danger is sometimes they are then pressed to spend and it means it is not necessarily spent on the most useful things. Perhaps that is something that the Department needs to keep an eye on. The other thing is that statutory walking distances are only relevant where there are pavements. In my constituency, if you take north Yorkshire, the Yorkshire Dales with a lot of rural schools, one of the biggest problems I have is not to do with a school not being excellent schools, but it is the sheer danger of getting the kids to school because you have a road between two dry-stone walls, the width of the road is barely the width between the two sets of chairs here and parents are, quite sensibly, not willing to let their children walk or cycle to school because it is too dangerous and the schools discourage it for exactly the same reasons. We, therefore, have a procession of cars dropping the pupils at school, which of course goes entirely against the sustainable development preoccupations of the Department for the Environment.

(Mr Twigg) My understanding, and I will check this, but my understanding of the policy is that it is the minimum, that it is the shortest route with reasonable safety, so it could be, in those circumstances, that the route which is being taken or were it being taken on foot would not constitute such a route and that the entitlement could, therefore, fall below two miles or below three miles for that reason. I am very happy to check the precise operation of that, but it is not simply as the crow flies.

231. There clearly should not be an establishment of a national standard because the circumstances are so different in one setting from another setting.

(Mr Twigg) That is true, but I think we have sought to bring that flexibility into how we define the national standard. I cannot be certain that it is being applied consistently across the country and that is something I am happy to look into.

232. It would also be interesting, and I do not know whether you have these figures, to know to what extent the actual school bus service itself may have been devolved to schools because perhaps some of the larger secondary schools, which serve a wide, rural catchment area, might actually themselves have the process of commissioning the buses themselves from the local authority.

(Mr Twigg) I will come back to you on that.

Chairman

233. DEFRA has a target within its public service agreement to increase the proportion of 16 and 17-year-olds in rural areas from taking up further education and training, but you have no policy control, so why has DEFRA got a target for an outcome over which it has absolutely no influence or control over its policy?

(Alun Michael) Well, I think in general if you look at the public service agreement, it is seeking government performance on particular issues. We have ones which relate to services generally to people in rural areas and it makes us a department for co-operation which is actually a very good thing. I think the way that DEFRA will work best and the way that rural-proofing and the promotion of the interests of rural areas works best is if we are working with other government departments in the way that I indicated earlier, so our job is to work with rural communities and with the Department for Education in increasing interest in these issues and promoting things like skills in rural areas. We have just, for instance, Larry Witty(?)and myself, set in hand a piece of work to examine the availability of training of skills in rural areas for precisely the same reason, because of its importance not just in skills per se, but its importance to the advancement of the economy and the diversification of the economy in rural areas, so the PSA target does not necessarily mean that you have the whole of the responsibility, but you have the lead responsibility within government and that is why we are working very closely with colleagues in DFES because we cannot deliver on our PSA target without working very co-operatively with them.

Mr Mitchell

234. What does A mainstreaming rural issues across all DFES policies@ actually mean? It is a nice phrase, but what does it mean?

(Mr Twigg) I think what it means is very much what Alun was just talking about. It is saying that if we are setting up a new programme, such as the Extended Schools programme about which we have talked quite a lot this afternoon, or Connexions or indeed our own targets of increasing the numbers in higher education, we want to ensure that we are treating all parts of the country fairly and with equality. For example, our Specialist Schools programme is a programme that must not, from our Department= s point of view, be seen simply as an urban programme, but one which can be of benefit to rural areas as well.

235. So it is not just in terms of deprivation within urban areas, but it is a balance between urban and rural, so it is equality you are talking about?

(Mr Twigg) Yes. I do not think it is simply about deprivation, although I think that is certainly an aspect of it and I mentioned, I think, in response to David Borrow earlier on that within the group that I have established, the Rural Schools Group, one of the questions we are looking at is how we can ensure that there is that equality of access to programmes and initiatives from DFES and part of that is recognising that the character of deprivation may be different in many rural communities from that in urban communities, so there is certainly a deprivation angle on what we are talking about, but it is not simply about recognising deprivation, but it is recognising some of the other different circumstances, such as distance and sparsity that we have talked about this afternoon.

236. What part does DEFRA play in this mainstreaming?

(Alun Michael) Well, I think this is the issue of the Rural Services Standard which was set out for the first time in the Rural White Paper and is something that we have been working on with colleagues in other departments. I think essentially the idea is to say that of course you cannot have the same standard, the same immediacy of service if you are living in a rural part of Cumbria or the south-west as if you are living in Central London, but there must be an idea of what is a reasonable standard. The first attempt was made following the Rural White Paper and we are actually looking afresh at the idea of a Rural Standard, looking at what it is reasonable for people to expect wherever they live in terms of health, in terms of education , in terms of the whole range of public services. I think there has been a considerable commitment on the part of government to recognise the needs of rural areas. One example is the money that has gone into post offices, for instance, but I think in the longer term we have to look at different ways of delivering, otherwise things will become very, very expensive and that is where things like the co-location, looking at different ways of assisting with transport and, if you like, a joined-up way across government is the right way of doing things. I am impressed at the way that one or two of the newer Connexions is another good example of co-operation between us where they have looked at the need to make sure that services are available to young people growing up, looking for work in rural areas just as much as in urban areas. Now, in some ways government departments and agencies can very often meet their targets by performing well in urban areas and it is encouraging everybody to say, A No, that= s not good enough. We need to make sure that there is a fairness of service in rural as well as urban areas@ , which I think is the way forward, so our job is to work with all government departments on these issues. I think it is worth mentioning as well, and I spoke earlier about the meeting with the Secretary of State, that we have the Countryside Agency doing an annual check, we have the rural checklist which acts, if you like, as a tick-list of whether things are being considered in terms of policy development, but we try to go beyond that to working with colleagues in other departments. I think we are getting a very positive response and people at ministerial and senior official level now are saying at the development of policy stage, A How do we deliver that in rural areas which might require a tweaking or a difference of the approach?@ , so it is thought of at the policy development stage.

237. So it is different from rural-proofing, the sort of question of delivering? You have an official invigilating at the DFES to say, A Do this, but don= t do that for rural areas@ ?

(Alun Michael) The difference is that rural-proofing is looking at the checklist and seeing whether they are doing things in a way that acknowledges the needs of rural areas. The difference, and this is where A mainstreaming@ , I suppose, is the right term, is working with colleagues to make sure that that is built in from the beginning.

Chairman

238. At the start I asked you about how much you worked together and what role were DEFRA playing in this policy. I wonder if you could just tell me a little bit about what DEFRA= s role is with LEAs. Obviously education has lots of contact with LEAs because they are the deliverer of their policy, but what contact does DEFRA have? How do you obtain information from LEAs about rural education and those issues facing them? Also why is DEFRA better than the LEAs at telling the Department for Education and Skills the knowledge and understanding that that Department needs to deliver the policy? Why should it be you and why can it not be just straight the LEA?

(Alun Michael) Well, I would not say that it is alternatives. I think it is a multi-faceted role. The relationship between central government and local authorities is dealt with in a team approach, so I attend all the meetings of the central local partnership, for instance, to represent DEFRA. That means if there is an education issue which comes up, as it well may, the main responsibility will lie with Charles Clarke or with one of his ministers who would be there for that purpose, but I am there to make sure that the rural aspect is not overlooked. Actually on the local government side, the same is true. There are representatives there from local government in both urban and rural areas and they are actually very productive discussions. Increasingly, of course there is a need to look at issues on a regional dimension and we also have both the Rural Affairs Forum for England which you referred to earlier and the regional rural affairs fora. For instance, the Regional Forum for the North-West spent a full day on the interests of children and young people and a lot of young people were actually involved in the day= s process. The mainstream responsibility, the main-line responsibility, if you like, is clearly the Department for Education and the local education authorities, but that is not the end of the story.

(Mr Twigg) And I think from our point of view all of those relationships matter, so we have got our Rural Education Task Force which reports directly to the Secretary of State, to Charles Clarke, to Alun and to the Countryside Agency. Then there is my Rural Schools Group, which is predominantly made up of people on the front line, headteachers and principals of schools and colleges, working with officials in the two departments, and then we have our own relationships obviously with the LEAs.

Mr Borrow

239. I would be interested to know at what point in the decision-making process within your Department do you actually check that you have actually done the rural-proofing? Is there built into the process of decision-making in your Department a point when somebody says, A Have we done the rural-proof? Have we checked that aspect?@ ? Also can you give me an example of one decision which was changed as a result of that process?

(Mr Twigg) I think it would be fair to say that it is integral to the process. It is not something that is bolted on at the end. In fact I think I am right in saying that the Countryside Agency said that the DFES was the best department in terms of our practice on rural-proofing. I am slightly stumped by your last question. I think it is probably true to say that in terms of looking at the Specialist Schools programme and some of the changes that we are now planning to make to that, that is a good example of the rural dimension being considered at the heart of a mainstream programme. Whether that will constitute a response to the rural-proofing checklist, I am not sure, but it is a very good recent example of where we have been reviewing the nature of the specialisms that are available to schools to apply for and we are looking at bringing a rural dimension in as part of the new humanities specialism, and I think that the officials within our Department who work on rural issues with myself as the Minister have contributed to ensuring that that happened.

(Alun Michael) I think it is worth saying as well that, for instance, in recent working groups, if something has been set up, one of my officials has been included in the team, so that is a recognition from the start. Things like Wheels to Work were referred to, and the task group of officials between the two departments provides back-up to the ministerial discussions. I think there are a lot of opportunities and I think that is where I would praise the Department for Education and its ministers in particular in that they are creating the opportunities for us to be able to comment.

(Mr Twigg) And the other way that we do that is, to mention it again, the Rural Schools Group that we have now established which has senior representation from DEFRA as well as from DFES.

Mr Borrow: Just while we are on the subject of specialist schools, in the south Ribble end of my constituency, that is, the district council borders, probably six or seven schools which are in the more urban, suburban and semi-rural areas have come to a collective view as to which specialist areas each are going to apply for and because they are not necessarily that far apart, they can, for that community, provide a reasonable coverage and a reasonable choice where people could travel to one or the other. However, in the west Lancashire part of my constituency, I have got Tarleton High School which applied, and did not get, Specialist Grant status, but it will still be seeking it, but in very rural areas where there is only one high school for most pupils and where there is not going to be a choice to go to, there is a danger with the Specialist Schools programme of actually narrowing down the choice in a way which is not the case in more urban or suburban areas. I just would be interested in your comments on that.

Chairman

240. Before you answer, I am aware that Alun has to go. If, Stephen, you would be prepared to stay to the end, that would be most helpful. Maybe the question which David asked, if you had a view on that question, you could possibly do it in writing to us.

(Alun Michael) I could just give one sentence which is that when issues have been raised, as was raised by one high school, Settle High School, when they were looking for specialist status and found that the rules were a bit difficult for them, we were able to talk to colleagues and there was a ready willingness to say, A Is there a different way of doing it? Is it possible to recognise the rural dimension?@ That is the important thing because you will not be able to do that on everything. There are some situations where the mainstream department would have to say, A We= re sorry. There are reasons why we can= t be flexible@ , but it is the willingness to look and say, A Is there something different? Is there something that could be done in a fairer or more practical way?@ which, I think, is a major development and one which we very much welcome.

241. Well, thank you very much, Minister.

(Mr Twigg) I think David raises a fair point and it is one which was raised at the first meeting of the Rural Schools Group. Interestingly, if you look at the pattern of specialist schools, the proportion of rural secondary schools that are specialist is pretty much identical to the general proportion at about 22 per cent, so there is a consistency there. Clearly one of the functions of specialist schools is for them to collaborate with one another and there are geographical issues, such as the ones you have outlined, David. I think we do need to look at other ways in which collaboration can be established possibly with primary schools, possibly looking at other providers of 14 to 19 or post-16 education in an area, but also using the Internet, using other forms of technology as a way of sharing practice between different communities, and I know that the Lincolnshire Rural Academy which was established has been quite an innovative way of doing some of that work and we would encourage more of those sorts of initiatives. The other thing we have recognised within the Specialist Schools programme is that for some of the smaller secondary schools, raising the matched funding can be even tougher than it can be for other schools and that is why we have set a lower amount for the matched funding which has to be raised from private sources by those smaller schools, and we keep that under review.

Mr Borrow

242. If I can come back on that, a specific point is raised by Tarleton High School which actually raised the money from parents in a remarkable way and from small local businesses, but probably the nature of many of the small local businesses, which were rural, farming-based businesses in that area, was that they were quite happy to make out the odd cheque towards the , 50,000, but in terms of having the ongoing involvement with the school, which is more common with large companies in more urban areas, that was one of the more difficult things to achieve, and that was the aspect that they found more difficult rather than necessarily raising the funds.

(Mr Twigg) Clearly it is still a relatively young programme, Specialist Schools, and we need to learn as we go along from things like that. Yes, we should continue to have a high expectation, but it needs to be realistic and if people are making a contribution in cash, but are not able to make a further commitment, I think we need to have some flexibility in the programme. The other thing of course that we have done, announced by Charles Clarke late last year, is we have now established a further fund to assist those schools that have difficulty raising the necessary matched funding and that should be of some assistance to a number of rural schools.

Mr Mitchell

243. Just on the point you were making about rural considerations and mainstreaming, can you just tell us how senior the official is within the DFES who is the contact point with DEFRA and the Countryside Agency, who it is?

(Mr Twigg) I am not able to tell you that off the top of my head, but I can certainly write to you with that answer unless someone magically provides me with a note from behind.

244. Perhaps you could give us a note saying who it is and what level and what are the responsibilities they have.

(Mr Twigg) It is grade 3.

245. The inspiration has come!

(Mr Twigg) Yes, the inspiration has come.

Chairman

246. Just a couple of questions from me to finish off. What work has the Department carried out on social exclusion in rural areas? I know that in my constituency, the Forest of Dean, we have got rather a substantial SRB bid which is targeted specifically at young male adolescents and their social exclusion. What is your Department doing? Is it just having a general policy on social exclusion or is it something that is very tailored to social areas where social exclusion is not only lonely and in isolation because of the sparsity and the nature of the communities, you are excluded before you even start almost, but there are all the other things to do with deprivation as well in rural areas that can cause multi-layering social exclusion?

(Mr Twigg) I think that is an issue I am keen we address in a more systemic and coherent way across the Department and that is part of the purpose of the Secretary of State establishing his Rural Education Task Force and then my establishing specifically the Rural Schools Group. I think it would be fair to say that within a number of the programmes that we have as a Department, which are generally about tackling social exclusion either exclusively or as a major part of their remit, we are seeking to address particular rural programmes and most of the programmes we have covered during the discussion today, Sure Start, Connexions, extended schools. I think programme by programme we have been getting better - I am not saying we are perfect by any means - at recognising that there will be specific effects for rural schools and rural communities. What I do not think we have done in a fully systematic way is looked at that right the way across our policy approach as a Department and I think that is one of the things that we do want to address as part of the work of the task force and the Rural Schools Group.

247. And the last one is to do with special education. I do not think it is unique in Gloucestershire, but special education needs provision in rural areas is very difficult partly because of the numbers and partly because of transport issues. In Gloucestershire there is currently, as I am sure you are aware, a programme to take and close the area's special schools, but this is not common. Years ago I was a special education teacher and I taught in rural areas in Cornwall, Somerset and Gloucestershire and provision is very difficult. How is your Department dealing with the problem of meeting the needs of special education within rural areas other than saying to them you have either to board or you have to have an horrendous journey in a taxi or a minibus, which for some very vulnerable children can be a journey of an hour or an hour and a half in the morning?

(Mr Twigg) I realise that, and one of the things that I think is most striking is how the nature, quality and availability of services for children with special educational needs varies enormously between areas that are otherwise quite similar in character and you have similar contrasts between different urban areas as you do between different rural areas. Whilst the precise nature of how schools deliver services for special educational needs will vary and will be a matter for a lot of local discussion, clearly there is a framework within which those schools are operating. We have wanted to make very clear as a Department that we put great emphasis on inclusion and the importance of inclusion, but the special schools will continue to have an important role to play in delivering that vision of inclusion. It has to be about what is best for the individual child. I think I would be right in saying that the issue in rural areas is perhaps particularly pronounced for primary schools sometimes simply because of the scale, the environment ----

248. Sometimes there is no provision at all.

(Mr Twigg) Sometimes there is no provision at all. One of the ways in which we have been seeking to improve that is to encourage clusters of primary schools to work together in terms of planning their special educational needs provision or even to encourage primary schools and secondary schools nearby to be working together to share some of those services so that those children for whom mainstream education is the best option do not end up completely isolated because they are perhaps the only child with a statement in a very small primary school, they are able to benefit from the facilities that may be available through their LEA at another primary school or secondary school.

249. But for those children that are going to separate and specialist educational provision the Government has loads of targets. Is there a target that brings down the journey time or journey distance that any one child should be expected to travel by a local authority in order to find the special education provision that may have been suggested either in their statement or by the educational psychologist or because of their behavioural and emotional needs?

(Mr Twigg) I do not often go to meetings where I am asked to create more targets, but I am happy to take that one away.

250. I wondered if there was something in your mind that you would find completely unacceptable. Is it longer than an hour or longer than 50 miles or whatever, because I am sure there are instances in some of the rural areas of Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, Cornwall and Gloucestershire where we are expecting children to travel a huge journey in order to get the education that we are meant to be providing for them?

(Mr Twigg) Clearly there is a trade off between a long travel period versus access to the best quality provision. I am a bit wary of speculating about setting a maximum figure off the top of my head as to what would be reasonable either in terms of distance or in terms of time, but I am sure that there are examples that you could cite and other members of the Committee could cite of unacceptable situations and I think, if it is okay, I would like to take that back into the Department and talk to my colleague, Cathy Ashton, who leads on special education needs and also to ensure that it informs some of our continuing work with rural schools.

251. Thank you. Stephen, it has been a delight to have somebody from another department, it gives us a different perspective. Thank you very much for your contribution this afternoon.

(Mr Twigg) Thank you very much.