Examination of Witnesses (Questions 400
- 419)
MONDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2003
DR IAN
BIRNBAUM AND
MR PAUL
ROBINSON
Q400 Helen Jones: Does that mean
that there are many more people within your authority area who
do not get their first choice of school within the local authority
area than there used to be before the Greenwich judgment?
Mr Robinson: It is very difficult
at the moment, because we do not ask parents to rank their preferences,
to know whether folk are getting their first preference or not.
It is only after we have the co-ordinated arrangements in place
and parents are able to list their preferred schools in rank order,
that we will be able to make a judgment about the proportion that
are getting first or second preference. It is going to be very
difficult to make comparisons with the time prior to the Greenwich
judgment. Unlike Sutton, Wandsworth is an inner London borough
and at one time the schools were part of ILEA. The distribution
of the schools often does not make an awful lot of sense in terms
of borough boundaries. The natural catchment areas, in so far
as there are natural catchment areas in London, cross borough
boundaries. If people, for example, were looking to their local
school, it is possible that youngsters in Lambeth would look to
come to some of the schools which are located in Wandsworth. Equally,
there are some estates in Wandsworth where the nearest secondary
school is in Richmond. In a sense the Greenwich judgment is almost
an irrelevance to people locally; they just see schools as the
local one for them.
Q401 Helen Jones: The admissions
project you are working on, certainly from the sound of it makes
life easy for the parents in applying to schools. Would it help
in any way to tackle the problem which you highlighted earlier
where some schools are taking far more than their fair share of
children with problems? If it would not in your opinion, what
would?
Dr Birnbaum: The answer is that
it will not, because the main determinant of some schools taking
a large proportion of children nobody else wants is that they
are not popular in effect, so they have places available and those
children who cannot get a place anywhere else get them there.
Because schools' criteria are often based upon distance and because
we know that there is actually a geographical relationship between
socio-economic status and where you live in effect, you inevitably
get some schools which are going to take more pupils who are difficult
because of their background; they are more challenging. The system
we are putting in place does not tackle that at all, because we
are allowing parents still to make their decisions based upon
what they want. We are allowing schools to set their criteria
based upon what they require to measure over-subscription, as
long as it is in line with the code of practice. What will make
a difference? It follows from what I have said that the only way
you can tackle that is to be much more centralist about where
children go. You have to start to reduce the degree of parental
preference, that bit, and start to increase the element of central
determination. Only in that way could you get a different mix.
This has happened before in the aforementioned ILEA and indeed
that was actually done. You asked about banding earlier. Banding
will not solve this because each band is not dealt with randomly,
it is dealt with in relation to the over-subscription criteria.
In the end if that band is not full, then you have to go down
to the lower ones. So you can still get a higher proportion of
children in lower bands because you cannot fill the upper ones.
It is a very difficult issue and it really would require a very
prescribed element of central determination to put it right.
Q402 Helen Jones: What in your view—it
would be helpful if you could give the Committee your view—ought
to be the balance between individual parental preference and outcomes
for the education system in London as a whole.
Dr Birnbaum: That is a political
question, is it not?
Q403 Helen Jones: No, it is an educational
question about how you get the balance right.
Mr Robinson: Clearly some very
important principles collide. There are issues of school improvement,
parental preference, the best outcomes for youngsters and in a
way, as somebody involved as a professional officer within the
education system, I am quite pleased to see that a political judgment
needs to be made here. I would say the nut to crack, if we are
trying to make headway, is not going down a centralist route in
terms of the way you sort out applications in year seven, it is
the issue I talked about before, ie casual admissions. It is this
issue that does exacerbate some of the problems schools in the
most difficult situations face and exacerbates the problems which
some of the children and families face. It is a fact that a high
proportion, a very high proportion, of the most needy are admitted
on a random basis at various periods in the year, and do accumulate
in a few individual schools. You can either try to find a way
of winning hearts and minds to ensure all schools accept a fair
proportion of those children—and that is obviously what
Ian, myself and other colleagues are trying to do when we are
talking to heads and governors—or you find a way of shaping
the funding system in favour of those schools that admit a disproportionate
share of those children and look at other ways to support those
schools. So, for example, I know that the Association
of London Government—this will not go down very well with
MPs who do not represent London constituencies—are making
a case for extra funding because of the extra cost associated
with the education of each child with high mobility. They probably
cost between an extra £4,000 to £13,500 each. You could
change both the grant system which goes to authorities and then
the fair funding formula which allocates the money to schools
in such a way that takes account of that level of mobility and
turbulence.
Q404 Mr Pollard: Moving on to choice,
preference and selection, I live in Hertfordshire and represent
St Albans, which is a very middle-class area. We have pupils coming
from Barnet, Brent, Harrow and Enfield into our schools and we
also have migration from the north to south coming from Luton
and Bedfordshire. That is essentially for two reasons. One is
that our schools are excellent. Secondly, we have a lot of single
sex and faith schools and that is where the attraction is. I just
wonder how that would fit in with your model. It was suggested
earlier on by Sir Peter Lampl that if we did away with faith schools
it would be better. I would not support that under any circumstances,
but would that help the situation, do you think?
Dr Birnbaum: What, doing away
with faith schools?
Q405 Mr Pollard: And single sex schools.
Dr Birnbaum: You are asking some
difficult questions.
Q406 Mr Pollard: It is a quick one,
yes or no.
Dr Birnbaum: Probably not actually.
Faith schools clearly exist historically because that is the way
schools were established; they would not be there if they were
not faith schools. That is part of the difficulty, is it not?
Quite what it means to ask, if there were no faith schools would
it be better . . . ? You could argue there might be fewer schools
because of that unless you actually took them over. The issue
is about the degree to which schools should be able to determine
their own admissions and what criteria they use to do that on
the one hand and the other circumstances, which are social circumstances,
the need of the child, on the other. It goes back to what we said
earlier. That in the end is a political question and it is very
difficult educationally to draw the balance between them. In terms
of your situation in Hertfordshire, we hope Hertfordshire is going
to come into this system, so that degree of movement will be co-ordinated.
Q407 Mr Pollard: Do all parents have
equal access to choice and finding their way through the systems
which are in place for such choice?
Dr Birnbaum: Probably not; not
that the information is not available to all parents equally,
not that we do not make a real effort to try to reach out to parents
who probably are the least able to guide their children through
the system. It is simply that you are obviously starting with
an uneven base and some parents do find it very difficult. A lot
of our time is trying to reach those parents. The greatest assets
we have are the primary schools, the head teachers and the teachers
there and the governors and they do an awful lot in getting out
to those parents and letting us know when there are problems and
we obviously try to make up for the difficulties they have working
their way through the system.
Q408 Chairman: May I just push you
on one element of this particular topic? You are both very experienced
in this. If there were a person or family living in a borough
of London which had some poor performing schools and the choice
was not very wide, what would be their chances of leaping boundaries
and getting into a high performing school? Is there any chance
at all? Is it regularly done? Is it easy to do?
Dr Birnbaum: It depends obviously
on the criteria which those high performing schools are using.
If they are using mostly distance and siblings and if those parents
do not live near to the school, the chances are very small. If,
on the other hand, they are using other criteria such as the London
Oratory, which uses religious affiliation, then it is clearly
possible to widen the net because distance is not the only criterion.
If they are selective schools, that is they are selecting on ability,
then once again you have the possibility of travelling further.
Q409 Chairman: If you were the brightest
kid in London or, let us be realistic, a fairly bright child and
you wanted to go right the other side to a grammar school within
London, would you have a good chance of getting into a selective
school?
Dr Birnbaum: Yes. In Sutton, although
the selective schools do reserve some of their places on the basis
of distance, subject to your being of the right academic level,
they all have places which are not related to distance at all.
If a child is very bright, yes, he/she could travel from one end
of London to the other to go to a Sutton school or indeed a Kingston
grammar school. Of course the problem is getting the child there;
there are those impediments. If you have good comprehensive schools
in areas like that where children are getting in in relation to
distance, then somebody on the other side of London would not
have a hope of getting in.
Mr Robinson: What you do not want
to be is a first born child, you want to have ten brothers and
sisters who are older than you, all of whom have got places in
different schools so you have a wide choice. Or, if there is a
very good school you like, you want your parents to have enough
money to buy a house which is almost next to the school and that
is why there is some house price inflation around certain schools.
The system is in many ways an unjust one and an unfair one. However
you try to alter admissions criteria, you are still going to come
up with a degree of unfairness.
Q410 Chairman: By and large, if you
are a middle-class professional, you can move and get a reasonable
school in London. Yes?
Dr Birnbaum: Yes.
Q411 Chairman: That is the truth.
Dr Birnbaum: Yes.
Mr Robinson: Or if all else fails
you can buy your child an education, provided you satisfy the
independent school section's criteria, whatever they may be.
Q412 Mr Turner: Could you quantify
the reduced number of appeals and the house price inflation around
good schools? Two very different questions.
Mr Robinson: I could not. I have
drawn on other research, which I do not have at my fingertips.
Dr Birnbaum: I have some figures
for Sutton. Over the last three years the number of appeals has
gone from 329 out of 11,000 applications to 103. Of those only
eight were upheld, whereas out of the 329, 22 were upheld; it
is roughly the same proportion being upheld but obviously there
is a reduction. There is no doubt that in Sutton we have seen
a reduction in the number of appeals. Incidentally for a relatively
small authority 11,000 is quite a shocking number of applications,
is it not?
Q413 Mr Turner: On the funding model,
given that you proposed it, would you be willing to use your powers
of innovation under the 2002 Education Act to double, triple,
the funding for these most undesirable pupils? Would that help
the schools?
Mr Robinson: Most authorities
will have some sort of special criteria related to funding. It
may be based on free school meals. We had an element in our fair
funding formula last year in Wandsworth which dealt with pupil
mobility as a way of trying to capture some of these youngsters.
I have to say that whatever you try to come up with in a basic
formula for distributing money at a school level, there are always
other parts of the school community which will point out that
they are at a disadvantage and there is an unfairness in it. We
are constantly trying to find a way which achieves a fair distribution
of the money and supports the children most in need.
Q414 Mr Turner: You have described
the pan-London. Am I right in saying that it does not matter much
whether there are 30 or 300 admissions authorities?
Dr Birnbaum: That is right. The
number of admissions authorities is not the determining factor
in relation to the way the scheme works.
Q415 Mr Chaytor: Equally, does that
not follow that the fewer the admissions authorities, the simpler
it is to operate a co-ordinated system?
Dr Birnbaum: In a way it is. If
the local authority is managing all the admissions because it
has mostly community schools, then arguably there is less data.
Having said that, in practice in Sutton for example, although
we have six community schools, we actually treat them in the same
way as the foundation schools and they determine their own admissions;
it is one of the ways to keep the Chinese wall. In a sense you
are right.
Q416 Mr Chaytor: In Sutton each of
the community schools has its own admissions criteria.
Dr Birnbaum: We are the admissions
authority but they actually apply the criteria for us.
Mr Robinson: That is an issue,
is it not? It is rather inconsistent that certain schools are
their own admissions authority and other schools are not. You
would either say make all the schools admissions authorities or
none of them and that you are very clear about it. In terms of
the code you are very clear about the role of government, and
very clear about what local authorities can do. It is also necessary
to allow local authorities the levers in order to influence what
is happening in admissions authorities if they are the schools
and the governing bodies. It is that sort of balance which you
are looking to work with.
Q417 Mr Chaytor: You are both arguing
for a slightly stronger role for the LEA in co-ordinating the
whole process.
Mr Robinson: I want enough in
order to try to win the hearts and minds of those people who are
making decisions ie schools are individual admission authorities.
Sometimes I think it would be very nice to have in my back pocket
more leverage than I have at the moment. If I do not have that
leverage, I shall still try to persuade and influence people.
Dr Birnbaum: The code of practice
and the regulations give us enough authority to co-ordinate admissions.
What it does not give us so much leverage on is each school's
own admissions criteria.
Q418 Mr Chaytor: May I move on very
quickly to appeals? Now that I understand we have an agreed formula
for calculating the capacity of every school, why is there a need
for an appeals process?
Dr Birnbaum: It always was the
case that schools had their published admissions number.
Q419 Mr Chaytor: The formula which
now applies is more . . . ?
Dr Birnbaum: Related to capacity.
In the end appeal panels have to take a view on the needs of the
child and the parental case versus what the school can bear. In
legal terms, there still is a place for an appeal authority to
judge. Although the admissions authority will be saying that on
efficiency grounds it cannot take any more, they may make a judgment
that they can because of the needs of the particular child.
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