Examination of Witnesses (Questions 887
- 899)
MONDAY 8 DECEMBER 2003
MR DAVID
MILIBAND MP AND
MR STEPHEN
TWIGG MP
Q887 Chairman: Can I welcome our
duo of ministers David Miliband, the Minister of State for School
Standards, and Stephen Twigg, Parliamentary Under Secretary of
State for Schools. This is your second tour as a duo and we thank
you very much for coming. We specifically want to ask questions
on this phase of our report enquiring into admissions policy.
We realise it is quite thorny ground for the Government; it is
very controversial. The evidence that we have taken has certainly
indicated that if we did not know it before we started. The admissions
policy seems to be in a bit of a mess from the evidence we have
taken so far. Would you agree with that, Minister, that it is
a bit of a mess?
Mr Miliband: That would not be
the phrase that I would choose, no. The Chief Inspector, David
Bell, when he came to the Committee said that he thought this
was an area in which there were no easy answers and all the evidence
was contested. I think that is true, but significant numbers of
parents and pupils up and down the country get into the school
that they want and feel that the process works well for them.
I would not agree that saying it is a mess is a sufficient description
of the current situation. I have some reflections on the evidence
you have taken and I am happy to give those, but I do not know
whether you want to carry on with questioning?
Q888 Chairman: Go ahead, please.
Mr Miliband: Having read the evidence
which I thought was extremely interesting, I have four or five
reflections that I would like to put to you and Stephen may want
to chip in with his particular responsibilities in relation to
London where some of the issues are most acute. The first reflection
is that there is a temptation in this area either to argue that
the intake of a school determines the overall attainment of the
school; or to argue the opposite, that it has no impact at all.
I do not think either of those positions is either true or tenable.
Some pupils are harder to teach than others and it is important
that their needs are recognised in the system. By the system I
mean not only the admissions system, because funding can also
help to tackle the needs of particular difficult pupils. What
I think is also important to emphasise in addition to the extra
help that some pupils need is that whatever their intake, schools
of all kinds have proven that they can make a huge difference
to the life chances of those children. I think first of all you
have to say that there are two extremes to the argument, neither
of which seems to me convincing. Secondly, the biggest driver
of parent and pupil satisfaction is how many good schools—the
quality of teaching and learning in institutions—there are
in the area. If the number of good schools is rare it is very
difficult to get the sort of satisfaction levels that one would
want. I cannot over-emphasise—and I think this was brought
out by a number of your witnesses—the importance of the
overall school improvement drive led at national and also at local
level, targeting local need. Thirdly, I was struck how many times
you and your witnesses referred to the PISA study. The important
point that they make is while we have a relatively high quality
system we have a low equity system. Many of your witnesses drew
the link between the high quality, low equity nature of our system
and admissions. However, I think it is important to bear in mind
that PISA found that within school variation in the UK was four
times greater than between school variation. I think that speaks
very much to a place one sees for admissions in a debate about
low equity in our system. The within school variation that exists
to a greater extent in the UK than in almost any other country
partly reflects the comprehensive nature of intake, but it also
reflects variation in teaching quality within schools. I think
it is important to bear in mind that importance of within school
variation in discussing the role of admissions in our system.
Fourthly, just to put on the record, we are very clear that this
is an area where the balance between local and national responsibility
is important. We have a constitutional settlement which for a
hundred years has devolved responsibility for school organisation
to local communities, notably through local education authorities
(although not only through that) and also through the partnership
between the state and faith communities. I think it is important
to say that the Government values that constitutional settlement
and wants to see it strengthened. My final point is that this
is about process as well as outcomes and one of the striking things
to come from the parental surveys is that obviously parents want
to feel that their child has got into a school which is right
for them, but they also want to know that the process by which
school places are allocated or achieved is fair and transparent.
I think the moves towards a more coordinated system are designed
to reflect and respect the fact that process as well as outcomes
matter in this and we have to make sure that efficiency and lack
of bureaucracy marks the admissions process. I hope that the reforms
that are being brought in gradually will help to deliver them.
Mr Twigg: When I first came before
this Committee just over a year ago after I was appointed, we
talked about the emerging strategy for London schools. I know
from reading the evidence of the sessions on this part of your
secondary inquiry there has been quite a focus on London. I think
that makes a lot of sense because one of the issues in London
is about a lack of coherence and coordination but also about a
lack of parental satisfaction, particularly around transfer from
primary into secondary school. I think it would be useful to share
with you a piece of research we published two weeks ago as part
of the London Challenge which shows some encouraging signs about
levels of parental satisfaction in London compared to other parts
of the country, but also highlights the need for us to focus on
certain parts of London—which is what our strategy does—where
the levels of parental dissatisfaction are considerably higher.
As a final point, to concur with David's final point, I think
the move to a coordinated system of admissions, while a positive
move nationally, would be particularly important for parents and
pupil experience of that transfer in London.
Q889 Chairman: Both of you finished
on that particular note and in one sense does one not detect from
the evidence we have taken so far that quite a percentage of parents
are not so interested in fair and transparent but whether they
get a good deal out of it? There is a lot of evidence to suggest
that if you are a more sophisticated player in the admissions
game, if you have more knowledge of it—perhaps knowledge
plus mobility—you regularly end up with four or five choices
of school in London as opposed to the parent who is less able
to play the system who ends up with only one or, in some cases,
no choice. Is the method you are choosing going to alienate a
large number of what are known as the chattering classes when
they end up with only one choice and are not allowed to play the
game any more?
Mr Twigg: I recognise that is
a possibility. I think I concur with the evidence that Ian Birnbaum
from Sutton gave when he appeared before the Committee that that
is unlikely. My own borough in Enfield has operated a coordinated
admissions scheme for some time and I do not think it has had
that effect in terms of the attitudes of parents within the borough.
There are significant numbers of children who do end up in a position
where they do not have any offer of a place until quite late on
in the process and the big positive effect of moving to coordinated
admissions is that those children, whatever background they come
from, will have that guarantee of an offer of a place. I think
the benefit of that will far outweigh any concerns that there
might be amongst some other parents that they cannot hold on to
three, four or even five places, which happens at the margins
at the moment.
Q890 Chairman: When the Committee
visited Birmingham, and last Monday when we visited Slough, what
we picked up was the enormous transportation and environmental
cost of children in this country being shipped round. When we
went to Birmingham we discovered there was the largest girls'
school in Europe. Half the population who wanted an all girls'
school were ferrying pupils round the Birmingham road system to
take advantage of that. In Slough we found that a very high percentage
of pupils were coming from London. They were from London because
Slough has a selective system and has grammar schools. That does
seem strange. You can measure content and discontent in different
ways and you can see in London that a much higher percentage than
in the rest of the country send their children to independent
education, private education. That mobility across boundaries
from all around London also gives London parents the chance to
opt into a grammar system, does it not?
Mr Twigg: It does, and I think
the position in London is complex. It partly reflects history
with regard to the previous arrangements in the Inner London Education
Authority. I think you are right to say that it partly reflects
the situation in outer London with respect to neighbouring authorities
and the availability of selective options that may not exist within
the actual London boroughs. I think on the broader question of
transport and the associated financial and environmental factors
around transport, it is perhaps less of an issue in London than
it might be in rural or semi-rural areas because by and large
there are transport links in London that do enable children and
young people to get about and travel that bit further to school.
That issue does demonstrate the importance of us taking a look
at the arrangements for school transport as we set out in the
Queen's Speech. There have been a lot of concerns raised by authorities
and by all parties in local government about the current arrangements
which, as you know, go back nearly 60 years, for support for school
transport and the impact that that has not just on the choices
that are available at the local level but also some of those broader
economic and environmental factors that you rightly refer to.
Q891 Paul Holmes: I was interested
in some of the opening speculation about what is most important
in school pupil achievement: what the school does and the teachers
do and the background that the pupils come from. David Bell, the
Chief Inspector, said to the Committee quite recently that from
his long study of the issue about 20% of the factors affecting
pupils' success came from within the schools' control and about
80% came from external influences. Would you agree with your Chief
Inspector?
Mr Miliband: I have read his evidence
but I do not have to hand the context in which he said that. As
I look at data which shows performance in schools in different
free school meal bands at Key Stage 2, Key Stage 3 and Key Stage
4 there are two things which are striking. One is that there is
a correlation between how many pupils on free school meals are
in that school and their educational achievement. The second thing
that is striking is that for every school meal band there are
significant numbers of schools—upwards of a quarter at every
level including the highest free school meal bands—who are
performing not just above the national average but in the top
half of performance for the schools that have fewest pupils on
free school meals. Clearly in those schools they are making more
than 20% of difference to the achievement of those pupils because
they are more bucking the national trends. I would want to see
exactly what David Bell was saying. If he was making a judgment
on how successful we are as a nation across all schools I do not
think there is anything inherent that says that schools are only
able to make 20% of difference. I would be surprised if he was
saying that.
Q892 Paul Holmes: Given some of the
facts that are fairly controversial and the vast majority of schools
that are going to special measures do represent the deprived areas
-whether it is inner cities or whether it is more rural areas
like north Derbyshire or north Nottingham coalfields—there
are all sorts of examples like that which do seem to back up what
David Bell was saying. Obviously admissions to school is very
important. What is the main purpose of schools admissions policy?
Is it to reflect parental choice or is it to allow the school
to select the pupils it wants? Or is to create a balanced intake
of pupils to create a more random school?
Mr Miliband: Different parts of
the country make different choices about the relative priority
they give the different factors in the organisation of schools
admissions. This was touched on in a couple of the supplementary
questions that the Committee put to us after the first memorandum
that we submitted. Different areas place a different value on
the efficiency of the process, on the primacy of parental satisfaction
and on the impact of standards overall. Our job is to set the
Code of Practice in a way that promotes fair and transparent admissions
procedures. That is what we seek to do, but it is impossible to
generalise as to how different admissions authorities balance
those factors.
Q893 Paul Holmes: Are you saying
that the Government do not take a view on what the purpose of
admissions policy should be as long as it is fair and transparent?
Mr Miliband: Our job is to set
the framework as per the Code and that is what we do. As we said
to you in the supplementary answer, efficiency, parental satisfaction
and effect on standards are three factors that one could use to
measure the effectiveness of different systems. It is up to local
admissions authorities to do that. The Government is not an admissions
authority and so obviously does not do that itself.
Q894 Paul Holmes: If the Government
are taking a fairly stand-back approach and saying that it is
up to the devolved power of local authorities, there are now 1,211
different admissions authorities—many of those are individual
schools—quite a lot of those admissions authorities have
been created by this Government since 1997. In quite a lot of
those cases the local education authorities cannot control the
number of schools who become specialist and have some control
of admissions. They cannot control the setting up of city academies.
They cannot control the faith schools. They cannot control city
technology colleges. Where is the balance? With the local education
authorities or with these multiple admissions authorities, many
of which have been set up since 1997?
Mr Twigg: The figure of a thousand-plus
admissions authorities, does that include the specialist schools?
Q895 Paul Holmes: It is the whole
range, yes.
Mr Miliband: Specialist schools
have the power to admit up to 10% of pupils who have an aptitude
for certain specialisms. However, 94% of the specialist schools
do not actually use that power so I think one has to be slightly
careful in the way that one uses the notion that every admissions
authority acts with the same degree of independence because clearly
they do not use some of the freedom that they have got. I do not
think that anyone here believes that local education authorities
run schools. I think people believe that head teachers run schools.
The national Government sets up the curricula and inspection and
assessment framework and the local government provides the support
and other infrastructural services, but the principal of subsidiarity
applies at each level of the schooling system.
Q896 Paul Holmes: You have not really
answered the question there in that of the 1,211 admissions authorities
150 are local education authorities but within their boundaries
they have 510 foundation schools, 551 voluntary aided schools.
Government policy is adding in things like city academies which
they will have no control over whatsoever. The expansion of new
faith school is being encouraged.
Mr Miliband: The city academies
have to conform to the Code of Practice on admissions. They are
adhering to the Code and they are required to adhere to the Code.
I think that is the right way to balance the respective rights
and responsibilities of the individual institution and the national
interest for a fair and transparent process.
Q897 Chairman: What is the difference
between adhering to a code and taking note of a code?
Mr Miliband: If it is not being
taken note of then it is not being adhered to and it is open to
challenge.
Q898 Paul Holmes: If the Government
are taking a fairly stand-back approach and saying it is down
to the local education authorities but the local education authorities
are saying that they have all these different varieties of schools
which they cannot control, was the Code of Practice devised to
create a fair and transparent system, or was it devised to allow
parental choice or school choice or to create a balanced intake?
Mr Miliband: I did not say it
is now down to the local education authorities; it is down to
the different admissions authorities which include local education
authorities. The Code of Practice is designed to promote a fair
and transparent admissions process in line with due differentiation
between central government responsibility and local responsibility.
I think that the evidence so far is that the Code is having a
useful effect and I think it has provided a degree of a benchmark
for admissions authorities and that is a useful step forward.
Q899 Paul Holmes: Are you still sticking
to the line that there is no government view on what would be
desirable from admissions policies in an area?
Mr Miliband: It is imperative
that the Government has a view that the admissions policy should
be fair and transparent, but that is the limit of our responsibilities
or powers in this area and it has been for the last century.
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