Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
Mr David Normington, Mr Peter Wanless, Mr David Bell,
examined.
Q80 Mr Bacon: The Standards Fund.
Mr Normington: Then two other
sums that add up to 1.5 billion which goes to schools, one is
about pay and one is about the money that goes direct to schools,
to the School Standards Fund, that is their money.
Q81 Mr Bacon: You said there were 25
billion to LEAs, 1.5 billion to six forms through the Learning
and Skills Council—
Mr Normington: 1.5 in the Standards
Fund, 800 million in the School Standards Grant and 750 million
which is teachers pay, which is mainly for the teachers threshold
when they go through the threshold.
Q82 Mr Bacon: How much of the money that
is spent in schools in England is under the direct control of
headteachers or part of some initiative or some funding stream
that they have to apply for or part of bureaucracy? How much is
under the direct control of headteachers?
Mr Normington: In the end most
of the money I described goes to schools and schools have a great
deal of discretion on how to spend it. Some of that money comes
with conditions attached to it, the 25 billion, which is the main
bulk, comes without conditions attached.
Q83 Mr Bacon: That goes to the LEAs,
I am asking you a different question, how much of the money that
is spent on schools is under direct control of headteachers? If
you do not know just say that you cannot answer and perhaps you
can send me a note afterwards.
Mr Normington: It depends, I think
it is about 90%.
Q84 Mr Bacon: Right. What is the average
proportion held back by LEAs?
Mr Normington: I do not know offhand.
Q85 Mr Bacon: Why not? Do you not run
the school system, are you not the Permanent Secretary?
Mr Normington: Not on this.
Mr Bacon: I know that in Norfolk it is
87%. I would have thought you should know that, it should be at
your fingertips for across the whole country?
Q86 Chairman: I think we should ask questions,
not noise off all of the time and make comments about his ability
or lack of ability, the fact is we have distinguished public servants
before us and we have a duty to be courteous to them.
Mr Normington: It is normally
between 10% and 15%, it varies.
Q87 Mr Bacon: You do not know the average.
Mr Normington: I do not.
Q88 Mr Bacon: If you can find out and
let us know I would be grateful.[1]
In the Report, and Mr Williams quoted this, it says on the page
14 that the measures that you currently have, this is in paragraph
1.15, are of limited value compared the performance in different
schools and they are also only of limited use in assessing schools
from one year to another. Therefore I think that is a pretty good
explanation of rational for having these background variable of
one kind or another. If you can turn to page 40 and 41, on page
40 you have pupil background variables and school background variables,
a total of twelve factors, everything from distinguishing between
boys and girls to English not as a first language, to those entitled
to school meals, and so on. Can you explain in this multi-level
modelling that is describe on page 41 how the twelve background
variables get into the scatter chart or the residual score in
Figure 13 interpreting school-level residuals? Do you ascribe
a number to each of these background variables?
Mr Normington: I need to be clear
to you this analysis is done by the NAO, it is not our analysis.
The only variable that we include in our material is prior attainment,
this is a much more sophisticated analysis, this sort of analysis
has not been done before so I do not know in detail what methodology
was used by the NFER, it was used to a template provided by the
NAO.
Q89 Mr Bacon: Perhaps I can ask the NAO,
how does the list of variables there become part of this picture?
Ms Hands: It is a very complex
analysis. If I can point to page 44, these are the results of
the analysis for the various variables that the NFER looked at
for us. They basically applied those results for us to achieve
the tables on the previous pages.
Q90 Mr Bacon: What are these figures
here, India, 1.3; Bangladeshi 1.4; Pakistan minus 0.2?
Ms Hands: "Indian 1.3"
that means for a pupil of that ethnic background there would be
a positive efficiency, that pupil would be likely to achieve a
greater added-value at Key Stage 3. The same occurs at GCSE, 2.4.
When you apply that to the actual school in terms of the type
of students that it has coming into the school you get the results
of a complex analysis.
Q91 Mr Bacon: Indian at 1.3 is likely
to achieve greater value-added by being in the school or are you
saying the school is likely to—?
Ms Hands: This is the result of
the analysis for those kind of pupils.
Q92 Mr Bacon: Are you saying the pupil
is going to get greater added value or that the school is going
to give—?
Ms Hands: That is the likelihood.
Q93 Mr Bacon: I am asking the question,
are you saying that the pupil is going to get greater added value
or the school is going to give greater added value?
Ms Hands: That is the likelihood
of that pupil at that school. By applying these analyses you can
work out the residual that the school has produced in terms of
added value.
Q94 Mr Bacon: If I was a Pakistani
at minus 0.2 I am less likely.
Ms Hands: That means that the
school has a disproportionate number of ethnic minority pupils
and then it is expected the achievement will be lower.
Q95 Mr Bacon: Right. That is as clear
as mustard!
Ms Hands: I can provide you note
on that.[2]
Q96 Mr Bacon: Has this methodology been
used much elsewhere?
Ms Hands: This is the first time
this has been done this way.
Q97 Mr Bacon: I find it extraordinary
myself but there you go. I would like to ask some other questions
of Mr Normington. You did say earlier you want to see the monies
distributed fairly according to need. Do you not think there is
a danger that the current funding arrangements can punish success
and reward failure?
Mr Normington: Well, the money
is not allocated mainly in relation to whether a school is succeeding
or not, it is allocated on other factors, so it is perfectly possible
for a failing school for other reasons to get a large chunk of
money, yes.
Q98 Mr Bacon: I have two examples in
my mind of schools in Norfolk, one of which gets about £2,300
and the other of which gets about £4,200. They are not that
far apart. There is a difference of £1,800 per pupil which
on a thousand roll is £1.8 million, on a larger roll it is
about £32 million, a huge amount of money difference, plenty
of high schools have only £2 million in total. Yet this other
school, this £4,200 per pupil, gets so much more money and
what I am asking is, is it not possible that by directing the
money towards the school that is achieving less well you are punishing
the successful school rather than rewarding it for its high delivery?
Mr Normington: We do not allocate
the money on the basis of success or failure. We allocate it,
and we allocate it to local authorities so the bulk of money can
then be passed on, on four factors. There is a basic assumption
about the share each school should get per secondary pupil, which
by the way is £2,600 so I am surprised that any school would
be getting £2,300. Then there is the calculation for the
additional need which is based on a whole range of factors about
socio-economic groups, which is £1,300 more. Then there are
two other factors. One is about the costs of employing teachers,
which are obviously much greater in some places than others, and
the other is a factor called scarcity, broadly, which takes account
of rural areas and the extra costs of things like transport in
rural areas. Put all those figures together and that is the allocation
the local authority gets. The local authority then has a decision
to take about how it allocates the money on. It does not have
to follow the formula which I have described though it does have
to relate the money to pupil numbers. It can result in slight
variations. I am very surprised, actually, to hear such a wide
variation with schools so close. I know it can happen but not
normally within the same county.
Q99 Mr Bacon: There was a scheme a couple
of years ago where head teachers were getting £30,000, £40,000
directly.
Mr Normington: Yes.
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