Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60-79)
RT HON
RUTH KELLY
MP
2 MARCH 2005
Q60 Mr Chaytor: Would you accept that
if the financial incentive for the school is to maximise its intake
and retain the maximum number of pupils, it is unlikely that schools
are going to advise their pupils to go elsewhere at the age of
16?
Ruth Kelly: I shall be looking
particularly at the incentives on schools and how those incentives
operate in the post 17 phase.
Q61 Mr Chaytor: So there is a contradiction
here, is there not, because the incentive for the school is to
retain pupils, whereas the government's objective is to—
Ruth Kelly: We need to have pretty
clear incentives in the school system to look after the needs
of every individual pupil.
Q62 Mr Chaytor: Can you tell us what
the evidence is in terms of achievement in smaller sixth forms?
Ruth Kelly: I do not have the
results to hand, but the key thing here is whether you are meeting
parental demand, whether you are improving standards and creating
opportunities for children.
Q63 Mr Chaytor: Could you provide a note
for the Committee about the evidence on standards and performances
in sixth forms?
Ruth Kelly: I certainly will.[1]
Q64 Chairman: Does it not go to the heart
of the discussion we had earlier that on the one hand schools
are becoming more independent, albeit without parental involvement
and decision? Would you accept that logically there is a case
that parental decisions locally might lead to small sixth forms
which are poor value for money and deliver a poor service to the
student?
Ruth Kelly: There are really important
trade-offs which I need to think through before coming to decisions
in these areas. The evidence I have seen about parental involvement
is that it tends to lead to high standards.
Q65 Mr Greenway: In one of your earlier
answers you seemed to be implying that post 16 some pupils might
go maybe to the sixth form college for some subjects, but might
go to the FE college for other subjects all within their school
or college day or week. Is this practical? What are the implications
for funding and the obvious independence of these different schools
and what are the implications for home to school transport in
big rural communities where the colleges are not necessarily side
by side?
Ruth Kelly: There are implications
for transport; we shall be setting out our view of the practical
issues which need to be addressed and how we propose to take those
forward in due course. There clearly are logistical issues which
need to be considered. There are issues about how local authorities
work together with LSCs in the 14-19 phase; you only asked about
16-19 but there are also issues about that longer period. What
I can say is that where there is a will there is a way. There
are real examples of this working in practice at the moment. To
take a 14-16 example, in those examples I used in the House of
Commons last week a joint prospectus is published for the 14-16
age across the community so that every 13 year old can see what
is possible in the different schools in the area. That strategic
approach to opportunities is a really good model.
Q66 Jonathan Shaw: You talked earlier
about understanding English as a subject. What consideration have
you given to assisting pupils to speak English well? Presentation
skills is one area which Mike Tomlinson mentioned a great deal
when he gave evidence to this Committee and it is something which
employers talk about a great deal.
Ruth Kelly: Communication skills,
speaking English well, are really important, not just for employers
but also for life in getting by, getting a job and getting on
in a job. It is critical that we try to develop those softer skills;
softer but critically important skills. Communication is a key
one, turning up on time and having the right attitude is an even
more difficult challenge but also critical for us to embed and
to give a sense of to pupils. How do we do it? We have a review
of how we get those skills and how we achieve those skills, cultivate
them in our pupils, key skills for life, going on at the moment.
We are not going to separate them out as something you test separately
because you develop these skills in each subject. It is very important
that teachers are aware of them and know how to cultivate them
and look very carefully at the results of those. On the 14-19
phase, employers rightly want those skills and this is not just
a purely demand-led approach because it is really important for
every pupil as well to have them. It is obvious that employers
are going to look for them. When we design these specialised diplomas,
we will build in the development of those softer skills, because
I am absolutely sure that employers will ask us to and in the
end they are the ones with the veto. They will ask us to do this.
Q67 Jonathan Shaw: So there will be some
compulsion in these areas.
Ruth Kelly: Each of the 14 specialised
lines will be designed by employers.
Q68 Jonathan Shaw: You talked earlier
on about a package of qualifications which a young person might
seek who is entering higher education to study engineering. What
about where a young person perhaps wants to go into leisure and
tourism for example? Do you think it would be a good idea if that
young person had some compulsion in terms of their presentation
skills, but also, for the benefit of them and for the industry,
had some modern foreign language skills? Would there be some compulsion
there or is it all going to be about choice and perhaps then missed
opportunities in ensuring that our young people have the necessary
skills for themselves and the efficiency of our economy?
Ruth Kelly: Everybody studying
a specialised line will also be following the national curriculum.
We are reviewing the national curriculum and the processes involved
in each subject so that it can be delivered in about 50% of school
time in the curriculum, with the rest available for specialised
learning, practical learning, learning in different ways, maybe
a foreign language. The key here is whether employers who want
to employ these students later in leisure and tourism say they
do not want these kids unless they have a modern foreign language.
If they tell us that, then that is what the requirement will be.
Q69 Jonathan Shaw: So that is the message:
tell us what you want, this is your opportunity to put up or shut
up.
Ruth Kelly: Yes, and it will be
different in each line.
Chairman: I hope that what has been described
as the grunt society, the grunt environment, a lot of young people
who never seem to speak or never get the opportunity to speak
to parents or anyone . . . It is a pretty hard road to go for
a child coming from that environment where their language skills
have not been developed from a pretty early age.
Q70 Valerie Davey: You touched earlier
on the importance of careers advice and certainly another area
we know the government is looking at is the role and future of
Connexions. The emphasis that is coming through to me is
the importance that all that careers advice is objective, which
touches on my colleague's concern about it all being internal
to a school and it then perhaps not being as objective. You touched
on the need for the employers' voice. How are you going to bring
together a package which is genuinely objective so that both young
people and their parents, who may have a rather limited view of
what their child might achieve, really see this vision of what
is potentially available?
Ruth Kelly: I can tell you about
the principles through which I shall look at these issues. I cannot
tell you about the outcome, because we shall publish that in due
course. Objectivity is critical and I accept the point made earlier
that you repeat, that we must have objectivity in the system.
I cannot tell you precisely how we will achieve that because I
shall set that out in due course.
Q71 Chairman: When?
Ruth Kelly: We do not have a date
for that yet.
Q72 Chairman: After the election? Before
the election?
Ruth Kelly: It depends when the
election is. We must have objectivity in the system and we must
have the right incentives in place so that careers' guidance advice
and information is comprehensive and not limited to particular
institutions so that students do have the full range of opportunities
available to them.
Q73 Valerie Davey: Which brings me back
to the point you have emphasised so consistently since you took
this particular office of the involvement of parents. Parents
and sixth forms lead to some very strong voices coming from some
very articulate parents, but they are not necessarily in my experience
reflective of that wider perspective and parental voice. How are
you going to ensure that you really do get a breadth of parental
choice?
Ruth Kelly: It is important to
recognise the role that parents play, because if you ask students
where they get advice from, the first port of call is their parents
and the second port of call, no matter what the system, is often
their school. We have to work with the reality of the situation.
Parents want to do what is best for their child. They have to
be involved in this process, they have to have confidence in the
process or else we will not get the outcomes we want, which is
each child studying what is appropriate to them in the way that
is appropriate to them. I'll come back and set out exactly how
I see that happening very shortly.
Q74 Chairman: There have been allegations
that you are not saying much about a very important subject which
is dear to the hearts of this Committee, because we have only
recently been involved in Every Child Matters and the Children's
Act. There is a small voice which is saying that you have not
said very much about this very big new responsibility that you
now have. We have tried to take that seriously in this Committee
and we have taken evidence about how Every Child Matters
and the Children's Act will impinge on the work of this Committee
and we shall be issuing a report shortly. Have you been silent
on this or is it just that you are getting your feet under your
desk?
Ruth Kelly: I do not think you
should read too much into a situation where I have been in the
job for eight weeks including the Christmas period. Every Child
Matters is a wonderful agenda, long overdue and it is pretty
clear that we ought to be basing the entire system around the
needs of individual children and that is something I have been
talking about consistently from the word go. How can you make
the system respond to the individual child's needs rather than
respond to some other agenda, whatever that may be. That is what
Every Child Matters is about.
Q75 Chairman: This Committee has visited
Colombia which has had a Children's Act for 10 years and looked
at some of their experiences. We will be reflecting on that in
our report and comparing it with our own process. What did run
through the evidence we took was that people were concerned, particularly
about their subsidiary view that here is this great expanded role
of the department at a time, yes, post Gershon when you are going
to cut down the number of people working in the department, but
also that there seems to be moon dust around about where the resources
are coming from. You are a former Treasury minister, you know
that you have to add these sums up and find resources in a hard-headed
way. We can get very little evidence from your officials or from
anywhere else that these big new responsibilities will come with
any resources to pay from them.
Ruth Kelly: I did mention Every
Child Matters in response to your opening question and how
we are refocusing the department and making it more streamlined
to concentrate on outcomes. Every Child Matters is a great
example of that in that it is an outcome-based approach and we
want to see the welfare of every child improved. There is a lot
of money in the system already and indeed even in the last spending
review settlement—I do not have the figures to hand—
Q76 Chairman: Are you going to rob Peter
to pay Paul?
Ruth Kelly: I can certainly provide
them for you. I think we are providing a real-terms increase of
about 7%, something of that order, in the last spending review.
Significant sums have been put into this agenda. All the time
we have to think about how well that money is used and how we
can improve outcomes and that is something which the Minister
for Children is actively considering.
Q77 Chairman: You know this Committee
also cares very much about how you spend your money wisely.
Ruth Kelly: I know.
Q78 Chairman: Indeed we are issuing a
report tonight which will show you how you can save £50 million.
Ruth Kelly: I look forward to
it.
Q79 Chairman: There is a very serious
point at the heart of this, is there not? Some of us recently
met with the all-party leadership of the local government association
and they were saying to us that yet again, here is the Children's
Act. Everyone understands and supports the fact that there is
a very good reason why that came into being and there is a greater
level of co-operation, but still schools, GPs have no duty to
co-operate. So the law says that some of the partners have to
co-operate, others, if they feel like it, again against the backdrop
of more independence for schools and certainly not tackling the
health problems around GPs and some health professionals being
pretty reluctant to co-operate across disciplines.
Ruth Kelly: The duty to co-operate
applies to the strategic bodies and quite rightly so because clearly
that is where the immediate challenge lies. I think schools will
want to co-operate with this. I see no reason why they will not;
they have to. The focus will be on individual pupil welfare, they
will be inspected on the basis of the outcomes from Every Child
Matters, the self-evaluation procedures will look at those
five outcomes required in Every Child Matters, the school
improvement partner will look at how they are focusing on the
five outcomes of Every Child Matters and indeed the profile
that they provide to parents. The inspection regime is fundamental
to this. If schools are to do well, they will co-operate.
1 Note: See Ev 20. Back
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