Examination of Witnesses (Questions 540-559)
19 JANUARY 2005
DEREK TWIGG
MP AND MICHAEL
STEVENSON
Q540 Mr Ainsworth: I know you were not
Minister at the time that the memo was submitted, which makes
life difficult, particularly for you, but the memo. does say that
the Action Plan has generated much activity and enthusiasm on
ESD in schools. The problem we have got is that we have mountains
of evidence from all sorts of organisations and individuals saying
that is not the case. Do you still stand by the statement in the
memorandum that there is a great deal of activity going on as
a result of the various initiatives?
Mr Stevenson: Certainly, wherever
we go we come across wonderful examples of schools embodying sustainable
development in all its dimensions into all that they do. There
are hundreds of examples. Some of the ones that I think are the
most exciting, frankly, are the new-builds that are going up,
under the Building Schools for the Future programme, and it is
not just the buildings, though clearly they are powerful and
symbolic, but they house a very powerful, cross-dimensional
approach to sustainable development. Do we think that every school
is there, do we think that every college and university is there,
no, we do not, and we recognise there is a great deal of progress
to be made, but I think we feel that the broad approach to instilling
this right across all that institutions do nevertheless is the
right one.
Q541 Mr Ainsworth: Is it not the case
that of course there are very good examples and there are shining
examples of real energy and action being brought to this? Generally
speaking though that has got very little to do with the Action
Plan itself. It has got to do with the personal agendas of governors
and heads and maybe traditions which have built up in individual
schools over the years. The problem we have got is in trying to
establish what value the Action Plan has brought to this whole
agenda. We had evidence yesterday that huge numbers of people
do not even know that there is an Action Plan. How is the Action
Plan actually delivered to schools?
Mr Stevenson: The Action Plan
was disseminated broadly across partners and agencies, specifically
to schools.
Q542 Chairman: Can you list which partners
and which agencies? It would be helpful to us to know.
Mr Stevenson: I cannot give you
a list of sort of one to 25 off the top of my head. We can write
to you perhaps.
Derek Twigg: We can write to you.
Q543 Chairman: If we can have that piece
of evidence in writing it will be helpful. Thank you.
Mr Stevenson: In terms of how
it was shared with schools, as I say, it was made available on
the website and we directed attention to that using our panoply
of communications channels with schools, and predominantly our
other web portals, including teachernet, our Teachers' Magazine,
which goes to every single school in the country, our governors'
magazine likewise. We prefer to use all of those channels to promote
the importance and significance of this document.
Q544 Mr Ainsworth: I will not have to
tell you how knackered teachers feel at the end of every day and
it is going to be a very remarkable teacher indeed, having finished
the workload at the end of the day and parked the books on their
kitchen table, who says, "Oh, I must just look up the website
and get in touch with sustainable development"?
Mr Stevenson: Just on that, the
way we have communicated these plans, and the Action Plan in particular,
is part and parcel of our wider communication with schools. We
have been moving away from, as some have said, inundating schools
with hard copy publications of one sort or another. It was that
which they complained about most, that they got so many they could
not distinguish between one and another. We felt the right way
to do things was to go to web delivery and make sure that we gave
as much weight as we could to the significance of what was on
the web through single documents like Teachers' Magazine coming
out once a month, or the governors' magazine once a month. We
do not underestimate for a moment the significance of sustainable
development for schools. We do want the communication of the policy
to sit within our wider approach to taking the burden of communication
off schools.
Q545 Mr Ainsworth: Do you recognise anything
in what we were told by the Development Education Association
when they said that "the DfES has failed to recognise the
importance of strategic ownership and engagement of this whole
agenda"?
Derek Twigg: What evidence did
they give you to justify that?
Q546 Mr Ainsworth: It was in their written
evidence. They have cited also a number of examples where they
believe that since the Action Plan came into place things have
gone backwards rather than made progress, really since DfES took
the initiative on the case for sustainable development?
Derek Twigg: What I asked for
is, "Can you give us something by way of achievement in this
area?" so if I put on record what has been said it might
be helpful in some ways. There was a Global Gateway launched in
2004, which is a website which enables people involved in education
across the world to engage in creative partnerships. We have the
Building Schools for the Future project; the Building Research
Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method was piloted successfully
in nine schools and which we used to assess the suitability of
BSF projects. The Healthy Living Blueprint for Schools was launched
in September 2004 as a joint initiative with the Department of
Health, Defra, DCMS and the Food Standards Agency, to encourage
children to eat sensibly, stay physically active and maintain
good levels of personal health. The School Transport Bill reflects
the Department's desire to provide healthier, greener and safer
ways to school. If passed, it will allow 100 LEAs to develop innovative
travel schemes.
Q547 Chairman: Sorry to stop you. On
the travel schemes, for example, just on that very one issue,
my experience is that whenever constituents complain to me about
unsafe transport and the fact that schoolchildren going to school
are not safe because of the way parents park, and all these other
issues, they want something done about it. They want traffic-calming,
they want road education, they want children to understand about
walking and cycling and how that fits into the whole wider, big
picture. When it comes to it, the schools say, "Well, we
haven't got the time to put in applications for `safe routes to
school' bids." When there was a new initiative under the
current legislation for pilot projects going through Parliament,
officials of local authorities said, "We haven't got time
to put forward a bid to it." Basically, it all rests on somebody
else's responsibility to do something about it, and the schools
in perhaps the most deprived areas do not actually have the means
of linking up to all these initiatives. You mention school transport,
but how can you be sure that it is being rolled out right the
way across the country?
Derek Twigg: The Bill itself,
as you know, makes it clear about partnership working and the
lead given from the Department and working with other areas in
schools, so I think there are a number of ways and methods of
trying to improve that situation. Again, I will give a commitment
to you to go back and look at that in some more detail. The National
College of School Leadership has begun to incorporate ESD into
the training it offers. The Youth Service Unit's Working Group
on Sustainable Development has produced a report with recommendations
for action, which are being taken forward now. In further education,
the Learning and Skills Development Agency and Learning and Skills
Council have launched the `Learning to Last' toolkit, an online
kit to support and promote sustainability in the FE sector. Generally
in FE and higher education, the Learning and Skills Council and
the Higher Education Funding Council for England have published
draft strategies on sustainable development for their sectors
and are now consulting on them. There are a number of initiatives
and improvements taking place. It might also be helpful to remind
the Committee about the commitment we have given in the Five Year
Strategy for Children and Learners. It might be helpful if I read
out the relevant part. "Every school should (also) be an
environmentally sustainable school, with a good plan for school
transport that encourages walking and cycling, an active and effective
recycling policy (moving from paper to electronic processes wherever
possible) and a school garden or other opportunities for children
to explore the natural world. Schools must teach our children
by example as well as by instruction." I think there is a
very clear point in that paragraph.
Q548 Mr Ainsworth: There is no doubt
that the words sound good. It is the delivery that is a problem
at the moment. I think you recognised that in some of your opening
remarks, really it needs to be bedded in and understood and strategically
led if it is going to happen across the board, and not happen
simply because some headteacher happens to think it is a good
idea to do it. As I said, there have been a number of criticisms,
not least from the NGO sector, who are bearing quite a lot of
the strain when it comes to delivering this agenda, who say that
it is made for a more competitive and divided and less strategically
engaged sector since DfES took control. Irrespective of that,
and obviously you are not going to admit that things are as they
describe them, is not there a real problem which you have in restoring
the confidence of people like the Development Education Association,
the WWF, other NGOs engaged in helping to roll out this agenda,
who seem to have lost confidence in the way that it is being handled?
What are you going to do about that?
Derek Twigg: As I have mentioned,
let us have some dialogue with these organisations to see how
we can take this forward. Again, going back to my opening comments,
I accept that we can improve and we can do things better but I
do not accept that we have not done good things, and things have
been taken forward and I have just read you a list of examples.
I would like to contact these organisations to see how we can
embed it better and have a better focus for this agenda within
education, and I can give that undertaking to the Committee.
Q549 Chairman: I am just wondering, when
you took over this role with the responsibilities for Green Minister,
did you have a kind of personal brief memo. from the outgoing
Minister to sort of pick up on things where perhaps the DfES needed
to do more work, if I can put it that way?
Derek Twigg: I was given lots
of briefings when I took over as Minister and one of those was
this, and obviously I picked up too the areas of concern which
you have highlighted. I think I have a new look on it, as a new
Minister. I have been in the job for a very few weeks, I want
to give it some more thought and time and put forward a plan as
I see it for taking forward this agenda in a more sustainable
way.
Q550 Chairman: Would you accept that,
in order to do that, we will need structures and we will need
mechanisms to make it happen, because otherwise it is left to
just one or two converted headteachers or chairs of governors
to do all the running on it?
Derek Twigg: The difficulty that
we have in the Department, and you will know this, is that often
we have been criticised for too much bureaucracy and loading schools
with too much information and direction, etc., so there is a balance
to be struck in this area. Again, I suppose clearly there is some
new thinking and a new mind on it. I want to examine how best
we can keep that balance while at the same time improving this
agenda in schools and giving it that greater degree of focus and
leadership.
Q551 Chairman: Does the Sounding Board
still exist, because that was very influential, was it not, in
keeping hearts and minds focused on this agenda, providing some
kind of conceptual framework? Does that still exist and are you
still working with the Sounding Board?
Mr Stevenson: The Sounding Board
was critical and made a huge contribution to the creation and
then the dissemination of the Sustainable Development Action Plan.
As I understood it at the time, it was brought together specifically
for that purpose. It does not meet in that form now and has not
done since the Plan was created and disseminated. The way forward
then was to work with individual bodies by sector to make the
Plan happen, and that is on two bases. First with organisations
in the sustainable development world and we have named some of
them. Also with bodies within the education and skills sector,
critically HEFCE, the Learning and Skills Council and others too,
in order that they should take forward for their sectors a strategic
overview of sustainable development, and that has led to strategies
from HEFCE and LSC for the FE sector. We are increasing this in
the context of our Five Year Strategy. We are living in an increasingly
devolved world where the Department is looking to offer strategic
leadership to its agencies and partners on the front line to take
on more responsibility.
Q552 Chairman: In that new world of offering
strategic leadership and rolling out programmes and leaving it
to people to pick that up at the sharp end, really you are accepting,
are you not, that the implementation and development of the Action
Plan is important once the vision has been created, because you
can have a vision but if you have got no delivery you are not
able to take it forward, no-one is going to take a blind bit of
notice of it?
Derek Twigg: That is a point I
do not accept, that we have not taken it forward. Whether we have
taken it far enough and whether we can do better is another issue,
which, as I said, I want to address. Coming back to the specific
point, I am keen to get in touch with the key organisations over
the next few months, hopefully to build that relationship which
can deliver what this Committee wants to do.
Q553 Chairman: I am sure we are very
pleased to hear that. In terms of the Action Plan, and we talked
about its dissemination and putting it on a website, can you tell
me how that compares with the Enterprise Education Strategy? The
Enterprise Education Strategy had a dedicated budget, did it not?
Once it was published, was that distributed to schools?
Derek Twigg: I do not know the
answer to that. I will have to take it back.
Q554 Chairman: If it was published and
if it was distributed to schools then if that was the case with
Enterprise surely it should be equally so with sustainable development,
would you not agree?
Derek Twigg: Can I get back to
you? I will write to the Committee on that specific issue.
Q555 Chairman: Yes, with the view as
to whether or not it should be?
Derek Twigg: Yes.
Q556 Chairman: Just in terms of this
sort of perceptual thinking that we were talking about and the
organisations that you would like to link up with, can I just
confirm that the ones you have mentioned already are the Learning
and Skills Council and the Council for Environmental Education,
but what about Ofsted and QCA? They came to see us yesterday and
their evidence suggested that there has not been a great deal
of dialogue with them about future development?
Derek Twigg: Again, I hate to
repeat myself but it is something I want to improve on and take
forward and they will be some of those organisations I want to
have a meeting with to discuss this particular area. In fact,
I am seeing Ofsted on a general issue, so I will give you that
assurance that I will raise it specifically with them then.
Q557 Chairman: We will look forward to
having feedback from you on that. To move on to the review of
the UK Sustainable Development Strategy, following our earlier
Environmental Audit Select Committee Report, subsequently I took
up with the former Secretary of State for Education, Charles Clarke,
the way in which DfES is working to make sure that there could
be revised indicators in the outcome of the UK Sustainable Development
Strategy. Indeed, Charles Clarke did reply to me and said that
Defra were undertaking a widespread consultation on the review
and that the revised Strategy would be published in the spring
of 2005. I understand entirely, Minister, that you are new to
this brief and I would not expect you to give me a hard and fast
answer now and I would not expect you to go into detail either.
Given that this Strategy is going to be published in the spring,
can you reassure us perhaps, on ESD and in particular the issues
which I raised about revised indicators, that you are working
with Defra on that and, if so, with whom are you working in Defra
on that and is that something which is being looked at very closely?
So that I will not have to write to the new Secretary of State
for Education asking why it is not in there.
Derek Twigg: It is something I
will pick up.
Mr Stevenson: It is being looked
at very closely and we are working hard with officials in Defra
and right around the Whitehall round table at two categories of
indicators: the general indicator, in terms of five good GCSEs,
overall educational attainment, and indicators which will be relevant
specifically to awareness of sustainable development. That is
ongoing.
Q558 Chairman: Can I press you just a
little bit more on the relationship of the Department with Defra
in respect of this particular Strategy. When Defra came to see
us, we rather got the impression that, because DfES is taking
the lead now, and rightly so, on certain aspects of education,
it was not a matter for them, it was a matter for DfES. I just
want to make sure that you are satisfied there is the right leadership
on education matters and that you have the right structure and
relationship between DfES and Defra on this. Would you like to
comment on that at all? Do you have meetings with the Green Minister
in Defra on this?
Derek Twigg: I have not had one
yet.
Q559 Chairman: But there is one in your
diary?
Derek Twigg: I will have one.
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