Examination of Witnesses (Questions 194-199)
MR DON
TOUHIG, BRIGADIER
ANTHONY BRISTER,
MS LIZ
CASSIDY, MR
DAVID WADSWORTH
AND MS
KATHRYN FORSYTH
2 MAY 2006
Q194 Chairman: Good morning. Welcome
to this inquiry on the education of service children. Minister,
thank you very much for coming in front of us. I think we have
met everyone on your team, but would you like to introduce everybody
and say word in a second or two about them.
Mr Touhig: Yes, indeed. Thank
you very much for giving us the opportunity to come to give evidence
to the Committee. It is a fine morning, a morning when I am prepared
to admit I am the Minister responsible for the Met Office but
I am sure that will not interest your inquiry this morning. We
are very pleased to be here, to help in your inquiry. I have with
me David Wadsworth. I think you know David as the Chief Executive
of Service Children's Education and some of you would have met
him when you were over in Germany. We also have David's curriculum
specialist Kathryn Forsyth; Brigadier Tony Brister, the Director
of Educational and Training Services of the Army; and Liz Cassidy
the Command Secretary for the Adjutant General's Headquarters.
In addition, should you give us some questions on which we need
further support, I have the support behind me of Olivia Denson,
the Children's Education Advisory Service; Chris Baker, the Director
General of Service Personnel Policy; and Lieutenant Colonel Steve
Richardson of Service Personnel Policy (Families), Assistant Director
for Families. They are going to support us this morning to answer
your questions.
Q195 Chairman: Thank you very much.
We have a lot of ground to cover because of the importance and
the wide-ranging nature of the subject we are dealing with. We
understand you need to leave by 12.30 and we will therefore finish
by then. If you could all keep your answers as concise as possible
and if we could keep our questions as concise as possible, that
will help us to get through the ground we need to cover. Minister,
the first point for you is that it is a wide-ranging issue and
you are responsible for some aspects of the education of service
children, but we know that some of the aspects of it fall under
the DfES. I wonder if you could begin by setting out your responsibilities
in relation to service children's education.
Mr Touhig: My role within the
Department is very much the people's minister, because I am responsible
for everything from veterans to families' accommodation, to education,
defence medical services and so on, so my responsibilities will
cover the whole range of services that we deliver through our
educational services. The Secretary of State, of course, takes
total responsibility, but I have the day-to-day responsibility.
I work closely with colleagues within the Department in order
to ensure that we do deliver equality of education—a tremendous
opportunity for our young people, sometimes in difficult circumstances.
I read very much with interest the evidence you took down at Colchester
from the youngsters themselves. I thought they were making pretty
powerful points about the kinds of disruptions they get to their
lives as a result of their parents being posted and so on. I keep
quite a close interest in this whole area.
Q196 Chairman: How does your responsibility
mesh with the responsibilities of the DfES?
Mr Touhig: We have a working relationship,
as you know. The responsibility for the education of our service
children remains with us but there are areas of importance and
collaboration where working together brings mutual benefit. This
is very much on a case-by-case basis really, where we think it
is appropriate, where we can get support and encouragement. As
an aside, I know you have an interest from your inquiry so far
in special educational needs. I have a passion about us doing
something better for special educational needs and, indeed, have
been talking to my officials about the possibility of a statementing
passport. That would involve DfES very much. It is a vision—it
is no more than that at this stage—but it would clearly
involve the very close collaboration and support of other departments,
DfES in particular, to do that.
Q197 Chairman: We will certainly
come onto that issue. Linda Gilroy will be very interested in
pursuing that suggestion.
Mr Touhig: Thank you.
Chairman: The disruption that faces service
families is central to the problems that you have to deal with
on a day-to-day basis and David Borrow has some questions about
that aspect.
Q198 Mr Borrow: You have mentioned
that you were concerned about the disruption to family life caused
by postings. Is there a minimum notice period that is given to
parents? To what extent does the MoD take that disruption into
account when planning the movement of personnel?
Mr Touhig: Of course, as your
own evidence so far has shown you, it is a turbulent time for
families when a posting occurs and families are uprooted and moved
and so on. The Services aim to give the majority of personnel
a minimum of four months' notice of a move. As you will appreciate,
for operational reasons that is not always possible, but that
is the target to which we work. The Defence Estate, which is also
within my responsibility, has set a target of 15 working days'
turnaround to allocate service family accommodation on receiving
any application up to four months before a move. The address will
be confirmed 28 days before the move. If no service family accommodation
is available then substitute accommodation will be found. Our
ambition is to give at least four months' notice of a move, but,
as you will appreciate, it is not always possible to do that.
Q199 Mr Borrow: On the question of
the addresses—because that is one of the issues that has
been raised by parents with the Committee—even when the
date of posting is known, a key thing for placing children in
school is having a UK address from which to apply, or at least
the anticipation of a particular address. Is there any way in
which the period of knowledge prior to the posting when an address
is known could be extended, in order to make it easier for parents
to apply to particular schools for their children?
Mr Touhig: I am certainly conscious
and the contact I have with the Families' Federation certainly
indicates that it is a problem and an issue for them. If I may
address very briefly for a moment my wider agenda, my wider vision
for the Department, in a sense. My responsibility is to say we
value our service men and women and their families and will do
everything practical in our power to demonstrate that. One of
the things I am seeking to do, as an aside, Mr Chairman, is to
make sure that all service families before posting have details
of the accommodation they are going to move into, again to try
to underpin how much we value our people. I certainly recognise,
and I am sure my colleagues here do from the constituency work
that they do, that problems are caused to service families if
at short notice a deployment is necessary and this impacts most
on the children. As I say, we do have a target of four months.
We will offer a temporary accommodation address if that facilitates,
so that at least families will know they are going to that particular
area and that will help them start doing the search for schools.
Tony, would you want to add to that?
Brigadier Brister: Sir, you have
really said it all. We understand the importance of an address.
It is key, as you say, to being able to get into a school, therefore
we do have these targets. Whether the time can be shortened is
a matter on which I cannot comment because it is outside my area
of influence, but there is certainly an awareness of the need
to give people an address as soon as possible. As I think you
know—this became clear when you were at Colchester—school
admissions is one of the key issues for service families when
they move. Moving is a very stressful time and for families it
is quite clear that the most difficult part of a move is the issue
of children's schooling and what they can do about it. There are
packages in place to help with moving. Particularly as far as
the schooling side of it is concerned, as I think you know we
have been in touch with DfES to get special note taken of service
children's needs in the DfES admission code of practice. We give
families advice and assistance with moving school. We give them
advice through all sorts of means from telephone to meetings.
As far as admissions are concerned, we will support them with
appeals, if they need to do that. We will help them with the appeal
letter and we will support them at the appeal hearing if someone
is available to do that. Indeed, people from CEAS, for which I
am responsible—
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