Examination of Witnesses (Questions 303-319
JIM KNIGHT
AND MS
SUE GARNER
13 JUNE 2006
Q303 Chairman: Minister and Ms Garner,
welcome to this morning's evidence session which is about the
education of Service children. We are now close to the end of
this inquiry. Minister, we extend our congratulations to you on
taking on this job and immediately landing yourself before this
Select Committee to answer questions about something that is a
bit off your normal brief. Perhaps we may begin by discovering
the extent to which it is off your normal brief. Can you give
a brief description of the extent to which the DfES is responsible
for the education of Service children? Linda Gilroy will then
want to go into whether or not the DfES should be more responsible
than it is for the education of Service children.
Jim Knight: Thank you very much.
It is a delight that my first appearance is before a Select Committee
of which I was a Member, and I am certainly pleased to be given
the opportunity to appear before you and to make sure that I am
a little more up to speed and briefed on these issues. Some 15
years ago I was governor of a school in Wiltshire through which
a lot of Service children passed, so it is good that I should
be reminded of some of the issues that we then faced in Warminster.
As to your question, obviously when children are being educated
in the maintained sector in this country they are the responsibility
of DfES. When they are posted overseas they are educated by the
SCE which is an agency of MoD, but that is in turn subject to
inspection by Ofsted. That is a non-ministerial departmental body,
but Ofsted is accountable to Parliament through DfES. Our role
is very much more hands-off and off our brief once the children
are offshore, but in principle the way to regard it is that when
they are in this country they are very much our responsibility
but when they are overseas they are not.
Q304 Chairman: Ms Garner, I should
have asked you to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your
responsibilities.
Ms Garner: I am head of the School
Admissions and Class Size Unit of DfES. Part of my brief is to
perform a liaison role with the Service Children's Education agency
of the MoD. I am one of the members of the owner's board and attend
its meetings. Although they are offshore, we know what is going
on with the children who are being taught under the SCE agency.
Another member of DfES who is on the owner's board with me is
Graham Last, an education adviser. He gives SCE a good deal of
advice. I am also a member of the Service Children in State Schools
working group which was set up by the department just to address
the issue of Service children in schools in the UK.
Q305 Chairman: Can you list the methods
by which the MoD and DfES ensure a joined-up approach in the education
of Service children? You described a few of those mechanisms.
Are there any others?
Ms Garner: We try to get our policy
colleagues in DfES to consider what happens when children go abroad.
For example, we made sure that children who were at SCE schools
doing the same kinds of courses as in the UK were eligible for
education maintenance allowance. It is very much a matter of awareness-raising
and saying to colleagues in the case of a policy that could affect
them, for example SEN, "How can we pass on statements on
SEN and ensure that information on children in schools in the
UK is passed to schools abroad and back?" Those are very
much the mechanisms that we use, not to mainstream it but to work
it through all the policies to see whether there is an angle that
needs to be covered.
Jim Knight: Principally, I believe
that in 2004 the then Secretary of State, Charles Clarke, acknowledged
that we needed to do better. That was why the Children Education
Advisory Service was commissioned to look at what we needed to
do to address it. As a result, the Service children in state schools
working group was set up to try to forge a better link and make
things a little more joined up than they had been.
Q306 Linda Gilroy: Minister, you
will know as well as I that education has been a top priority
for this Government, its best known mantra perhaps being "education,
education, education". I want to explore by way of one or
two questions whether you feel at the outset—I know that
you are very new to this—that this is really being interpreted
in the way it should be. My first question is whether to your
knowledge any consideration has been given perhaps to passing
to DfES the lead role for all Service children's education?
Jim Knight: I interpret that to
mean the lead role when they are overseas.
Q307 Linda Gilroy: Including overseas,
because in state schools that is the case?
Jim Knight: To my knowledge, we
have not specifically had a discussion about taking the lead in
terms of education overseas. Clearly, the body that provides that
education is an MoD agency. There are some strengths in having
the MoD involved in that way given that, as the Committee has
discussed, one factor in making sure some of the transfer arrangements
work well is good notice of posting and some liaison of that kind.
If the MoD were less involved the chances of making progress,
as we are starting to do, would be lessened because it might be
suggested that this was a DfES not an MoD problem. We all know
the dangers of "departmentalitis" and join-up is more
an answer than otherwise. There are two matters in which I am
interested to assist that join-up. One is whether the DfES should
regard the agency a little more like a local authority and how
far we can push that. That is one of the matters I have in mind
as a result of doing work to appear before you today. The other
is to see whether we can involve the Armed Forces more in schools
where there are concentrations of Service children, possibly through
trust schools in particular, and whether there are opportunities
for the Armed Forces to become directly involved in trusts which
potentially would make them much more sympathetic to the needs
of Service children.
Q308 Linda Gilroy: In a way, you
have answered some of the questions that I intended to ask, which
is encouraging. It may be that Ms Garner is in a better position
to answer my next question. When education Bills are proposed,
as they are regularly, is an impact assessment carried out pre-legislation
and post-legislation to see how it should be interpreted? You
mentioned trusts and money coming forward for personalised support
for children. I refer to the Every Child Matters programme. I
should like to get a more detailed sense of how your department
makes sure that in working in that close relationship with MoD
that agenda is really pushed forward. I also want to explore trust
schools. Is there a proposal to try to introduce a trust element,
perhaps with specialist school status, in the forces' schools
for which MoD is directly responsible?
Jim Knight: As to pre-legislative
discussion, a good example is the debate that has gone on in respect
of the new admissions code. You will know that in the context
of the Bill we are looking for a strengthened admissions code
to be written into the statute so that admission authorities have
to act in accordance with it as opposed to having due regard to
it. One of the ways in which we seek to strengthen it is to improve
the status of Service children in that admissions code. That will
be published in full for consultation in September and no doubt
those interested in the subject will respond according to the
proposals we make. I am sure there are areas where we can do better
with that liaison and pre-legislative discussion and there may
be areas within the department which need to be reminded slightly
more often about the impact on Service children. In general terms
the picture I get is one of improvement, but I am still not satisfied
with the educational outcomes for Service children and think we
can do better. In respect of trust schools, I am not sure we can
go down the route of specialist school status for the Armed Forces.
That has not occurred to me and I would have to think about it
more carefully, but there is a lot of potential in trust schools
with the Armed Forces being involved in them. Trust schools would
be their own admission authorities, subject to parliamentary approval
in the legislation. They could set criteria that would be consulted
upon locally to give priority to Service children in admission
terms. Given some of the worries about admissions in this area,
that might be helpful. One of the things we seek with some trust
schools is the opportunity to improve ethos. An attractive part
of the diversity and choice we seek to achieve with this agenda
is the ability to offer that in certain circumstances. In respect
of the education of forces' children we have seen the setting
up of independent schools with a very strong ethos largely for
officers' children. Would it not be nice to extend that to the
maintained sector so that the children of lower ranks also had
those opportunities?
Q309 Chairman: You gave one answer
in relation to specialist schools that I did not understand. Are
you saying you are not sure whether it is appropriate to have
specialist schools or that it is not a matter you have considered
and you want to take it away and think about it further?
Jim Knight: It is a bit of both.
It is not an option that I have considered at all. I will always
reflect on what people say to me, but my instinctive reaction
is that it is not appropriate.
Q310 Linda Gilroy: Perhaps I may
suggest to the Minister that he takes it away and looks at it,
because it is my understanding there is a commitment that every
secondary school should have the opportunity to have specialist
status.
Jim Knight: Yes.
Q311 Linda Gilroy: The Minister may
also wish to look at this in the context of the trust issue, subject
to the legislation, and the question whether federated trust status
may be suitable, particularly to bring together some of the companies
which perhaps have an interest in the defence industry to achieve
very special status for forces' schools. I will leave it there
and perhaps return to one or two of the other issues in the context
of this question.
Jim Knight: In response to that,
one of the several models and options of trust schools that we
would be looking at would be a confederation with several partners
in the trust. One can conceivably have a partnership between the
Armed Forces and defence companies.
Q312 Linda Gilroy: And universities?
Jim Knight: Yes. To have several
partners and several schools is one of the models we are considering.
Q313 Mr Jones: The key point here
is the education of children. I hear what you say about the MoD
bringing something to the table. Surely, at the end of the day
it is about educating children and making sure that they have
the best start in life. If that is good enough for 98 or 99% of
the population of this country, why should it not be for Service
children?
Jim Knight: It should be for Service
children. "Every child matters" is the mantra and Service
children matter just as much as anybody else. They face particular
challenges because of mobility, but they are not unique in that
respect.
Q314 Mr Jones: But the whole reason
for the existence of your department is to ensure that education
is the best possible. What has come out of this inquiry and concerns
me a little is that with your arm's length relationship with the
MoD there are two tracks for the education of Service children:
one for officers and one for the rest of the ranks. Clearly, one
is better than the other. Would that not be different if you had
total control over this area rather than the inbuilt hierarchical
structure based on chain of command which is clearly present in
the MoD and spills over into this area?
Jim Knight: I am not sure that
it would. There are some cultural as well as structural and departmental
challenges. In particular, it would seem that culturally it is
perfectly normal for officers' children to be sent to boarding
school, whereas even though we have a number of maintained boarding
schools not many in the lower ranks choose to take up that option.
They prefer to travel with their children to Germany, Belize or
wherever it is they are going and use the schools that are provided
by the agency. I think it becomes difficult for us to tell parents
where they have to send their children. We offer them a choice
and it is up to them. Perhaps we could offer a greater range of
choice, which is why I am interested in whether or not we can
use trust schools as a way of developing that, but I think that
the bigger challenges are the cultural ones.
Q315 Mr Jones: Do you not think that
those cultural challenges would be better addressed by your department
than the MoD which clearly concentrates on the chain-of-command
structure? It is quite clear that the children of lower ranks
are getting a poorer education than officers' children. One girl
who gave evidence said that she had been to 13 different schools.
That cannot be good for that individual child. One piece of evidence
compared them with gypsy or travellers' children; they move around
constantly. Surely, it should concern you as an education minister
that just because their parents are in the Armed Forces they are
getting a poorer education?
Ms Garner: The schools provided
by SCE abroad provide a very good education. If one looks at them
in comparison with many English local education authority schools
they are above average; they are in the top 25%. Those schools
are regularly inspected by Ofsted and always come out with very
good reports. The problem is mobility. As Mr Knight said, it comes
down to how one tells parents that they have to send their children
to certain schools and keep them there when they travel abroad.
The schools set up by SCE are of a very good standard. We as well
as the MoD are involved in how the education is given to children.
We have an education adviser who works with SCE and Ofsted works
with the schools. We make sure that things like personalisation
are taken into account. The chief executive officer, David Wadsworth,
has regular meetings with me and colleagues so we can discuss
things like personalisation and bring in the departmental expert.
All of those issues are taken into account. It just happens that
MoD does the funding, but the schools abroad are of very good
quality.
Jim Knight: The root of the answer
to your question is: who is best placed to influence that culture?
We are providing good education in terms of schools abroad and,
obviously, the schools in England are available to service families
as well as everybody else. Mobility is at the root of it. We know
that mobility informs educational achievement very significantly.
You mentioned travellers. There are a number of different groups.
If one looks at the statistics for local authorities with high
levels of mobility, they do not match at all those with high concentrations
of Service children. It is largely the inner-city authorities
which have the highest levels of mobility. It is a big challenge
for us in lots of ways, but it is not specific to this group.
I believe that culturally the MoD is best placed to do this through
its direct relationship with some of its third sector partners—SAFRO
and other voluntary sector organisations—which work pastorally
with service families to influence that culture. I know that over
the longer term the Armed Forces, particularly the Army, are interested
through housing and other measures in encouraging a more stable
and home-based life for service families, but it will take some
time to achieve that.
Q316 Mr Jones: I think you have failed
the first test of a minister of any department. You are supposed
to try to get work for your department, not give it away or ensure
other Whitehall departments keep their bailiwick. There will be
a change in terms of deployment. You will have larger bases and
more stable situations which will lead to less travelling for
the majority of children. Do you believe that that provides an
opportunity for you to expand your empire into this area which
will lead to large bases where kids do not move around as much
as they do at the moment?
Jim Knight: You may regard the
desire to expand an empire and become a huge monstrosity as a
test of being a minister. I regard it as my mission to make sure
we make the best decisions as a government. We will play our role
in that. Joined-up government is an aspiration which we are constantly
chasing after, so let us put the responsibility where it fits
best. Larger bases are a good opportunity to address these problems.
Clearly, it is right that we should have the responsibility in
this country, but at the moment I am not persuaded that taking
over directly the running of schools overseas is correct. I do
not know whether or not we can improve the relationship with SCE
by regarding it much more as a local authority which delivers
and strategically plans education in this country. We deliver
some education through academies but it is done mostly by local
authorities or other providers. I do not think that we are in
the game of being a deliverer.
Q317 Chairman: It sounds as though
you are open-minded about the possibility of giving further thought
to this.
Jim Knight: I am very open-minded
in thinking about how we develop the relationship on a quasi-local
authority basis with SCE.
Q318 Mr Hamilton: Your first answer
to Mr Jones indicated that the same opportunities were afforded
to all people in relation to boarding. That was not the impression
we gained when we took evidence in Germany. One of the things
that has happened in the Armed Forces over a period of time is
that, like every other department, a lot of out-sourcing takes
place, which effectively means that running parallel to the Armed
Forces is a whole spectrum of people who, in the long game if
you like, are based in various places throughout the world, and
yet in some cases the same opportunities are not afforded to their
children as those offered to the children of members of the Armed
Forces. One of the matters raised in Germany by people who have
been stationed there for some time is that there are differences
in approach in relation to that. Is that something that you will
also consider over the period?
Jim Knight: Certainly that is
something I shall consider. Are you referring to sponsors' reserves?
Q319 Mr Hamilton: There are people
stationed in Germany working long term with the Armed Forces but
they are a different wing of the Armed Forces. An interesting
point was raised with us about the opportunities available to
their children to get the same facilities. They were not always
available to them.
Jim Knight: That is certainly
something that I can take away and look at.
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