Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 12 OCTOBER 2005
SIR DAVID
NORMINGTON, MR
STEPHEN KERSHAW
AND MR
STEPHEN CROWNE
Q60 Mr Marsden: Time will tell on
the funding and the resources for schools forums, but I would
like to press you a little further on some of these new roles
or potentially expanded roles. Now, in your written answers to
the Committee, the Department said that schools forums would be
able to make minor changes to the operation of the minimum funding
guarantee where the outcome would otherwise be anomalous. Can
you give us any examples of what an anomalous outcome might be?
Mr Crowne: It is possible to think
of situations, and I am desperately trying to think of one now,
in which the way that the national, as it were, regulations work
with the MFG is to produce a result which does not really fit
local circumstances and that might be around small schools, it
might be around big population shifts, it might be around where
schools are being closed and opened, those kinds of situations
where pupil numbers shift to a large degree from year to year,
so it is those kinds of situations we are talking about. We recognise
that the principle of the minimum funding guarantee is the thing
really. It is about giving people predictability and stability.
If there is a better way of doing that at a local level to deal
with a particular set of circumstances, fine.
Mr Marsden: So taking the answers you have given,
if you are going to have the potential for that sort of submission
coming through, does this not bring us on to a broader question
about the issue of how you actually define the validity of these
arguments? Let's take, for example, the broader issue of an authority
which, awarded this fair funding formula, says it should redistribute
the resources, let's say, for instance, in terms of social need.
Is that not going to lead schools to hit the buffer in terms of
the minimum funding guarantee in circumstances in which presumably
local school spending will rise and the Department will have to
pick up the tab? Will that not cause a major problem?
Mr Crowne: We designed the system
carefully to ensure that every local authority will have some
headroom once it has met the individual school minimum funding
guarantee.
Q61 Mr Marsden: How much?
Mr Crowne: It is at least 1% in
every authority, so what we are saying is for 2006-07 and 2007-08
every local authority will have an increase of at least 5% per
pupil. We do not yet know the level of the minimum funding guarantee
in each of those years because it will be dependent critically
on the teachers' pay settlement, but if previous experience is
anything to go by there will be a significant degree of headroom
in each local authority.
Q62 Mr Marsden: If it were to be
proven that that 1% was inadequate, would the Department within
its current spending predictions be able to adjust it?
Mr Crowne: No. What we are saying
is that is the absolute minimum for every authority. Many authorities
will get more. The overall increase in each of those years across
the country is 6%, so there will be some authorities on that floor
but many will be distinctly above it. What we are saying is that
the principle of the DSG is we will set a two-year budget for
local authorities and it is for them to work through their local
formula with their schools' forums to establish the best way of
distributing that locally.
Q63 Mr Marsden: Can I put a final
point to you which brings in a broader issue and Sir David might
want to comment on it as well. To go back to what you said, you
used various examples of what might be anomalous and I have also
referred to social need. There is a question mark, is there not
then, under this new streamlined system of pots of money concerning
those issues which have currently or recently been recognised
by the Department as being important but which do not currently
find a place in the public funding formula? I am referring particularly
there to the issue of transience and the effect of transience
in schools. The Department had a couple of reports by Sally Dobson.
There was an indication in correspondence to me and I know there
have been indications in other correspondence from Ministers that
the Government recognises the importance of that, but there is
an issue about what that actually means. We can all recognise
things but if we do not put our money where our mouths are in
terms of the funding formula then it is not going to achieve a
great deal. A point my colleague Rob Wilson made earlier on about
a particular day being taken for the qualification number will
have a particularly significant impact on those areas like my
own in Blackpool where transience flows go very fast during the
year. How are we going to cope with that? Will the issue of transience
receiving special formula funding consideration be adversely affected
by your streamlining?
Mr Crowne: I will take that first,
if I may. I will deal first with the national distributions to
local authorities. We did look very closely at this because, you
are right, a number of authorities have said to us is it possible
somehow to recognise in the national formula an element of transience.
We looked very closely at that and the available data and we concluded
two things. One is actually we could not find any databases for
identifying authorities who face a particular set of challenges
on transience when you looked on an authority-wide basis. It is
quite hard to get a data-driven approach and of course we are
committed to ensuring that our national funding formula is based
on objective and data-driven criteria. A second point: that is
not to say, of course, that those problems do not present serious
challenges at local level and what we are committed to doing,
and we have started now, is looking at the whole issue of deprivation
and the manifestations of that. I see the issue of transience
very much in that context and the Government is concerned to ensure
that local formulae reflect levels of deprivation and the challenges
that imposes for schools, many of whom are in deprived areas and
face transient populations of various kinds. We are committed
to reviewing that. It comes back to a point David was making earlier
about formulae; you have to keep them under review to make sure
that the way that they operate and the factors they take into
account correspond with the realities that local authorities and
schools are facing on the ground. That is not to say we are going
to make changes every year but we do have to think about whether
Q64 Mr Marsden: With respect, you
have been making warm noises as a Department about the transience
issue for at least two to three years and you have now had two
major reports from Sally Dobson on the issue and all you are coming
along to say today is that "we will keep the issue under
review." That does not sound very satisfactory to me. Have
we a timeframe for when you are going to make some decisions?
Sir David Normington: We will
not make any more changes until this next two-year period starting
in 2006 is over and we will then be doing a review. I know it
sounds as though we are brushing this aside. As we know, because
we discussed it here before, the distribution of money from a
national to a local level (which is not a new issue of course,
it has been in the system all along) is highly complex and controversial,
and to try to get a system which distributes the money fairly
at a national level has been a constant issue over many years
and all the time one is trying find the data that enables you
to make the best allocation to local authorities. It takes account
of rural issues, it takes account of deprivation, but we cannot
make the national formula sensitive enough to deal with all these
issues, and that is why there has to be laid over this a set of
local decisions which take account of particular needs in the
area. I know that sound like passing the buck but it is the reality
of how a system of national funding has to work. It is why we
cannot have a national funding system which in a sense distributes
the money straight from us to schools because we cannot at a national
level take account of everything that happening at the local level.
Alongside that, the Government has over time introduced a lot
of other grants. Some of that funding will continue in a separate
stream although we will try to make sure, again, that it is not
all earmarked money for specific things but actually the money
goes out under a more general tag so that some of these local
issues at school level can be dealt with. In other words you can
decide what your local issue is and spend the money on it, all
this within a system where year on year school funding is increasing
in real terms by about 6% over this period.
Q65 Chairman: So, Sir David, are
the demands on schools? It is all very well saying that it is
a very complex system and it is difficult to get a transformation
into a new system, I understand that and you have our sympathy,
but at the same time to give you three examples, just recently
I noticed when Charles Clarke was Secretary of State he appeared
before another Select Committee and said, that the lead role in
education for sustainability is with the DfES. I understand that
that is now accepted and you have a new policy on education for
sustainability of the environment and all that. Does it come with
a budget? Who funds it? Then you have the reaction to the Jamie
Oliver thing. I have to say that nearly four years ago this Committee
wrote a report on school meals so rather than anyone carrying
it on in the wake of Jamie Oliver he rather carried it on in our
wake. You have now placed another responsibility on schools which
is an expensive one in addition to everything else they do. Indeed,
who is going to pay for extended schools? If schools are going
to open earlier and close at six, who is going to pay for that?
Here are three new policies laid on to schools. How are they going
to cope?
Sir David Normington: We will
be providing extra money for extended schools of course, dealing
with that one.
Q66 Chairman: How much?
Sir David Normington: I do not
know. I can let you know but I do not know it off the top of my
head. [1]
Q67 Chairman: What about education
for sustainability?
Sir David Normington: Well, I
was going to make a general point.
Q68 Chairman: A general point evades
answering the specific!
Sir David Normington: Yes, I will
come back to the specific, if I may. I do not have an answer on
education for sustainability.
Q69 Chairman: Make your general point
first.
Sir David Normington: We do have
a system which is highly devolved and for a lot of years now we
have said that the school should be the budget-holder and should
make the local decisions.
Q70 Chairman: Then you introduce
the school meals, which is like Soviet Russia because you say
they cannot have vending machines unless they are non-sugar and
non-fizzy, and you tell them that they have got to have totally
different new school meals. Here is a devolutionary government
who suddenly says, "On this issue you will do as you are
told and you will do it immediately".
Sir David Normington: Yes and
we are putting somewhere approaching £300 million extra into
the system to help them do that. What I was going to say was this
is a system which is highly devolved. It is a system which both
in capital and in revenue there have been huge increases so no
school should be telling us they have not had those increases.
We have to allow local decisions to take their course and priorities
to be set. Quite often when we impose a further national demand
on a school, as we have with school meals, we provide extra money.
Sometimesand I think sustainability is a very good exampleif
the school has the right policy we can support them on this. Sustainability
is not necessarily going to cost them more, it may cost them less.
We have a very, very big building programme and designing sustainability
into that building programme is a key issue for us.
Q71 Chairman: I thought the Treasury
stopped you doing that because it is too expensive.
Sir David Normington: It is not
expensive to make sure you have the most efficient heating systems
in new schools, for instance.
Q72 Chairman: Has the Treasury stopped
you doing a lot of that work?.
Sir David Normington: I do not
think so.
Q73 Chairman: You do not think so?
Mr Crowne: I am confident.
Sir David Normington: I do not
think so.
Mr Crowne: In designing our space
standards for schools and in the specifications that we are supporting
through our capital programmes we are building in very good practice
in sustainability.
Q74 Chairman: We are minded to look
at sustainability for schools. What about the third one?
Sir David Normington: Remind me
what it was.
Q75 Chairman: Extended schools. It
is a big responsibility. Who is going to pay for all that supervision?
Sir David Normington: Well, there
is a budget for extended schools and, if you like, I will provide
you a note about it. I am not precisely sure what we have yet
said publicly about it but we cannot expect schools to be open
eight until six and expect all the costs somehow to be found by
the school.
Chairman: Can we have a note on those three
items? [2]
Q76 Mrs Dorries: Sir David, I would like
to come back to a point the Chairman raised a moment ago about
the top-performing schools taking less than their fair share of
children with SEN. I do not have the figures with me but it is
the case that a large number of excluded children from less well-performing
schools have quite complex SEN needs. In addition to this, the
evidence also shows that in the less well-performing schools once
those children have been excludedand in fact this is the
reason for the exclusions being on the increasethe learning
environment improves. Is this not in itself evidence that funding
should continue to go towards special schools and that the programme
of inclusion should be reviewed and perhaps halted given the fact
that the better-performing schools do not have their fair share
and the less well-performing schools are suffering as a result
of it?
Sir David Normington: I think
investment needs to continue to go into special units and special
schools. It is important that we try to design a system which
meets the needs of each individual child. Sometimes that will
be a special school. Sometimes that will be a special unit for
particularly badly behaved children and that will be off-site.
Sometimes that will be a unit on-site. We have put a lot of money
into developing on-site provision. I think that some of the things
that we have done in the special needs area to invest in special
provision on-site in the schools is a very good way of going.
We all have these anecdotes, but I saw a school which had a special
unit for dealing with children who had various problems of deafness,
and what you are able to do if you have those special units is
you are both able to provide them with special support in the
school and you are also able to enable them to join in with the
other activities in the school as well. Clearly there is a need
for some children to be in special schools. We do not have a policy
of closing down all special schools and forcing those children
into mainstream schools. We have a policy of trying to have special
schools, special on-site units and also, where that is feasible,
support for children in the classroom. It ought to be a mix of
those things. I would really hate it if we jumped to one solution.
We have to try to design this system for children of all sorts
and, frankly, it does not quite match that yet.
Q77 Mrs Dorries: No, and in fact
we have seen 91 closures of special schools in recent years. The
on-site units which you are talking about, which are actually
orbital units to the schools themselves where the children are
treated separately, do not exist in very many schools. What we
do see is inclusion within the classroom, which is not working
in many many schools particularly in the area about which I have
particular knowledge. A moment ago you stated in answer to my
earlier question to you that you can see where funding goes there
are better outcomes. I do not think you can make the assertion
of those outcomes unless you have the evidence to back it up,
but surely seeing the funding going to special schools is one
of those cases where you can prove and do have the evidence that
funding going into a particular area produces the right outcomes?
Sir David Normington: At the risk
of repeating myself, I think you can point to very successful
examples of children with special needs in mainstream schools
in classrooms with support. I think you can point to successful
cases of children who are in special schools. I do not want to
be categorised as saying that there is one right solution. We
have to try to do all these things. It is true that there have
been closures of special schools but it is also true that there
are a lot of special schools still and the policy of trying to
build those schools as centres of expertise which can offer their
expertise to schools which do not have that specialism is a very
important policy too so you improve the capacity of schools which
do not have special units to deal with children with disabilities
and special needs. Can I just say I will not have the suggestion
that we are closing down special schools as a matter of policy.
I will not have the suggestion that inclusion is the wrong policy.
Sometimes it is the right policy. We have to try to design the
policy for the parents and the children. It will not always be
right for them to be put in a special school.
Q78 Mrs Dorries: You have just made
the point that special schools provide training to the teachers
at the schools with inclusion, but actually that is a major problem
that because of the 91 closures of special schools there is not
the training, there are not these centres of expertise. They are
reducing the number of centres to help those schools with that
training. I know of many schools where the teachers cannot get
any assistance or specialist training because the number of teachers
who have that experience is dwindling because those special schools
are closing.
Sir David Normington: I do not
think over a lot of years that it has been the case that special
schools have provided their expertise to mainstream schools. I
think that is what we are trying to do. I agree that where special
schools have been closed it is just a fact that they do not exist,
but our policy is to build up special schools as centres of expertise
in a way that they have not been before, so I do not think we
come from a time when the schools did offer enough help to children
who were in mainstream schools. So that is what we want to do.
Can I come back to the on-site units. It is true that they are
not everywhere, but we have been trying to support the development
of on-site units which both provide support to that school but
can also support other schools. It is another way of doing it.
However, the system is not perfect and I would not dream of saying
it is.
Q79 Mr Williams: Just to clarify
the answer to a question Rob Wilson asked right at the end of
his series of questions, to make sure I understood the point about
the new funding arrangements. You said a couple of times in your
remarks earlier that the new funding arrangements took schools
funding out of local taxation. I hope I am quoting you correctly
there. Does that mean that the funding that the Department will
give to local authorities will reflect what, when I was a councillor,
was called the SSA or will it take into account the excess spending
that many local authorities do on top of that? Bristol and Avon
have all spent well above the SSA. Will the new grant that goes
directly to the authorities from the Department take into account
that discretionary spending?
Sir David Normington: Yes, it
starts from the basis of what is being spent.
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