Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20
- 39)
WEDNESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2005
RT HON
RUTH KELLY
MP
Q20 Mr Wilson: Will it be a simple
process?
Ruth Kelly: It will. We are trying
to change the presumption because at the moment schools do not
want to come forward with plans for expansion because they are
concerned about what the impact will be on the views of interests
represented in the schools organisational committee. In future,
because there will be a strategic role in the local authority,
which does not represent a vested interest but represents the
pupils and the parents, it will be much simpler and more straightforward
for the schools to be able to put forward proposals for expansion
and for them to be approved.
Q21 Mr Wilson: At the moment there
is a large number of obstacles for schools that wish to expand.
Are you going to sweep those away?
Ruth Kelly: That is the purpose
of the change.
Q22 Mr Wilson: In my constituency
during the summer months this year I wrote to you about this.
There was a local school, Evergreen Primary, that had the support
of teachers, parents and the local community and wanted to expand
but was refused on the basis of surplus places. At the time the
Government was denying the existence of surplus places. I believe
now that the Prime Minister is saying that there was a surplus
places policy and it is now going to be swept away. Is that a
correct interpretation?
Ruth Kelly: There is not a surplus
places rule and there was not. The point behind the reforms was
to make it easier for good proposals which came forward to be
approved quickly and easily. The presumption will be in favour.
Where a school wants to expand, it should be able to. However,
personally, I think it is much more likely that a very successful
school—to take a secondary, for example—with an inspiring
head teacher, rather than wanting to expand the provision at their
school, which they may want to do but it will depend upon the
size of the school, may choose to set up a trust and take over
the running of an under-performing school locally and help that
to improve. That will be how the school leadership team is challenged,
rather than just admitting new pupils into the existing building.
Q23 Mr Wilson: My local authority
misinterpreted the assisted places rules?
Ruth Kelly: There is no surplus
place rule. I do not know what your local authority did, by the
way, but I am very happy to look at it.
Q24 Mr Wilson: They turned it down.
I did ask you to intervene but you refused.
Ruth Kelly: Local authorities
can use all sorts of excuses and reasons for not allowing a school
to expand. I do not know the details of that particular case.
I apologise for that. It will be much easier for a school that
wishes to expand to do so in future, although I do not think that
will be the primary route through which a school creates more
good school places. More likely is the fact that a head teacher
of a very successful school may become an executive principal
through a federation of two schools.
Q25 Mr Wilson: I can go back to my
constituency and urge that school to take advantage of these rules
and expand?
Ruth Kelly: I am very happy to
set out the surplus places rule, or not, for your local authority
to consider. There is no surplus places rule. There may be other
legitimate reasons why that proposal is not going ahead.
Q26 Jeff Ennis: There is no doubt
that there are some really good measures in the White Paper which
I fully endorse. I have grave personal concerns around the whole
concept of the trust school. It appears to me that many of the
good measures contained in the White Paper could be implemented
anyway without going through the rigmarole of allowing schools
to become trust schools. Is that not the case?
Ruth Kelly: It is absolutely the
case that a school can become a foundation or self-governing school
now. What we want to do is to make it much easier for schools
that want to acquire a trust, to acquire a trust. You are absolutely
right to say that this is not some proposal dreamed up in Whitehall
or in the Department for Education. We are learning from the experience
of foundations that currently attach themselves to schools, work
with schools and help drive up standards in schools. We want to
make it easy for schools to acquire that sort of external support
where they want to do so and where parents want them to do so.
We have proposed setting out ways of enabling schools to acquire
a trust. The trust could negotiate under the power to innovate
directly with the Department any freedoms and flexibilities it
needs, both for that school and for other schools under its care.
Q27 Jeff Ennis: You will be aware
that the top 200 performing state schools at present have two
common features. They have the lowest number of children on free
school meals and the lowest percentage of children with special
needs. What sort of measures are we going to introduce? Are we
going to introduce a minimum quota, for example, for these schools
in the trust for having, say, within 3% of a local authority's
average of children on free school meals or children who have
special educational needs?
Ruth Kelly: I well understand
your motivations for suggesting that. Of the 200 top performing
schools, 161 are grammar or partially selective schools. It is
not surprising they are top performing schools because they select
according to ability. It is also not particularly surprising that,
as a result, they have far too few kids on free school meals.
I would like to see our top performing schools in the future having
far more comprehensives figuring in that total. How are we going
to do that? Our proposals for trust schools will enable them to
develop the ethos and drive up standards to do that.
Q28 Jeff Ennis: There is a rough
correlation between academic achievement and the number of students
in a school on free school meals and with special educational
needs.
Ruth Kelly: Too strong a correlation
and that is the correlation that we are trying to break down.
From 1998 onwards, schools have had to have regard to the code
of practice which has said that children with special educational
needs need to be treated fairly. They cannot discriminate against
children with special educational needs. Under the system that
we have with the code of admissions, including the self-governing
schools, if a school does not admit a fair proportion of students
with special educational needs, it could be referred by the local
authority or indeed others to the schools adjudicator who could
rule against them. I think this is quite a powerful tool for making
sure that schools do admit a fair selection of pupils.
Q29 Jeff Ennis: Can I raise a school
that will achieve, shall we say, trust status in the future? Presumably
they will be responsible for their buildings and the land that
the school is built on. That will be their total autonomy to decide.
They could sell a school playing field if they wanted to and build
a residential development on it if they got the planning permission
etc?
Ruth Kelly: The playing fields
legislation will still apply to trust schools. They will not be
able to sell playing fields.
Q30 Jeff Ennis: They will be in full
control of the buildings and the land?
Ruth Kelly: Apart from playing
fields. They are not just able to dispose of assets willy-nilly.
It has to serve an educational purpose and be reinvested in the
education of the pupils in that site. Trusts will be charitable
bodies with specific educational objectives and will be bound
by charity law as well.
Q31 Jeff Ennis: Can I quote a specific
example? We had a primary school in Barnsley where they had massive
problems with methane emissions getting into the school building
so the school had to be closed for a very long period of time.
It involved a lot of expense in carrying out remedial works etc.,
to resolve the problems. The kids had to be bussed to other schools
in the area and so on. What would happen with a trust school if
it was faced with that scenario? How would it deal with that?
If it is a totally autonomous school, what would happen?
Ruth Kelly: As I understand it,
although I will write and correct this point if I am wrong, the
local authority would still have exactly the same intervention
powers in those extreme cases as it does at the moment.
Q32 Jeff Ennis: Where would they
get the money from?
Ruth Kelly: The school.
Q33 Jeff Ennis: The local authority
to deal with it?
Ruth Kelly: In the same way as
it does at the moment. Forgive me that I am not familiar with
the particular case, but the powers that applied in that case
would presumably still apply under the new system. I am very happy
to look into that.[1]
Q34 Jeff Ennis: Barnsley is currently
going through an extensive public consultation exercise to close
all its 14 secondary schools, merge them and reopen them as eight
advance learning centres. I am pleased to say that we have funding
from the Department to achieve that. It is very innovative and
it is all about getting more kids to stay on et cetera, and to
have life long learning within a school environment. What happens
if some of these secondary schools decide that they are going
to be trusts and they are not going to play ball; they are going
to maintain their own particular fiefdom? They are not happy with
the proposals. What implications would trust schools have for
adventurous, innovative plans that local authorities have to improve
school standards in their area?
Ruth Kelly: Local authorities
will still have all the same powers that they have at the moment
for school reorganisation proposals. They will not be diminished
by the advent of trust schools. Local authorities currently have
to work with foundation schools which have the same degree of
autonomy as trust schools, albeit on an individual basis rather
than the trust having it.
Q35 Jeff Ennis: If we had an individual
head, say, in one of those 14 schools who wanted to protect his
or her own fiefdom and got the parents to go along the trust school
route, would they be able to do that?
Ruth Kelly: It does not mean to
say that they are somehow cut loose of the local authority in
that sense. The local authority in some senses, as strategic leader
in the system, will have more power than it does at the moment.
To take the example of an under-performing school, the local authority
under the new system will be able to issue a warning notice and
if nothing is done after a year that school will move into special
measures. It is in existence at the moment but it is an incredibly
difficult tool for the local authority to use. Under the new system
it will become very simple for the local authority to tackle under-performance
in schools. Then, they can issue special measures to close if
improvement does not happen rapidly. That will be added to its
repertoire of tools at its disposal to carry out these sorts of
reorganisations. All the same powers will still exist for local
authorities in those areas of reorganisation which currently exist.
Chairman: Barnsley is obviously very favoured.
Q36 Stephen Williams: This question
arises from your statement on trust schools. You were pleased
to announce a range of outstanding organisations which included
Microsoft and KPMG coming together to work with you, bringing
extensive educational and school management experience together
with strong links to communities. I have never worked for KPMG
but I have worked for PWC, a very similar organisation. I do not
recall us ever being involved in the management of schools or
having particularly strong links to communities, let alone Microsoft.
Microsoft I do not think is particularly well known in that field.
Can you tell us what exactly you expect these outstanding organisations
to bring to the party, because if it is different from academies
I assume it is not money.
Ruth Kelly: Microsoft in particular
has proposals to work with the Open University, to link up and
provide support to schools. It is an extremely exciting model.
They have some proposals that they are looking at very closely
at the moment. They intend to provide management expertise to
raise aspirations, to provide specific ICT support to schools
which they may not otherwise have had. As I understand it, they
are quite interested in developing this model more widely. They
will have to be involved in the next stages so that we make sure
in the legislation that the trust schools are set up in such a
way that they are able to do this, but I cannot think of a better
example of the sort of projects that we would like to see schools
being able to benefit from, where they think they could benefit
from it. That is why it will be voluntary for the school's governing
body to take on a trust if they want to, but if there are very
clear advantages for their pupils in adopting a trust I think
many of them will want to do that.
Q37 Stephen Williams: Will every
trust have to have an external trustee, effectively?
Ruth Kelly: It could be generated
within the school. For example, if you have an outstanding school
with an outstanding teacher, I think it highly likely that that
head teacher might want to set up their own trust so that they
could set the ethos for their own school but also perhaps for
a second or third under-performing school. The trust would make
it extremely easy to transfer their model of education, negotiating
with the Department, to others very quickly and easily and spread
that expertise and leadership quickly throughout the system.
Q38 Stephen Williams: Apart from
the advice that you mentioned, will these external bodies have
a role in the governance of the schools? The academy model gives
extraordinary powers to the person who contributes from outside.
Will that be the same here?
Ruth Kelly: They could. They will
certainly have a right to some governors on the governing body
and they could decide to appoint a majority on the governing bodies,
but that would be clear to the school and they would have to opt
for that for it to happen.
Q39 Stephen Williams: KPMG could
provide a majority of trustees at a trust school?
Ruth Kelly: It is not KPMG as
KPMG. This is a charity that might be set up by KPMG for school
improvement. They have corporate, social responsibility requirements.
They might choose to do that. They are interested in working with
us on that. The trust would need to be vetted and we would need
to be absolutely clear that the charity was intending to raise
outcomes and could do so in schools and then the schools would
want to have it. There are all sorts of safeguards in the system.
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