Examination of Witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 2 NOVEMBER 2005
RT HON
RUTH KELLY
MP
Q60 Chairman: Is the likely scenario
that there will be hundreds of portable buildings? Do you have
nightmares about this?
Ruth Kelly: Absolutely not. I
do not dream about every head teacher suddenly waking up in the
morning saying, "I want to expand the provision in my school."
I do not think that is likely to happen to the majority of schools.
There are some schools that will want to go down that route who
feel blocked from going down that route at the moment. It is highly
likely that some exceptional head teachers in the system will
want new challenges and want to take over two, three, four or
even five schools if they have the ability and talent to do that
and people want their expertise in their school. They can do that
through the new trust mechanism. I would like to see leadership
capacity grow. I would like to see more good school places but
I do not think the only way of getting more good school places
is by expanding existing successful schools although they might
have a role to play.
Q61 Tim Farron: I suppose the main
movement towards additional parental choice will be something
that has nothing to do with you, which is the fall in school rolls
over the coming years.
Ruth Kelly: No, I do not think
that is the case. You would not expect to see uniformity in how
falling school rolls hit schools anyway. It would not necessarily
be the case that falling school rolls hit particularly successful
and popular schools that parents wanted to get their children
into. There might be an impact but that is certainly not the key
route by which school improvement is going to take place. The
new vehicles of trust schools is going to be hugely important
in driving up standards, particularly of under-performing schools
in disadvantaged parts of the country.
Q62 Tim Farron: In my constituency,
if you live in Coniston, your second nearest school is 15 miles
drive and a ferry journey away. How does choice work there?
Ruth Kelly: There is an issue
about rural schools. I cannot remember the exact figure but it
is something like 85% of all pupils live within three miles of
three secondary schools. I will send the Committee the precise
numbers. The vast majority of pupils live within easy travelling
distance of a number of secondary schools. There are particular
issues about rural areas and how this works in rural areas. It
may be that partnerships between a school and a university or
a local employer are particularly important in providing diversity
and access in rural areas because the more links you can make
with external partners the greater the opportunities that are
there for those children. Choice will work in a different way.[3]
Q63 Tim Farron: Last year, I understand
that 11 admissions cases ended up being referred to yourself as
Secretary of State. The year before there were four and the year
before there was none. Is not what we are doing in terms of handing
admissions over to trust schools likely to lead to a mass increase
in the number of admissions cases referred?
Ruth Kelly: It is not an entirely
relevant point to make. Admissions do not get referred to the
Secretary of State; they get determined by the schools adjudicator.
Q64 Tim Farron: I am talking about
the numbers that will be referred.
Ruth Kelly: School admissions
only get referred to the Secretary of State if they involve questions
of faith.
Q65 Tim Farron: You will know—you
can correct me if this is an incorrect report—that at the
adjudication of the case against the London Oratory School you
ruled that the school was permitted to interview parents as part
of its interview admissions procedure and that the Gunnersbury
School was not permitted to interview parents as part of its admissions
procedure. How do you defend this apparent inconsistency?
Ruth Kelly: Both schools were
referred to me after a complaint about their admissions arrangements.
I took the advice of the schools adjudicator who is best placed
to determine whether their admissions policies are in line with
the code of practice or not. The London Oratory submitted extensive
evidence. I was only asked to determine, not on the criteria that
they were using but only on how it was applied in practice. The
criterion they were using was faith commitment. They provided
extensive evidence which suggested that interviewing was necessary
to determine the level of faith commitment. That was the only
point that I could consider, whether the evidence they produced
was sufficient to show that it was necessary to determine faith
commitment. We looked very extensively at this on the basis of
the evidence, including, for example, whether there was evidence
of a difference in ability intake between those who passed the
interview and those who did not. They showed very clearly that
there was no difference in ability or indeed in the numbers on
free school meals between those who passed their interview and
those who did not. They provided extensive evidence to support
their case that interviewing was necessary to determine faith
commitment. I could not rule on whether that was an appropriate
selection criterion because the objection had not been made on
that basis. In the case of Gunnersbury, they had a different criterion
to judge against and they did not submit significant evidence
in support of their application. Therefore in each case the decision
to be made was absolutely clear cut.
Q66 Mr Chaytor: For every school
that expands, one or more schools must contract. Given that the
presumption is in favour of expansion but the local authority
has a responsibility for the wider interests of parents and children,
what happens if a school's bid to expand is deemed by the local
authority not to be in the interests of the wider group of parents
and children? Who resolves that dilemma?
Ruth Kelly: They can turn it down.
Q67 Mr Chaytor: Is there a right
of appeal?
Ruth Kelly: There would be a right
of appeal through the usual channels. The presumption has changed
so the local authority would be expected to look at it on its
merits and, if it was a good proposal, to accept that.
Q68 Mr Chaytor: You said earlier
that the Schools Commissioner would have the responsibility to
point trusts in the right direction to the disadvantaged areas.
That is not in the White Paper itself. Is this going to be a specific
responsibility of the Schools Commissioner or is this just a general
matter?
Ruth Kelly: The specific responsibility
of the Schools Commissioner is to help create and develop trusts.
Q69 Mr Chaytor: But not to allocate
them to particular schools or neighbourhoods?
Ruth Kelly: Absolutely.
Q70 Mr Chaytor: Absolutely yes?
Ruth Kelly: Yes. The schools need
to want it. The Schools Commissioner would be expected to have
knowledge of those schools that were looking for trusts. Where
there were trusts in disadvantaged areas, where the school was
under-performing, that would be part of their responsibility.
Q71 Mr Chaytor: How are you going
to ensure that all the trusts do not go to the leafy suburbs?
Will there be a positive policy to ensure that the trusts are
directed to where they are most needed, not to where the schools
have the best contacts?
Ruth Kelly: Yes. Can I point you
to page 28 of the Schools White Paper which says that the Commissioner
will work with both national organisations and local community
and parent organisations, particularly those in disadvantaged
areas.
Q72 Mr Chaytor: Is the system of
admissions based on banding compatible with the principles of
parental choice?
Ruth Kelly: It could have a role
to play and we should be as flexible as possible in allowing local
authorities and schools to take those decisions that are appropriate
to their local area.
Q73 Mr Chaytor: For eight years the
Government has prioritised keeping ambitious, middle class parents
within the state system. Now we are proposing a banding system
that is going to reduce the number of places in certain schools
for those very parents. Is this not a recipe for riots in the
outer suburbs?
Ruth Kelly: A school would need
to choose to go down that route.
Q74 Mr Chaytor: What incentives will
there be for schools to choose to go down that route?
Ruth Kelly: In the case of a new
school the local authority would set the admissions criteria it
is looking for through the schools competition. Schools would
need to bid on the basis that they could meet those admissions
criteria. If you had a group of three or four specialist schools
that were very strong in their individual speciality and they
served a particular local area, they might decide between them—and
parents might welcome this—that they had an admission system
which served all four schools and they took a proportion of children
on the basis of ability and shared them out on that basis as well
as their aptitude for the specialism. Those sorts of decisions
are best taken locally and I would not want to force this on any
school.
Q75 Mr Chaytor: In a period of record
low unemployment, is not the working families tax credit a better
indicator of social deprivation than free school meals?
Ruth Kelly: It is a good indicator
and we are using the working families tax credit entitlement alongside
the free school meals indicator as the new entitlement for the
free school transport provision that we are going to make. We
have only just recently been able to use the individual pupil
level data and match that to free school meals entitlement to
show what is happening to the attainment gap between those children
on free school meals and those without. This suggests that is
a significant advance from where we have been in the past. We
are now able to look at this. It is not a perfect measure of the
attainment but it is progress.
Q76 Helen Jones: Trust schools will
be charities and the White Paper says that they can only apply
money to charitable purposes. Are you envisaging that will be
charitable purposes connected with the school or any other charitable
purposes that the trusts might have?
Ruth Kelly: Connected with the
school.
Q77 Helen Jones: The charity can
change its objects under charity law. What is going to be the
interaction between the rules you set for trust schools and charity
law? What safeguards can you build in to stop the charity changing
its objects?
Ruth Kelly: The trust will have
to hold the land and assets in trust for the benefit of the school.
That will be clear in how it is set up and they will not be able
to change the terms.
Q78 Helen Jones: I understand that
but the charity can still change its objects and therefore a charity
can apply its income to different objects. I am asking what you
intend to do to stop that happening with a trust.
Ruth Kelly: Trusts will need to
preserve the original charitable objectives of raising standards
in that school. All their income will need to be devoted to that
purpose.
Q79 Helen Jones: What are the Department's
criteria for deciding who would be unsuitable to run a trust school?
Ruth Kelly: We would regulate
to prevent some groups of people from being involved with trusts
or indeed with trusts that supported schools. Similar regulations
already surround, for example, the membership of a school company
which disqualifies people who would not be allowed to become a
company director and also people who have previously been removed
as charity trustees and so forth or people who have been disqualified
from working with children and young people. Local authorities
would be able to refer a trust to a schools adjudicator if they
thought the majority of parents would not be happy with the proposed
trust or the consultation did not take account of the majority
view of parents or if they were concerned about the influence
that the trust might have on school standards. There are a number
of safeguards built into the system. We will be outlining them
in specific detail during the run-up to legislation but it is
a package which very clearly preserves the charitable focus of
the trust on school improvement and indeed of that particular
school.
3 Ev 12 Back
| 
