Examination of Witnesses (Questions 840-856)
JIM KNIGHT
MP AND PARMJIT
DHANDA MP
24 JANUARY 2007
Q840 Fiona Mactaggart: Can I ask
my supplementary and point it at you, Parmjit, partly so you can
respond to them both. I still think that your response is a vision
of schools making an offer to the community as part of regeneration,
and one of the things we have learned about regeneration is that
it works when it is from the bottom up on its own out there. I
thought that that was clearer in the Every Child Matters
part of the evidence than the rest of it rather than an offer
from the centre to the community, and I wondered if Parmjit, as
the Minister responsible for Every Child Matters, thinks
there is a tension in the Department and whether other bits of
the Department can learn from some of the stuff you are doing?
Mr Dhanda: I do not disagree with
what you are saying. I do not feel that there is a tension from
some of the visits that I have made myself recently. I entirely
agree with you that this has to be about schools getting out of
the old culture of 9.00 to 3.30 and actually being hubs of their
local communities, the communities being part of the school rather
than the other way around, just as you say. Part of what we are
trying to do with the sustainable schools strategy, but also with
eco-schools as well, is trying to help change that culture, and
I am seeing more and more people, and I am sure, Fiona, you are
in your own constituency as well, for whom English is not their
first language coming in and learning and working, often outside
of school hours in extended schools, with pupils in schools. I
think this is a model we are seeing more and more of but it is
something that we need to change over a period of time because
we are looking at a real culture change and within the whole sustainable
schools framework we really do want to ensure that schools are
a hub for those local communities.
Fiona Mactaggart: At the same time we
have guidelines determining capital funding allocated against
pupil places which significantly limit the funding available for
building spaces that can be used by the community. So can we really
say that Building Schools for the Future is committed to supporting
regeneration when there is a funding limit? It is a bit on top.
It is not actually at the heart of it.
Q841 Chairman: Minister, this is
a fair point, is it not? We still pick up, everywhere we go, that
you still have not resolved with the Treasury the problems with
VAT if the community use goes over 15%, and we also pick up that
one of the down sides of PFI is that they do not let you in the
school until eight o'clock and they throw you out at five. There
are some pressures here, are there not?
Mr Dhanda: There are. The discussions
with the Treasury are going reasonably well, they going apace,
but I had better not dwell too much on those. As we were discussing
earlier, I think with David, on PFIs, it is very important that
we have the capacity to renegotiate the extended use of those
facilities, and, in terms of the specification that we recommend,
there is still considerable room within that. A note here tells
me, which is very helpful because it gives me the figure, that
there is an allocation of 500 square metres to each school for
flexible community use. That is quite a considerable lump of space.
It is up to them as to how they choose to use it, but the allocation
is certainly there to ensure that we have got community facilities
in these new schools as well as the community being able to use
facilities that are built for educational reasons but are still
very valid for them to use otherwise.
Q842 Mr Carswell: When we talk about
sustainable schools, there is an idea that we have a 21st century
vision of what education should be like and what schools should
be like. How can we trust national politicians to be able to know
the shape of education in two, three decades to come? If, for
example, the Minister for telecommunications of either party had
sat before a parliamentary committee several decades ago, they
could not possibly have understood the innovations that were about
to happen in telecoms.
Mr Dhanda: Yes.
Q843 Mr Carswell: How can we be sure
that today officials in your Department know what is best, and
what is going to be best, and what the shape of education is going
to be in decades to come?
Mr Dhanda: I guess I would say
to you that the public sector is not going to be the first to
anticipate where things might go, that it is probably going to
be in the commercial sector where that lies where they are spending
huge amounts of money on R&D internationally to project forward,
and that is why we have pretty active conversations with those
companies. That is why I am taking the Director General for Schools
with me to California and Seattle next month to discuss with the
likes of Apple, Microsoft, Google, not only to see what is good
practice in terms of the use of technology in schools, but also
to have direct discussion with the commercial sector to understand
what they think the future might be like and where they are spending
their R&D. Are they, in terms of devices, spending it on smart-phone
technology or are they spending it on PDA technology? We see excellent
use of the handheld devices in Wolverhampton in their "Learning
to go" scheme, for example, which is the use of PDAs, but
if there is not any R&D being spent in that sort of device,
should we be promoting that device universally, which we can see
at the moment is working well, or should we look at something
that is less device specific and based more on platforms having
understood where the commercial industry is going.
Q844 Chairman: Let us hear a quick
word from Jim.
Jim Knight: Very briefly, as I
said, we are preparing the State Schools Action Plan as a consequence
of the consultation that we have had over the past year, and young
people have actually played a very big role in that. You are quite
right, in 20 years' time when we are older and greyer it really
does have to reflect the views and the needs of another generation;
so we shall send you a copy of it and the proof of the pudding.
Q845 Chairman: I am sure you will
learn a lot on the West Coast of the United States, but perhaps
to talk to people like Professor Stephen Heppell here and the
Futures Laboratory here, as we have, might also be useful.
Jim Knight: Stephen is a fantastic
guru who we use a lot, but we need to make sure we have diversity
in gurus along with everything else.
Q846 Stephen Williams: In the Minister
of State's answer to your initial questions you said that 800
schools have been built since 1997 by the Government. Have you
made any assessment as to how important environmental sustainability
was in those schools before we got to BSF?
Jim Knight: I guess I have not
seen any detailed assessment of the impact. What I have seen is
some examples, and we have got some pathfinders at the moment,
some modern schools. There are three in the one school pathfinders
of BSF that are being developed at the moment, there is one in
Devon and one in Dorset as examples that we are looking at that
are going to the BREEAM excellent standard or beyond; I think
a couple of them are looking at carbon neutrality. I can confirm
this in writing to the Committee, but if we have not made a thorough
assessment of the environmental impact in the past it is certainly
something we are conscious of the need to do now, particularly
as we develop these pathfinders and see how much further we can
go in respect of carbon emissions.
Q847 Stephen Williams: It would be
fair to say that prior to the current BSF programme the Department
did not press upon schools or local authorities that were rebuilding
schools the need to have environmental sustainability as part
of the building plan.
Jim Knight: I am not aware of
it, but I can make sure that I give a proper answer to the Committee
in writing. [4]
Q848 Stephen Williams: Under BSF itself
how important is environmental sustainability? How much emphasis
is given to it by your Department?
Jim Knight: It is a very important
element, that is why we have set the BREEAM standard, but that
is also why we are looking at whether or not we should be going
further than that standard, whether, for example, we should be
looking at what the LSC have been doing with their Sustainability
Fund where they have been able to add some extra funding in order
to improve sustainability. That is something that is in an option
that I am looking at, at the moment, to see whether we can go
further in respect of reducing carbon emissions from schools.
Bearing in mind that 2% of the UK's carbon emissions come from
schools, we clearly have an important responsibility of our own.
Mr Dhanda: Also, taking on board
what the Committee has said in its own discussions around BREEAM
and whether it effectively takes into consideration carbon emissions.
Obviously there are several different criteria within BREEAM and
whether we need to look specifically at energy and emissions separately
or whether we need to actually look at the structure of BREEAM
within that, as has been discussed within this Committee.
Q849 Stephen Williams: Chairman,
we have been given a different figure for carbon emissions and
an estimate from the public sector is 15%. Given that carbon emissions
obviously do come from schools, how confident are you that by
the time we get to the end of this BSF programme the carbon footprint
for state education will be reduced?
Jim Knight: I am very confident
that through the use of Building Regulation Part L and the changes
that are still being implemented in some of the retrospective
change to regulation we are securing a 40% reduction in emissions
through the use of the new regulation which came in last year.
So, that is applying not only to new but there is also some regulation
on existing buildings. As I say, I am ambitious for us to go further
but that is subject to negotiation within the Department and then
within government as to how we resource that: because whilst over
the long-term we might find that money stacks up, as a responsible
government you cannot make promises willy-nilly, we have got to
make sure that we have costed out whatever proposals we make to
go further.
Q850 Mr Chaytor: The Carbon Trust
estimates that the cost of improving the rating from "BREEAM
very good" to "BREEAM excellent" would be 10% over
the existing allocation. Your Department's research estimates
that that would be between three and 12%, and there is going to
be further examination. If there is a definitive figure somewhere
between five and 10, would you increase the capital allocation
to individual schools to enable that higher BREEAM rating to be
achieved?
Mr Dhanda: For example, secondary
schools, we think it is around 400-5,000 and I think, you are
right, it does fall within that three to 12%. Around 4%, I think
we are saying. Through part of the work that we are doing with
the three pilots and trying to find ways and effective means of
doing this through studies that are on-going, I hope that we can
find an efficient and effective way to enhance the standards.
We say "BREEAM very good", but at the moment "BREEAM
very good" is a minimum standard rather than the height of
our hopes and expectations.
Jim Knight: What Parmjit said
earlier about looking very carefully at what is the best use of
any extra resource we might be able to find to throw at sustainability,
is it excellence in BREEAM terms or is it doing more specifically
on emissions? Because, as Parmjit has explained, BREEAM covers
a whole number of different outlets, not just emissions.
Q851 Mr Chaytor: Would doing more
on the emissions be setting targets for emissions for individual
schools?
Jim Knight: It might be. It might
be that we are able to allocate a specific sum per secondary school
that we would want to see in exchange—a reduction in the
energy usage, an increase in energy efficiency, a certain proportion
produced by renewables and, possibly, the use of offset. Those
are the three tools for carbon neutrality. It may be that, if
we were to be able to allocate more resource, we would set targets
on all three of those.
Q852 Mr Chaytor: In terms of the
process for formulating the Department's guidelines, Parmjit referred
to the Sustainable Schools Consultation in May 2006. How long
was the consultation and when was the deadline for a response?
Mr Dhanda: It ended in September
of last year and we have produced a response document and an action
plan. A detailed action plan will be ready very soon indeed, in
the coming weeks. Another thing that I think is worth mentioning
on this in terms of finance and support, David, is the £375
million advanced capital investment that we are providing for
2007-08 for sustainable initiatives that were encouraging local
authorities to actually consider, whether it is microgeneration
or ways and means to save energy and water and the like.
Q853 Mr Chaytor: But the action plan
will have been produced before publication of the Stern Report
into the economics of climate change, which really has shifted
the whole debate up a gear or at least a gear. Are you considering
revising your action plan in the light of the information and
the economic costs proposed or suggested?
Mr Dhanda: The action plan is
not quite complete. We are in the process of completing it at
the moment. The consultation, as I say, ended in September, and
we have done a response to the consultation, but we are now in
the process of finishing off that action plan. I will not go into
the details of the draft of what is in it.
Q854 Mr Chaytor: When can we expect
the publication of the action plan?
Mr Dhanda: Within the coming weeks.
[5]
Q855 Chairman: One thing that has not
been touched on today, something which we are picking up and we
should have asked you questions on, and perhaps you will respond
to us in writing, is skills. We are picking up, with the Olympics
in parallel with this building programme and other public sector
building programmes, that the availability of skills to build
the schools for the future are going to be very tight.
Jim Knight: It is an active part
of what we are doing on the Olympics legacy as well, so I will
drop you a line. [6]
Q856 Chairman: The other one is that
most of us who have been to a lot of schools recently know that
if you have not got the skills in there, the students, the staff
and the management of the building, you can have all the wonderful
gimmicks in the world in terms of sustainability, but they will
not be working properly.
Jim Knight: I would agree. We
have work to do to ensure that buildings are managed properly.
You can design sustainable schools, but if they still leave the
lights on—
Chairman: We saw a dramatic energy reduction
when the students were energised! Let us move on to bullying.
4 Ev 221 [DfES] Back
5
Ev 222 [DfES] Back
6
Ev 222 [DfES] Back
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