Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
120-139)
DAME JUDITH
MAYHEW JONAS,
DR ANTHONY
SELDON AND
SIR SIMON
JENKINS
2 JULY 2008
Q120 Chairman: I have just had lunch
with the master of an Oxford college. He tells me that he has
to think precisely of these issues; everyone has to. It is a jolly
good thing, is it not?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Yes,
it is a good thing. I said at the beginning that we found it exciting.
Q121 David Heyes: You said that nowadays
most of your schools undertook much more than their basic educational
role. I think you said that you were giving advice to schools
to contribute to the community and you said that most schools
did that. Do you think that all schools will have to do this in
order to pass the public benefit test?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: I do
not believe that all schools will have to. We must look at what
the regulations say at the end. We must see whether those regulations
are valid within the law. We will always recommend to our schools
that they do more than just educate children. Just as companies
today take on corporate social responsibility, I believe that
all institutions should take on community activity because that
is really what this society is based upon. The voluntary aspect
of our society is what distinguishes us from many others. That
is why we have the ancient concept of charity. A lot of the good
work done in this country is not compulsory but voluntary. Volunteering
is a very important part of UK society. Our schools will always
go the extra mile. Whether it is the things we have been talking
about like partnerships, the provision of community facilities
or whatever, they will do it. What we want to do is help them
show the Charity Commission in returns what they are doing. We
do not want to create a straitjacket so people think that we have
to do that; we want each school to do what is best for itself
and its community. It will depend on whether you are rural, urban,
big, small, junior or senior. They will be different things. There
is a very exciting development called Pitchlink where schools
pool sporting facilities and work with sporting organisations
to get coaches to provide millions of hours of sporting activity
for children in the maintained sector. That is a brilliant concept
which benefits both the independent and maintained sectors. It
is that sort of thing that we want to showcase and expand.
Q122 David Heyes: Presumably, you
will have written to all your member schools to say they need
to be doing more in this area?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We are
giving guidance, yes.
Q123 David Heyes: You have written
to them?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We have
given them some preliminary guidance and we shall give more once
the final response of the Charity Commission comes out.
Q124 David Heyes: Did that guidance
say that they should take these measures and go down this road;
otherwise, there was a potential threat to their charitable status?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: I do
not think we have been that threatening yet. We would not be threatening.
What we want to do is to provide exemplars and share ideas of
good practice. Some of these schools are quite marginal. You would
not want them to think they have to do enormous amounts of things;
and some of the communities in which they operate are quite small.
Therefore, it will be horses for courses.
Q125 David Heyes: How successful
has it been so far? Clearly, you have good data about your member
schools. You talked about the postcode data and the economic background
of pupils. You were very precise about that. By inference you
will have a similar range of data. Do you know how many of your
member schools have taken the action that you now exhort them
to take and how many still have to do it? What stage of development
have they reached?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We do
not yet have precise information because it is a rolling process.
We have yet to have the formal regulations from the Charity Commission.
All I can say is that we have had four over-subscribed conferences
where role-modelling and best practice were rolled out. No doubt
we shall hold more and we shall be giving advice as and when the
regulations emerge.
Q126 David Heyes: But you said confidently
that most of your member schools were involved. How do you know
it is most?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We just
know that most of them are doing it because of the responses we
have had. We have not had large numbers coming to us to say they
are doing nothing.
Q127 David Heyes: Is it most in terms
of pupil numbers or in terms of number of institutions?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: The
number of institutions. It goes from 7% overall to 20 % in the
sixth form.
Q128 David Heyes: What I understand
from you is that at this stage it is not possible to be clear
how far they have gone along this process?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: If you
ask me in October I can be clearer. We need the regulations in
concrete form before we send out formal advice.
Q129 David Heyes: I press you on
the point made by the Chairman at the beginning of this session.
It is difficult to understand why you give this such importance
and you write to member schools to say that this is a worthwhile
thing to do, possibly saying that there are issues to do with
charitable status. On the other hand, you say that it is not necessary
because education is the qualification for charitable status.
I still do not understand. Why bother?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: It is
called good citizenship and being part of the community; it is
about sharing excellence and partnership and building bridges.
I passionately believe in these things.
Q130 David Heyes: These sorts of
exhortations have been going on for many years past.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Yes.
If you go back to the founding documents of most of these schools
and look at the way they have been interpreted over the centuries
an ethos runs right the way through it. It would be a tragedy
if that ethos stopped now.
Q131 David Heyes: But you have only
succeeded with what you intuitively think is "most".
By inference, there is a significant number of schools and educational
provision that has either decided not to go down the route of
becoming more involved in communities and broaden out beyond what
they do in their own establishments and their own education. These
exhortations have gone on for years and have not got us very far.
You are repeating them now and you still do not have a measure
of it?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We obtain
census data and I have no doubt that we shall be collating it
later. My instinct is that most schools will pass this and are
doing more than the bare minimum.
Q132 David Heyes: Dr Seldon, you
said confidently that there was a far greater social mix in private
schools than you would expect and we should remember that. How
do you know that? Where is the data?
Dr Seldon: Mr Heyes, I said I
would like to have more data. I can only talk of my own experience
of schools of running my present school and having been deputy
and acting head of the one before that. It was extraordinarily
mixed racially and socially.
Q133 David Heyes: Are you aware of
any academic work that has ever been done to try to test the social
and economic background of pupils?
Dr Seldon: It would be very interesting.
As I said earlier to Mr Hopkins, I would love to see that work;
it would be fascinating. I do not know; perhaps Dame Judith would
be aware of that.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We have
the one in four data. We know from the previous census that £350
million per annum is spent on bursaries. I have that concrete
information. No doubt as we roll this out with the census we will
be able to share more information with you.
Q134 David Heyes: I press it because
by inference the parental ability to pay and the social background
seem to be put forward as yet another argument in favour of charitable
status. I am not sure I can make that link.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: I simply
gave you those statistics because they showed there was a broader
social mix than the stereotyped image about parents and children
in the independent sector. It is much broader. Certainly, we shall
be looking at the different forms of outreach and activities that
are going on.
Dr Seldon: My sense is that it
is far broader than the perception in the press and maybe in Parliament.
I just do not recognise the 7% being full of upper middle-class
children whose parents have pots of money. At my previous school
almost every day parents would have acute problems in finding
the fees. They were remortgaging their houses; they were doing
all the stuff that we pretend to sneer at, that is, not going
on holidays abroad, grandparents paying the fees and both parents
working to pay. I think this is relevant.
Q135 David Heyes: Whether or not
you sneer at it, I still cannot see why the difficulties of parents
in paying fees or the social mix of the pupils warrant charitable
status.
Dr Seldon: It is terribly relevant,
is it not? If we are talking about a £200 saving and yet
the parents are paying £7,000 to £8,000 for some schools
and £25,000 to £27,000 for others we are balancing a
£200 saving against £27,000 out. That is significant.
Q136 David Heyes: It is people with
resources who make difficult choices about how they allocate them,
but again that is not an argument for charitable status.
Dr Seldon: And many state schools
are full of better off parents. One of the reasons they are better
off is that they do not have to pay out all this money. For them
to boast of some kind of moral superiority in using selective
popular state schools is at worst offensive. They move into the
catchment areas of these schools and cram their children to get
into them, or they suddenly discover faith. It is highly relevant
to the whole debate about equity. We must break down the tired
and out-of-date sense of toffee-nosed kids going to toff schools
and poor kids going to the rest. It is bunk.
Q137 David Heyes: I agree with you
but why does it warrant charitable status? It still does not answer
the question.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: We throw
it back to you. It has been charitable since Tudor times and you
did not see fit to remove it from the Bill in 2006.
Q138 David Heyes: Seventy poor and
needy children from Windsor were the basis of the foundation of
Eton College. I wonder how many poor and needy scholars there
are now at Eton College.
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: I believe
that 27 % of students at Eton are on assistance.
Q139 David Heyes: Or are needy?
Dame Judith Mayhew Jonas: Some
are on 100 % assistance.
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