Mr.
Laws: Why would the Government not consider allowing other
schools to opt into the YPLA and out of local authority
oversight?
Jim
Knight: My view on such a transfer is that the academies
intervention is a particular sort of intervention. It is intended to
deal with circumstances in which we need to achieve a more rigorous
form of government, as well as a particular form of accountability
through the funding agreement, which we know has worked for academies.
Other schools—from trust schools to voluntary assisted schools
through to community schools—remain part of the local authority
family, and it is right that they should do so. I have no proposals to
alter that arrangement. Schools that are independent of local
authorities will be academies, except for the few CTCs that are
left. 1.15
pm Amendment
339 would affect the proposals in the clause. Under the clause, the
YPLA will not have the power to impose new duties on academies. It will
have only the Secretary of State’s existing powers that he asks
it to exercise on his behalf. As I said, it is an agency arrangement.
If an academy takes the view that the YPLA is acting unreasonably in
carrying out those functions, it can complain to the Secretary of
State. The Secretary of State will investigate any such complaint to
ensure that the YPLA is carrying out those functions on his behalf in a
reasonable
manner. The
agency arrangement does not change the current situation. If an academy
complains that officials are behaving unreasonably, the Secretary of
State will investigate the matter whether the officials are in the
Department or an agency. The new arrangement will not reduce the legal
remedies available to academies. If an academy is unhappy with the way
it is being treated by the agency on the Secretary of State’s
behalf, it will have all the potential legal remedies it needs. For
example, it might
think that the agency is breaching the terms of the funding agreement by
failing to pay grant or that it is failing to comply with the general
principles of public
law. Amendments
391 and 392 would work together to ensure that the YPLA could not enter
into a funding agreement with an academy on behalf of the Secretary of
State. The clause gives the YPLA the power to do that if required to do
so by the Secretary of State. However, I confirm that we have no
intention of requiring the YPLA to enter into funding agreements with
academies. As I have said, under the new arrangements the Secretary of
State will continue to carry out those functions. These proposals will
mean that the way in which the Secretary of State and the YPLA work
together can be flexible. We will be able to move to a lighter-touch
approach if in the light of experience that seems appropriate to the
Secretary of State and, crucially, to
academies. Even
if we did want funding agreements to be negotiated by the YPLA in the
future, by law the contracting party would still be the Secretary of
State. Therefore, the Secretary of State and the Department will take
an active interest in any funding agreements for the setting up of
academies. The idea that the YPLA could enter into funding agreements
unravels as a serious proposition because it simply acts as an agent in
respect of academies’
functions.
Mr.
Laws: That may be the Minister’s intention, but
surely there is nothing in the Bill to stop the YPLA entering into such
agreements without the Secretary of State’s
agreement.
Jim
Knight: My understanding is that the only academy funding
agreement that can be undertaken is the one between the Secretary of
State and the academy sponsor. It is therefore not possible for the
YPLA to enter into such an agreement. I assure the Committee that we do
not intend for there to be any reduction in the autonomy of academies
through these provisions. These are simply more practical arrangements
that will allow the planned expansion of the academies programme. For
those reasons, I urge hon. Members not to press their
amendments.
Mr.
Laws: I am grateful to the Minister for his comments on
amendments 391 and 392. I am a little confused about the
Government’s position on this matter. I need to reflect on the
Minister’s words on
paper. The
Minister seemed to indicate that although the Government’s
intention is to not confer on the YPLA the power to enter into academy
funding agreements, that power is in the Bill. He is relying on the
assumption that the YPLA will not be willing to do something that the
Secretary of State disagrees with, but his other comments indicated
that at some point the Government’s attitude might change on the
degree to which these powers should be devolved to the YPLA. That set
off alarm bells in my mind about how much openness there is
here. I
will go away and reflect on these matters and perhaps speak to the
Minister and his officials to ensure that I understand their intention
and the reality. Perhaps if I am not satisfied, I can bring back
amendments at a later stage.
However, I
will, with your permission, Mr. Chope, want to press clause
74 as a whole to a Division later, because I remain unconvinced by the
reasons that the Minister has given for placing the academy programme
under the YPLA. I am left with the suspicion that the hon. Member for
Barnsley, East and Mexborough hit on the reasons for the
Government’s decision when he questioned the Minister on the
matter during our evidence session on 10 March and the Minister
replied: “We
would have given in to the charge of watering down the independence of
academies if we had handed over their performance management and
funding to local authorities.”—[Official Report,
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill
Committee, 10 March 2009; c. 173,
Q411.] My
impression from that statement is that the Government were nervous
about being seen to be compromising the independence of the academies
programme. When
we have questioned the Minister further, he has given, under some
pressure and encouragement from me, some more serious reasons why the
Government might want to put the academies programme under the YPLA.
The two points that under some pressure he acknowledged he has concerns
about are, first, the performance management of academies and,
secondly, the possibility that local authorities might seek to suck
back some of the autonomy that has been granted to academies because of
their concern somehow to be controlling those schools. We have made it
clear that we see local authorities as having a commissioning and
strategic role, not a role in running the individual
schools. The
second reason that the Minister gave is entirely unconvincing, because
there is no reason why the Government could not place in legislation a
protection for academies in respect of the freedoms that they currently
enjoy, which the Government granted them. Some of them, as the hon.
Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton said, have been rather rolled
back on over the past couple of years. There is no reason why the
Government could not also give a power of appeal, for example, to the
schools commissioner to ensure that if academies were concerned about
the activities of their local authority, they could appeal to the
schools commissioner to ensure that their independence and autonomy was
not
compromised. The
other reason that the Minister gave, under some pressure and
encouragement, was that he did not think that all local authorities
could be trusted to performance manage academies. He said that that was
one of the two concerns. Under further questioning, he said
later—or perhaps it was as part of his speech—that a more
rigorous form of government or governance was needed for academies.
That is very surprising, because even today, with the expansion of the
academies programme, the majority of the 23,500 schools in the country
are under the performance management and strategic control of local
authorities. If
the Government are really so concerned that a serious number of local
authorities are not doing their job properly, one wonders why they
should be given the strategic oversight of performance for all those
other schools, including a very large number of schools whose
performance is just as poor as that of some of the academies that the
Government are now placing under the YPLA. If the Government are really
so concerned about the inadequate performance management by local
authorities, I do not see why the Government or perhaps
even the Conservatives are not proposing the logical outcome of that
concern and that process, which is to allow schools that are not
impressed with their local authority to opt out of the local authority
control and move under YPLA control. If the YPLA will provide such a
rigorous form of governance and will be so much better at performance
management, why on earth will it not be controlling the performance
management of the majority of
schools? Why
do the Government not draw the obvious conclusion from the concerns
that they appear to have about the performance management of some local
authorities, which is that they should be addressing that more
vigorously and should be ensuring that the systems of inspection hold
more transparently and vigorously to account those local authorities
that are not performing well? A local authority that is failing its
local school that has become an academy is likely to be failing other
schools. I
asked the Minister where the oversight of academies would be in the
south-west and he has kindly undertaken to let me know later where that
will be from. However, I think that the impression was that there will
be one headquarters to cover the entire south-west region. I do not
know how many academies there are in the south-west at the moment, but
there are probably not all that many. For example, I think that one
academy, to which the Minister referred earlier, is just about to be
established in Somerset.
It seems
extraordinary that we are going to put in place an extra level of
bureaucracy that will operate out of one centre in a huge region
covering hundreds and thousands of square miles, and that such a system
is expected to do a better and more efficient job at performance
managing those schools than the local authorities that are on the spot
and are aware of the local circumstances. For example, local
authorities might pick up information from other schools to which
parents might be taking their children if they are not happy with the
school that is failing. It is possible and, indeed, necessary to have
stronger performance management and oversight through the existing
local authority system. If we are really not convinced that that is
working at all, we would be far better getting rid of that tier
altogether and allowing schools to opt in to some kind of
YPLA—an idea that the Conservatives occasionally toy
with.
In respect of
academies, the Government seem to have constructed the YPLA to meet the
true concerns that they have, which was indicated by the
Minister’s comments to the hon. Member for Barnsley, East and
Mexborough. Those comments gave the impression that the
Minister’s concern is about much more than transferring academy
oversight to local authorities; it is that the Government would be
perceived to be undermining the autonomy of academies and that
programme. As a consequence, it is a great pity that an opportunity has
been missed to place the academy programme under the strategic
oversight of local authorities and, as part of that process, to ensure
that the job that local authorities are doing in terms of performance
management for all schools is much improved. For that reason, I will be
seeking a Division on clause 74 as a whole
later. Mr.
Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con): I
listened carefully to the Minister’s response, and I am afraid
that I ended up even more confused
than before. He mentioned quotes that I have heard before, he has heard
before, he has read before, and I have read before—for
example, the quote from Dr. Moynihan, who
said: “It
makes sense for the Department to have an agency to take care of
academies. Clearly the Department was never meant to be a local
authority”.——[Official Report,
Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill Committee,
3 March 2009; c. 43,
Q107.] We can
both agree with that quote, but my honest assessment of the opinion of
the academy movement is that it does not believe that the YPLA is the
correct body to look after academies.
It was
confusing that the Minister said that the YPLA has a useful regional
structure, which makes me think that the 49 buildings plus the one in
Coventry, which the LSC currently occupies at a cost of £26.1
million a year, are going to be maintained and not streamlined. That
will spread the people who are managing the academies between those 49
buildings, which is not a terribly efficient way of managing
them.
Jim
Knight: From memory, I think that currently 22
officials will move over from the Department to the YPLA. Does the hon.
Gentleman have any idea about how we might spread them across 46
offices?
Mr.
Gibb: I am reassured to hear that.
[Interruption.] As the hon. Member for Yeovil says
from a sedentary position, that is how it will start. The Minister said
that the regional structure of the YPLA is a useful mechanism through
which to conduct oversight of the academies, but, of course, it is the
role of the federation of academies to look after academies in a
regional or national way by selecting five, six, seven or ten academies
within their federation to be monitored and nurtured. That is not the
role of an expanding YPLA. If possible, I would like a Division on
amendment 26, rather than on lead amendment 24. Amendment 26 enshrines
in legislation that the objective of the YPLA is to maintain the
autonomy of academies, which is an important principle.
I was also
intrigued by what the Minister had to say about the powers of the
Secretary of State who would maintain his power and duty to terminate
funding agreements and appoint additional governors. It seems that the
Department will maintain an oversight role to ensure that academies are
performing well. That prompts me to ask what the YPLA will do if it
does not inspect schools or oversee them, because the power to tackle
underperforming academies still rests with the Secretary of
State. 1.30
pm
Jim
Knight: A good hint as to the sort of things that it would
do was given by Daniel Moynihan in his evidence to the Committee. In
response to my questions about the sort of issues on which he has a
regular relationship with officials, he said that there is a
“fair amount of traffic”, and went on to say:
“Admissions,
funding and clarification on funding models, legal issues relating to
academies, local discussions with local authorities and the
DCSF’s role in arbitrating those discussions, so a very wide
range of different issues.”——[Official Report,
Apprenticeship, Skills, Children and Learning Public Bill
Committee, 3 March 2009; c. 45, Q112 and 113.]
Those are the sorts of
things that our officials our working with academies on, on a
day-to-day basis, that I would see the YPLA doing on our
behalf.
Mr.
Gibb: I see that role being performed by federations of
academies rather than by a Government
agency.
Mr.
Laws: On the hon. Gentleman’s point about
federations and their role in performance management, what should
happen with academies that are not part of a wider federation, or with
federations that consist of only two academies? Would he be happy for a
single academy to performance manage itself, or for federations of only
two or three academies to do that
job?
Mr.
Gibb: Again, the hon. Gentleman raises an important point,
but these are early stages in the academy movement, and I do not
believe that we will have single academies surviving out there, in the
long run, and that they will end up forming federations. An important
part of the academy movement is allowing parents to have real power and
choice. That is concomitant with the effectiveness of the whole policy.
The pressure to raise standards will come from parents having a genuine
choice of schools or academies for their children. There is not genuine
choice at the moment, because there are so few good schools, and it is
difficult for new academies to enter the market because of
restrictions, planning laws and so on, so there is not that pressure to
perform. Once parents have that genuine choice, because surplus places
are being maintained, and it is easy for new entrants to come into the
system, the reputation of academy federations will be absolutely key,
and they will be determined to maintain and enhance their reputation.
Therein lies the source for raising standards in our
schools.
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