Examination of Witnesses (Questions 20-39)
RT HON
ED BALLS
MP, VERNON COAKER
MP AND JON
COLES
21 OCTOBER 2009
Q20 Mr Timpson: Secretary of State,
can I take us back to the guarantees in the White Paper. You said
earlier that it will be a tough challenge to deliver on them.
I am looking at one in particular: in 2009, the provisional data
showed that, of the 578,000 pupils who took Key Stage 2 tests,
20% failed to achieve expected standard level 4 in English and
21% in maths. The pupil guarantee on one-to-one tuition for seven
to 11-year-olds in English and maths, and also for secondary pupils
in English and maths, has already started with a pilot, and it
is part of the Making Good Progress programme in 450 schools.
As for looking at the delivery of that guarantee on the basis
of the pilot, it is going to look difficult to achieve on the
basis that just under 7,000 pupils received tuition, 3% of the
cohorts instead of the planned 10%. Based on that pilot and the
difficulty that has been experienced in trying to recruit tutors
to take on the role of one-to-one tuition, how confident are you
that you are going to be able to deliver the pupil guarantee on
one-to-one tuition?
Ed Balls: That obviously depends
on whether we stick with our budgets in 2010-11 or cut them. If
we cut our budgets, we cannot deliver—a point that I made
to Mr Twigg. You are completely right that 20% of children are
not getting to level 4 in English and maths on the basis of this
year's results. It was 30% 10 years ago, so we have reduced it
by a third, which is great. But there is more to do. Of that 20%,
two thirds have a special educational need so early identification
of special educational needs and support, such as the 4,000 extra
dyslexia teachers who we are now putting into schools following
Jim Rose's review, is vital. If we do not address those special
needs early, pupils do not get to the level we want at the end
of primary school. The guarantee of one-to-one tuition in Key
Stage 2 is a vital part, although it is not the only part because
we have other programmes as well, such as Every Child a Reader
and Every Child Counts in Key Stage 1. An important part is making
sure that you then sustain support for those children through
Key Stage 2. The answer to your question is that I am confident
that we will be able to do this. It took us some time to get recruitment
for the tutors in the pilots. We had to increase the rate of pay
for tutors following the feedback from the pilots. The reason
for pilots is to find out what you need to do to make it work,
and that is what we did. We now have 25,000 one-to-one tuition
teachers registered and in the system, and we are aiming to get
another 100,000[4]
by next year. We now have a paid hourly rate of £25 to £29,
out of school hours. If we can get 25,000 one-to-one tuition teachers
registered in only 10 weeks at those pay rates, then I think that
we can get the numbers that we need by next year. Our plan is
to have 600,000 pupils in the next financial year, 2010-11, getting
one-to-one tuition.
Pay might have been an obstacle, but we
have addressed that. Recruitment might have been an obstacle,
but we are addressing that now. Funding is not an obstacle because
we are not going to cut the budget in 2010-11, but there isn't
cross-party consensus on that. That is probably where the biggest
risk to the programme lies.
Q21 Mr Timpson: There is still
an issue about whether this is going to deliver value for money,
regardless of where the money is coming from. The evaluators at
PricewaterhouseCoopers reported that some interviewees were concerned
about the scalability of this strand and the value for money that
it presents, given the limited number of pupils it has reached
to date. Bearing that in mind, what consideration have you given
to the value for money of doing the pupil guarantee in this way?
What assessment have you made of alternative methods of trying
to make sure that children reach the expected standards?
Ed Balls: I am not going to use
questions over value for money on this programme to justify budget
cuts in 2010-11.
Q22 Mr Timpson: That was not what
I asked. I wanted to know what consideration you have given to
other ways of trying to reach the standards that children should
be expecting.
Ed Balls: As I said, I am not
going to use value for money questions as a way of justifying
cuts in the 2010-11 budget. I think that the 600,000 places are
really important. All the evidence we have suggests that getting
that early intervention, that one-to-one support for children,
is actually vital in terms of them making progress. The evaluation
that we have done and seen so far supports the idea that this
kind of one-to-one tuition works. In private schools they do it,
so why shouldn't we have it in the state schools too.
Q23 Mr Timpson: If you do not
manage to recruit the number of tutors that are going to be needed
to deliver on this guarantee, have you got a plan B?
Chairman: Jon Coles is uncharacteristically
silent. Does he want to say something?
Ed Balls: I will bring him in.
The answer is that the biggest obstacle to delivering this in
2010-11 would be a budget cut. I can make a commitment today that
I am not going to cut the budget. That is not a commitment that
can be made by other parties. That is the biggest obstacle. I
think that we will get the recruitment done because we have raised
the pay; we have shown that we can get 25,000 tutors in 10 weeks.
I am making a clear set of guarantees to parents in a White Paper.
If their child falls behind, I guarantee that we will fund the
extra one-to-one tuition for what they need in Key Stage 2, so
that their child catches up. I am going to make sure that we get
the teachers recruited to deliver it. I could not do that if I
cut the budget.
Q24 Mr Timpson: May I just ask
about one other guarantee and its deliverability. It is the guarantee
of the choice of apprenticeship for 14 to 19-year-olds. Bearing
in mind that the demand for those apprenticeships outstrips the
supply by about three times, how confident are you that you will
be able to deliver it?
Ed Balls: I am grateful to you
for raising that issue because I think that this is a challenge
for us. We know that this year, on the basis of the LSC returns,
there were more young people than we were planning for who wanted
to stay in full-time school or full-time college, or get an apprenticeship.
We had to fund 55,000[5]
extra places for this September to deliver that guarantee for
school leavers. We did that by finding £650 million[6]
of spending. As I explained to Mr Stuart, I have written to Michael
Gove somewhere between eight and 11 times, asking him to match
that guarantee, but he won't because he is going to cut the budgets
in 2010-11 if he gets the chance. Within that, I am working hard
to expand the number of public sector apprenticeships. We want
to see a greater number for 16 and 17-year-olds. We are also looking
hard at what we can do to get an apprenticeship place for 16 and
17-year-olds, but this year I cannot guarantee that every young
person who wants an apprenticeship will get an apprenticeship.
That is something that we are aiming to do and is in the legislation,
but I can't guarantee it this September. What I can do is guarantee
a choice of school, college or an apprenticeship for every young
person. That is the school leavers guarantee; that's the 55,000[7]
places. To be honest, I find it really, really surprising that
we've not got a cross-party consensus on this. That is really,
really surprising.
Q25 Mr Timpson: That sounds like
a different guarantee from the one that you gave earlier.
Ed Balls: No. I said that there
would be a guarantee this September and next. Every school leaver
of 16 and 17 would be guaranteed a school, college or apprenticeship
place. I can't guarantee every young person that they can have
the school place that they choose, that they can go on any course
they want and that they'll get the particular apprenticeship they
want. Obviously, sometimes courses are over-subscribed, sometimes
schools are full and sometimes there aren't as many particular
kinds of apprenticeships as people are asking for. I can't make
a guarantee, place by place, that everybody will get their first
choice. However, I can guarantee a school, college or apprenticeship
place for every young person this September. I can do that only
because I'm funding 55,000[8]
more places this September. As Mr Stuart noted earlier, I have
written to Michael Gove countless times—I can't remember
the number; I lost count at eight—asking him whether he
would match that guarantee, and he won't reply to me. He won't
reply because he's been told he's got to cut the budget. That's
why he can't guarantee the one-to-one tuition either.
Chairman: Andrew wants to come in on
these very points.
Q26 Mr Pelling: I think that the
Conservative Members of Parliament here are being very restrained
in not being drawn into a party political game. It's just getting
to be a little too much. You talk about provision in different
sectors for people. The Government have been very generous in
allowing a lot of extra sixth forms to be created, and that is
very popular. However, it is also very expensive compared to college
provision. Bearing in mind that there will, obviously, be some
budgetary constraints coming, do you think that going forward,
it would be more reasonable to put a greater emphasis on the efficiency
of the college sector compared to sixth forms? I know I am going
to be very popular in my locality for saying that.
Ed Balls: I apologise to Mr Pelling,
and in particular to Mr Stuart and Mr Timpson, if I'm being drawn
into discussions about differences of parties in 2010-11. The
reason was that Mr Timpson was asking whether I could deliver
the guarantee and what the biggest obstacle was. I said that the
biggest obstacle was a Conservative Government. That was really
why I was answering it in that way, but I apologise if I was drawn
too far down that road. I am grateful for the support for the
expansion of provision that you are talking about for 16 and 17-year-olds.
I think what we are trying to do—this is why the change
in funding for 16-19s is very important—is make sure that
across an area, we are properly ensuring we've got the schools
and colleges we need. As I said, it's also our policy to narrow
the gap and, in the end, eliminate the gap between pupil funding
for school and college places, but we won't get there quickly.
I think the expansion of sixth forms has been very important.
Where possible, I always would support that, but I do think it's
important that that isn't done in a way which undermines the local
college. You do need to have a discussion about how to do this.
What the YPLA will ensure is that, consistent with colleges' independence,
there is a proper commissioning discussion about future 16-19
provision.
Vernon Coaker: I think that it'll
be particularly important to be raising the participation age
until 17 by 2013 and then until 18 by 2015. It's the collaboration
between all those different providers in whatever setting that
is, including the work setting, that will be extremely important.
Q27 Annette Brooke: I have a quick
question. It's clearly very important to provide additional support
for year 7 pupils who haven't achieved what we might regard as
very important levels, but I understand that you're actually going
to have some sample testing of their progress. Seeing that that
will be sampling of a small number, why isn't sample testing appropriate
for Key Stage 2?
Ed Balls: We are actually not
quite doing that; we are doing a sample for Key Stage 3, but for
year 7, we won't be sampling. We will be saying to schools that
they must do, for every child who didn't make level 4 in English
or maths, a test at the end of the year, having delivered that
extra one-to-one tuition, in order to show that the child's made
progress. What we won't be doing is expecting schools to publish
that information or provide it to us. This isn't information for
school accountability purposes. What they will be required to
do is ensure that the child has done a test and that the information
is provided to parents. This is much more about parents knowing
their child has been catching up in year 7 and getting the extra
support. It's not a sample. But it is not for accountability purposes,
and therefore we won't be publishing it. I presume it will be
teacher-assessed with some moderation.
Jon Coles: Either there will be
a test instrument provided that teachers can use, or it will be
straightforward teacher assessment, using the APP material.
Ed Balls: So when people ask,
"Are we inflexible on these things?", we are actually
talking here about some moderated teacher assessment, not for
accountability purposes but to inform parents.
Chairman: On partnerships—
Q28 Mr Stuart: If I may, Chairman,
before we do that. You laid out why it wasn't possible to give
much in the way of guarantees over specific places in, say, apprenticeships,
this year, yet the legislation in the Apprenticeships, Skills,
Children and Learning Bill suggests that, by 2013, every young
person between 16-18 will have a choice of two apprenticeships
within a reasonable travel-to-work area. It's not deliverable
now. How will it be deliverable then?
Ed Balls: Because it's in 2013,
not now, and we've got four years to prepare. The reason why we
legislated education to 17 and then to 18, not now—as happened
in the early 1970s—but in 2013 for 17-year-olds and 2015
for 18-year-olds was precisely so that we could gear ourselves
up to deliver this. We will need 50,000 more apprenticeship places,
I think, for 16 to 18-year-olds in 2015 and that will mean we
will need to do more to encourage employers and expect the public
sector to do its part. The guarantee for education to 17 doesn't
start till 2013—that's when the apprenticeship guarantee
comes in—but the right thing for us to do is make progress
towards that goal. That's why, as I've said, we are funding 55,000[9]
more places this year—
Q29 Mr Stuart: How precisely,
Secretary of State, will you encourage employers? Without any
form of enforcement, how can you guarantee that there will be
those genuine apprenticeship places and that we don't end up with
some sort of faint, fudged apprenticeships—programme apprenticeships
and that sort of thing—instead of the real thing?
Ed Balls: It won't surprise you
if I say, first of all, not by sending the opposite signal to
employers and providers around the country by cutting the budget
in 2010-11. That would be a disastrous signal to send. Instead,
to make sure that we deliver the provisions of the Apprenticeships,
Skills, Children and Learning Bill, we've got a National Apprenticeships
Service that is now up and running. We have set clear expectations
for the public sector to pull its weight. The public sector is
woefully under-represented in respect of 16 to 18-year-old apprenticeships.
Q30 Mr Stuart: Despite years of
being asked to do more. I don't understand what powers you are
going to bring in. Successive Governments have tried to encourage
apprenticeships, but they have failed to do so. Successive Governments
have controlled the public sector and have failed to get the public
sector to provide apprenticeships. You're unable to explain how,
precisely—what mechanisms—will be in any government's
hands to ensure that they are actually delivered and that we don't
have another false promise. So many targets are promised, legislated
for and then missed, as we've seen with climate change and everything
else. How can the young people given this solemn promise by Parliament—this
Government—actually believe it's going to be delivered?
Ed Balls: I'm happy to have a
discussion about the record of successive Governments on apprenticeships,
because I know what the numbers of apprenticeships were before
1997—
Mr Stuart: Just answer the question.
Chairman: Through the Chair.
Ed Balls: Sorry? Well, you just
talked to me about politicians breaking promises and how to deliver,
and I said that we've gone from some tens of thousands of apprenticeships
in 1997 to now over 230,000 apprenticeships—a huge increase—because
of the focus we've put on delivering those apprenticeships over
that time. [Interruption.] Am I right or wrong on that
point? [Interruption.] I'm right anyway. So we've delivered
a big increase.
Q31 Mr Stuart: I want to know
how they will be delivered, Secretary of State. We know that the
number of Level 3 apprenticeships has actually reduced since this
Government came to power. I wasn't trying to make any political
points; I was trying to understand how we can deliver on that
promise. You are making this Committee meeting tedious by your
endless repetition of political sloganeering. None of us is trying
to do that. What we're trying to do is get at how we can deliver
a better education system for our young people—an education
system, which, under successive Governments, has failed, but which
under this Government has led to more NEETS than there were 12
years ago. That's what we're trying to get at, and that's what
we want an answer from you on.
Ed Balls: As I said, not by cutting
the school budget in 2010-11 and by delivering the school-leavers
guarantee this September.
Mr Stuart: What a waste of time.
Ed Balls: Why are we wasting time?
We're having a discussion about the different choices we make
and the different priorities we have for the future. If we cannot
be willing, in Parliament, to have those discussions about those
choices and scrutinise them through our different objectives,
we are not doing our job. On the issue that you raised, we have
seen a substantial rise in the number of apprenticeships. We need
to go further. We have the National Apprenticeships Service. We
have just passed a Bill. We set out clearly at the beginning of
this year our target for 20,000 more public sector apprenticeships
by the end of the year. We have a drive going on right across
Whitehall to get the public sector to deliver. We have had a national
advertising campaign for employers. And we have a national matching
service. A huge amount is going on. There is more to do.
Q32 Mr Stuart: Let me move on
to Partnerships for Schools. What is the evidence base for the
effectiveness of accredited schools groups as a tool for school
improvement?
Ed Balls: I think that you also
missed me saying at the beginning of the session that the National
College is publishing a study today showing the ways in which
federations around the country have been raising standards. That
is part of the evidence base. We believe that the academies programme,
which is, in a way, an important part of the case for accredited
schools groups, has clearly delivered. If you look at the Harris
or the ARK academies, which are all groups of schools, they have
clearly been driving up standards.
Q33 Mr Stuart: Does the Department
plan to use funding cuts as a lever to make local authorities
go in for "hard edged partnerships"—I think you
euphemistically call them that in the White Paper.
Ed Balls: The point where we will
apply pressure on local authorities is where there has been persistent
under-performance by individual schools, and that is what we have
been doing through the National Challenge. The National Challenge
has shone the spotlight on some local authorities that, I think,
have put up for too long with a number of schools that are not
performing as well as they should. We have been using our new
National Challenge trusts—an example of a hard edged partnership—or
academies to drive up standards in those schools with great effect,
I think. We have now gone from half of schools to less than one
in 10 schools being below that threshold, but there is still more
to do. We want to make it easier for local authorities that are
thinking not just about underperformance, but also about schools
that may be coasting—primary schools as well—to bring
in the leadership, expertise and track record that can make a
difference. The accredited schools groups will be a clear kitemark
that will say to local authorities, "These are people with
experience and a track record who know what they are doing".
We will then challenge local authorities, where we think that
there is underperformance, to take up those opportunities. The
broader point about federations and partnerships is that it is
not about imposing them; it is actually about individual schools
embracing them.
Q34 Mr Stuart: That is what I
was looking for reassurance of. Again, historically, whenever
there is something that appears to offer some benefit, and it
would appear that there is some evidence that federations or accredited
schools groups or chains—whatever you want to call them—offer
that, the tendency is for the new tool to be imposed everywhere
and sometimes stifle locally inspired solutions and innovations.
I am trying to tease that out to check that we will not have that.
You get a fad; it seems to be working; and Ministers clutch at
it gratefully and impose it on everybody, even where it is not
appropriate.
Ed Balls: I fear that we are,
again, repeating the conversation that we had with Mr Pelling
and Mr Holmes earlier. We discussed this when we had the efficiency
discussion, and I said that this is absolutely not about imposing
a particular form of school organisation on individual schools.
This is for individual schools and school leaders to embrace.
Clearly, the fact that they will be looking to do things more
efficiently will be a factor in their minds as well as school
improvement. The right time to be tougher and more hard-edged
about it is when we have exposed underperformance in schools.
At that point, there is a responsibility on the commissioner to
require change, and we think that, in those cases, accredited
schools groups will make it easier.
Q35 Mr Stuart: The school report
cards, league tables and so on tend to lead to a competitive environment
among schools. Do you think that there are any difficulties and
issues with schools that see themselves as being in competition
and expected to collaborate? Are there barriers to collaboration
that need to be looked at?
Ed Balls: The answer is, yes,
sometimes there are barriers. Different areas have different ways
of doing things. I think that, in some areas, there is much more
of a culture of collaboration. In other areas, because of history,
the nature of travelling and the nature of the schools' diversity,
there is more competition among schools for places. I think that
we can support this and also reform school accountability through
the report card, so that we recognise that there are benefits
from and rewards to collaboration. I was up in North Yorkshire
a few weeks ago, talking to a head teacher there, whose school
is part of a four schools federation, which is collaborating in
quite a hard way to have common sixth-form provision across the
four schools. He said that there was no doing this because each
individual school could not do it on their own in terms of the
offer, and one school did not even have a sixth form until that
started. He also said to me, "We are also doing this because
we know we can do it more efficiently. But our main driver is
the education offer." He also said to me explicitly, "Yes,
for us it is a partnership, but we are also four schools, to some
extent competing, to get pupils to come in at 11." Of course
there is a little bit of tension, but if you are big enough, you
can get over that, and that is what they are doing.
Chairman: I want to go on briefly to
partnerships beyond schools.
Q36 Paul Holmes: Whoever wins
the next election, school budgets, like every other budget, are
going to be under more pressure in the next 10 years than the
last 10 years. Precisely at that point, the White Paper is saying
that you will legislate to make it clear that schools have a responsibility
and the ability to spend part of their school budget on things
beyond the school community. What percentage of a school budget
do you think they ought to be spending on things other than their
actual pupils?
Ed Balls: It will not surprise
you that I am not going to mandate a percentage, but I think that
it is important—to be honest, I do not think that they can
deliver the guarantees without it. You cannot deliver the guarantee
for sports without collaboration between schools. However, you
cannot ensure that every child makes progress without addressing
some of the barriers to learning that happen outside the school
gates. In many cases, those will be budgets that are in the hands
of other authorities—it may be the housing budget or children's
mental health. One of the things that we said in the White Paper,
which I hope people will be interested in, is that we are going
to look at how we can have more devolution so that schools, or
groups of schools, take over the budgets and the responsibility
for commissioning those wider services themselves, rather than
simply receiving the services from other providers. It may be
that in that kind of model, there will be some schools that will
choose to use some of their budgets themselves for some of those
outside services. I meet many schools that already use some of
their school budget for some camps provision or safety schools
partnerships. I am not going to mandate a percentage, but I think
the best schools are already using some of their budgets, because
they know that that is the only way to deliver for the children
and the school. I think the idea of wider school commissioning
of wider services is quite an exciting one.
Q37 Paul Holmes: The Local Government
Association has pointed out that the White Paper on the one hand
says that schools will be legally obliged to work with, for example,
the Children's Trust and the local authority on wider local community
perspectives. But, on the other hand, it says that you will accelerate
what the Government have done in terms of setting up academies
and accredited school groups, which do not have a local focus.
A faith school may draw pupils from a 30-mile radius, not from
an immediate local community.
Ed Balls: It might, and there
are times when you have to take those kinds of things into account.
I have been clear, and have sometimes been criticised for being
clear: I support academies and their freedom to innovate, but
academies are part of the local family schools, as are faith schools
and voluntary aided schools. Therefore, academies, and all schools,
have a duty to co-operate with each other and with the Children's
Trust. There will not be academies that are outside the Children's
Trust arrangements, and there will not be academies or faith schools
that are outside behaviour partnerships. You cannot have a school
that, on its own, has an exclusion policy that just dumps certain
pupils in other schools in an unfair way. You cannot have schools
that are going to deliver for every child but are not, for example,
pulling their weight in terms of special needs provision or working
with the CAMHS. So they are not outside, but part of, the local
family schools, but within that, they have some independence and
power to innovate, which is powerful.
Q38 Paul Holmes: But we go back
to the LGA pointing out two conflicting things: you are creating
more power for schools to be completely separate from the local
community and the local authority, but saying that they must be
involved.
Ed Balls: No. I think that that
is based on a misconception that academies do not have a duty
to co-operate—they do. Therefore, I am not putting them
outside the local family of schools. I think that they are an
important part of the local family of schools, and they have obligations
as well as extra powers and opportunities. It is important that
they use the extra powers, but it is also important that they
accept their obligations. The same is true for faith schools.
To be honest, when you move away from the type of ideological
Westminster politics that Mr Stuart does not like, I find in the
wider academies world that academies accept that they are part
of the family of schools and that you need to work together on
behaviour and alternative provision. So I actually do not find
this to be such a contradiction. The local authority is the commissioner,
and that is about commissioning all places and all provision and
worrying about all schools, which includes academies.
Chairman: This is the latest that this
Committee has ever sat on a Wednesday morning. Lynda has been
really pushed at the end of both sessions. Lynda.
Q39 Lynda Waltho: Very quickly—this
is about the school improvement services. What is your assessment
of the readiness of providers at the moment to constitute an effective
market of school improvement services? Are you confident about
that?
Ed Balls: If you don't mind, Chairman,
I might ask Jon to say a word about this, because this is his
area of expertise. The answer is that this is quite a big challenge
and quite a big change. There are lots of schools that have told
me over the last year or two that, sometimes, they are frustrated
by the inflexibility of national strategies, as they see it, but
also people have got rather used to the idea that national strategies
do things in a particular way. We have now said that, at the end
of 18 months, there will be a big handing-over of power, resource
and responsibility to schools for commissioning and a stronger
role for school improvement partners. To be honest, Chairman,
in the education world, I think that you will recognise the point
that I am about to make. There is always a bit of tension between,
on the one hand, schools wanting more flexibility and more power
and, on the other hand, feeling the burden of the extra power
and the extra responsibility. It is quite a big deal to run your
own budget. It will be a challenge to ensure that schools can
also commission school improvement and that we will have the quality
of SIPs that schools will need. However, I think that it is definitely
the right next step. It is a bit like the White Paper. I think
that there is widespread support in the schools world for what
we are doing on SIPs and school improvement, but there is also
a sense of trepidation that this is quite a radical step. Is that
fair, Jon?
Jon Coles: Yes, I think so. I
think that it is true to say that we need to do some significant
work to build the school improvement market over the next 18 months,
so that we are ready to bring this in. We set out in the White
Paper proposals to have a quality assurance process, so that we
nationally accredit some school improvement providers for particular
types of service that we know are important and that are particularly
needed in schools. We hope that that will give schools a great
deal of assurance that, if they draw on those people, they will
get the quality of service that they need. However, there is no
doubt that we need to do some work with the market to develop
it, to be effective in meeting all the needs that are there. We
have 18 months to do that, but that is obviously an important
piece of work to do in that time.
4 Witness correction: The correct figure is
75,000. Back
5
Witness correction: The correct figure is 54,500. Back
6
Witness correction: The correct figure is £655 million. Back
7
Witness correction: The correct figure is 54,500. Back
8
Witness correction: The correct figure is 54,500. Back
9
Witness correction: The correct figure is 54,500. Back
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