Examination of Witnesses (Questions 560-579)
RT HON
JIM KNIGHT
MP, SARAH MCCARTHY-FRY
MP AND IAN
HARRISON
24 NOVEMBER 2008
Q560 Mr Chaytor: So, in view of
the Chancellor's announcement a few minutes ago that he will look
for a further £5 billion of efficiency savings, you would
not say that that may be an area that he should consider?
Jim Knight: I think that
it would be ill advised for us, off the cuff, to propose where
we might provide our share. Undoubtedly, we will play our part
in efficiency savings, but for us to offer those up at this stage
would not be well advised.
Q561 Mr Chaytor: From the point
of view of teachers and head teachers, would it not be easier
for them to do their jobs more productively if they knew that
there was one source of advice and information about the curriculum
and one set of guidelines that they had to follow rather receiving
different messages from expert professors, the QCA and the National
Strategies? Do you not accept that there is a legitimate criticism
of overburdening of teachers and head teachers with the volume
of material and the number of reviews that come through?
Jim Knight: In terms of
the unit of civil servants within the Department, it is very important
that we have it sufficiently resourced to be able both to effectively
manage the contract with National Strategies and its delivery
function in supporting and enabling teachers, which is what it
seeks to do across the 10 areas on which it operates, and to give
us advice on the performance and work of QCA. It performs that
within the contracted client relationship, which is a very useful
function. We get criticised by subject associations when they
find that they do not have an exclusive official solely for their
subject. Recently, as part of some of our efficiency savings,
we have had to merge some of the functions within the team, so
that subjects that previously had an exclusive official might
not any more. That is the unit within the Department. The National
Strategies function needs to be retained. It works both with local
authorities and schools. By and large, it is increasingly brokered
by school improvement partners or national challenge advisers
according to the type of school. It then draws down that expertise
and support as it needs it. QCA performs quite a discrete function,
whereby as it develops, it gives us advice, working with the examination
boards and others, who are involved in qualification and curriculum
development at a national, more strategic level.
Q562 Mr Chaytor: If the curriculum
is going to be less prescriptive, does that not imply that there
will be less prescription from the centre? You have described
what is still a hugely top-down set of arrangements. Would you
not suggest that in the future, there may be a little more hands
off from the Department, the QCA and National Strategies? How
do you explain the balance between the move to a less prescriptive
curriculum?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I would think
that if you moved to a less prescriptive curriculum, there would
be a greater role for advice, guidance, support and disseminating
ways in which different schools and teachers are getting better
results using one way of the curriculum. I would see that as a
greater role, but I am not sure whether Jim agrees with me there.
Jim Knight: Yes, and nothing is
set in stone. I cannot guarantee that, as I look forward over
the next five years, the structure will be exactly as it is. The
national strategy's function is serving us well, but the contract
comes up for renewal in 2010. We are just starting the process
of thinking about what the specification will be. I cannot tell
you, here and now, whether the specification for the next contract
will be exactly the same as it is now.
Q563 Chairman: Ian, you have been
at the coal face more recently than most of us. What do they say
in the education sector in Newham, for example? What do the heads
and teachers say about the curriculum? Would they like a totally
independent body running the curriculum, rather than politicians
fiddling around with it?
Ian Harrison: I cannot really
answer that. The National Strategies has been holding a series
of regional meetings with secondary head teachers in different
boroughs, and a couple of national meetings, too. The feedback
from all those meetings is that there is strong support for the
new flexibilities in the secondary curriculum, because it allows
schools to choose how much time to spend on different subjects
and to spend more time on the core subjects if they need to, especially
for under-achieving pupils. There have been one or two comments
about the role of the National Strategies in all of this. Our
role is not to set the curriculum or assessment and so on—that
is handled by the Department and the QCA—but we have developed
new secondary frameworks for the core subjects, for instance.
Those frameworks are web-based tools to enable teachers to map
their way through the curriculum to support programmes of study.
They are not prescriptive or compulsory; they set out learning
objectives that children should achieve as they progress, which
leads to assessment and personalised learning. They are there
to help teachers plan properly for the progression of their individual
pupils and to plan lessons to cope with pupils' needs. With our
training and support, the consultants working for local authorities
help schools decide how to use those resources. It is a flexible
resource—schools use as much of them as they want. They
are a lot more flexible, and the messages about the way in which
the framework links to the programmes of study have been overwhelmingly
positive.
Q564 Mr Carswell: First, Sarah,
congratulations on your new post—it is wonderful to see
you here in that role. You said that Ofqual will be fully independent
and that the QCDA will be semi-autonomous. How can an independent
body making public policy effectively be accountable? One person's
independence might be another person's lack of accountability.
Given what happened this summer, with the QCA and the key stage
fiasco—the Minister blamed the QCA, which passed the buck
to the contractor and we on this Committee could not even get
to see a copy of the contract—surely, accountability to
Parliament by Ministers is a bit of a fiction?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Are you not
referring to the QCA, rather than Ofqual?
Mr Carswell: And to QCDA—or both.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: No, I do not
think so. I think that we are getting the split right. QCDA will
be the advisory body to Ministers, and it is Ministers who have
the accountability. It is to Ministers that we would draw the
accountability on the issues we are talking about. Obviously,
Ministers contract with the QCA and will continue to contract
with the QCDA, but they will look at it as an expert advisory
group. It is important that we split off the regulation side to
Ofqual and the advisory side to QCDA.
Q565 Mr Carswell: Do you think
that there was effective accountability over the summer, when
the testing system did not work, the QCA blamed the contractor
and the Minister blamed the QCA? You think that that is good and
you do not have a problem with it?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I think I
am going to have to leave that question, because I was not in
the Department during the summer.
Jim Knight: Let me help, if I
may. Ofqual will be a non-ministerial department accountable to
the Select Committee, so there will be clear accountability for
that organisation, in the same way that Ofsted is accountable
to Parliament. That is important, and it is separate from accountability
through Ministers. The QCA is accountable through Ministers, and
it is accountable for its contractors through Ministers. What
was particular about the events of the summer was that they related
to the national curriculum tests. We tried to make it clear—although
it was sometimes a struggle to achieve clarity throughout that
series of episodes—that it was deemed inappropriate for
us to have a relationship with the contractor responsible for
marking tests at any point, for fear that we would be accused
of influencing the outcome of those tests. At no point did we
have a relationship with the QCA's contractor. That is why in
the end, I have to hold the QCA to account for the delivery of
the tests, whether through the National Assessment Agency, or
the NAA and its contractor, however, the QCA chose to structure
it. The QCA is accountable to me and in turn I am accountable
to Parliament. The Committee will have asked the QCA and the NAA
questions about how their contractor performed, and I think that
you have taken evidence from the contractor, too. I do not think
that there is any question that at any point we have tried to
duck accountability to Parliament for that whole episode.
Q566 Mr Carswell: Finally, Gordon
Brown said some interesting things about expanding the accountability
of Executive agencies, institutions and quangos, to elected members
of the legislature. Will the Committee have the final say on who
sits in Ken Boston's seat? Could we ratify and confirm the appointment,
and hold that individual directly to account?
Jim Knight: As far as I am aware,
we have not agreed on how those arrangements will pan out, so
I cannot give a categoric answer on that. If we have made a decision
and I can give you clarity, I will drop you a line.[1]
Chairman: Hang on, Minister. We know,
because the Prime Minister has told us, that when a new chief
inspector or head of the QCA is appointed, we will have a role
in interviewing and assessing the merits of the candidate.
Jim Knight: But what I cannot
tell you now is exactly how that process will work, in terms of
the point at which the Committee will be involved and, in answer
to Douglas's question, whether it will get the final say-so.
Chairman: Let us move on. John, you are
going to take us through the next section.
Q567 Mr Heppell: On National Strategies,
we heard a lot of evidence that teachers have been deluged with
information. If you go to the common room and talk to teachers
about what their issues are, resources seems to have disappeared
as an issue, but they say that they are constantly getting new
guidance about this and that. Why has National Strategies been
allowed to grow like Topsy in some respects, and at the same time
become even more complex, making it difficult for teachers to
take in the amount of guidance that they receive?
Jim Knight: Can I start and let
Ian follow?
Chairman: Sure.
Jim Knight: I am not sure that
we have allowed it to grow like Topsy. In fact, we have made decisions
in the past year or two more closely to define its role and focus
it on the priority subjects, and to develop one or two things
that have been fantastically well received, such as the social
and emotional aspects of learning framework. Almost universally,
people tell us that that is working very well, and that it is
well received, both in primaries and now in secondaries. I want
to challenge some of the assumptions that this thing is growing
like billy-o, but I shall let Ian answer the detail.
Ian Harrison: Virtually all our
materials are available to schools to order. They do not have
to have them. One example is Letters and Sounds, which
we produced to support improved early reading for four and five-year-olds.
The decision was taken that most schools would want it, so the
Department e-mailed schools to ask them to let us know if they
did not want it. Only two schools replied to say that they did
not want it. Letters and Sounds has gone out. Web-based
materials have been developed. It is increasingly web-based so
that people can choose how and when to access it. It allows for
better search facilities and access to other materials from the
website. We are trying to be a lot more flexible in response to
exactly the sort of top-down prescriptions that people perceive
that National Strategies used to make. I do not think that they
are like that any more, and the materials that we produce in hard
copy such as DVDs and so on are nearly always in response to perceived
needs—schools and local authorities telling us, for instance,
that they could use some materials for helping pupils to get from
Level 3 to Level 4 in maths in primary schools. There is overwhelming
demand for those materials; they are very popular and there is
good feedback. That is how we work. We identify where the needs
are, we look at good practice, we take that good practice and
use our experts to turn it into something that will be really
valuable for teachers in schools.
Q568 Mr Heppell: If things are
going as well as you suggest, why is it necessary for you, as
head of strategic children's services, to switch to National Strategies?
Why is the Department more engaged in monitoring National Strategies
than it used to be? I understand that there is a lot more monitoring
and more National Strategies now than when the contract was initially
made. What is the reason for the extra resources and the extra
time, and why are you taking such a hands-on role?
Ian Harrison: I took over a hands-on
role when there was a new contract. I started mainly on the contractual
side. I took over the day to day management of the National Strategies
in 2006 because the previous chief executive had left, and we
clearly needed someone to do that job. The Department wanted me
to do it, so I took it on. I was well qualified to do so, given
my background. In terms of the hands-on role and monitoring and
so on, we reviewed where we were a couple of years ago with the
Department; and we and the Department both felt that some aspects
of the management and governance of the National Strategies were
too arms-length—telling us to get on with things and then
reporting back to us how they felt some time later. Given the
nature of the contract and the fact that we have to be responsive
to Government initiatives and Government policy, it was felt that
we needed a closer partnership and relationship, so a new governance
structure was established. We had a joint leadership board and
worked together on overall direction and strategy. We are still
responsible for day to day management, and we are still to blame
if anything goes wrong. We have always been closely monitored
and evaluated in a number of ways. We do not have a problem with
that. I do not think that it is any different from other major
contracts, except that it is large and therefore there has to
be a lot of close partnership working to ensure that we respond
to Government policy in the appropriate way.
Jim Knight: We have defined the
role of National Strategies in a more focused way, particularly
in English, maths, science and ICT, so it is right that we should
increase accountability and ensure that we are getting good results
for taxpayers' money. If that means that we are a bit more closely
involved in the monitoring, that is a good thing.
Q569 Mr Heppell: If that is the
case, what is the cost of the extra monitoring? It seems that
you were saying that it was working a little slowly and that you
wanted it to work better. You try to respond to things as they
happen, and say that you want things to happen more quickly, but
there must be a cost to the Department. Is there an extra cost
that was not identified in the contract? If the Department is
satisfied with the role that Capita is playing, will it renew
its contract?
Jim Knight: The contract will
go through the tendering process.
Chairman: That is a very good process.
We all know that.
Jim Knight: The National Strategies
contract went through that process.
Chairman: Jim, you will forgive a slightly
wry comment from the Chairman of the Committee, given the last
three minutes.
Jim Knight: I understand and I
always appreciate your sense of humour. The Office of Government
Commerce goes through the tendering processes carefully to ensure
that it is done properly. Sutherland will report fairly soon on
the SATS delivery problems in the summer, and we will see what
he has to say on procurement and whether there are specific problems
with it. Those of us privileged enough to be in Parliament will
be well advised to wait and to see what he has to say. Again,
we obviously had problems with educational maintenance allowance
delivery, but that does not necessarily mean that there was a
problem with procurement. I know that some will want to enjoy
those assumptions, but we should wait and see what Lord Sutherland
has to say.
Q570 Chairman: Minister, you have
our sympathy. From where I stand, I am sure that you went through
the processes. Of course, you always have to go to the biggest
companies in the land; we like you to experiment with the smaller
companies, but it does not always work out.
Jim Knight: In respect of the
National Strategies contract, Capita won the contract last time.
It was previously held by CfBT. It went on the basis of the best
bid and it went through a process. We have not yet designed a
specification for the renewal of the contract. As I said, it could
be set in the same way in which the service is currently carried
out, or it could be separated into lots to open things up. However,
I am in no doubt that there is an active market of people who
could do the job or who would be very interested in doing it.
We will wait and see.
Q571 Mr Heppell: Assessment for
learning was defined by the Assessment Reform Group as deciding
"where learners are in their learning, where they need to
go, and how best to get there." When we took evidence from
Professor Hargreaves, he told us that the Department had slightly
changed that into something that focuses more on targets and so
on, and that the original concept had been slightly debased. On
top of that, the QCA is running its own pilots assessing pupils'
progress. Is it helpful for schools to be presented with three
different takes on assessment for learning: the original concept
as set out by Black and Wiliam; the DCSF's focussed assessment;
and the QCA assessing pupils' progress?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I do not think
that assessment for learning is target focused; rather, the targets
assist in making the assessment. Clearly, assessment for learning
programme is our preferred programme, but schools do not have
to use it; they can use others if they wish, provided we get there.
It is our preferred model, and we have found that it has been
welcomed by the teaching profession. The funding that we give
to schools for personalised learning and for assessment for learning
is not ring-fenced, but they have to achieve the outcome. We believe
that we cannot properly tailor personalised learning if we do
not have assessment for learning. In my view, it comes back to
our definition—you said this at the start—in that
we have to find out where pupils are and where the gaps are. That
is the process for assessment and our recommended model.
Q572 Mr Heppell: One last question.
When we had other people in here and asked them to define personalised
learning, we were effectively told, "You cannot define it.
The term should not be used. We do not use it any more and we
have moved on from it altogether." Can you give us a definition?
What do you mean by personalised learning?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: We still use
the definition of personalised learning that came out of the 2020
review. I can read it out if it helps to have it on the record.
It means "taking a highly structured and responsive approach
to each child's and young person's learning, in order that all
are able to progress, achieve and participate. It means strengthening
the link between learning and teaching by engaging pupils—and
their parents—as partners in learning." That definition
is in our statutory guidance.
Mr Heppell: One of our witnesses described
that definition as complete waffle.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Was it the
witness who was part of the review group?
Mr Heppell: He was one of the people
who were working on it. He said that we had moved on.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: I actually
think that the definition is less important than how it is—[Interruption.]
Chairman: We must break for a Division.
Our rule is that if our witnesses can get back as soon as possible,
we will begin as soon as we are quorate.
Sitting suspended for a Division in the House.
On resuming—
Q573 Chairman: John was putting
questions to the ministerial team and to Ian. When you were appointed,
was your appointment and the change in personnel a result of the
Prime Minister's delivery unit reviewing what performance had
been up to then? It was a critical review, was it not?
Ian Harrison: No, the PMDU review
came after I took over. I have always been involved in the contract—I
have been the Managing Director from the start and I led the bid
for the contract—but we had a Chief Executive in place who
reported to me in the first year. He left. For various reasons,
but partly to achieve continuity while it tried to get somebody
else in, the Department asked me to take over full-time running
of the contract, rather than doing half-time contract management.
Q574 Chairman: Was the PMDU report
critical?
Ian Harrison: No. There was a
PMDU report in autumn 2006, and it came up with various recommendations.
We contributed to those recommendations, because we identified
system improvements that needed to be made. We were very happy
with the recommendations that were produced, and we rapidly went
on to implement them. They were about tighter monitoring and evaluation,
providing better evidence of progress and so on. We have improved
things a lot since then.
Having said that, there were no particularly
critical external reports on how we did in the first year, but
we were very self-critical. The Department wanted us to have a
sharper focus on fewer core programmes. There was talk about lots
of programmes, so we cut the number of programmes from 40 to 10.
That involved some amalgamation, but it was an attempt to focus
on the key areas of the core subjects and school improvement.
Chairman: Sarah, you bravely carried
on through the Division bell.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: About personalised
learning?
Q575 Chairman: Yes. Was there
anything that you wanted to add to that?
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: Only that—I
am not sure whether it was clear—I do not think that getting
a definition that other people agree on is necessarily the most
important thing. We have a definition in our statutory guidance,
and I do not think that it helps schools, teachers or pupils to
go endlessly round the question, "What is the correct definition
of this?" What is more important is that we get the outcomes
from personalised learning, use examples of practice from different
schools on different interventions that they are using and, where
they work, ensure that other schools use them as well, through
the assessment for learning process.
Chairman: John, I was just checking whether
Sarah wanted to fill in on your question. Would you like another
reply?
Jim Knight: Can I just add something
while John gets his breath back? He mentioned APP—assessing
pupils' progress. The schools that I have visited, particularly
those that are taking part in the Making Good Progress
pilot and using the APPs for maths and English at Key Stages 2
and 3, have found them incredibly useful in delivering personalisation
and in the context of assessment for learning. In essence, they
help teachers understand at what level each child in their class
is performing so that they can deliver a more personalised product.
Those seem to have been extremely successful so far, and are part
of what we are providing to teachers to empower them, as Ian said,
to do their job better.
Q576 Chairman: While we wait for
John to get his breath back, does the fact that the schools commissioner
Sir Bruce Liddington has moved on mean that that role is being
downgraded?
Jim Knight: The function is just
as important as it ever was, and as when we first set up the office
of the schools commissioner. As I have said to others, it is too
early for us to say exactly how Bruce will be replaced, but the
function of working with Partnerships for Schools, working with
authorities, delivering diversity of choice and brokering a certain
amount of structural change is just as important as it ever was.
Q577 Mr Heppell: I still find
the personalisation stuff difficult. I see a problem in the national
curriculum and personalisation, and how you personalise something
without having impact on the curriculum. Can you give us an example
of something that has been done in a school that comes under the
guidance and that actually works to make personalised education
easier? If I am confused about it, quite a few teachers might
be confused about it, too.
Sarah McCarthy-Fry: It is clear
in my head that we are talking not so much about what children
learn, as about how they learn. The overriding elements in personalisation
are things such as one-to-one tuition. As for primary schools,
an example of personalisation is reading recovery. By that, I
mean taking children out of the classroom and spending half an
hour on dedicated sessions to enable them to make progress. There
are lots of different ways in which we can do it, such as getting
the pupils themselves to help design their curriculum in a way
that helps them to understand it. The whole idea of personalised
learning is, "This is the curriculum; this is the entitlement;
this is the outcome. What is the best way of working with the
child and possibly getting the parents involved, as well as designing
a way to teach them that helps them to understand it?" I
envisage that to be personalised learning. I do not know whether
Jim agrees.
Jim Knight: Ian may have a specific
example, but if it helps, we have been looking at sexual relationship
education most recently and PSHE, and the non-statutory programmes
of study are quite high-level. They are programmes for study for
each key stage, so it is up to the school at what age within the
key stage some of the things are then covered, and how they are
covered. The Catholic Education Service issues guidance on how
to deliver PSHE and sexual relationship education at the moment.
It would reflect the Catholic ethos so it would be different from
how it might be delivered in non-Catholic schools. I hope that
I have given you an indication that it is possible to personalise
and to localise how the national curriculum programmes and studies—high-level
documents—are delivered. They are not a prescription for
what can be taught on a Monday afternoon, but things that should
be covered during a key stage.
Q578 Mr Stuart: Do you have any
specific examples?
Chairman: Ian?
Ian Harrison: Personalisation
and how we address it through the National Strategies is about
progression. It is about making sure that we identify the progression
needs of every child. By that, I mean making sure that schools
are good at assessment, that they are using APP materials that
we developed with the QCA, which is about how to enable teachers
to identify what level a child is at, and linking that to primary
and secondary frameworks that set the learning objectives and
where children need to go next. If that is done accurately, we
can track where they are each term. We are looking all the time
at how we can improve children's attainment and move them on in
their learning. It is target-related, but only in terms of targets
for individual children to improve. It is not to do with national
targets or school and local authority targets. It is about trying
to help each child get the best out of their learning in the core
subjects.
Q579 Mr Stuart: The purpose of
the National Strategies is to improve standards. Is that its aim?
Jim Knight: Empowering teachers.
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