Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
DAVID BELL
AND JON
THOMPSON
25 JUNE 2008
Q40 Mr Heppell: Some of the explanations
for slippages have affected the local authorities that have not
managed to achieve the target. First of all, I find it difficult
to see where the link is between the targets that have been set
and the local authorities, unless it is by local area agreements.
Take the teenage pregnancy one, for instance. You say that 120
local authorities put that as their priority. Suppose they had
not?
David Bell: Under the local area
agreements process, even if local authorities do not identify
something as one of their local priorities or targets, they are
still accountable for reporting progress against it. It is not
as if they are off the hook on that one—if I can put it
that way. They have to be able to report progress. Just coming
back to your opening comment on that question, Mr Heppell, teenage
pregnancies is a really good example. We know by very careful
analysis of the data that some areas, otherwise similar, are showing
very different conception rates. Our analysis suggests that there
are actions that can be taken at local level that can reduce the
incidences of teenage pregnancies. That is one of the reasons
why it is really important for local areas to focus on particular
priorities, so that you can bring together all the kinds of support
that you need. We know, for example, on the teenage pregnancies
one, that you need the local schools heavily involved, because
that is about students' self-esteem. You need the public health
authority closely involved—you need the right kind of advice
to youngsters on contraception, choices and options. It is important
to say that there are local differences, and it is down to the
choices and priorities that the local areas actually make.
Q41 Mr Heppell: You have reduction
of child poverty down as a PSA target. Why is that not in the
departmental strategic objective?
David Bell: That is one that is
actually led—shared, as it were. I think you spoke recently
to five Ministers—I think it was a first here, when you
had a panel of Ministers talking. It was your Committee?
Chairman: It was.
David Bell: Five Ministers, was
it? That is a really good example of where there is leadership
from three Departments—ourselves, HM Treasury and the Department
for Work and Pensions. It is a really good example of us trying
to join up our efforts. This is not just about what you do, say,
in the tax and benefits system, but about the kind of support
that you give to families and children's centres—the earliest
intervention. Recently, just in the past 24 hours or so, the Government
have announced some pilots to do new kinds of work when it comes
to tackling child poverty. That is a good example of Departments
coming together and working together.
Q42 Mr Heppell: To return to the
2004 to 2007 PSA targets, data on the PSA target for obesity in
children under 11 was due to be reported last December. For some
reason, we are told, it has not yet been assessed—that is
the explanation. First of all, why has it not been assessed? Secondly,
why have we now got a different target for 2007? Whereas before
the target was to halt the year on year rise in obesity by 2010.
The 2007 target is now to reduce the weight of overweight and
obese children to the 2000 level by 2020. Why have we got a change,
effectively? Is it something to do with the date you already have
that we have not seen?
David Bell: To take the last point
first. The Government's previous chief scientific officer led
some work under the foresight project looking at obesity and that
was published last year. That pointed out the scale of the task
that we faced if we were going to deal with the problem. Childhood
obesity is a massive problem. Therefore, under the new SR arrangements
we have set that as a longer term ambition. We have gone to 2020
and said that is the target. The kind of changes we are going
to have to see made will take a longer period of time. In many
ways the target is more ambitious than it was because we have
said that by 2020 we will have reduced the proportion of overweight
or obese children to 2000 levels.
Q43 Mr Heppell: Have you abandoned
the 2004 PSA? Has that gone?
David Bell: No. There is still
an obesity target but the target has changed. It has gone to what
I said. We have said that by 2020 we will have achieved those
levels.
Q44 Chairman: So you feel it is stronger?
David Bell: I think it has got
stronger. Because the scientific underpinning and analysis of
this was much better as a result of the foresight project. It
demonstrated clearly that you need a number of interventions that
would affect all children: the way they eat, the sport or physical
exercise that they take as well as quite targeted interventions
for those children that are most at risk.
Q45 Mr Heppell: What I am trying
to get at is that the one does not negate the other. I should
still be expecting the year on year rises to halt by 2010. That
is still a Government target?
David Bell: We have an interim
target towards 2010 but our overall target is that we move to
2020. The 2010 target was simply to halt the year on year rise
in obesity. What we have said under the new ambition is that we
get back to the 2000 levels by 2020. We are saying now that the
2020 target is the target. That is not the same target, you are
right. It is a virtue of this process that you can say that perhaps
that was not the right target to have. We need to amend the target
in the light of new scientific evidence, which is what we have
done.
Q46 Mr Heppell: What you are telling
us now is that the 2010 target does not apply. You are saying
that you have had to amend it.
David Bell: Yes, we have amended
the 2010 target. We have now got a new target around 2020.
Q47 Mr Heppell: What I am trying
to explore is whether these targets, three years on, can just
disappear or they can be amended. Are they meaningful targets?
David Bell: There is no hiding
it. You might say, is that not a "failure" against the
2010 target? Our view was based on the scientific evidence and
our analysis of the trends and of what had to be done, it was
not sensible to stick to a shorter-term target, that is 2010,
but rather to focus more on a 2020 target. I think that is good
sense. We have not tried to hide the fact. This has been publicly
debated.
Q48 Chairman: It may be good sense
to you but we live in a parliamentary democracy. If you went back
to John Major and looked at the targets his Government set in
1995, who is still taking any notice of those? The fact is that
if you put a target down now for 2020, you will not be here and
we will not be here. Our job of calling you and the Department
to account is difficult enough, now that the responsibility for
children spreads across so many departments, and then you set
targets to 2020 which most of us politicians realise means that
you are almost unaccountable.
David Bell: This is an interesting
example of a target that has been reassessed in the light of emerging
scientific evidence and our analysis.
Q49 Chairman: I am sorry, but you
have not convinced me—I do not know about my colleagues—that
the scientific evidence means that you have to shift the target
to such a long time frame.
David Bell: I am happy to say
a bit more about that in a moment. What you can do, however, is
hold the departments—and us principally, as the lead Department
on this issue—to account for the actions that we are putting
in place and in train to give us the best chance of achieving
the 2020 target. There is a realism. As you know, some educational
attainment targets are set over a shorter period. On something
as complicated as child obesity, however, you cannot go against
all the international trends and set a target that can realistically
be achieved in a shorter time scale. What you should be asking
is, "What are we doing now to address the longer-term issues?"
Q50 Chairman: I am happy for there
to be long-term targets, but people should be accountable year
on year for progress on those so that Committees such as this
can scrutinise them. As I said, yours is the lead Department—I
hope that there was no demur on this—on anything to do with
the child. That is what the Secretary of State has told the Committee.
David Bell: Absolutely.
Q51 Chairman: We take that seriously.
It is difficult enough to track you, scrutinise you and hold you
to account across all these departments, without you suddenly
saying, "The new objective is to do something in 2020."
That worries us a great deal.
David Bell: If I can refer back
to my answer to Mr Stuart, you will be able to track progress
towards the target. It is not as if we are saying, "We'll
not come back and discuss this until 2020." There will be
reporting on progress against the target, and I am sure that you
will hold us to account if you think that our actions or interventions
are not appropriate or that we are going seriously off trajectory.
Chairman: Let us move on to schools funding.
Q52 Fiona Mactaggart: I want to start
with an issue connected with Public Service Agreements. I am particularly
interested in inequality. Probably only one of your PSAs—apart
from the one on looked-after children—specifically relates
to inequality, and that is the first one, which relates to improving
children's communication and social and emotional development
and reducing the gap between children in the most disadvantaged
areas and other areas. However, that is the one that you have
gone backwards on.
David Bell: If I might say so,
it is not the only one. We now have a free-standing PSA on narrowing
the attainment gap, and this is the first time that we have had
a free-standing focus on it. We know, and we have said publicly,
that there have been data-capture problems, and that has been
accepted by those who have looked at the issue. However, we recognise
that this is a really important issue. One of the things that
was announced in the Children's Plan was additional targeted funding
for the most deprived two-year-olds to give them a better start
on communication and social skills. So we do realise that that
is a significant point. There is also the impact of children's
centres. One of the criticisms that the National Audit Office
made of the children's centre programme was that although it offered
lots of children great opportunities, it was not necessarily getting
to the hardest-to-reach youngsters. One of the things that we
have done there is to ensure that all children's centres have
outreach programmes to get at the youngsters we need to get at.
So in areas where we have concerns, and where we might have gone
back, we have to say, "What can we do differently to get
a better result in the future?"
Q53 Fiona Mactaggart: Let us leap
forward to schools funding, because local authorities are damping
the allocation that they make in relation to inequality. According
to a report produced by the Institute for Fiscal Studies for CfBT,
the consequence is that secondary school pupils on free school
meals get about 50% less than they would if your inequality measures
were carried straight through, and primary school pupils on free
school meals get 100% less because of the equalising effect at
a local level. What are you doing about that?
Jon Thompson: The situation is
that because of the double formula system, those issues are for
local discretion and for discussion through the schools forum.
The Department's policy is that we have a national system that
distributes national funding, and it is then for each local authority
to consider that in the context of its local community, and decide
upon its own local formula for the distribution of those funds.
The safeguard in terms of schools is that they are significant
members of the schools forum, and if you want to change the formula
then they, obviously, have a significant say. That results in
a quite different formula, operating in different parts of the
country. Our policy at the moment is that the differential system
allows local communities to make those decisions.
Q54 Fiona Mactaggart: But is it not
the case that, in the schools forum, the loudest voices are often
the most successful schools?
David Bell: That is not our experience
of the schools forum, which is actually quite a lively place of
debate. Over the years, schools have all recognised how important
it is to have their voices heard, so it is not just a particular
kind of school that has its voice heard there. As Jon said, this
is a consequence—and, I think, a proper consequence—of
our double formula system, whereby we have national priorities
and set the total amount of money and then it is for local schools
forums to discuss. We are at the earliest stages of our review
of school funding. You asked me about that the last time I was
here, Mr Chairman. There is a wide group of officials, schools'
representatives, local authorities, and so on. They have met three
times, and are just starting to scope the territory. I do not
know whether you might look on it as a separate inquiry, but I
think it will be important and useful at some point in that process
to advance those questions. The system we have at the moment is
really set for the three years. It gives schools stability over
the three year period, and any changes decided upon would take
effect from the year 2011-2012. There is an opportunity to contribute
to precisely this kind of argument about the relationship between
national funding and local formulae.
Q55 Fiona Mactaggart: I am sure we
will want to do that, but do you not want to have a formula that
is transparent? I do not see that the present one is particularly
transparent, when you have a national formula which weights deprivation
very heavily and that is translated into a local formula which
fails to do so.
David Bell: It is quite an interesting
discussion. Sometimes we are accused of wanting to micro-manage
everything at the centre, at national Government level, and here
I think we have a genuine relationship between national Government's
priorities and the funding that is spent in schools, as there
is a separate grant combined with local choices that are made
about funding for deprivation. I would be slightly anxious about
suggesting that somehow there is no funding benefit or impact
for youngsters in more deprived circumstances, because our analysis
suggests that at the local level quite a large amount of the money
does get to youngsters with particular kinds of needs. Schools
forums are not cavalier about the way in which they distribute
money, and I think you can go to almost any local authority in
the country and find schools in really quite disadvantaged circumstances
with children who are bringing additional funds into the school.
Q56 Fiona Mactaggart: I did not say
that there were none. I said that according to the IFS (Institute
of Fiscal Studies) study it was half as much as it should be at
secondary level and 100% less than it should be at primary level.
Jon Thompson: Our own research
with 150 local authorities says that about two thirds of the money
we put into the system had reached deprived pupils. That does
not quite accord with the IFS.
Q57 Fiona Mactaggart: We also know
that it is very difficult to change fast enough when the circumstances
of a school change.
David Bell: There are mechanisms
to do that within individual formulae. I know that a particular
issue you raised with us a year or so ago was about an influx
of youngsters from different countries. We have put into play
something called the exceptional circumstances grant, which will
be triggered if there is more than a 2.5% increase in the number
of children coming into a local authority area, because they are
not speaking English as a first language. That is precisely to
try to reflect that sometimes you have to react very quickly.
Again, there is an interesting balance for us here. The principle
of establishing three year budgets is a really good one, and we
have used it because it gives schools the chance to plan over
the longer term. However, it would be naive to reject the argument
that somehow in some places there is a real shift in the population
caused by youngsters coming from outside. So, the exceptional
circumstances grant—which is a three year grant—is
a good way of reacting quickly, without destabilising the formula
on a year by year basis.
Jon Thompson: I was just going
to expand slightly on that. There are three parts to the exceptional
circumstances grant. There is an element for rapidly growing pupil
numbers, for those areas of the country where there is huge growth
in the population. There is a second element which is specifically
related to English as an additional language, where there are
migration issues, and the third element is specifically to help
the relevant local authorities. There are structural funds to
enable the local authority to respond to either rapid population
growth or migration, as well as funding for the individual schools
that are dealing with the pupils. So there are three elements
overall.
Q58 Fiona Mactaggart: Regarding transparency,
I had a meeting recently with Ministers about how the schools
in my authority are full to bursting, largely with a very changed
population. It was clear that the officials in my local authority
were not aware of the kind of funding that is available. How transparent
is the funding to the people who might actually apply for the
money?
Chairman: How quickly is it delivered?
Jon Thompson: The measurement
is between the two school census dates in the course of a calendar
year. That is very clearly set out in the dedicated schools grant
publicity, which is summarised in eight pages. It is in paragraphs
16 through 19, and I think it is pretty clear.
Fiona Mactaggart: I am quite prepared
to believe that they have not done their job properly.
David Bell: We would certainly
not want to suggest that. It is a good point. This is an important
issue. This is funding that local authorities might need in exceptional
circumstances.
Q59 Fiona Mactaggart: I was very
struck by a sentence in the document that launched the schools
challenge. It said: "The majority of secondary schools where
more than half of pupils are eligible for free school meals are
in the National Challenge." Are you saying that the majority
of secondary schools with the largest proportion of deprived pupils
are in that group of secondary schools that are failing to get
more than a third of their pupils through with five A to Cs, including
English and maths?
David Bell: Yes.
Fiona Mactaggart: That is the clearest
evidence that I can think of that we are not properly tackling
inequality.
David Bell: It is not the case,
however, that every school in the most difficult circumstances
does not achieve that benchmark. That is one of the reasons why
the National Challenge exists. In other words, this is not a stretch
that is impossible for any school in such circumstances. Therefore
we think that it is important, taking account of the impact of
deprivation, to do what we are doing under the National Challenge.
It is important though, and we say this quite explicitly in the
National Challenge document, that we corral, so to speak, the
kinds of services that will make a difference. So this is not
just a narrow school improvement programme. It is about making
sure that youth services, children's social services and the sorts
of services that will help youngsters to achieve more are available.
We make no apology for setting that as the minimum threshold,
not least because a lot of other schools in similar circumstances
are achieving higher results.
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