Public Expenditure - Children, Schools and Families Committee Contents


Examination of Witnesses (Questions 200-211)

RT HON. ED BALLS MP, DAVID BELL AND JON THOMPSON

16 JULY 2008

  Q200  Paul Holmes: It is not just those issues. If you have more nurses on a geriatric ward, productivity falls, but the quality goes up. I taught top sets of 36, and they did very well, but if they had been of 26, they would have done even better. It is not just about special-needs kids or statins; it is about the overall quality of what you are providing. Will the Treasury argue more forcefully that falling productivity in education and health is a good thing if it means better quality?

  Ed Balls: I have always been inclined to believe in the Treasury's rationality, so I am sure that it will take a rational view of these matters.

  Chairman: You were brainwashed from a very early age, Minister.

  Ed Balls: At all stages, we should be demanding in our desire for more productivity and for using inputs more effectively. One example that I have given is that we are encouraging primary schools to pool resources and to have one person providing a range of support services for a group of primary schools because that is much more cost-effective. We should always be thinking about how we can be more productive. At the same time, however, in education, there is not the same degree of potential for transformatory technological advances and change, because pedagogy is, on the one hand, about the teacher and the child learning. On the other hand, personalisation and one-to-one teaching is more expensive, as is having smaller class sizes, but it is what works for children who otherwise would not do well. In a sense, cost-benefit analysis captures those benefits through time—having fewer children coming out without qualifications—better than a simple measure of productivity that says, "My qualification today, per number of teachers or inputs in the classroom." If you take a proper, long-term approach to cost-benefit analysis, it probably suggests that, as a society, we become much more productive by having more teaching assistants and smaller class sizes.

  Chairman: Secretary of State, we are in the home straight. Two colleagues have been extremely patient, and they are going to lead—first Annette and then Sharon—on Building Schools for the Future and the National Challenge.

  Q201  Annette Brooke: I shall be rather brief. I should like to ask you about the National Challenge, in which I have an interest, as part of my constituency has a grammar school system. First, on the secondary modern schools that appear on the list, you have said that they can expect to receive more financial support than other schools. I hope that that is a positive side of the list. Why have those schools been neglected for so long?

  Ed Balls: It is true that in the 638 schools, secondary moderns are disproportionately represented. Of the top five local authorities, judged by number of National Challenge schools, they would be disproportionately in areas that have grammar schools and selection. On the other hand, 60% of secondary moderns are above the 30% threshold of five grades A to C, including English and maths. Most secondary moderns are not National Challenge schools. From my point of view, the National Challenge is a positive for all the schools in the list, because they, the pupils and the parents are going to get the extra support that they need—£400 million. However, that must be tailored, school by school, to the particular needs of the school. If you are a high value-added school with great leadership and are on track, we will let you get on with it, but if you need more intensive support in English and maths, we shall be supporting that. That is what we are looking to do with the money. Some schools will need transformation, though. We discussed the Academies programme earlier. Recognising the particular characteristics of individual schools means taking it into account that, for some schools, selection makes the challenge greater. What we have said in the National Challenge—I made a commitment to provide more detail about our toolkit in the coming weeks—is what more help and support we should give to secondary moderns, recognising the extra challenges that they face. One way in which we have said we will give extra funding is through a new concept of a trust—a National Challenge trust—where you have a National Challenge school that will link up with another school in that area that is higher performing, so that the two schools can work together to raise standards overall. We have said that, in general across the country, we would put £700,000 into a National Challenge trust but we would go up to £1 million for a secondary modern. As I have said before, in the main that scheme will have secondary moderns partnering up with other higher performing secondary moderns where the leadership team already has experience of the extra challenge of raising standards in a non-selective school in a selective area. What will that money be for? It could be used for more intensive one-to-one personalised support in years 7 and 8; it could be used to help attract more teachers for smaller class sizes; or, if it is difficult to attract English and maths specialists, it could be used to encourage some of the wider aspiration programmes, which we know from experience work. It is all about understanding that these are schools that can raise results but the pupils may need more personalised support, and there is a challenge of aspiration that needs to be addressed.

  Chairman: Can we make the questions and answers quite quick now, because we are running out of time?

  Ed Balls: Sorry. Does that answer your question?

  Q202  Annette Brooke: Yes, it does. I hope that the local authority will be aspirational enough when it agrees the plan. Also, as an aside, I would just like to say that the members of staff were very demoralised and I think that the Department needs to take that on board. As it is making the positive investment, it must lift the morale of staff, because the way that this came out it was very demotivating.

  Ed Balls: May I say just one thing on that, Mr Chairman? I have said this in Parliament too. Many of these schools are high-performing schools with great leadership and are on track, and they should be celebrated and supported. Many of them will go through the threshold this August. This is not a group of 638 failing schools. What I am saying is that there is £400 million and we are systematically—school by school—going to do what it takes. For some schools, it will mean big change. I am advised by officials that when London challenge, which is now pretty much universally popular among schools in London because it has raised standards for all and been very supportive, was launched back in 2002-03, the local newspaper headline on launch day was "50 failing London schools set to close". The reality is that that is the starting point of these debates, and you need to get over that difficult and, from my point of view, unhelpful first focus on the idea that these schools must all be failures, and focus on the positives and start giving these schools support. I hope that, over time, people will see that National Challenge is about support, but it is also about setting a challenge for schools that have not been doing well enough and where there has been a culture of low expectations, or setting a challenge for local authorities that have not been taking school improvement seriously for all schools and for all pupils, and that will include your local authority.

  Q203  Annette Brooke: I am outside my geographical area on this. I do not criticise the provision, but I would like to talk about provision for children who are aged 16-18. When we had evidence from the FE sector, the witnesses suggested that National Challenge should be extended to 16-18 provision. Hopefully, if you are going to raise standards in secondary modern schools, more children will stay on at school, but some schools are unlikely to have a full sixth form so those children will need to move on to quality provision. Why, therefore, are you not including provision for those aged 16-18 in FE colleges and sixth form colleges in National Challenge, to ensure that the next step is guaranteed to be of good quality?

  Ed Balls: I guess that the moment you move from people feeling demoralised to people asking, "Can't more of us be involved?", that is a sign that you are starting to win the argument that this is an opportunity and a positive, rather than a negative, move. National Challenge is a challenge to local authorities to focus on school improvements, school by school. We are also challenging local authorities to deliver effective collaboration for 14-19-year-olds. I very much hope that local authorities, with their schools community, will see this as being all of a piece and that part of supporting secondary moderns is ensuring that they are part of collaborative arrangements that go from 14-18 or 19. It may be that the combination of National Challenge, what we are doing on 14-19 and Building Schools for the Future will lead to more sixth-form collaboration between secondary moderns or between secondary moderns and grammar schools.

  Q204  Annette Brooke: Thank you. Collaboration is important. May I as an aside—

  Chairman: Asides are still questions, Annette.

  Annette Brooke: Yes, well ever so quickly, may I put Parkstone Grammar School into the same pot? It has also had a challenge on numbers from our local learning and skills council. It seems to be exactly the same situation. I am quite concerned that, as we are raising standards and most secondary modern schools are sending more pupils on to sixth form, those numbers are not taken on board by learning and skills councils.

  Chairman: You can add that to your letter.

  Ed Balls: I will do a proper response.[4]

  Q205 Annette Brooke: I am trying to be quick because I have to go to Questions in the House, apart from anything else. We have had criticisms in our evidence that the National Challenge funding is targeted too much at school structures. You gave me some good examples where it was not targeted at school structures. But because there is pressure to take the Academy route or a trust school route, that is an argument that can be made. What would you say to that?

  Ed Balls: I would say that even when you are going down the structural route, we are talking about revenue funding that is essentially about teachers teaching and learning. Of the £400 million, the structural solutions are all about what happens in the classroom. As well as the money for extra Academies and National Challenge trusts, which is slightly over half of the funding, there is also £100 million for targeted personalised learning, teaching and support for heads in classroom practice and pupil tracking. There is also money for more National Challenge and more school improvement partner support, school by school. I would expect all of that money to go on teaching and learning, even in structural solutions, but where you are talking about Academies and trusts, it is about half of it.

  Chairman: Thank you Annette. Sharon, you deserve some sort of medal today. Building Schools for the Future—it is only £45 billion, and we have five minutes for it.

  Mrs Hodgson: You probably noticed, Secretary of State, that I have been uncharacteristically quiet this morning. I was saving myself for my session. There have been some strange efficiency savings going on in respect of my contribution. It will have to be fairly short. Perhaps if we had made efficiency savings earlier, I might have had a longer contribution.

  Chairman: That was a test.

  Mrs Hodgson: All right.

  Ed Balls: It sounds like the Chairman is in special measures.

  Chairman: Thank you, Secretary of State.

  Mrs Hodgson: No. The Chairman might think that I talk too much. It might be a deliberate ploy. I would hate to think that that was the case.

  Chairman: Not at all.

  Q206  Mrs Hodgson: I should like to play devil's advocate and follow on from Annette's National Challenge questions. I was tasked by one of my councillors and you have already answered this question, so a one-line response will suffice. He said, "Is this not kicking schools when they are down, instead of giving them a helping hand?"

  Ed Balls: No, I do not think it is. It is about challenge. We want every local school to be a good school. Schools where there are low expectations and low performance, and the culture is about excusing poor performance, need to change. It is not good enough. But that is not what is happening in most schools in my experience, including most of the National Challenge schools. I have spoken to a number of heads with high added value and strong leadership, and close to 30% are on track. I have also spoken to a number of heads who are at an earlier stage, who know what is needed, but know that they cannot do it on their own. They can only do it with extra support. For those heads, National Challenge is an opportunity. It is important to present it that way.

  Q207  Mrs Hodgson: Wonderful. BSF now. I can be smug about this because Sunderland was one of the first to go through the BSF programme. I think Oxclose Community School in Washington was one of the first secondary schools, if not the first, that was fully renovated under BSF. Jim Knight came to open it. From that position of smugness, I know that in April the Government announced that authorities with four or five schools that are ready can join in a rolling programme instead of waves. Is that because you want the BSF process speeded up, or are you satisfied with the rate of progress? Have you set any targets for the number of additional authorities entering the programme over the next year?

  Ed Balls: We announced a couple of weeks ago a group of authorities that will come in more quickly. We now have half the local authorities—72—in the process, about 1,000 schools in planning or in construction and 13 already opened. There will be considerably more BSF schools. Is it well over 30?

  Jon Thompson: Thirty-five.

  Ed Balls: Thirty-five in September, so the process is definitely accelerating. My judgment, from talking to advisers and to the Schools Minister, was that we were right, at the beginning, not to go more quickly than authorities could deliver the programme, because school-wide system reform is big, challenging and often locally difficult, so we decided to go first to areas where there were some real challenges and more deprivation. It was right to take time, so the process has been slower than we would have liked, but it was right to go more slowly. We have a lot of experience now, and BSF is picking up the pace, things are accelerating and we do not feel as if we are off track. But if, within the programme, it is possible to create some space to bring some authorities or individual schools forward, of course we should, and that is what we have been doing.

  Q208  Mrs Hodgson: In the Children's Plan, you talk about a vision for 21st century schools, and I know that you are doing a review of what they should look like, but what impact do the forthcoming views have on BSF schools that are already in the process or that have already gone through?

  Ed Balls: In the Children's Plan, we said that we were in discussion with Building Schools for the Future to ensure that the idea of collocation of services was at the centre of our BSF planning. We have a process in Whitehall involving other Departments and BSF to look at how the procurement process, not just of schools but of other public services locally, can be brought together more effectively. If you like, I will send a note to the Committee in the next few days about how we are using BSF to drive that collocation of services in the 21st century school. That will encourage us to ensure that we can give you a good report.[5]

  Q209 Mrs Hodgson: We must recognise that BSF was launched in March 2004 and you became Secretary of State only in July 2007, so it was well under way before you headed up the Department and were able to impact your vision on what was happening. It would be unfair to level any criticism at your door for what went before, and I am not trying to do that, but can you add catering facilities to the vision of what a 21st century school should look like? I am sure you are, as I was, thrilled when Kevin Brennan came out and supported the stay on site policies, but the reason I ask—you will know straight away—is that secondary schools often do not have the right facilities, the schools were not designed for 1,000-plus children on site at any one time, and the catering facilities are not designed to feed that number of children. So, if you are looking at 21st century schools and the BSF programme is still ongoing, should we not design those schools bearing in mind, perhaps, my vision for 21st century schools, where there are universal free school meals and all children are kept on site and given a healthy, hot meal?

  Ed Balls: I know that you are a very good campaigner on these matters, and Alan Johnson and I had a meeting recently with researchers from Hull University to look at what has happened with the Hull experiment. Was it Hull University?

  Mrs Hodgson: Yes, that's right.

  Ed Balls: We looked at what has happened with the experiment on the free school meals project and at what the evidence shows. Two days ago I visited Sir Alan Steer's school, Seven Kings, in east London, where he has chosen to use his devolved capital—about one third of a million pounds—to completely rebuild the dining room facilities, because that for him was necessary to deliver healthy eating and to have an on-site schools policy. It is possible for schools, if they choose, to do that, if they have devolved capital that they can use. He did that. Over the last year we have also allocated well over £100 million for the next couple of years, which is not just for kitchens, but dining facilities. That is crucial to the effective take-up of school meals. In our note to you, on BSF, the collocation of services and the 21st century school, we will include the way in which BSF will make dining provision central to its thinking.

  Mrs Hodgson: That is just about it from me.[6]

  Q210 Chairman: One last thing on BSF. We can see why you want to get on with it, and why you might want three, four or five schools to be allowed to be part of BSF innovation. One of the most interesting and stimulating bits of BSF has been that, for the first time in anyone's memory, local authorities have been told to look at their vision for education over the next 20 to 50 years. Are you going to lose that with a more pragmatic, bitty way of delivering BSF?

  Ed Balls: That is not our intention, and I very much hope not. Where authorities are on the case on school improvement and thinking hard about 14-to-19 collaboration, and are ready to go, if we can make it possible for them to move more quickly, we should do so, but only if they pass that vision test. We will ensure that we do not lose the huge gains that we can get out of BSF by allowing it to become piecemeal and short-termist. That will not happen.

  Q211  Chairman: What about incentivising? You spoke about productivity earlier. All of the research outside and inside education suggests that what people do in buildings is as important as their design. Sometimes when I visit a school, I feel that it is about the way that children learn how to behave. I am thinking of the Blue school in Wells. It has halved its energy bill because it has taught children about the importance of minimising energy usage. It is about how teachers, staff, heads and students operate within a building. Is there a way of incentivising staff and children to be more productive, particularly in that BSF-related way?

  Ed Balls: Having a great building helps, but as you say, it is what happens inside that that really matters. The advantage of new school building—there has not been the kind of school building programme that we now have for decades.

  Chairman: I think that the word is a "magnificent" scale. Even I would say that.

  Ed Balls: It is huge. The scale of new schools opening in September is unprecedented for decades. However, it only works if heads and leadership teams take the opportunity of the new schools to do what really matters, which, as you said, is to use technology, have great teachers and focus on what actually happens in the classroom. A great building with poor teaching is of no use to anyone.

  Chairman: Secretary of State, because of the Committee's desire to ask questions about the testing system at the moment, we have overrun a little. Thank you for you patience. We have had a good session, and look forward to our next encounter.

  Ed Balls: I do not know about your scheduling and timetabling, but if you are to carry out an inquiry into children's trusts, it would be very welcome indeed. It would provide an opportunity to look not only at schools policy, but at how it links to the child and adolescent mental health services, youth offending teams, social services and housing—many of the things in the Children's Plan, which are very important in raising standards and promoting children's well-being, would be addressed in such an inquiry. However, obviously, that is a matter for you.

  Chairman: Secretary of State, that is unusual. We tend to design inquiries into areas where the Secretary of State does not want us to go, but we will keep that in mind. Thank you.

  Ed Balls: Thank you.





4   See Ev 50 Back

5   See Ev 51 Back

6   See Ev 51 Back


 
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