Memorandum submitted by the Local Government
Association
INTRODUCTION
1. For the purposes of this submission,
the LGA has focused its responses on the Inquiry's questions as
follows:
Is it right in principle that schools
should be held publicly accountable for their performance?
Is the current accountability system of inspection and performance
reporting for schools broadly fit for purpose?
How should schools be held accountable for
their performance in the context of increasing collaboration in
education provision?
2. In addition to this general document,
the LGA submits three other documents[1]
that have a bearing on the Inquiry's remit, namely:
LGA submission to the Ofsted consultation
on the School Inspection Framework from September 2009.
LGA submission to the recent Government
consultations on 21st Century Schools and the School Report Card.
Research commissioned by LGA from National
Foundation for Educational Research (NFER) on the local authority
role in school improvement.
SPECIFIC COMMENTS
ON SCHOOL
ACCOUNTABILITY
Is it right in principle that schools should be
held publicly accountable for their performance?
3. Schools are clearly a core element of
universal public services, which stand at the heart of communities.
They educate children, increasingly host extended services for
children and their families, provide space for community activities
in many cases, have close links with local community and faith
groups and employers and often provide a neutral venue for public
meetings and community discussions among a host of other roles.
Schools are very much regarded by parents and the wider community
as institutions which work very much at the local level, integral
to their everyday lives.
4. If our primary interest is in the outcomes
for these local children and young people, local parents, local
community services and local employers, then as the outcomes are
about them and for them, so accountabilities must be to them.
5. With regard to the quality of provision and
performance, Ofsted inspects schools based on national datasets
and standardised criteria. Local authorities have a remit to monitor
schools' performance in their area and where Ofsted indicates
there is poor performance or where the local authority is concerned
that performance is not what it might be, the school is accountable
to the inspectorate and local authority for devising and implementing
improvement plans.
6. Schools are funded via the DSG (Dedicated
Schools Grant) from central government and this may be topped
up by further local authority finance. For financial purposes
and value for money, accountability can be traced from the school
to local and central government.
7. While schools have duties and responsibilities
to Ofsted, local and central government to maintain certain standards
of provision and to run effectively with the resources they are
given, the true accountability for what is actually delivered
is to those local people who are in receipt of provision, eg day-to-day
teaching and development of children.
8. Schools are public institutions funded
by public money providing outcomes for the public, so they should
be publicly accountable. To that end, it is right that the school
governing body along with the headteacher are accountable to the
local people that the school serves in the first instance, measured
against locally and nationally agreed standards of performance.
9. Governing bodies of schools ideally contribute
the following:
supporting and challenging the headteacher
and acting as a critical friend;
being involved in financial management,
monitoring plans;
undertaking a scrutiny role, carrying
out operational tasks;
representing community and parental interest,
and
ensuring the accountability of the governing
body and collaborating with other institutions.
10. LGA considers that there is no particular
reason to believe (from Ofsted or elsewhere) that governance in
schools and colleges is fundamentally broken. However, local authorities
have been concerned for many years about the capacity for a governing
body to be thrown off course by a single maverick governor. Much
time can be spent dealing with this. We suggest that there should
be a national governor code of conduct and that there should be
the ability for a governor of any sort to be potentially liable
to a vote of no confidence requiring resignation, with a local
authority appeal process.
11. Further, despite the immensely valuable
contribution of many governors, who it should always be remembered
are volunteers, school governance has provided growing concern
to some Lead Members for Children's Services. The concerns are
based around quality and capability as much as accountability.
These concerns are more likely to be with regard to primary schools
than secondary. The training for, and the understanding of, responsibilities
especially in regard to safeguarding, SEN, and employment are
just a few of the critical areas. Despite many local authorities
providing the opportunities for training, the level of take up
is often minimal. School governors are not required to undertake
training, nor are chairs of governing bodies. There is a range
of providers and a national programme, as well as local authority
support.
12. Further, the loose definition around
categories of governors has allowed the potential for manipulation
of appointments to create difficult situations in some areas.
College governing bodies are almost wholly fit for purpose.
Is the current accountability system of inspection
and performance reporting for schools broadly fit for purpose?
13. As stated, inspection and performance
are a sub-element of accountability, ensuring that schools deliver
what is commonly agreed is adequate or better provision. This
is a regulatory framework for standards and effectiveness rather
than accountability per se. Accountability must be to local people
involved with accessing education or delivery of activities from
schools.
14. LGA believes the overall rationale of inspection
and performance is quite right. However, the current situation
can be fragmented, inconsistent and not necessarily designed to
support school improvement on an ongoing basis. Governor Mark,
the voluntary quality mark for governance, notes that from September
2003 the School Inspection Framework for Schools has included
criteria for the inspection of governance. However, short notice
inspections may have a side effect where the "process has
the potential to exclude the governing body from active engagement
with the inspection team and thereby make judgements on the quality
of governance very difficult". It goes on to note that it
is therefore "vital that the governing body are also able
to evidence their own process of self-evaluation and assess their
contribution towards and impact upon school improvement".[2]
Another recent study on governance concluded that:
Given the governing body's responsibilities,
the inspection of their work and their involvement in the inspection
process are limited.[3]
15. Effective governing bodies:
have a clear understanding of their role
and responsibilities;
share a common vision of what the school
is trying to achieve;
have good communication;
work to clearly structured agenda;
are effectively chaired;
have meetings where members feel able
to speak their minds, and
are supplied with good quality, relevant
information.
16. Many, however, can feel:
overloadedgoverning bodies are
responsible for too much;
overcomplicatedtheir work is very
complex, difficult and demanding, and
overlookedwhat governing bodies
are responsible for goes largely unnoticed.[4]
17. In addition to somewhat ambiguous definitions
at times of their real responsibilities in regulations and guidance,
the School Governance Study also noted inherent tensions that
governing bodies have to contend with when discharging their functions,
notably:
support versus challenge;
representation versus skill;
operational versus strategic, and
organising versus scrutiny.[5]
18. Overall, LGA believes that performance
management requires relatively simple but robust systems throughout
the maintained sector, based on self-evaluations against standardised
data, ratified by the local authority, and checked by inspection;
with standardised reporting to constituencies through the school
report card or similar. The complexity and analysis around performance
management can be an area not well understood by governing bodies.
19. Schools face Ofsted inspections and
local authority assessment through School Improvement Partners
(SIPs) and receive support both locally through the local authority
and from central government programmes, notably National Strategies
(including National Challenge). Given the need for local accountability,
it is sometimes not clear how local requirements and context is
adequately addressed. Contextual value addedthough sometimes
controversial in methodologyis extremely important in underpinning
local accountability and improvement planning. It demonstrates
that national references and data can have a respect for local
circumstances and needs so that problems can be challenged in
the most relevant and tailored way and that local people can understand
that.
20. There remains ongoing anecdotal evidence
about the inconsistency of inspection judgements and this again
can demonstrate the need for local accountability as necessary
alongside inspection, not only to face up to difficult problems
and make stark decisions, but also in enabling relationships to
weather storms and get improvement back on track. In many cases,
this is a key local authority function, combining local understanding,
expertise and challenge. National bodies may come in and deliver
verdicts or support over a short timescale or a narrow scope.
Local accountability is required because improvement actually
happens best at the frontline with local professionals supported
by those with local understanding.
How should schools be held accountable for their
performance in the context of increasing collaboration in education
provision?
21. School governance must strike a careful
balance between enabling the autonomy of the school to function
efficiently and effectively day-to-day and also providing a point
of accountability. For the last twenty years, local authorities,
for example, have had far less day-to-day management over schools.
Autonomy is to be welcomed as it can improve efficiency and innovation
at the frontline of learning. This is more problematic where not
everything is working as it should or where co-operation between
schools and other schools or between schools and other services
would help improve outcomes for young people. The local authority
has duties for the more general planning of learning locally.
22. Academies, CTCs and CCTAs clearly hold a
particular degree of autonomy through their funding arrangements
directly with the Secretary of State. Nevertheless, the outcomes
of local children and young people are best served where Academies,
other local schools and local authorities work well together and
very many do. Notwithstanding the autonomy of institutions, the
local authority has duties both under the Education Acts (most
recently the Education and Inspections Act 2006) to ensure the
educational fulfilment of all children and young people in its
area, as well as duties to ensure the well-being of children,
including education and achievement, under section 10 of
the Children Act 2004. The local authority may use legitimate
methods of scrutiny, eg of outcomes' data, performance of partnerships
etc., to help hold individual institutions to account or to raise
concerns. The LGA has welcomed the provision in the current Apprencticeships,
Skills, Children and Learning Bill (clause 184(2)(a)) which extends
the Children Act's 'duty to co-operate' to other educational institutions,
including Academies. This will mean that these institutions can
both input more effectively to the Children and Young People's
Commissioning Plan and be built into the wider accountabilities
of the Children's Trust Board for outcomes to young people.
23. The 14-19 curriculum is becoming
more unified, and the diversity characteristic of the 16-19 phase
will increasingly apply from 14-19. Many schools are already commissioning
14-16 provision from colleges and training providers, often
through consortium arrangements.
24. This diversity of provision provides
opportunities for local authorities and providers to secure and
commission effective, high quality and flexible provision to meet
learners' needs, and poses challenges around such areas as performance
management, accountability, and funding allocations.
25. Local authority commissioners of 16-19 education
provision need to know that the provision being commissioned is
of the highest quality possible. Commissioners need to be assured
that providers or institutions are committed to continual development
and improvement, and that where quality of provision is less than
adequate, rapid steps will be taken to make improvements, if necessary,
by externally imposed action.
26. The key agency for driving improvement
is the institution or provider itself, supported as appropriate
by other providers working in local delivery consortia. Support
and challenge are also delivered by the sponsoring agency; where
this is not effective, the sponsoring agency will have duties
to secure improvement. For schools, the sponsoring agency is the
local authority, with support and challenge delivered through
the local authority school improvement service, which may be internal
or externally contracted, and through school improvement partners.
For academies, the proposal is that the YPLA provides the service.
For sixth form colleges, the sponsoring agency will be the local
authority, with support and challenge delivered through the local
authority school improvement service, which may be internal or
externally contracted, and through school improvement partners.
For GFE colleges, the SFA will be the sponsoring agency and with
local authorities and the YPLA to identify underperformance, commissioning
the Learning and Skills Improvement Service (LSIS) as necessary.
27. Independent and third sector providers
are responsible for their own improvement and are subject to a
range of contractual provisions should the quality of their work
not be appropriate.
28. Proposals for the future performance
management for 16-19 education are disparate and complex.
They include the School Report Card, the Data Dashboard, a variety
of Ofsted inspection frameworks, the Framework for Excellence,
Comprehensive Area Assessments, Self-Regulation, and Performance
Tables, together with potential intervention by a variety of sponsoring
bodies. Unless these are brought together into a single integrated
system there is likely to be both public and professional confusion
and inefficient use of resources.
29. It is necessary that all those institutions
or providers engaged in delivering education and training outcomes
for young people are credited, or otherwise, when those outcomes
are, or are not, delivered. Institutional inspection alone cannot
identify these. A wider assessment of the overall performance
of local providers is necessary through the local 14-19 Area
Partnership and the effectiveness of its commissioning strategy.
Have the outcomes the Partnership has set been appropriate and
suitably met and if not why not?
March 2009
http://www.ncogs.org.uk/emie/content.asp?id_content=1244&id_category=920&level=&spass=true&spass_id=&spass_user=
1 Not printed. Back
2
Governor Mark: Quality Mark for Governance, GLM governance,
leadership and management, p2-see: Back
3
Governing our Schools: The School Governance Study, Business
in the Community/University of Bath, October 2008, p62-see: http://www.ncogs.org.uk/emie/content.asp?id<_>content=1244&id<_>category=920&level=&spass=true&spass<_>id=&spass<_>user= Back
4
Ibid. p61 Back
5
Ibid. p63 Back
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