Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
COUNCILLOR LES
LAWRENCE
1 APRIL 2009
Q80 Mr Stuart: To what extent
do you think that choice has a role to play in challenging under-performance?
Cllr Lawrence: The first thing
to say is that we have to be very careful around the use of the
word "choice". The LGA and all the political parties
in it have been very strong in seeking to get clarification on
that. If you are talking about, for example, parents exercising
a preference as to where they would like their child to go to
school, be it primary or secondary, it is only a preference, because
it is not a choice in the strict sense of the word. You are given
options, but as for making a specific choice to place your child
in a schoolwhich, technically, exists in the independent
sectorin the state sector it is exercising a preference.
The exercise of that preference can indeedyou are rightbe
a mechanism for providing a challenge to the school in one sense.
But equally there are schools that actively encourage parents
to participate in the life of the school, which itself becomes
a challenge. Parents who are concerned about the outcomes for
their children provide not only a challenge but additional support
to schools to ensure that the education being delivered to the
young people is in a form and to a standard that they feel is
appropriate, so it is a partnership again at that level. If parents
feel that they are not getting the right education for their child,
either they can appeal to the local authority or, in extremis,
they can go direct to Ofsted and ask it to intervene. It is an
interesting area for debate, but I think that if you tried to
exercise strict choice you would bring instability into the school
system, which would be to the detriment of the overall provision
of education.
Q81 Mr Stuart: It would seem
to be the opinion of both the main political parties that that
instability would not have the effect that you mentioned, but
in fact would help to challenge deep-seated under-performance
in certain places. For example, the Conservatives are looking
more towards the Swedish model of freer schoolsbasically
taking this Government's reforms further and making them less
diluted. Does the LGA reject the idea that greater freedom to
set up new schools would provide the ultimate accountability of
allowing parents to go to new institutions?
Cllr Lawrence: The LGA's position
has always been that the diversity of types of education within
each local authority is to a large extent one of the strategic
roles of local authorities, which is why you have still got some
local authorities such as Kent which have grammar schools. You
have got authorities such as my own where we have not only grammar
schools, but single-sex schools and faith schools, and in a sense
you are providing a wider degree of preference for parents to
find an education most suited to what they believe are the needs
of their offspring. Some authorities have gone for a single type
of school within their local authority. I think that that type
of diversity and flexibility across local authorities itself provides
a challenge. If you look at the Swedish system you see that there
is now quite a lot of debate as to whether the free school system
has caused a degree of dissent and division within the communities
themselves. As I understand it, looking at recent debates in Sweden,
they are beginning to wonder whether they need to go in the opposite
direction, having been through the experimentit has taken
them about 20 years to create 900 of these schools, separate from
the other more traditional schools. Even that takes a long time
to evolve, and I do not think it is something that you could achieve
overnight even if you had legislation.
Q82 Mr Stuart: What do you
think of the provision in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children
and Learning Bill to make academies accountable to the new Young
People's Learning Agency as opposed to local authorities?
Cllr Lawrence: The LGA's position
is thatI will not quite describe it as ambivalentit
does not really worry us to any extent.
Q83 Mr Stuart: What do you
see as the rationale for the very complex set of performance management
processes that have been put in place for the 16-19 age group
in particular?
Cllr Lawrence: We have some concern
at the plethora of bodies: the YPLA, the SFA and the NAS, to name
but three. We think that is a slight overkill. We worry that there
is a danger of what we callnot mission creep, but you know
what I am getting at. It is a mechanism for exercising greater
centralised control than is necessary to exercise the new powers
for the commissioning of 16-19 provision. We also have some concern
at the apparent intention to dictate the size of the YPLA. We
understand that it is going to comprise around 500 people, and
we still have not worked out within our mechanisms exactly what
each of those people is likely to do. Therefore, the larger it
is, the more it will seek to find something to do.
Q84 Mr Stuart: The LGA has
talked about having a harmonised accountability system and a desirerather
than for competition and choicefor what seems to be the
idea of a need for greater collaboration between providers within
this harmonised accountability system. Could you explain a bit
more about that thinking?
Cllr Lawrence: At the end of the
day, if you take it from the outcome, what we want is quality
provision that allows each young person to find the most appropriate
route to develop potential after the statutory school system.
Therefore, we need to be able to ensure that what is being provided,
being commissioned, is of high quality at each and every stage.
That means that not every institution is going to be able to do
it. What you are doing is commissioning on the basis of need not
on the basis of demand. What tends to happen at the momentand
there is good evidence both real and anecdotalis that you
can have a lot of colleges each competing for the same pool, trying
to provide the same thing, the same type of course. At the end
of the day, the quality is not always the same in each and every
institution. Whereas if you challenge each of the institutions
to be the best, then those that are the best will be the ones
commissioned to provide. Those that are not quite up to the mark
will have to look at another niche area and develop that skill.
Q85 Mr Stuart: That rationale
will be familiar to anyone listening toI don't mean yourself
as a bureaucratbureaucrats through all time who have thought
that central planning and control and a rational division of responsibilities
from them is the right way to go. We get astonishing quality through
our supermarkets without an arm of the state intervening and telling
Waitrose to concentrate on these things and Tesco on something
else.
Cllr Lawrence: Supermarkets have
a freedom that colleges do not. They can target different groups
of people based on their ability to pay. So you will have the
"basics" and you will have the "finest"I
am not saying Tesco is the best, I am just using it as an exampleand
then people can mix and match. We cannot afford to have a 16-19
system that is predicated on the basis of a student's ability
to be funded at different levels. They have all got to be funded
to get the best quality outcome and we have to use the colleges,
work-based learning or the third sector to provide an education,
combined sometimes with training or employment, to ensure that
that young person continues to fulfil their potential and gain
the skills that will benefit not only them but wider society,
be it the private, public or third sector.
Q86 Mr Stuart: Could you talk
us through the information that local authorities rely on to assess
their skills. To what extent is it Ofsted-determined or contextual
value-added? Can you comment on the quality of that? Do you feel
there is a commonality in the way that local authorities use the
data?
Cllr Lawrence: In the statutory
sector local authorities now have a database of information that
enables them to track attainment very successfully, not only on
an age, ethnicity and gender basis but on a collective basis,
school by school, locality by locality. That certainly is being
used to provide differentiated support to different parts of local
authorities. If you take some of the inner areas of our cities,
you will find young people who at three, four, five and six have
little or no skill in English. Therefore you can target support.
Equally, with working-class white boys or black Afro-Caribbean
boys and Bangladeshi boys, you can target those groups with support
to raise their levels of attainment. It is perhaps a sign of the
times that girls outperform boys at all ages, irrespective of
ethnicity. Whether there is some hidden aspect there, I am not
sure. But because of that, you are able to see, first, where schools
are not achieving to the extent that they should be and, secondly,
what support is necessary to support improving levels of attainment.
Thirdly, you have a mechanism to show to communities, and especially
to parents, how schools attain and how they are succeeding with
their young people.
Q87 Mr Stuart: That all sounds
marvellous, yet the number of NEETs we have after the doubling
of education expenditure over the last 12 years is the same as
it was 12 or 13 years ago. The number of children who leave primary
school unable to read and write properly and the number who leave
at 16 without five good GCSEs are deeply depressing figures. From
what you have just said one might consider that local authorities
were intervening early and were able to track the individual pupil
to tackle the under-performance of white working-class boys for
instance, but there is no evidence that it is being tackled.
Cllr Lawrence: If you look at
the rates of improvement in many local authorities over the last
four to five years, you begin to see that data being used very
successfully. Yes, it has taken a long time. Do not forget that
those who are NEETs now started their school careers many years
back. The point that I was making to David Chaytor is that we
have had this constant change, dare I say it, ever since the Baker
curriculum reforms. Much of that was very good but the curriculum
was being prescribed to the nth degree from the centre. We have
moved a long way back to giving a lot more flexibility in terms
of the curriculum construct now. Therefore we are having to operate
in this constant state of change. A period of stability would
be very helpful to enable us to bring about the type of improvements
that we are beginning to achieve now, simply because we have the
data to hand and the powers to intervene. I think that over the
next three to five years that will bring about the type of standards
that we all want for our children and young people. Yes, you are
quite right. Local authorities have not been as good as they should
have been over the last decade in challenging and seeking to raise
the levels of attainment of young people.
Chairman: Your answer suggests it was
over the last two decades. You mentioned Lord Baker as the starting
point.
Cllr Lawrence: I sometimes forget
how long I have been involved in local government.
Q88 Paul Holmes: I was interested
in your comment that the debate in Sweden has now moved on from
the glowing view that free schools have been an unbridled success.
Are you aware that the Swedish national educational agency's analysis
of free schools showed that it was only the middle class who made
use of them effectively, and that they had led to an increase
in racial and social segregation in the areas where they were
set up?
Cllr Lawrence: That is the evidence
that the LGA has begun to gather. Some important benefits arise
from involving communities more in the life of a school and the
direction in which the school is going. There is an opportunity
for local authorities to utilise some of that to encourage and
embed schools within the communities in many parts of the country.
In some areas the level of aspiration within communities acts
as a barrier to young people further attaining. Pupils are only
in the school environment for a certain period of their life.
A school can only take the level of aspiration in a young person
so far, because once they go back into the communitythe
homethere is a depressing effect on that aspiration level.
Therefore, if you can engage communities within the life of the
school such that you had adult learning going on alongside the
young person's learningactually using the school as a community
resource in a wider contextyou can then begin to develop
the aspiration of the community as a whole. If you do that, the
teachers and the teams in the classroom can raise the aspiration
levels of the young people further. In that sense, there is a
benefit that comes out of the Swedish model, but it has to be
adapted to the English culture and way of life.
Q89 Paul Holmes: I
quite understand involving, for example, adults in school or having
adult education classes, which I have seen in lots of state schools
in this country, but why does that have to be part of a free school
movement?
Cllr Lawrence: It does not. In
many local authorities, it has been utilised because it has had
some interesting benefits. For example, adults beginning to learn
themselves means that they have been able to engage with their
young children at home, discussing what the young people are learning
and therefore what is consistent with their homework. Actually
sitting around the table and having interaction within the family
has itself been of benefit. That has helped to reduce misbehaviour,
truancy and all sorts of by-products. So, yes, it does not necessarily
come out of the free school movement, but the evidence shows that
the more you can engage communities in the life of the school
there is consequent benefit.
Q90 Paul Holmes: Last
question. In your experience, and you could write to us about
this rather than telling us now, are you aware of any hard evidence
from Sweden of the free schools actually challenging and changing
the curriculum in mainstream schools? When I was in Sweden, visiting
both free and state schools, no one could provide any evidence.
There were some people who made the assertion, "The free
schools have made things change," but no one could actually
provide one single piece of evidence to that effect.
Cllr Lawrence: We shall certainly
write to you on that. My colleague behind will take a note and
we shall get back to the Committee fairly quickly.[6]
Chairman: More work on the Swedish model.
Fiona.
Q91 Fiona Mactaggart: I am
interested in school improvement and in how local authorities
see their responsibilities and deliver them. For example, the
evidence from the NFER is that, at local authority level, this
is done in a more collaborative and less exigent way than perhaps
at national government level. Is that a deliberate strategy? Perhaps
you could tell us about that.
Cllr Lawrence: It is a deliberate
strategy. I know it is repeating the same message, but the family
of schools is the partnership with the local authority. At the
end of the day what you do not want is a whole series of institutions
working in different ways, to the detriment of each other in some
cases, and to the detriment of communities. What we want is to
raise all the schools to a level such that each community has
a good school within it, both primary and secondary, because we
believe that is fundamental to the development and cohesion of
communities. That is the first thing. Secondly, we also want schools
to help and assist each other. That is one of the things that
you will find in the NFER documentone of the things that
we encourage is high-flying, successful schools to assist schools
that are perhaps struggling at a particular time, with a particular
cohort of pupils or a particular subject area. Certainly in maths,
English and some of the sciences, we need schools to collaborate,
to share what are fairly scarce resources. Equally, when a school
takes on a new head, the local authority likes to support that
person into their post, and to use mentoring from long-standing
heads with that new head, to enable their start to be as successful
and as smooth as possible. So that is using a whole series of
different methodologies to bring about the partnering and collaboration
that Graham was seeking.
Q92 Fiona Mactaggart: How
do you know if they are working?
Cllr Lawrence: That has to be
done by monitoring the outcomes at various stages. There are the
key stages and ongoing assessments that take place within schools.
The relationships with the advisory teams, with the SIPs, is important
in providing feedback and in challenging governing bodies to ensure
that they fulfil their function of checking on what is happening
within the school. There are a number of different strands.
Q93 Fiona Mactaggart: You
talk about your role in challenging governing bodies. One of the
things that I am interested in is the way that National Challenge
is being received at local level. I wondered if you would say
what your view is of National Challenge, and whether it has helped
improve those schools that are not achieving five A-C grades,
including English and maths, or whether it has hurt them.
Cllr Lawrence: In terms of what
is happening on the ground, there is now general recognition that
the methodology and the way it is being implemented is assisting
significantly in turning round a number of schools. The issue
was that a lot of time and energy had to be diverted to deal with
the fallout from the way that the measure was presented and announced,
and then the unfortunate appearance in the national press. Many
of the schools that were within the categories deemed to require
National Challenge had a high contextual value added and were
often dealing with youngsters that many other schools were not
able to deal with. They felt that they were being categorised
not wholly in recognition of what they were doing, so that the
word "failing" immediately became the kitemark of the
school. The issue was presented as being one of English and maths,
but if you look at the figures, a lot of those schools were already
either high performers in English or in maths. There were not
that many schools that were underachieving in both. The presentation
of the intent was not effective, but on the ground a collaborative
and beneficial outcome is being achieved. You will see a significant
number of schools within the National Challenge going above the
30% barrier this coming year. The other aspect, which we have
raised with the Government and are still worried about, is the
degree of sustainability. It is all very well to target a particular
age groupthose who will take GCSEs this yearbut
we must ensure that the improvements, additional resources and
emphasis on that year group are translated right down the school
to those who joined year 7 in September last year. Sustainability
is one of the fundamental outcomes that must be achieved. We have
serious concerns that that emphasis, support and ongoing challenge
will not remain once the immediate impact has occurred.
Chairman: That sparked you off. I will
come back to Fiona. Graham?
Q94 Mr Stuart: You talked
about the pressure that was put on these schools through the accountability
arrangements and National Challenge. Do you have any concerns
about the distorting impact that kind of pressure can have on
schools? I am thinking about the possibility of pupils being directed
towards what could be perceived as easier courses. There is a
proliferation of people doing media studies. There is an increasing
contrast between the types of courses that are being taken in
independent schools, which are often chosen for their rigour,
and those that are chosen in many schools that are struggling
desperately to meet standards, tick the boxes and get over that
30% target. Although it looks like improvement, could we be undermining
the quality of education that the children are receiving?
Cllr Lawrence: Not if we continue
the concentration on English, maths and some aspects of science.
As long as it is within those narrow bounds, that diversion will
not occur. But I re-emphasise that we are worried about the sustainability,
because it is no good concentrating on just one or two year groups;
once achieved, you have to embed it into the culture of the school
and the delivery of education, such that it becomes a matter of
normal practice within that school. That is what the National
Challenge advisers have been tasked with ensuring. As well as
working with the leadership of schools, they are also now ensuring
that the government bodies are brought in and that those bodies
understand what is happening and take up the accountability reins.
Furthermore, as local authorities are now fully engaged, have
to report collectively and are responsible for the National Challenge
advisers, I think we have a chance to ensure the sustainability
and to ensure that we are not diverted towards inappropriate courses.
However, we still need to emphasise the importance of the vocational
strands, because not all young people are skilled and able to
do the academic ones. If the vocational strands have rigour and
robustness built into them, they will be just as challenging and
will help fulfil potential.
Q95 Fiona Mactaggart: I think
the frustration was that in some schools the sustainable model
was one in which the children did not achieve as much as they
were capable of, which is what, in a way, created the National
Challenge. I understand your concern that this is a good policy
badly communicatedif I am summarising you correctly. I
am interested in the balance between central government and local
government in terms of accountability. Central government seem
to use their challenge and warning powers, whereas local government
seems to emphasise collaboration and partnership. Maybe local
government is more able to deliver that, while central government
are more able to deliver the stick thing. If I have characterised
that correctlycorrect me if I have notis the balance
correct between, on the one hand, the relative role of local government
as the kind of partnership creator, supporter and chivvier and,
on the other hand, the role of national government as the alert,
warning and challenge institution? Do you think there is sufficient
understanding between central government and local government
of their different roles and of what the other is doing?
Cllr Lawrence: The answer to the
latter question is no, I do not, which in part is as much the
fault of local government as it is of central government, in that
we perhaps do not ensure that the communications between us are
as clear, concise and precise as they should be. That is something
that we in the LGA are seeking to address, not only with the current
ministerial team, but also with all the political party Front
Benches. I agree that things are badly communicated. Going back
to my response to David, what worries me is that the time scales
within which central government operate do not always fully take
into account the time that it takes to actually deliver and implement
a policy initiative that has been announced. If you think about
it, the full extent of any policy change within education takes
the full 10-year cycle to actually show the ultimate benefits.
The National Challenge is in part trying to change the culture
of low expectation, which in some cases can be very easily embedded
within certain environments. When you seek to change a culture,
it requires a step change in terms of the challenge of getting
people to refocus and, if necessary, move on and bring in people
who will bring about change. Then, in conjunction with staff,
the nature of the work that the young people are engaged in changes,
such that they begin to achieve in a fairly short space of time.
That is happening in some National Challenge schools. I think
that the recognition many schools have undertaken of what they
need to achieve will bring about the change, but it has to be
sustainable. The other strand is that National Challenge brings
with it additional resources. The trouble is that once National
Challenge ends, those resources will no longer be there and we
will have to make certainas local authorities that have
to carry onthat that support and change stay, albeit not
within the same financial framework as during the concentrated
period of the National Challenge.
Q96 Fiona Mactaggart: Have
there been any innovations at local authority level in recent
years that have been designed to improve accountability to parents?
Cllr Lawrence: It is difficult
to give specific examples because so many local authorities do
it in different ways. There is no single identifiable strand across
all local authorities. It often depends on the nature of the communities
in which those schools exist. For example, in one or two very
rural authorities the school has become the total centre of the
community. It is used for just about anything and everything besides
learning, and is used during the holiday periods and in the evenings
as a community resource. You will find that in the inner areas
of some of our major urban centres schools are used very much
to enhance and develop social cohesion because that engages the
community in the purposes of education and helps to raise its
aspirations. It is very differentiated; there is no single strand
as regards a method of engaging parents.
Q97 Chairman: Councillor Lawrence,
coming back to the overview of what you think has worked and what
has not worked over a period of time, all the areas that we have
been looking attesting, assessment, National Curriculum
and now accountabilityare mechanisms to improve standards.
Which do you think has been most successful?
Cllr Lawrence: There has been
an acceptance over the past two decades that schools need a degree
of autonomy to operate in recognition of the communities that
they serve. If you try to control too centrally, either at local
or national level, schools tend to try to operate to a common
denominator, whereas I think that you will find that most schools
have their own little subtleties in the way in which they operate,
which is designed to bring the best out of the young people they
are seeking to serve. I also think that the way in which the teaching
profession has been remodelled has been one of the major changes
that have brought about an improvement in attainment over the
past three to five years. That is because recognition of the professional
competence of the teaching work force, with the teacher at the
centre of a team in the classroom, has enabled a lot more individual,
personalised work to take place with pupils, in a way that recognises
the individuality of each pupil, moving away from what I often
used to call the "block teaching method"you taught
to the norm. It has also enabled the whole emphasis to be not
only to assist those at the bottom end who need a lot of help
but to stretch and challenge those who are in the gifted and talented
groups. That has been one of the most pivotal changes over the
past five years, I believe, in terms of turning round and moving
us towards vastly raised attainment levels.
Q98 Chairman: But, reading
between the lines of your answers, I take it that you like the
scaled-down and less intrusive Ofsted inspection system, compared
to the regime that Chris Woodhead ran?
Cllr Lawrence: We would certainly
like consistency within what Ofsted does. We also think that there
is a place for what I call the snap inspection, because one of
the regime's drawbacks, prior to the subtle changes that have
occurred recently in Ofsted, was the length of time schools had
to prepare and get all the paperwork in place and get everything
looking almost perfect. Many of us in local government feel that
the odd snap inspection, with 24 hours' notice, is also a good
way of providing insight into what is actually happening at a
point in time. I will go back to the point that we need consistency,
because if you do not have consistency, you will lose integrity;
the inspection process will not be respected and people will always
question the judgments that come out. If we can get that back
into Ofsted, I think we will have the independent body with the
quality we require.
Q99 Chairman: Coming back
to 16-19, in both your written evidence and in what you have said
today, you have expressed unhappiness with the complexity of 16-19
accountability. You complain about that, but when you gave evidence
on the school report idea, which after all is a simplification
system to put everything in one transparent document, you seemed
to want to have your cake and eat it. On one hand you are complaining
about too much complexity in 16-19, but on the other you are resistant
to the school report coming along, which some of us think will
simplify the whole process. How do you square those two views?
Cllr Lawrence: I will have to
go away and think of an appropriate answer.
Q100 Chairman: You do not
want to tell me more than that. Tell me a little bit more about
why you do not like school report cards.
Cllr Lawrence: It is the extent
to which the cards' outcomes are likely to be utilised, and I
think that, again, that does not recognise the diversity of types
of education you will find in different authorities. It is almost
trying to impose one centralised system, albeit a simple one,
right across the board, but it does not have the flexibility to
recognise the different types of schools and the different types
of communities they serve.
Chairman: Councillor Lawrence, we are
coming to the end of the session, but Annette wants to ask a further
question.
Q101 Annette Brooke: If we
are to have a new model for local authorities, which I am very
much in favour of, are the current systems for their assessment
adequate? I can give an example of an authority that has its pupil
referral unit languishing in special measures, two special educational
needs schools in special measures and two schools in the National
Challenge, and that is in an affluent part of the country, with
schools thriving in the affluent parts of the constituencies.
How can a local authority get away with that and be given four
stars and goodness knows what? Surely there is not enough accountability
for local authorities?
Cllr Lawrence: The new Comprehensive
Area Assessment system, I think, is designed to try to make the
inspector framework more relevant and more appropriate to a point
in time. The annual performance assessment, for example, came
out last December. It covered the period from 1 April 2007 to
31 March 2008, so it was reporting on a period that was distant
in time. If you take the attainment levels that APAs refer to,
you will see that was in the summer of 2007. Other attainment
levels were already published for 2008, so in a sense the credibility
of that part of the inspection regime was very much called into
question. Equally, the overall local authority judgment was also
very distant in terms of time. Certainly, with a CAA, the Audit
Commission want to apply it in such a way that it is more relevant
to the performance of an authority at the time you are reporting.
Within thatand I think this is where we can improve on
the point you are raisingOfsted is developing a methodology
to do much more of what I call snap inspections of children's
services, that is, not only the non-educational, but also the
educational part.
Chairman: That's the rub.
Cllr Lawrence: I think that will
bring about a greater degree of rigour and challenge, and will
make local authorities much more subject to their own oversight
internally and will stop them from allowing things to drift and
to get into the kind of situation that you have referred to. We
have not fully developed the other part, which is the scrutiny
function within local Government. If the scrutiny function in
local Government was really working, that type of situation would
clearly come into the public arena. I have to say that executive
members are sometimes afraid of scrutiny, but I like it and I
know quite a number of colleagues who like it. We really need
to develop that area over the next few years, because if we do
not, we will not be able to hold our heads up and say that we
are really doing the job that I was trying to convince Graham
that we have started to do.
Q102 Annette Brooke: I will
just ask a supplementary question. What role will the LGA play
in making sure that there is far more training on scrutiny for
opposition members right across children's services, not only
in child protection but also in schools?
Cllr Lawrence: We are very closely
working with the Improvement and Development Agency and we have
a series of what we call "things to know", "things
to check" and "things to do" lists. Those are not
only for lead members, but also for scrutiny Chairs. The three
group officers of the LGA are working collectively to ensure that
our database of opposition members is also enjoined within the
discussions, because, at the end of the day, we recognise that
you need both political as well as professional challenge within
the system, therefore, succession planning is absolutely essential.
That does not only mean lead members within a party; we also have
to recognise, quite properly, that parties change control within
local government and those who come in must be fully skilled and
capable of bringing about seamless change, such that most services
can move on without detriment.
Chairman: Councillor Lawrence, thank
you very much for your evidence this morning. We have learned
a lot. We hope to maintain our communication with you over the
course of the inquiry. If you think of things that you should
have told the Committee, but we did not ask the relevant question
to get the information, please let us know. Thank you very much
for spending your time with us today.
Cllr Lawrence: Thank you for the
rigour and the courtesy, Chair.
Chairman: Councillor Lawrence, if you
would like to stay with us for the next three witnesses, you would
be welcome.
6 Note by witness: The LGA is continuing to
undertake work on the Swedish model and is looking at the empirical
data which accompanies the system. There are significant differences
in political opinion within local government as to the possibility
and ramifications of introducing the Swedish model in England
which must be taken into account as discussions continue. Back
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