Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
20-39)
RT HON
MICHAEL GOVE
MP AND DAVID
BELL
28 JULY 2010
Q20 Liz Kendall: We have talked
about those schools that were at financial close and those that
weren't, but there was also another category: the 14 sample project
schools. Can I ask the Secretary of State, when was the decision
made to have schools divided according to financial close, not
financial close, and the 14 sample project schools? On what date
was the decision taken that those would be the three criteria?
Michael Gove: To the best of my
recollection, it was taken on the Thursday before the Monday when
I spoke to the House of Commons.
Q21 Liz Kendall: Did you at any
time have any advice or recommendation from the Treasury about
whether to go ahead with the 14 sample project schools?
Michael Gove: I first talked to
the Treasury in the middle of June, I think, about my desire to
ensure that we made an announcement. From that point on, I had
a number of conversations with the Treasury about how precisely
we should proceed.
Q22 Liz Kendall: What did the
Treasury recommend about the 14 sample project schools?
Michael Gove: We had a number
of discussions about how to proceed, and those discussions resulted
in us putting those schools in a particular category, where they
were for discussion.
Q23 Liz Kendall: So the Treasury
did not make any recommendation about those 14 sample project
schools?
Michael Gove: We had discussions
with the Treasury about what should happen with those, and we
came to this eventual conclusion.
Q24 Liz Kendall: Okay. Staying
on the 14 sample project schools, when will the decision be announced
about whether they will go ahead?
Michael Gove: We are talking to
the Treasury now about making sure that we can make that announcement
as quickly as possible.
Q25 Liz Kendall: Will the issue
of whether legal action may or may not be taken over those schools
influence your decision about whether they will go ahead?
Michael Gove: A number of factors
are influencing our decision about whether we should go ahead.
Q26 Liz Kendall: And legal implications
will be one of them?
Michael Gove: When we have taken
the whole set of decisions about Building Schools for the Future,
we have always taken advice. We took legal advice at every stage.
We are obviously looking at what the industry and local authorities
say, and we are looking at the particular complex of factors that
govern the position that these schools are in. These are schools
where a great deal of preparation work had been done and the schools
that were closest to the line, where it was drawn, so these are
the schools that are the hardest cases, as it were. Because they
are the hardest cases, we wanted to give them an extra level of
care, attention and thought. My officials, officials at Partnerships
for Schools and officials in the Treasury are involved in trying
to make sure that we make the right decision in that respect.
Q27 Liz Kendall: But I assume
you would not want to go ahead if you were going to be legally
challenged about them?
Michael Gove: When it comes to
the whole question of legal challenge, there is a variety of issues.
The first is, obviously, is there anyone who says that they might
challenge? Of course, you cannot know whether people will feel
tempted to, or what decision they might make. It is also the case
that, even though people might feel tempted to challenge, there
is also the question of what the likelihood is of any challenge
being successful. So in the first case you make a judgment about
attitude, in the second case you make a judgment about the law,
and then of course there is the question of what the costs involved
would be for yourself and for other parties. There is a number
of factors to weigh, and we are weighing all those factors as
we think about how that decision should be met.
Q28 Liz Kendall: So legal implications
will be part of the decision that is taken on those 14 sample
schools?
Michael Gove: It already has been,
in that we have looked at the legal advice. We specifically sought
legal advice in this context, as you would expect.
Q29 Liz Kendall: Finally, going
back to you, Mr Bell. Considering the fact that so many mistakes
were made in the list, do you regret ignoring Partnerships for
Schools' advice to make sure the list was properly validated before
the Secretary of State published it?
David Bell: I think it was a mistake
not to put to the Secretary of State the possibility of checking
the data with local authorities. As Permanent Secretary, I am
ultimately responsible for the policy advice that goes to the
Secretary of State, so I take responsibility for that. A number
of us made mistakes. There are a lot of lessons to learn from
this process, and one of the tasks for us now is to take stock
and learn lessons, so, hopefully, this sort of thing will not
happen again.
Michael Gove: Can I add one other
thing pendant to what the Permanent Secretary says? I had originally,
early in June, asked for information on a local authority and
constituency basis. It was also the case that others within Government
had asked for that information and had been told that it could
be supplied on a school-by-school basis. As I think Tim Byles
acknowledged yesterday, I asked for a lot of information. It is
a complicated process, and I felt it was my duty to do so. Before
the election, I—or, rather, my colleague Nick Gibb—had
said that financial close was likely to be the cut-off point,
and that guided our thinking, but we wanted to interrogate those
assumptions, look at what was happening on the ground and see
what the consequences would be. At no stage did any official say
to me, "Delay this announcement." It is also the case,
as the Permanent Secretary mentioned, that no one said to me explicitly
that the information should be validated at local authority level.
And it is also the case that I and my officials were assured that
the information was being double and triple-checked. As the Permanent
Secretary has acknowledged, with the benefit of perfect 20:20
hindsight we can acknowledge that mistakes were made, but I just
want to stress that my officials were diligent in ensuring that
the list was checked, and used their best efforts and offices
to ensure that the list was checked. Ultimately, however, the
responsibility is mine. One reason why I made the statement that
I did to the House of Commons is that I believe that when things
go wrong, the responsibility is the Secretary of State's to acknowledge;
that is why I made the apology that I did.
Q30 Liz Kendall: Do you think
that if you had taken the decision about the different criteria—financial
close, not financial close, and the sample projects—with
more of a gap between the decision and when the announcement was
made, there would have been sufficient time to do more accurate
validation? Do you regret taking the decision so closely before
the announcement?
Michael Gove: Actually, as far
as I know, the significant error that relates to Sandwell was
about a misclassification, which did not come within any of those
categories. It was the case that, at different stages, the category
into which schools would be sliced remained the same, so ultimately
you can say that schools are going ahead in this category, or
that they are not going ahead in this category, but the category
in which schools rest did not change.
Q31 Conor Burns: Mr Bell, can
I start with you? When, as Permanent Secretary of the Department,
you were looking at the possibility of a change of government
and looking at statements being made by Opposition spokespeople,
you would have been under no illusion that they did not have clearly
worked-out ideas. Did you have conversations with Mr Byles about
preparations for what would happen to BSF in the event of a Conservative
Government?
David Bell: Yes, we were talking
for quite a period before the election, and the Secretary of State,
then in opposition, was talking to a number of the Department's
non-departmental public bodies. We had begun to speculate, but
I think that it is fair to say that in those pre-election conversations,
we could go only so far. First of all, we did not necessarily
know that all that we were being told was going to be the complete
picture—policies change in opposition. Also, to be fair,
those who were in opposition at the time did not have all the
information at their disposal. I think that it is just the nature
of the pre-election period that we all work with imperfect information,
in a sense. But yes, we were clear that particularly the Conservative
party in opposition had some pretty radical changes in mind for
BSF.
Q32 Conor Burns: One of the things
that slightly surprised me yesterday in the evidence that Mr Byles
gave us was that he talked about how he had prepared a large number
of lists on a variety of criteria, and that they were clear about
what was at financial close or what was at close of dialogue.
This was a very professional, but very complex, organisation.
With the level of run-in to this, were you surprised that there
were as many mistakes as there were in the information that was
supplied to you?
David Bell: Some of the mistakes
were the responsibility of the Department in passing information
over to Partnerships for Schools. I have to be clear about that,
for the avoidance of doubt. As Mr Byles said yesterday, and as
I have said this morning, the sorts of errors that we were talking
about were in the main to do with the name of the school, for
example, opening and closing decisions and timetables. I think
that he used the word "fluid" yesterday, and I think
that the list was of that nature. In the end, we were all disappointed
that we did not get the list right for the Secretary of State,
and it was really important in those circumstances for me to apologise
to the Secretary of State for the list not being as accurate as
it should have been, because that put him in an invidious position
when he stood up in the House of Commons.
Q33 Conor Burns: Secretary of
State, I wonder whether I might just probe a little with you about
what the shadow Secretary of State said to us yesterday. There
was a very clear exchange between you and him in the House of
Commons on 11 January about the capital programme and the outgoing
Government's potential 50% reduction. The shadow Secretary of
State told us yesterday that he had had exchanges by letter with
the then Chief Secretary, and I understand that he returned to
the Department to look at that correspondence; he told us that
BSF would pretty much be exempt from that 50% reduction. I'd like
to put the same thing to you that I put to him yesterday. Anecdotally,
what I was finding in the run-up to the election is that the pace
of sign-off of schools that had completed all the necessary paperwork
had decreased significantly, and there was a suspicion that a
lot of the promises wouldn't be delivered regardless of which
party won the election. There seemed to be a marked decrease in
the pace of closure. Do you share my suspicion that, perhaps regardless
of the outcome of the election, many of the promised schools would
have fallen victim to the economic circumstances that we are in?
Michael Gove: I do. Ultimately,
it is a matter of political contention. You mentioned, and I mentioned
earlier, that the previous Chancellor had committed to a 50% reduction
in capital expenditure overall, but the previous Government—understandably,
given that an election was looming—hadn't specified any
capital project that would end. A question mark was therefore
hanging over every capital project. I am sure that the previous
Secretary of State, had his Government been re-elected and had
he been put in that position, would have fought tenaciously for
his budget—but so would other Secretaries of State. I am
sure that the Chancellor would have taken a view. We know that
there were a number of occasions in the run-up to the last election
when the previous Secretary of State and the previous Chief Secretary
were in dispute about exactly what should be said about the education
budget. It was confirmed in a letter from the Permanent Secretary
to the previous Secretary of State that the extent of end-of-year
flexibility—basically, the capacity to use underspends in
other Departments to fund spending in your own Department above
the baseline—that the Department for Education wanted to
use was a matter of discussion between the Treasury and the Department.
You had a situation where the Treasury was not entirely happy
with the level of end-of-year flexibility that the Department
for Education had. On top of that, you had £155 billion deficit.
And on top of that, you had a promise to cut capital expenditure,
with no detail being provided. The logical thing to presume is
that, somewhere along the line, school capital expenditure would
have been constrained and if Building Schools for the Future went
ahead in its entirety, the consequence would have been that the
amount of school capital elsewhere would have been cut. One of
the documents that I had on my desk when I came in was a report
from the Office of Government Commerce that said the most critical
issue in relation to schools capital was the pressing need for
an increase in places for primary school pupils.
Q34 Conor Burns: Can I lastly
ask you to give some advice to schools going forward? If I may
say so, from your point of view I think this has been a bit of
a PR disaster, because the impression is that you are ending all
school building, when the reality is that you have just cancelled
Building Schools for the Future. You have cancelled a programme,
not ended the opportunity for schools to carry on and, hopefully,
improve themselves. Last Friday I visited the Kings school in
the north of my constituency, which will become an academy in
September in partnership with Canford private school—they
are going to introduce a house system and all sorts of other things.
The Kings school is in a very poor part of Bournemouth. The head
teacher said to me, "Building Schools for the Future is gone.
What do we do now?" What is your message of advice to schools
across the country that had been given hope by the last Government
and are now looking to you and asking, "How do we approach
you to improve our schools in future?"
Michael Gove: When it comes to
PR, I am a fan of the view of the last Prime Minister, who said
that other people could be keen on PR; he would concentrate on
policy. But I do take your point. An impression has been created
that ending Building Schools for the Future means there has been
an end to schools capital overall, because so much rhetorical
hype was invested in BSF by the previous Government. As you know,
Building Schools for the Future was only a third of capital investment
overall in schools and, in fact, by ending this bureaucratic scheme,
we make it easier to allocate capital to schools in the future.
As the Chairman teased out in the first set of exchanges, one
of the things we want to do—this was reinforced by subsequent
questions—is ensure that there is more money, particularly
for primary schools and schools in dilapidation, than might otherwise
have been the case. In terms of expectation management, we are
going to go through a very difficult period in the next public
spending process. We all need to recognise that the extent of
expenditure sustained by borrowing that the last Government were
carrying through in the run-up to the last election was unsustainable.
In that sense, we do need to correct certain expectations. You
are also right that it is important that we communicate to schools,
parents and pupils that capital investment in schools will continue.
The most important things as far as I am concerned are meeting
that need for new pupil places and dealing with those buildings
in the worst condition.
Chair: I'm going to move on to Damian
now. This is a fascinating session, but time is flying by, so
if we could have short, sharp questions and—
Michael Gove: Briefer answers—
Chair: Briefer answers, we will move
along effectively.
Q35 Damian Hinds: Secretary of
State, following on from Conor's questions, in terms of future
capital, there is obviously the capital expenditure review, which
reports at the end of the calendar year, whereas the spending
review overall is in October. How do you expect those two things
to interact?
Michael Gove: I have asked the
capital review to produce an interim report, which can feed into
the comprehensive spending review. There will be some preliminary
findings to help them form the comprehensive spending review.
Once we have the comprehensive spending review, we will know what
the pot of capital is, and then, once we have the capital review,
we will know how we can use that money as effectively as possible.
Q36 Damian Hinds: Also following
on from Conor's question about a school in his constituency—I
have one in my constituency as well of course, Mill Chase school
in Bordon—in broad terms, on the process, whatever the eventual
criteria that the review team come up with and whatever the cash
limits and so on, there is presumably going to be a change in
criteria, because we have talked about dilapidations and so on,
but also a move away from area-wide applications. Potentially,
you could have some schools in an area effectively competing for
the cash-limited overall CapEx pot with non-local authority free
schools. How does the process evolve and who do schools make their
case to for capital allocation?
Michael Gove: What we are seeking
to do is to make the process simpler. In many cases, capital will
either be going straight to schools or straight to local authorities,
but we want to be cutting out the middle man as it were. Of course,
schools and local authorities will make their case. We will set
up some criteria, which we hope to make as transparent and rules-based
as possible. However, the reason why we brought people who have
local authority and business experience into the capital review
is that I don't want to prejudge that process. Everyone who is
involved in the process of the capital review has said to me that
they know that they can reduce costs and make the process simpler.
I am holding them to that.
Q37 Damian Hinds: Without prejudging,
obviously, in the future phase, it will be necessary to do more
with less. You have identified some things that you expect to
find cost savings in—for example, in more modular design,
better procurement or reforming the whole LEP process. In what
other areas do you expect to find savings? For example, when you
read the figure of £1,675 per pupil spent on IT and the Building
Schools for the Future project, that seems an astronomical number.
I wonder which things you expect—not to prejudge—to
find savings in.
Michael Gove: In a way, one of
the broader things that we are doing in education reform overall
is to institute a series of changes which will help ensure that
professionals take more control over spending, so that they decide
how to use resources more effectively. Recently, I was struck
when reading an interview with the superintendent of education
in Edmonton in Canada about a point he made: once you have devolved
decision-making power and once people are spending money for their
own school in their own way, they get better value for money.
That point has been made to me by a variety of sixth-form college
principals and other head teachers. So if you take IT, I think
as a country we spend more on IT in schools than almost any other
nation, but many of our teachers and parents might wonder whether
we are getting the best value. I have been engaging with a number
of organisations, from Apple through to Pearson and Microsoft,
and talking to them about what we need to do in IT. One of the
points that they made to me is that a little less investment in
hardware and a little more investment in people is what is required.
If we want to make the best use of information technology, we
need to have teachers and other professionals in school who are
confident about how to use sophisticated technology and about
how to make best use of it in the classroom and elsewhere. It
is in keeping with the broader principle that I tick as well.
When I made my announcement on 5 July, it was regrettable that
we had to pause school building projects. But one of the other
points that I sought to make then is that the area of principal
investment that I would like to see is teaching. The single most
important thing in education is improving the quality of the educational
experience for each child by investing in higher-quality teaching.
The one thing that all international evidence reinforces in my
mind is that there is simply no way of generating educational
improvement more effectively than by having the best qualified,
most highly motivated and most talented teachers in the classroom.
Everything should be driven by that. If you get truly qualified
and talented people in, they will know the IT decisions they need
to make in order to improve education.
Q38 Chair: Before I come to Charlotte,
may I ask you, Secretary of State, about appointments and pre-appointment
hearings? The Chancellor has agreed that the Treasury Committee
should have a right of veto on the appointment of the head of
the Office for Budget Responsibility. Do you think that a similar
right of veto is necessary for the small number of key posts for
which other select committees, including this one, carry out pre-appointment
hearings?
Michael Gove: With permission,
Chairman, I am very keen to explore that with the Committee. There
are certain key appointments that Parliament should have a say
in. Your predecessor Committee took a view on the appointment
of the Children's Commissioner, with which I had some sympathy.
The individual concerned is now carrying out her duties very professionally,
but that is not the point in a way. The point is that there was
a process in place, which I felt was ridden roughshod over. I
would like to work with you to identify those posts that you—Parliament's
representatives—believe should be subject to pre-appointment
hearings. If there are positions and appointments that the Department
makes that you believe should be subject to that process, let's
discuss it. I do not want to set limits on that process, nor do
I want to say at this stage what I think your role should be.
You might want to argue strongly that you should have veto power
over some posts and others where you might argue that the role
you should play should be slightly smaller. Let's discuss that.
Chair: Thank you, Secretary of State;
we will return to that.
Q39 Charlotte Leslie: I want to
ask broadly about departmental spending and priorities. First,
as I understand it, BSF is a mechanism for capital spend, as opposed
to capital spend itself, which has already been raised. Part of
the reason there has been so much concern about the cancellation
of BSF is that it was seen as a way of targeting disadvantage
in schools. I do not want to prejudge the capital spending review,
but will you explain and clarify how moving ahead with capital
expenditure will tackle disadvantage? Some of the concerns raised
have been based on a perception that capital spend will no longer
target disadvantage in the way that BSF did. Will you clarify
how disadvantage will be the target of capital spend?
Michael Gove: I think that it
is debatable to what extent BSF effectively targeted disadvantage.
There were some areas of the country where there were clear problems.
Children from poor backgrounds were being educated in poor circumstances
and BSF was not addressing that. That is the first thing. The
second thing is that the evidence that I have seen shows that,
if you educate children in very poor circumstances, that undoubtedly
has an impact on their education. However, there is a lesser return
to value on investment once you pass a certain point. If children
are being educated in dilapidated surroundings with inadequate
materials, you have got to address that. However, when you move
from good buildings to great buildings, as it were, that additional
investment is not necessarily the most cost-effective way of using
education pounds in order to transform children's achievement.
The most cost-effective way—and this reflects what Mr Hinds
was asking—is to invest in teaching and learning. When it
comes to capital allocation overall, I stress dilapidation; I
stress basic need, and I mentioned earlier that one thing that
guides us in all areas of spending is disadvantage. To my mind,
a more promising area is the pupil premium: the idea that if we
identify the most disadvantaged children, wherever they are in
the country, we give the schools that educate them more cash,
so that they can invest in one-to-one or small group tuition;
Saturday or after-school lessons; or hiring specialists in particular
areas to stretch them. I entirely accept that, when it comes to
future capital allocation, disadvantage is a feature we will have
to look at. I do not want to think that capital is always the
route to addressing disadvantage; I want to ensure that we look
at how we improve teaching.
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