Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
40-59)
RT HON
MICHAEL GOVE
MP AND DAVID
BELL
28 JULY 2010
Q40 Charlotte Leslie: On that
note, do you think there are lessons to be learned from charter
schools, which in America have tackled disadvantage, not only
through setting them up but some capital expenditure?
Michael Gove: That is a very good
point. One of the striking things about the best charter schools
is that they have often been set up alongside existing schools.
I was told a very striking story by a colleague who visited two
schools in the same block in New York. One—in effect, a
local authority school—had poor standards of behaviour and
low levels of attainment in an area where it was difficult for
children to graduate from high school. In the same building, you
had a charter school run by an organisation started by teachers,
which had dramatically high levels of attainment. One of the impetuses
behind the reforms that Barack Obama is bringing into American
education is the desire to increase the number of charter schools,
because he recognises that if you give teachers the opportunity
to take control of schools, set the ethos, decide on the curriculum
and run the school in the way that they believe reflects their
idealism and moral purpose, you can generate fantastic results.
For example, the Knowledge is Power Program schools, which are
the result of the amazing initiative and energy of two teachers,
have had fantastic achievements and have, in effect, closed the
black-white achievement gap in parts of New York. We want to ensure
that teachers have the same power here. I am struck by the fact
that teachers have said to me, "Solicitors, doctors and other
professionals have the opportunity to set up practice, go where
their services are needed and provide the service that drew them
into that profession and vocation in the first place." Teachers
cannot do that; they cannot set up schools in this country in
the same way. That is why the reforms that we have brought in
are designed to harness that enthusiasm. I am overjoyed that a
significant number of teachers have expressed an interest in helping
to set up new schools, specifically in areas of disadvantage—The
Times Educational Supplement covered this recently—to
address the huge problem in this country. Out of 57 countries,
we come second from bottom in the level of educational equity
that we achieve. If we can borrow from what Barack Obama has done
and use capital and revenue investment to create new schools—Knowledge
is Power Program schools—we can make a significant change
in helping to address this historic inequality.
Q41 Charlotte Leslie: In terms
of departmental spend priorities, we are where WE are—this
is one of the problems—because politics engenders short-term
thinking about spending, owing to the cycle of parliamentary terms.
To what extent would early intervention and long-term investment,
for example, be part of departmental spend priorities?
Michael Gove: Just today, we are
announcing a new initiative on early intervention. My deputy,
Sarah Teather, sits on a Cabinet Committee dealing with social
justice, which is chaired by the Secretary of State for Work and
Pensions. Today, Graham Allen, the honorable Member for Nottingham
North, has agreed to lead some work on how we can improve early
intervention. I agree with you that it is critically important
that we ensure, at the earliest possible stage, that we work particularly
with those families who have multiple difficulties to address
some of the problems that hold children back. The fact that Graham
and Frank Field are working with us reflects their commitment—and
the commitment of the coalition Government—to try to get
beyond the necessary political discussions that happen between
parties to try to build consensus in this area. I feel strongly
that unless you work early, some of the inequalities that we have
just been discussing get worse. I was struck when in opposition
by some research by Leon Feinstein at the Institute of Education,
which showed that children of low cognitive ability from wealthy
backgrounds overtake children of high cognitive ability from poor
backgrounds before they even arrive at school. In effect, rich
thick kids do better than poor clever children, and when they
arrive at school, the situation as they go through gets worse.
Schools should really be engines of social mobility that overcome
the disadvantages of birth. Unfortunately, at the moment, despite
the best efforts of many people, the situation gets worse. That
is why we need early intervention and the radical school reform
that we have advanced. I know that some have said, "Why are
you in such a rush to make these changes?" I am unapologetically
in a hurry to make a change because these children only have one
chance and we have to get on with ensuring that they have a better
life.
Q42 Ian Mearns: Good morning.
It is nice to see you. Good morning, David. It is lovely to see
you again. The Academies Bill has now been passed. At the outset,
in terms of the parliamentary timetable, there was an understanding
that the Bill was passed urgently so that academies could open
this September. But it is now clear that no schools will be operating
as academies in September. A number of schools may have their
academy order by September, but they will then have to consult
with whoever they deem fit, as outlined in clause 5 of the Bill:
"Before a maintained school in England is converted into
an Academy, the school's governing body must consult such persons
as they think appropriate." Since no school can actually
open and operate as an academy in September, why the haste to
get the Bill through before the close of Parliament?
Michael Gove: I would say two
things. The haste is because I believe that we desperately need
to transform our educational system. Despite the best efforts
of Ministers who have held this office before me, the education
system in this country is still not good enough. I think that
we are falling behind other nations. If you look at where we have
been over the past 10 years, we are lucky. We have a fantastic
team of people working in our schools and we have the best generation
of teachers ever, but other countries are moving faster ahead,
and we must therefore step up the pace of reform. At the same
time—as we have just been discussing—the yawning gap
in opportunity that exists between the children who you represent
in Gateshead and the children I represent in Surrey Heath seems
to be a problem that we cannot start working on quickly enough.
That is why I believe that we need to make this change. As for
the schools opening in September, there are many schools that
have already been pursuing consultation. We invited applications
from schools weeks ago, and schools have been consulting their
local authorities, parents and a variety of other people with
an interest in that issue. They have also been going through the
TUPE process, specified of course by the European Union to ensure
that the work force is given an appropriate say—that is
the transfer of undertakings, protection of employment legislation.
That consultation process is going on, but I stress that it is
permissive legislation. A number of schools said to us while we
were in opposition, "We want to take on academy freedoms.
We were promised them in 2005, but the legislation didn't come
through. Fair enough, but we want them now." In many cases,
the reason that schools are so anxious to take on those freedoms
is not just to help their own students, but to help students in
other schools as well. I was privileged to be able to speak to
the National College for Leadership of Schools and Children's
Services a couple of months ago. One of the really striking things
was that the brilliant, outstanding heads there were all really
anxious to acquire those freedoms, because they wanted to play
a bigger role in improving schools that had not been so fortunate.
Q43 Ian Mearns: Thank you for
that; however, the Bill was not allowed to have a Report stage
and therefore one takes from that that members of the Government
believe that it is a perfect measure to move the agenda forward.
In the debate, we gained a number of concessions, and I think
that a lot of amendments that had been tabled would possibly have
been regarded as helpful but would have negated the transition
of the Bill. From that perspective, is it not remotely possible
that you might have acted in haste and that there will be some
measure of repenting at leisure down the line?
Michael Gove: As I said earlier,
I am very keen to crack on with making changes to improve our
educational system. We introduced the Bill in the Lords and there
was an opportunity for amendment there. I have to say that the
Bill was improved by the thoughtful contributions of a variety
of peers. I stress that people such as Baroness Williams, Joan
Walmsley, Lord Low of Dalston, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, and a
variety of others—Liberal Democrats, Cross-Bench and Labour
peers—all helped to improve the Bill. It made its passage
through the House of Commons and I know, Mr Mearns, that you and
Ms Glass and a variety of others made a number of what I thought—if
you will forgive me for saying so—were very impressive and
helpful contributions that helped us to refine the modal funding
agreement and look at how we want to change things going forward.
At its heart, the Bill is a simple and permissive piece of legislation.
It simply grants to schools a set of freedoms that we already
know work and that the schools have been very keen to acquire.
Over the course of the next year, we will have an opportunity
to see how many schools use those freedoms. My view is that there
will be a significant number, but we shall see how many, because
the whole point is that this is permissive. We will also be able
to see how those schools operate. The test, the proof of the pudding
will be in the eating. Before coming here I had the opportunity
to read this book called `Take care, Mr Baker! ', which
was produced in 1988. It is a record of all the evidence that
my predecessor, Kenneth Baker, had before he introduced the great
Education Reform Bill. Every single one of the arguments that
was used during the passage of our education reform was thrown
at Ken. The striking thing is that the architecture that he introduced
in 1988 was the architecture of education reform that the 1997
Labour Government accepted, with some small emendation, and which
has formed the bedrock of education improvement since. In that
sense, I have been heartened and am determined to press ahead
by the fact that many of the criticisms that were made of Ken
then were subsequently defeated by the evidence.
Q44 Ian Mearns: So, in a nutshell,
the Bill having gone through the process, how many schools will
there be in academy order by 1 September?
Michael Gove: At the moment, we
have had a number of applications, and we are going through all
of them now. We know that anyone who's in one of the local authority
or catchment areas where the schools are affected will know all
their schools. We want to make sure that we have everything absolutely
right with all the schools and that, if a school decides at the
last moment not to go ahead, for whatever reason, we do not say
so. One thing I should say is that some schools that have expressed
an interest have been on the receiving end of quite a lot of criticism
from people outside their area and certain pressure groups. Some
schools want to make sure that everything is in apple pie order
before they are on a public list, but we obviously want to share
with people as much information as possible. I will write to the
Chairman and make sure that a letter is copied to all Members
once we know exact numbers, names and locations in a publishable
state.[2]
Q45 Ian Mearns: One last thing
from me. Members on your Benches, during the passage of the Bill,
quite openly referred to the fact that they saw academies as a
reinvention of the grant-maintained status. Grant-maintained schools
have a machinery to support them. What do you say is the support
machinery for academies in the future?
Michael Gove: That is a very good
point. The first thing is that I see academy status as different
from grant-maintained school status.
Ian Mearns: I was just quoting your colleagues.
Michael Gove: Indeed. It is absolutely
right. There are analogies with the grant-maintained school status
and with CTCs. The one big difference is that over the course
of the last 15 years, a culture of collaboration has grown up
in schools. There were some allegations, which I think were overdone,
that grant-maintained school heads, in one or two cases, took
the-devil-take-the-hindmost approach—sharp-elbowed heads
who didn't care about the broader community. If that were true,
I don't think it's true now. A culture has grown up among heads
whereby they recognise that, through schemes such as the National
Leaders of Education, it is their job not just to generate improvement
in their own schools, but to help collaborate with generating
improvement in other schools. I have total confidence in the current
crop of head teachers that they will want to use these freedoms
to work with others. As far as the scrutiny and support that schools
in this position want to have, it was the case in the past that
we had a schools funding agency, a sort of slim body, which, whatever
people criticised the grant-maintained schools movement for, no
one ever said was top-heavy or ineffective. We're working with
the YPLA, the body currently responsible for regulating academies,
to make sure that it can operate in the most appropriate way.
The efficiency of work there is very high. Baroness Williams has
asked us to report to Parliament annually on the progress of academy
schools, and we would like to do so. I am also meeting local authorities
tomorrow to make sure that they are involved in the conversation
and are part of the broader process of school improvement.
Q46 Ian Mearns: That response
elicits a quick question, which is important. If we come up with
examples of schools where that local co-operation and support
aren't happening, I take it that you would encourage them to do
so?
Michael Gove: Absolutely. If you,
as a constituency Member or as a member of this Committee, feel
that there are schools that are using these freedoms not in a
way that works in the interests of the children in that school
and the wider community, do bring them to my attention. We might
beg to differ, but please do so.
Q47 Chair: Secretary of State,
can I press you a little more on support? Primary schools can
now become academies. Let's take an outstanding primary school
in an area that is not particularly well off. It has a good head
and a good chairman of governors. What support structures will
be in place? The school will take the money spent on its behalf
by the local authority. Some may fear that probably the first
thing it will do is pay the head more. That will swallow the cash
very easily. It will look like the same school as before, with
the same head and governing body, with no outside sponsor and
no requirement to have any other support structure. Eighteen months
later, the head and the chairman of governors go. A person on
the committee get press-ganged to take over finance although they
have no strength in it. What happens now is that the accountancy
specialist from the local authority gives up his Wednesday evening,
goes along and holds the hand of that person, helps him through
and keeps that relatively small institution afloat. What support
will there be to stop a currently outstanding school like that,
one that enjoys its freedom with the curriculum and is perhaps
using it positively, falling over under the new regime if the
support accountant, for example, is no longer in a position to
give up his Wednesday evenings to help out?
Michael Gove: I would first question
one of the premises in your question. You describe a scenario
that would worry anyone. There are lots of schools in special
measures, primary schools in particular difficulties or with a
notice to improve, in local authority areas. The existence of
a local authority, even with gifted officers and committed lead
members, does not insulate a school from the risk of failure.
Some schools, including primary schools, have been in special
measures or with a notice to improve for quite some time. It is
not the case that when there is a catastrophic series of events—something
that can hit any school—the local authority suddenly rides
to the rescue. Such problems exist anyway. There were a number
of primary schools did exercise grant-maintained status—one
of them, I think, was Thomas Roper in Kent—that are very
eager to take advantage of academy freedoms now. That school,
like so many primary schools, did not experience difficulties.
Many worries of the sort you mentioned were raised in 1988, but
they did not come about. They could do—you are right—but
one of the striking things is that those primary school heads
who were most anxious to acquire academy freedoms are the people
who acknowledge that if things go wrong and certain warning signs
flash, it is legitimate for the local authority to say, "Look
here. We were very happy for this school to acquire additional
freedoms, but we can now see, through staff turnover or a drop
in results, or through, for the sake of argument, the number of
permanent or fixed-term exclusions, that there are warning signs.
Let's either trigger an Ofsted inspection, which can lead to certain
results, or let's have the local authority play a particular role."
The conversation that I am having with local authorities tomorrow
is part of the process of making sure that we have an appropriate
division of responsibilities. One of the things that the previous
but one Prime Minister, Tony Blair, said, which I think is right,
is that if local authorities see themselves as champions of excellence
overall and as commissioners of education, and if they encourage
a mix of provision in their area, they are less proprietorial
and defensive about schools that may fail, and more determined
to play a part in ensuring that all schools succeed. I actually
think that a diversity of provision at primary level means that
local authorities are more likely to play the sort of the role
that both you and I envisage they should play of intervening where
necessary in order to support improvement, but also stepping back
when excellent practice is going on.
Q48 Pat Glass: May I follow up
on an earlier question? Schools will fail. They change over time.
At the moment, many local authorities are best at stepping in
and supporting schools that are in challenging circumstances or
where they are in category. If more and more schools—primaries
and secondaries—go down the academies route, there will
be a critical mass issue, and the local authority will no longer
have specialists who have the knowledge of schools to be able
to say, "Actually, this school is failing or this school
is beginning to fall over." In my experience, very often
the first people who identify that a school, even an outstanding
one, is beginning to wobble, are the finance people. If you have
a very large surplus budget or a deficit budget, there are clearly
issues. Those people will no longer be there, so where are the
people who will identify that a school is beginning to wobble
and we need to step in? Have those things been clearly thought
out?
Michael Gove: I take your view,
but I think that we take a slightly different view of local authorities
and of the calibre of professionals. I have been struck by the
fact that the people who lead schools—head teachers—are
overwhelmingly strong, are doing a better job than ever and are
eager to take on those additional responsibilities. They do so
with a profound sense of moral purpose and a determination to
do better for the children in their care. You are right that there
should be warning mechanisms, but one of the things about local
authorities' current role is that in some cases local authorities
act as monopoly or near-monopoly providers of education. One important
principle of public service reform is that we should always have
a way of challenging monopolies, generating innovation and showing
that there are new and better ways of doing things. One of the
reasons why I thought the academies movement was so good, and
why Lord Adonis was so right to support it, is that it introduced
into areas such as County Durham—where they are seeking
to introduce it—a different way of teaching and organising
schools that challenges the underperformance that has been there
in the past. I think we would both accept that educational outcomes
for children in County Durham are not what they should be. We
need to ask ourselves, "What can we do to lever in innovation
from outside and encourage some of the great teachers and great
head teachers, in County Durham and elsewhere, to play a greater
role in driving improvement?" The final thing is that part
of the conversation I wanted to have with local authorities is
to concentrate on an appropriate division of responsibilities.
Where do they feel that they can step back and allow schools a
bigger role, and where do they believe that their intervention
powers critically need to be retained? The only way that we can
arrive at that is through a robust conversation between the Department,
schools that want a greater degree of freedom and local authorities—elected
members and officers.
Q49 Pat Glass: I don't disagree
with what you are saying about the role of the local authority.
They are there to set the strategy, allocate funding in a fair
way and monitor performance, and many local authorities go well
beyond that. However, I am afraid you have not convinced me that
you have a mechanism for when things go wrong. I think you will
need to think about that carefully. Moving on—I intend to
be brief, because I know we do not have a great deal of time—a
lot of concern was expressed in all parts of the House about the
speed at which the Academies Bill went through. A lot of concessions
were made along the way and the Minister who took it through took
account of the concerns that were raised—that was valuable.
Given that, are you absolutely convinced—and I will not
ask you about every pupil, because I know you cannot be convinced—that
children who are in disadvantaged groups will not be further disadvantaged
by these changes in education?
Michael Gove: Not only am I convinced
that they will not be further disadvantaged, but I am convinced
that they will benefit from these changes. The reason that we
are introducing these reforms is specifically to address the fundamental
problems that we have with lack of opportunity in so many areas.
Before Ken Baker made his changes, there was a lot of criticism.
He introduced city technology colleges—the forerunners,
essentially, for academies. He introduced schools which were explicitly
socially comprehensive, in areas of deprivation—mostly working-class
areas of our country. These schools are now phenomenal schools.
For example, children who are eligible for free school meals in
these schools are performing above the national average when it
comes to GCSE. There is a school which I imagine some of Ian's
constituents go to. Emmanuel College CTC is a superb school and
one of the striking things is that it has raised attainment and
aspiration in the area to such an extent that Gateshead, as an
educational authority, now has better outcomes than Newcastle.
The striking thing is this: why is Gateshead, with a similar demographic
and set of challenges, doing so much better than Newcastle? One
reason is that there has been a school run by visionary leadership,
with a great head teacher, operating independently from local
authority control, helping the local authority, which has been
well led—the former director of children's services was,
of course, Maggie Atkinson—to raise its game as well. So
it is a virtuous circle.
Ian Mearns: The former chair of education,
Ian Mearns. [Laughter.] You did mention visionary leadership.
Michael Gove: I was going to say
that that was the critical factor, but I think all of these work
together.
Q50 Pat Glass: May I respond to
that, Minister, and say that your faith in CTCs is touching? However,
living quite close to that particular school, that is not what
we see. What we find is that it is really quite—not selective,
but exclusive. If you are a child with special needs you have
very little chance of getting in there and if you happen to sneak
under the door I think that you would be out very quickly. I am
talking about disadvantaged children such as looked-after children,
children with SEN and children who live in poverty. Are you absolutely
convinced that academies and free schools will advantage and not
disadvantage these children?
Michael Gove: I am totally convinced.
We can have a conversation about the Emmanuel CTC later. More
broadly, the thing about academies is that even though they have
a higher rate of exclusion, if you compare them with maintained
schools, the proportion of children who have SEN who are excluded
from academies is lower. But more broadly, absolutely I am convinced.
In conversation with Miss Leslie, I have been struck by the success
of charter schools in America in transforming the achievement
of poorer children. I have been inspired by the way in which teachers
in this country want to use these new powers to set up schools—people
like Mark Lehain in Bedford—in areas where there have traditionally
been low levels of aspiration. There is a group of fantastic British
Afro-Caribbean teachers in south-east London who want to set up
their own school specifically to deal with attainment. There is
an article on The Guardian's "comment is free"
website from a future leader, a teacher who wants to set up a
school specifically to address disadvantage. There is a young
Muslim alumnus of Teach First, Sajid Hussain, who wants to set
up a school in Bradford, the city in which he was born, in order
to address attainment. These are people whom our legislation is
empowering to make a difference for the very poorest. More broadly,
one thing about autonomy overall is that it gives the profession
a bigger role and a bigger say. I believe that people go into
teaching because they want to transform the lives of young people.
Following on from Tessa's question earlier, I have been so impressed
by the idealism of people within the teaching profession that
I think that any move that gives them more power and more control
cannot but work in the interests of our young people.
Q51 Pat Glass: Mr Bell, you are
responsible for guidance, advice and warning to the Secretary
of State. Given your background as an ex-head teacher and a director
of education, may I ask you the same question? Are you convinced
that disadvantaged children will not be further disadvantaged
by academies, free schools and so on?
David Bell: Yes I am, precisely
for the reasons that the Secretary of State has identified. I
also have quite an interesting perspective on this because I became
a head teacher just at the time that the Education Reform Act
was being introduced. Throughout my career since then I have always
believed that the more power you devolve to the level of the individual
school, the more likely you are to get the best outcomes for the
children and young people concerned. Picking up what the Secretary
of State said, head teachers and teachers seem to me to be in
the main consumed by a moral purpose to do good by those they
serve. It seems to me that this is another chance to allow those
sorts of opportunity to be available to a wider range of people.
I am very excited, watching this, as it were, from the centre,
about how we are going to further improve our education system.
Q52 Pat Glass: Secretary of State,
I am sorry but this is a bit of special pleading and I will be
very quick. One of the schools in my constituency falls into the
"in discussion" category. I have written and I have
asked for meetings but I have had nothing back. So I am just asking
you directly today: will you make sure that that meeting takes
place?
Michael Gove: I am so sorry that
you have not had a chance to have a meeting. I have had the opportunity
to meet a number of colleagues who have had schools in discussion.
I look forward to our chatting more about that.
Q53 Tessa Munt: I absolutely accept
the stripping down in local authorities, particularly in the financial
circumstances which most of my rural companions and neighbours
would say place the local authority in fairly serious difficulties.
What I would say to you is that your criticism of BSF as being
a blanket approach to the repair of school buildings, not taking
account of need, seems to have a parallel in your desire to put
academy status on to schools. To me, academy status was brought
in to deal with those schools that are in areas of deprivation
and schools that needed to be brought up. What you are doing,
I think, is muddling the brand completely by dolloping it on to
those who are outstanding. There is a mitigation in the fact that
you want to make sure that they straddle to a school that is not
doing quite so well, so you are dolloping them in with the good
school as well, but I don't understand why there is not a desire
to go straight into those schools that are struggling. I accept
the point that my county council will not have that expertise,
because that expertise will probably move into the academy schools,
which will defend their financial position and their new status.
I also do not understand how you will judge academies for the
performance of the struggling schools that they will come together
with. That is the wrong way.
Chair: A brief and focused answer please,
Secretary of State.
Michael Gove: There are several
challenging points there to address. On the question of muddling
the brand, in a way the brand manager is Andrew Adonis, who coined
academies. He dealt with that point in the House of Lords when
he said that he believed that schools that are autonomous of local
authority control should all be called academies. I defer to him
in this matter. Andrew's colleague, Tony Blair, argued explicitly
in 2005 that academy freedom should be extended to all schools,
and it is. We recognise that there are outstanding schools that
could acquire and benefit from those freedoms and use them to
benefit other schools early on, and we want as many schools as
possible to take on those powers if they wish to do so. That is
where the coercion argument comes in. My view is that that is
permissive, so I do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. Some
outstanding schools will want to remain local authority-maintained
schools, which is fantastic. The whole point is to give people
the opportunity. Some schools will think about going academy,
and the local authority will say, "Oh, actually we should
give them a better deal," so the prospect of schools acquiring
those freedoms will compel the local authority to do a better
job. That is the principle of contestability. Some schools will
use the freedoms not because they want to liberate themselves
from local authority control, but because they want to take advantage
of the freedoms, which the Chairman of the Select Committee noted
were so beneficial in his minority report in the last Parliament,
and free themselves from the National Curriculum. It might have
nothing to do with the local authority but everything to do with
not liking what the Government say about the curriculum. In terms
of helping weaker schools, we will use a variety of criteria to
make a judgment, but one thing that we have not yet discussed,
although we might do so later, is attainment tables and public
accountability. One point on which I am very clear is that we
need to maintain clear public accountability and to be sure that
both primary and secondary schools are judged on how well students
do in externally set and marked exams.
Q54 Liz Kendall: I want to ask
a couple of brief questions on free schools. How many expressions
of interest in free schools have you had?
Michael Gove: We have had a great
many, and the number is growing all the time. Many people have
expressed an interest to us, and many, having expressed an interest
to the Department, have gone on to work with the New Schools Network
or another organisation that is equipped to provide them with
support.
Q55 Liz Kendall: Do you have a
view on how many there will be by the end of this financial year?
Michael Gove: No. We are creating
an environment in which people can express an interest and take
it forward. The whole point of the legislation is to move away
from what the Prime Minister once called dartboard politics.
Q56 Liz Kendall: I understand.
On 20 April you stated in an e-mail exchange with Richard Garner
of The Independent that, "we've budgeted to provide
capital costs for around 20,000 new places a year, or between
50 and 100 schools ... This is in line with growth of the "free"
and "charter" school sectors in Sweden and the US ...
The capital cost will come from reducing spending on the Government's
extremely wasteful Building Schools for the Future programme by
15%." Is your position still that you will fund the new free
school building from BSF?
Michael Gove: No, it isn't.
Q57 Liz Kendall: When did you
change your mind about that?
Michael Gove: I changed my mind
when we came into government. Once I had had an opportunity to
look at the capital position that we had inherited, I decided
that the most important thing we could do was reform Building
Schools for the Future and ensure that, when it came to supporting
the establishment of free schools, the capital costs, most of
which I anticipate—we cannot know—will be used for
refurbishing buildings, rather than building new ones, should
come from another budgetary line. That is why I announced that
we would use some of the money that currently goes to ICT through
the harnessing technology fund.
Q58 Liz Kendall: I understand
that the money to fund capital expenditure on free schools until
31 March 2011 is £50 million, as was stated in the Department's
press release of 18 June. Even if the cost of building a school,
which was around £20 million to £30 million under BSF,
were halved, as in Ireland, how many schools could you build for
that?
Michael Gove: As I said in my
earlier answer, I don't imagine we will be building wholly new
schools on greenfield sites. That is one of the most expensive
ways of providing new schools. One of the striking things about
free schools in Sweden and charter schools in America is that
they often make imaginative use—more imaginative than politicians
can conceive of—of existing buildings. For example, I visited
a free school just outside Stockholm in a converted observatory
that the university no longer required. One of the reasons why
the capital review and the Department for Communities and Local
Government are looking at changing use class orders, building
regulations and other planning rules is specifically in order
to bring the costs down, and organisations such as Kunskapsskolan
have made it clear to me that if they were to establish new schools
here, they would use their model of converting existing buildings,
which can deliver schools at a much cheaper cost.
Q59 Liz Kendall: I understand,
but what is the average cost per converted building?
Michael Gove: It is significantly
less than the cost of building a new school here, but I do not
have the average cost to hand.
2 See Ev 21-28 Back
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