Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480
- 499)
WEDNESDAY 30 JUNE 2004
DR MARTIN
STEPHEN, DR
ANTHONY SELDON,
SIR EWAN
HARPER, MR
JONATHAN SHEPHARD
AND MR
JACK JONES
Q480 Mr Foulkes: You keep writing
your biographies and I will ask the questions!
Dr Seldon: Assuming that you do
not, I just wonder why my parents should subsidise you when the
majority of my parents are not earning your annual salary.
Q481 Mr Foulkes: Well, I will leave
you to wonder that.
Dr Seldon: It is a very pertinent
question.
Q482 Mr Foulkes: Can I just deal
with Dr Stephens' question first of all. Before I was a Member
of Parliament, I was a Governor of Fettes College, of the Merchant
Company Schools in Edinburgh and of George Heriot School and I
visited them on a number of occasions, so maybe I know a little
bit more about them than you realise. Can I ask you again: do
you not think that private schools, which on the whole offer privileged
education to people who are already privileged, being described
as charities is somewhat anomalous?
Dr Stephen: I cannot agree with
you because I do not agree with the terms you are using. I do
not think the institution I operate operates a privileged education.
I think it offers an excellent one, recognised as a world leader,
and that is something which I take great pride in, but privileged,
no. It happens to be excellent. As to the people it is offering
it to, I have given over, as have a number of other people, most
evenings and all weekends to making sure that any child can gain
a place at that school regardless of race, colour, creed or the
social or economic background of their parents, and that is at
the front of our prospectus. If that is privileged, it is redefining
the word.
Q483 Mr Mitchell: I want to ask a
specific question relating to the figures to Jonathan Shephard,
but just following Martin Stephen's comments, I have read the
annex to the ISC's evidence about the Manchester schools and the
variety and difference of what the Manchester schools provide,
and I think it is probably available on our website. I think it
is extremely moving and I would like to congratulate all of those
involved in providing the outstanding opportunities for disadvantaged
children which is so clear from the evidence which you have provided.
On the point about the £88 million which I think is in the
context of a framework, Martin Stephen's opening remarks about
the benefits which charitable status, the wider benefits for a
community, confers, you have been asked by the Chairman whether
you will update those figures. Can you at the same time update
the other figures which you gave us in point 11 of your evidence
where you said that the saving to the public purse from the existence
of these schools is £1.98 billion, nearly £2 billion,
and can you also advise us whether it still remains 22½ times
the value of the fiscal benefits of charitable status?
Mr Shephard: The £1.98 billion
figure does not need updating. It is based on two sources, one
of which is the Chancellor's Budget Statement earlier this year
and one of which is a speech from the Prime Minister and they
gave the same figure.
Chairman: Extremely reliable sources—unimpeachable,
perhaps!
Q484 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: Can
I just go back to the question of the people who have been educated
in the independent sector. I wondered if you could give us your
view, and if you have any evidence to back it up, we would also
be interested to hear it, about what are the principal reasons
why people choose the independent sector for their children where
they have the choice.
Mr Shephard: There is survey information
that there is a variety of reasons. On the whole, they just want
a good education for their children.
Q485 Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: I
think they have that in common with most parents, would you not
say?
Mr Shephard: Yes, but I think
half of the parents of children in ISC schools did not go to independent
schools themselves. If I can speak as a parent, I did not go to
an independent school, but I went to a maintained school all the
way through. I have three children and they have all at different
times been in the maintained and independent sectors and we choose
the school for the child which will suit the child best. They
are still children. Can I make the point that the half a million
children we are educating are children and they need education.
It would be very odd to say that education was charitable unless
it had been provided by a school.
Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall: Could I
just say that I asked the question in absolute good faith and
I did not intend to provoke any kind of defensive response. I
might lead the witnesses, if I may, slightly by reminding you
that one of the things which you have put into your evidence is
that the independent sector is providing types of education or
refinements of education which you allege, and probably rightly,
are not available within the maintained sector. Now, I invite
you to expand a little on that as one of the reasons why people
might choose that sector.
Dr Stephen: May I respond by not
being defensive, but I hope by not being offensive either. One
of the key contributions that the independent sector makes to
Education UK plc is to be innovative, to be experimental and to
push the envelope at the edges. On the other hand, as well as
this tremendous capacity we have to innovate, to be free, to have
clear control lines, to be very easily answerable and to do things
in a hurry, if I am to bring in a major change in my school, it
takes me a week. On the other hand, we are totally in touch with
our parent body who are paying very heavily, many of them, for
the education they receive and we are consumer-answerable in a
way. With the best will in the world, the many superb maintained
schools in the UK perhaps are not able to be so. It is this combination
of being able to innovate, to be daring, to push the envelope
and to challenge on the one hand, but at the same time to be totally
linked to parents which I think gives us our strength and indeed
partly justifies our charitable status.
Q486 Chairman: Sir Ewan, at last!
Sir Ewan Harper: We are sometimes
quite amazed that people do want to come to our schools and we
are delighted that they do. Therefore, we analyse what it is which
is helping them make their decision, why they are taking that
decision. The surveys we have made ourselves show that about 65%
are looking for behavioural issues, pastoral issues and the ethos
of the schools. Those are not directly academic issues and, therefore,
how people behave in school is a really very important part of
the choice. Some of these people are refugees from the maintained
sector because they have not identified those things within schools.
Now, we are involved in setting up currently six city academies,
so we are seeing directly an experience within inner cities and
we are seeing a very fascinating similarity in some senses, and
variation in others, between the two sectors. The parents in the
maintained sector are looking for the same things. They want a
sound behavioural pattern, they do want the ethos where the child
is going to be valued and cared for, and these things are very
similar and I think to try and put a big wedge between what is
happening or what is wanted to happen in the maintained sector
and the independent sector is wrong. We have all got in fact very
similar objectives. The question is how we achieve them and what
group of people can help achieve them. My plea almost to you is
that in looking at charity status, you will not cut across the
fundamental ethos of what is beginning to happen. There is a dialogue
beginning to occur between this Government and the independent
sector. We have something closer in educational policy between
the main parties than we have had probably for decades and, therefore,
we have a more stable platform in which to see how these innovations
can spread across the sectors, how they should be developed, and
I would ask you very much to keep an eye on that wider picture.
If you say, "What on earth are you doing, church schools?",
about five years ago we asked ourselves, "What would our
founders have done if they had been alive today? What was their
mission and purpose and is ours very different?" We thought
they would have been proud of the schools that we had. They are
fee-paying, which they would not have expected necessarily, but
130 years ago the whole circumstances were different. We looked
and said, "What can we do?" There were in fact very
few ways in which we could play a significant part in maintained
education. We could do what I call "nuzzling up", where
as long as two or three people were together in one school or
the other, you would try and do something valuable. Schools have
facilities which they need to use throughout the school day. It
is very difficult for any school to share its facilities with
another during the school day. We are seeing this even with the
academies, that in the academy movement there is a sort of pressure
because money is being invested in academies, "Can you allow
this school and that school to have a bit of access?" Now,
this is the education experience, not just fee-paying schools
against the other and the fact is that there is not time in the
timetable. It is difficult to get people to move actually the
timetable, to get in a bus and go from one location to another,
so again how you expect independent schools to share facilities
has to be realistic and, as I say, our experience is that it is
testing that very much. When we came to this question of what
could we do, suddenly the academy movement became available and
it was utterly different from anything else which had been available
to us, but, and it is a very important "but", we do
not have a foundation and, therefore, for every academy we have
to raise £2 million. We did not know whether we had the story
to raise it and we went to two or three charities to see whether
they were prepared to support us and, they did. Therfore, many
people are supporting us in what we are doing, but out of charitable
foundations, so they are dealing charity to charity, and they
are paying their money to the Church Schools Company, not directly
to the city academy. Our charitable status is, therefore, absolutely
crucial for our standing in what it is we are trying to do. Now,
I believe that this movement is right at its beginning and when
I talked about the playing field and where we are between independent
and maintained schools, there is an enormous possibility here.
It will grow, but it needs nurturing and it needs help; it does
not need whacking around the head, in my view.
Q487 Chairman: Okay, we have got
the message! Dr Seldon?
Dr Seldon: To respond to your
question, and I do not represent independent schools overall at
all, but I speak throughout with an independent voice in some
ways am quite critical of the independent sector, the point which
I would, above all, want to convey to the Committee this morning
is that there are two very different kinds of independent school.
There are the small minority which are very wealthy which are
doing extremely nicely and which, despite what Martin Stephen
says, I do not think are very innovative. They look after themselves
and they pay lip service to odd charitable things, but they are
a self-perpetuating oligarchy and they go on and they join their
fathers' firms and so on and they have great wealth, and I think
they should be doing much more, not the least charitable and not
the least creative and innovative, to play a responsible part
in our one nation, and there are the rest. I would say that the
rest are about 97%, like Brighton College, and we are passionate
about being involved in the local community and our parents are
drawn from a very broad cross-section and they make huge sacrifices.
They remortgage their homes and grandparents pay, both parents
go out to work and I just want to break down this notion of a
monolithic independent sector. I got into great trouble with one
of my parents when I said that the idea that I am educating children
to go and join dad's stockbroker firm, I would give up tomorrow
if that is what I thought I would do. The next day I got a letter
from a parent which said, "I am a stockbroker. What do I
say at breakfast tomorrow to my son?", but you get the point.
It is about a mission and a passion to educate children, in touch
with the whole of our society so that they can play a responsible
and caring role in our society. That is what I think my job is.
Chairman: I think what both Sir Ewan
and Dr Seldon have got to say is extremely helpful because I think
there is very little doubt that within the independent sector,
there are schools which see almost as their primary purpose the
extension of educational benefits to a broader cross-section of
society and I can see that, but indeed I have read some of the
evaluation of the Government's partnership programme which seems
to be very positive in terms of improved standards in educational
outcomes, although I think Dr Seldon might argue, and has argued
in the past, that more money should be spent on it than has been
the case hitherto. I think the issue for the Committee is whether
what we have today are some shining examples of what can be done
between the sector and the state sector or whether this is typical
or untypical. I think I would absolutely commend the approach
that the Church Schools Council has taken, I have read what Brighton
College do and I am familiar with the work of Manchester Grammar
School, but I think the issue we might want to explore is whether
or not this pertains generally across the sector, so we might
come back to that in a moment.
Q488 Mr Mitchell: I should just mention
in passing that my children are educated by me in the independent
sector, so I suppose I might be accused of having an interest
in this discussion. I wanted just to ask Sir Ewan a question on
the church schools movement which ties back directly to the Bill
which we are looking at and that is whether there are other things
which could be in this Bill which would actually help develop
the church schools sector in Britain. I remember that some time
ago you launched, I think with government blessing, if not active
financial support, a project to have 100 new secondary schools
across Britain and I wondered how it was going. My impression
in the part of the world which I represent, the Midlands, Birmingham,
is that it has been a complete flop actually and that an awful
lot more could have been done to bring the advantages and variety
in education of church schools for the benefit of local people,
so I just wondered whether that perception was correct, how that
initiative was going and what we could put in this Bill or any
changes which you would like to see and your colleagues would
like to see which would benefit the growth, expansion and continued
activity of the church schools in Britain.
Sir Ewan Harper: We are not part
of the Anglican Church's church schools. When you see the voluntary
primary schools, that is not part of us; that is the diocesan
and national structure for the Church of England, although our
name suggests it, but we will change our name because of just
this problem. We are in fact an independent charity founded in
1882 and, therefore, I cannot answer your 100 new schools, although
I would like to think that the ten city academies we are setting
out to sponsor would be included in them.
Q489 Mr Mitchell: But they are not
part of that administration?
Sir Ewan Harper: No, they are
not, they are independent of it, but nonetheless they are friendly
with it. We are working and understanding what each other is doing,
but we are not actually part of it. Just to give you a sense of
the figures on this, we at the moment are educating 6,500 children
in our independent schools. This year we have got one academy
open in Manchester. In September we opened an academy in Northampton
and in Lambeth and we will have 2,200 children in the maintained
sector. Just taking these figures across to 2010, we would expect
to have nearly 12,000 children in our maintained-sector academies
and that is without going beyond the ten and we may well do so,
and we expect to have about 7,500 children in independent schools.
The teachers relating to that, and this is an important thing
as we have not heard anything about teacher training and teacher
development which is a crucial part of what we are trying to achieve,
there will be 790 in our maintained schools and 678 in our independent
schools, so this sort of movement is capable of very serious growth.
When you asked whether we are shining examples, the answer is
no, I do not think we are, but we are different insofar as we
are a group of schools and, as a group of schools, we do have
a very considerable expertise in finance, human resources, ICT
development and these things. One of the things which is fascinating
and challenging is why LEAs are not managing to do what we are
doing because they have got groups of schools and they ought to
be able to achieve what we are doing, yet we are going and talking
to LEAs who clearly are not, and although your job is not to look
at LEAs and so on, within here lies something which is really
very important.
Q490 Mr Foulkes: It is nothing to
do with charitable status though.
Sir Ewan Harper: Well, it may
well be that I come back on the question of how we raise our funds.
Q491 Mr Mitchell: Is there anything
in the Bill which will help expand the work which you are doing?
Is there anything specific which you want to tell us which you
would like to see in the draft Bill which is not there at the
moment which would help spread what you are trying to do? I pass
over whether we can persuade you to come to Birmingham or not,
but—
Sir Ewan Harper: Well, we would
love to. There is not a lot, although I do come back to VAT. It
is very interesting that, as independent schools in the maintained
sector, we are having to pay elements of VAT which would not happen,
I believe, if we were LEA schools. Now, we are charities in the
independent sector and in the maintained sector, so it might be
worth your looking at this. Every city academy is a charity. How
much does that charity status help that city academy because at
that moment it is an independent school and it is a very significant
factor, but it does have an adverse impact on that, (i.e. VAT).
Q492 Chairman: But is your plea in
contravention to Mr Shephard's plea that this is something which
you would like to see something done about?
Sir Ewan Harper: I think that
VAT is an issue and one of the reasons, Chairman, is that the
building programmes are very expensive and VAT on top of them
is a very major part.
Q493 Ms Keeble: I just wanted to
ask some questions about some of the business issues which have
been raised and I also would say that my children go to private
schools. I think whilst the children at private schools might
not be privileged, I certainly think that in the schools themselves,
a private education or an independent one is actually a privileged
one and I do not think there is any getting away from that. Just
on the business side, Martin Stephen said that some of the schools
are small businesses operating on tight margins and I think that
all businesses would say that they are operating on tight margins,
and I think most charities would as well. I think there is a real
issue about if there is a change in the financial structures,
what then happens to the institutions. Some shut anyway just because
they are not very good or because of a change in financial circumstances,
but obviously no one is looking to throw things into complete
disarray. There are two issues. One is what actually is the relationship
between the changing fees over the years and salary levels because
is it not one of the reasons perhaps that more people go to private
schools simply the fact that there is more disposable income and
is a change in the fee structure really going to put the pressure
on, as you say, particularly if it is introduced over time, like,
for example, we did MIRAS over time and the housing market did
not collapse and in fact it went up? The other thing is to ask
what also would be the impact of phasing out of elements of the
benefits or of the charitable protection which schools get over
a period of time, as I say, as we did with MIRAS? Has any real
study been done of that to see what the impact would be on the
financing of the organisation? Thirdly, which picks up Sir Ewan's
point, if the private or independent sector is to contract for
more education services, do we not have to make absolutely sure
that there is a level financial playing field between the different
sort of sectors of education and in the financial arrangements
of people contracting for state financing and state services?
Sir Ewan Harper: We are not contracting.
What we are doing with the city academy programme is that we raise
our £2 million, the Government puts in its capital either
for renewing and refurbishing a school or building a new school,
and the whole of the running costs are supplied by the Government.
Q494 Ms Keeble: I am actually an
MP for Northampton and the academy you are talking about, if it
is the one I am thinking of, is in my constituency.
Sir Ewan Harper: It is.
Ms Keeble: So actually what is happening,
however it is talked about, is that what was a maintained school
is becoming a school which is run by your organisation and, as
such, I would personally categorise it under a different form
of public sector procurement. The issue is how do you manage the
financing of public sector procurement and how do you make sure
that some organisations, because they can get charitable status,
do not get competitive advantage over others? That is really what
the issue is.
Chairman: Well, without getting into
the intricacies of the Northampton situation—
Ms Keeble: But it is the same thing.
Q495 Chairman: —maybe we can
concentrate on the three issues which Sally raised.
Dr Stephen: I can only speak on
one of them, if I may, because I think it is important to emphasise
that the independent sector is a fairly loose confederation. We
do not spend a great deal of our charitable money on surveys about
what might happen; we prefer to spend it on the education of children.
I would guess that if charitable status were to be lost with the
financial implications, a number of schools at the periphery in
financial terms of the sector would close. A number of those schools,
particularly some of the more avant-garde and experimental ones,
are not, I hasten to add, at the periphery of educational practice;
they are merely running on a very tight financial margin. A number
of small, in the main, but excellent schools might be forced to
close and the thing which I have dedicated my own professional
life to for nearly 30 years which the independent sector has been
doing, say, for ten or 15, which is to make these schools meritocratic,
would suffer. The sector would not close, let's be clear. Quite
clearly the sector would not close or shut down with charitable
status; it would simply become more elitist, more privileged in
a social way which I find wholly unacceptable. We are a benefit
to this country, we are a massive benefit in a huge range of areas.
To me, it would be horrific if we were to put the clock back on
what has been going on in the past ten years which is a magnificent
movement on this sector to being a public benefit and we would
become more elitist.
Ms Keeble: I understand the educational
argument, but there are a couple of issues here. One is the educational
one and one is the financial and business one. There must have
been some thought given to possible impacts on your sector of
changes in some of the financial pressures, including the impact
of changes to charitable status and it is really trying to find
out what thinking has gone on and whether a change over time could
be managed by the sector. The point about fees and salaries would
actually be quite helpful because that should be a reasonably
straightforward thing, I would have thought.
Chairman: I think Dr Stephen's answer
was that it could be managed, but it would have implications.
Q496 Ms Keeble: It would be difficult,
yes, that is right.
Dr Stephen: It would put the clock
back 15 years, yes.
Q497 Chairman: Can I just ask one
slight addendum to that question, however, because I noticed both
in your answers and indeed in the evidence which we received from
the ISC that much play is made of the fact that you extend access
by dint of bursary and scholarship, and I understand that argument.
Of course, the vast majority of pupils at independent schools
are not beneficiaries of either bursaries or scholarships, are
they?
Dr Stephen: 30% are.
Q498 Chairman: So the vast majority,
according to my maths, are not. I speak as an ex-Treasury minister
so that could be completely wrong! Am I right in thinking that
the vast majority of the 30% of bursaries and scholarships come
about as a consequence of selection by ability?
Dr Stephen: No. In my own case
and in the vast majority of cases the offer of a bursary is solely
on the means of the parent, not on the rank order of a child in
an entrance exam.
Q499 Chairman: Regardless of educational
attainment?
Dr Stephen: I think it is very
important that the sector has distinguished very crucially for
10 years between scholarships and bursaries. There has been a
massive movement over the past ten years to reduce scholarships
and to put all the available money into bursaries. I fully support
that 150%.
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