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A 12 year-old from Shrewsbury said:
- “They’re not
seeing the whole picture, they’re not showing what everyone is
doing, just what a select group are
doing”.
- “The
only way the Government can try and stop young people or any person
who’s drinking or taking drugs is to occupy their time with
things they find
fun”.
- “You’ve
got to help the low achievers, otherwise that’s just letting the
brilliant ones get all, while the ones who have problems don’t
get a look in”.
The current wording in the Bill states that the views of qualifying young people should be ascertained, which means any young person between 13 and 20. It is essential, however, to find a way of ensuringthat the views of young people are genuinely representative and reflect a full cross-section ofyoung people in the community. I hope the Minister will look kindly on the insertion of the words“a representative sample of”.
Amendment No.
217 concerns the school discipline policy. This is where the governors
are given the duty to consult various people, including a sample of
pupils. It is an area where every child should be given an opportunity
to input their views—not just a few children, or even a
representative sample, but every child in the school. If children are
to sign up to the school’s disciplinary policy and help the
staff
5 July 2006 : Column 343
I know many children who belong to families where the parents take the same approach in setting their own discipline policies, house rules and even pocket money levels. When the children are consulted about what they think is reasonable and negotiate with their parents, they are much more likely to adhere to the rules they feel they have jointly reached. With regard to the discipline policy which the governors and the head teacher between them have to come to, it is important to talk not just to a sample, however representative it might be, but to every single child. That is what Amendment No. 217 attempts to introduce into the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Dearing: I shall speak to AmendmentNo. 127. I was prompted to table this amendment because it seemed to me that if parents were going to be consulted about a proposal for a trust school, it made sense to consult in some way the pupils of that school, especially in secondary schools.
I think there is a general principle here. The pupils are the people most directly affected by decisions taken about their school, and in some important respects they will know more. They will have a more intimate knowledge of the school than their parents. It seems right that they should have a right to have their views taken into account by a governing body, or whatever.
In this amendment I have made a proposal that, where possible, the consultation—where there is one—should be through the school council. I sought to find out to what extent school councils were already in existence, and I read that whereas in 1998 some 65 per cent of secondary schools and 15 per cent of primary schools had a school council, it is estimated that the proportions have now risen to 80 to 85 per cent for secondary schools and 75 per cent for primary schools. Such councils seem to be a suitable vehicle for consultation.
I am aware that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is proposing that all the pupils should be consulted on disciplinary matters. I have not gone quite as far as that; sometimes there is a rather large number of them. I was thinking of an alternative. Perhaps alongside school councils—and I am pushing the boat out now—there should be a class council. I believe that young people have good sense, especially as regards disciplinary matters and a disciplinary policy. If a council comprising of members of a class sat down with a teacher to talk the matter through, they would be persuasive and effective advocates of an effective disciplinary policy. I believe that a disciplinary policy has to be owned by everybody in the school, otherwise it will not work.
5 July 2006 : Column 344
Amendment No. 127 would ensure that, where the legislation provides for consultation with parents, there should be suitable provision for consultation with pupils—for example, in school councils.
10.15 pm
Baroness Massey of Darwen: I feel moved to speak to the amendment in response to what the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, has just said. Of course, I support consulting young people. In fact, we would not have had Every Child Matters without consulting young people; it was based on that.
As regards Amendment No. 127 on school councils, the school where I am a governor has class councils, which also involve parent class councils. It has a school council that is consulted about discipline and school organisation. That school council is taken very seriously by the school. I wonder why the amendment does not propose that every school should have a school council. Therefore, you could consult the school council on this matter—end of story.
The Earl of Listowel: I wish to speak briefly on the principle of listening to children as far as we can. I welcome the many things that the Government are doing to support families, especially the recent increase in maternity leave and benefit and support for fathers. However, year on year an increasing number of parents are separating and an increasing number of children are being taken into care. I believe that the BMA has recently produced a troubling report on the mental health of children. There is a lot of disruption in children’s families. One consequence of that is that it can be difficult for parents to listen to their children. Children get ignored because of the upheavals in their family. So it is important for the self-esteem of children from those backgrounds that every opportunity is taken to listen to them and take their contribution on board as far as possible.
Recently, I was with my nine month-old great nephew. We were engaged in a game where he was pulling faces and I was responding to the faces that he made. I have heard that, like my great nephew, infants become delighted with the fact that they can influence the adults close to them and they get carried away with that. The same principle applies to the matter that we are discussing—the feeling that one can influence the world and one’s environment even when one feels small and insignificant. That is especially true of children from families where there is disruption. Therefore, I strongly support the principle of what is proposed and look forward to the Minister’s response.
Baroness
Buscombe: We support the concept of listening to
children. Their opinion is an important ingredient of any consultation.
However, we do not believe in a child having a say to the extent that
it amounts to a burden on him or her to make decisions. We have to be
careful about that. They are children, after all, and we should let
them be free to enjoy their
5 July 2006 : Column 345
Having said that, I am pleased that there is consultation with a sample of pupils on discipline policy in schools. However, I rather agree with the response of the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, to Amendment No. 217. For every pupil to have a say about discipline in a school of, say, 1,400 pupils is somewhat unreal. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response to these probing amendments.
Lord Adonis: At this late hour, I am in the happy position of being able to fulfil some of the dreams of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley. We have given a lot of consideration to the matter, and we think that we can move part of the way that she described.
Amendment No. 217 would amend Clause 81, which concerns consulting a sample of pupils on a school behaviour policy. Our view, having considered this also in the light of the ongoing discussions that there have been on the Childcare Bill, is that we can move further. We agree with the point that a discipline policy is central to a well functioning school, and the maximum possible engagement of the pupils in that process is important. I emphasise the word “consult”. It is not a requirement for them to make a decision; I completely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, that you do not want to put young people in the position of becoming the decision makers. To consult all the pupils is not in principle an over-burdensome requirement. They do not have to respond to the consultation; noble Lords are asked to participate in many consultations on which they do not give their views.
Having listened to what the noble Baroness said and having reflected on it previously, without giving an absolutely firm commitment—we need to look at it further—we are minded to table a similar government amendment on Report that would simply remove the sample requirement and have a general requirement to consult. I cannot give an absolute assurance, but we think that that is likely to be an appropriate policy.
I am in the even happier position of being able to respond positively to Amendment No. 253, in the name of my noble friend Lady Turner, who is not even here. I hope that, when she wakes up in the morning and reads Hansard, this might please her. The Government unreservedly agree with the second part of the amendment, which aims to remove the current exemption of nursery-age children from the consultation duties on schools and local authorities under Section 176 of the Education Act 2002.The amendment in this respect reflects what the Government have already provided for in the Childcare Bill through the amendment that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, referred to. Therefore, we will consider tabling an amendment on Report that brings children of nursery age on to the same footing in terms of consultation requirements, irrespective of the setting in which they may find themselves. I will be glad to tell my noble friend that I have been so persuaded by her arguments that we have decided to move in this respect.
5 July 2006 : Column 346
The first part of Amendment No. 253 proposes duties on schools to consult pupils. Section 176 of the Children Act 2002 already provides for the consultation of pupils on issues affecting them. The section provides for statutory guidance to which local authorities and governing bodies must have regard about the consultation of pupils in connection with the taking of decisions affecting them. We are encouraging schools to put the 2004 guidance issued under Section 176 into practice in ways that are meaningful to children and young people. One prime means of giving effect to that guidance is the establishment of school councils. I am a great believer in the role of school councils; it is one of the areas that I have been most impressed by in terms of changes in the education system over recent years. When I and many other noble Lords were at school, the idea of any form of consultation with pupils was regarded as a somewhat outrageous act of lèse-majesté. Now, it is common not only in secondary schools but, increasingly, in primary schools.
I had the privilege recently to launch School Councils UK, which is an excellent organisation providing training materials for the establishment of school councils in primary schools. I launched those materials in a primary school in Hackney that has an outstanding school council in a very challenging area. It takes a real sense of responsibility and leadership for developing the behaviour policy in the school, tackling bullying and helping to improve the school in a number of ways. We are looking to see how we can take that forward, although it does not require statutory duties in the Bill.
We have taken two substantive steps. I have asked Professor Geoff Whitty, the director of the Institute of Education at the University of London, to examine the experience of the operation of school councils and to report to the Secretary of State, which he will do later this year. We have indicated that we will consider his report with a view to updating the guidance under Section 176 of the 2002 Act to provide stronger advice to schools and more best practice guidance on how they can establish school councils and involve them meaningfully in the work of schools. My noble friend Lady Massey also referred to the important work of school councils in primary schools, and it has become increasingly widely understood that they can play that role.
I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, will accept that, given our bona fides, which, I think, is clear, we do not need to put new statutory duties in the Bill and that the work is proceeding in any event. I encourage the noble Lord and other noble Lords who have experience and views in this area to speak to Professor Whitty. I will draw his attention to the debate that we have had this evening. He is taking this work very seriously, and in terms of pupil engagement in the life of schools and in the taking of decisions affecting them this could turn out to be path-breaking.
Amendment No. 52, in the name of the noble
Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in respect of youth, would clarify the process
by which authorities should consult young people about positive
leisure-time
5 July 2006 : Column 347
We, therefore, do not expect local authorities to consult every young person in the area, but equally we expect that any sampling will be robust enough to capture the views and needs of young people belonging to those high-risk groups. That is not the same as a representative sample, which, for example in an area where the majority of the population were from the same socio-economic or ethnic group, could mask the views of a minority facing disproportionately challenging barriers to participation and which a local authority may with to consult specifically on the provision of these activities.
Therefore, the legislation needs to offer authorities some flexibility in order to target their consultation in the most effective way in terms of the types of services that they believe they may need to provide in an area; and that a requirement to consult a representative sample would reduce the ability of authorities to undertake this and, in turn, reduce the effectiveness of the duty for the young people whom we most want to help.
Amendment No. 20, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, seeks to ensure that, in carrying out their new duties under Clause 3 to respond to parental representations, local authorities should in certain cases ensure that the views of a particular child are taken into account. We entirely sympathise with the spirit of the amendment, but it goes beyond the scope of the clause. The duty in Clause 3 does not apply to complaints or representations in respect of individual pupils who might, therefore, have a right to be consulted individually but to how a local authority discharges its general duty under Section 14 of the Education Act 1996 to secure sufficient schools for providing primary and secondary education in their area and the new duties added by Clause 2 of this Bill to secure diversity and increase opportunities for parental choice in the provision of schools.
The duty to consider and respond to parental representations, does not apply to complaints or representations about the access to education or quality of education provided to an individual child, where the existing arrangements for making complaints remain in place. The draft illustrative guidance on parental representations that we have made available reinforces that point. It states that such representations might cover, for example, a request for a new school with a particular ethos, or a general complaint about the quality of provisionin schools in the area, but such representationswould not concern individual circumstances or the education of an individual child.
5 July 2006 : Column 348
The existing references to a “qualifying child” in Clause 3 are simply to specify that the duty to respond is triggered only if the representation is made by a parent who has a child in the local authority’s area who is of or under compulsory school age. It does not mean that representations should specifically be in respect of the education of a particular child. I hope that I have clarified the issue and that the noble Baroness will be satisfied with that position.
Baroness Walmsley: I thank the noble Lord for his reply. Did the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, wish to say something before I withdraw? No. I agree with the Minister that when the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, spoke about asking children to make decisions, I sat here thinking that no one was asking children to make decisions. The intention of my group of amendments was only to consult children, certainly not to put the burden on them of making any of these decisions.
In terms of large schools, we need only give children an opportunity to respond to a draft code of discipline and to make suggestions on how it might be changed or amended. I see no reason why that should not be done quite easily. I am delighted to be able to thank the Minister for being minded to bring forward an amendment along those lines at the next stage of the Bill. I am also delighted that he has been able to accept part of Amendment No. 253 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner. I am sure that she will make similar arguments to him again in the future, given the wonderful results that she obtained this evening.
On Amendment No. 127 in the name of thenoble Lord, Lord Dearing, which I supported, the Government are clearly moving in the right direction on school councils by updating the guidance, and I am certainly happy with that.
With regard to Amendment No. 52, the Minister said that he feels that local authorities need the opportunity to focus on particularly high-risk groups. Although there is apparently nothing wrong with that, I am a little worried that some groups which have every right to be consulted may well be missed out. They may have a different sort of input which is perfectly valid and which might affect the nature of the recreational facilities provided by the local authorities. So I hope that, in carrying out their duties in the way that the Minister has described and by focusing, reasonably, on high-risk groups, local authorities will not inadvertently miss out large groups of children who may not be particularly high-risk but whose well-being would benefit very much from the right sort of recreational facilities. Such children might be able to give the local authority valuable input on the nature and planning of those facilities.
I will read in
Hansard the Minister’s response to Amendment No. 20. I
think that he clarified whatI was trying to get at. He
explained that the amendment is not acceptable because it is responding
to an individual child rather than a group of children. However, I will
look at it again and think carefully before deciding whether to pursue
it any further.
5 July 2006 : Column 349
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Buscombe moved Amendment No. 21:
- “( )
Where a local education authority in England receive representations
from parents requesting the publication of a notice under section 7 of
the Education and Inspections Act 2006, and the local education
authority decide to take action other than publishing a notice under
that section, the statement under subsection (1)(b) must include their
reasons for not publishing the notice.”
The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendment No. 67. Amendment No. 21 would ensure that, where a local authority received representations from parents requesting the publication of a notice inviting proposals from outside the local authority for a new school and then decided not to publish the notice, it would have to state why it was doing so.
This is, in part, a probing amendment but, were it to be accepted, which I believe it could be, it would not intrude on a local authority’s right to not publish a notice. However, it would ensure that parents were entitled to an explanation when their proposals were not considered or published.
The amendment would add no huge burden to local authorities; rather, it would ensure transparency in the decision-making process. Where a parent’s proposal had been refused, surely the local authority would have logged a reason for that decision as a matter of course. I am sure that the Minister will recall the text of the regulatory impact assessment, which states that some authorities,
- “tend to
regard community schools as ‘their’ schools and to regard
other categories of schools as being outside the local family of
schools”.
Amendment No. 67 would enable the Secretary of State to prescribe minimum conditions for the schools in the area of a local authority. Where the authority failed to meet those minimum standards, it would be forced to publish an invitation for proposals for the establishment of a new foundation, voluntary or foundation special school. Such conditions could include a minimum proportion of self-governing schools or refer to purely academic considerations.
It is very
important that failing local authorities take decisive action to remedy
that. When large numbers of schools are failing in an area, it is
essential that new providers are allowed to come into the system,
bringing with them a different ethos, and in so doing, driving the
improvement in school standards. Too many schools currently
under-perform. The National Audit Office has found that as of July 2005
there were 1,557 poorly performing schools in England, representing 4
per cent of the
5 July 2006 : Column 350
Individual cases point to local authorities with unacceptably low levels of performance. Take Knowsley, the authority which has the worst value added school, and where only 25.5 per cent of pupils achieve five or more good GCSEs, including English and mathematics. In 20 local authorities fewer than one-third achieve this level. Consider also Nottingham city, where more than one-quarter of pupils fail to achieve even five or more GCSEs at A* to G when English and maths are included.
We on these Benches cannot be alone in thinking that when local authorities languish at the bottom of performance tables they should take decisive action to tackle this. I seem to recall the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, saying earlier that that is the case. One should not allow these schools to languish for too long.
It would be inappropriate for local authoritiesto establish new community schools in such circumstances, as they have demonstrated their unfitness for the challenge. The amendment would ensure that local authorities are truly the proactive commissioners of successful education rather than allowing them the possibility to be the passive providers of coasting schools. I beg to move.
Lord Adonis: We have considerable sympathy with the intentions behind Amendment No. 21, moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, in respect of the requirement to provide a proper statement of reasons in response to a request submitted by parents. But we think that it would be excessively prescriptive to set out this requirement on the face of the Bill.
Let me explain what we are doing in this regard. Clause 3 is the expression in the Bill of the commitment set out in the White Paper to give parents the right to ask for a new primary or secondary school. It places an explicit duty on local authorities for the first time to respond formally to parents who are seeking changes to the provision of schools in their areas, including new schools. We are determined that this duty should give parents the right to be heard by their local authority on the provision of schools in their area and to receive a considered and proportionate response.
The draft illustrative guidance to local authorities, which we have made available, makes it clear that this is a duty which they must take seriously. They will need to respond on a case-by-case basis, after evaluating the depth and quality of support from parents cited in the proposals, gauging the level of parental concern more generally, and analysing patterns of demand in the area. That would include the issues raised by the noble Baroness in terms of the failure of existing provision in the area.
More
specifically, the guidance stipulates that the local authority should
respond to the original representations by means of a statement, and I
hope
5 July 2006 : Column 351
- “In all cases,
the statement would need to set out the local authority's justification
for arriving at its conclusions in order that the parents or parent
group can follow the reasoning involved and, if dissatisfied, complain
citing the reasons
given”.
Indeed, if parents believe that their local authority has not taken proper account of its duties, they may complain to the Secretary of State, who would consider whether to intervene—for example, by directing the local authority to reconsider its decision. Parents would also be able to make representations to the Schools Commissioner, who might also play a role in the process.
We believe that statutory guidance is the most appropriate and proportionate way of setting out detailed expectations of how local authorities should respond to parental representations. While there may indeed be representations from parents specifically requesting a competition for a new school, which was the case raised by the noble Baroness, not all representations will be that specific. We should not, therefore, single out that specific possibility in the Bill.
Similarly, while a competition for a new school might be one outcome of a parental representation, there may equally—quite legitimately—be circumstances where the local authority will judge that the best response might be, for example, to propose the enlargement of an existing successful school, or other changes to existing provision which meet parents’ demands in other ways. In all cases, however, local authorities will need to provide full justifications for whatever their conclusions may be in response to whatever the parental representations may be. I hope that the noble Baroness will be reassured on thatbasis that we are with her in spirit, the guidance will deliver what she seeks to achieve and that she does not need to take the amendment further.
The new clause introduced by Amendment No. 67 would require a local authority to hold a competition for a new foundation, voluntary or foundation special school or academy if prescribed conditions about the standard of education and the extent of diversity in the authority were not met. Competitions are intended to be held where proposals for a new school need to be published. They could well include cases where pupil numbers are increasing, where there is a replacement required for a failing school or where schools are being reorganised in an area. However, it is for the local authority, as commissioner, to decide whether a new school is needed, or whether it might be preferable to reorganise in some other way, perhaps involving the addition of places at existing schools.
We also recognise that proposers might
wish to come forward with proposals for new schools without
5 July 2006 : Column 352
I hope that these proposals, taken in the round, will satisfy the noble Baroness. They represent our extensive discussions on how we would take these provisions forward in another place. The balance is now right. In their role as champions of parents and quality assurers of provision in their local areas, local authorities must deploy a range of measures, not just to attract new schools—the issue raised by the noble Baroness—or to expand good schools, but also to assist and turn around weak schools and encourage ambition in coasting schools. We have a set of policies in place to encourage those outcomes, which needto be seen alongside the issue of competitions and parental representations.
Baroness Buscombe: I thank the Minister. I found his response to Amendment No. 21 extremely helpful, and will leave it at that. I fully accept his points and take them on board.
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