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Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: We have a great deal of sympathy with the difficulties facing both voluntary and county schools with regard to sensible and good planning of nursery provision. However, we feel that this amendment would still not rectify the position where there is an imbalance. Over the years, many LEAs have attempted to try to plan across the voluntary-aided and county sector together. All too frequently, particularly as the GM system was developed, the voluntary-aided capital budget has been raided to provide the funds for GM schools.
However, this amendment would further the division in a different way. We hope that the right reverend Prelate will not at this stage seek to press the amendment to a vote, but will seek to ensure that we try to agree a new system that will allow an equality of opportunity across both sectors for good planning.
Lord Henley: I am interested to find myself in at least partial agreement with the noble Baroness: this is not a matter to press to a vote.
At Second Reading the right reverend Prelate gave what I might perhaps describe as a tantalising hint that he saw some attractions in extending to all church schools--whether Church of England schools or Catholic schools--all the freedoms which the Bill proposes for GM schools. He correctly suggested that the GM deregulation clauses reflect the Government's belief that such schools are sufficiently independent and well governed to be able to make more decisions about their character without needing central approval, and he raised the possibility that the same approach might apply to church schools.
We would have seen some force in such an argument and we believe that schools should have as much power as possible to make their own judgments about their own development without the need to jump through lots of hoops. That reflects our general commitment to deregulation and our faith in the ability of schools to make those decisions for themselves.
But church schools have traditionally enjoyed more autonomy than county schools in making their own decisions. Had the right reverend Prelate's amendment provided just for church schools to enjoy the full benefits of deregulation and self-government he might well have been knocking at an open door. Sadly, his amendment does not do that. His amendment picks out just one small element of the grant-maintained deregulation package--that relating to nursery classes--and applies it to church schools. We cannot accept that amendment on the grounds of principle and its financial implications. As a matter of principle, we do not believe in cherry-picking of this kind from the range of freedoms that grant-maintained schools have. If the churches believe in deregulation, trusting church schools and giving them more freedom to make their own decisions should apply across the board in the same way as for grant-maintained schools. I believe that it makes no sense in terms of the principle of this Bill to slice off just one element while refusing to allow such schools to enjoy the benefits of self-government in other areas. Even in the limited area covered by the new clause what is deregulated with one hand is then re-regulated with the other, since church schools would still be obliged to obtain the consent of their diocese.
The amendment would also have rather important financial implications for LEAs. This may be what the noble Baroness Lady Farrington is driving at. Voluntary schools, like county schools, are funded through LEA schemes for the local management of schools. Those schemes set out the formulae and factors that must be used to calculate each school's budget. The addition of nursery classes to church primary schools would place a new burden on LEAs who would automatically have to fund those places in accordance with their schemes even though under the new clause the LEA would have no say in whether or not the new nursery provision should be introduced. That could be very expensive for LEAs. We believe that it would be wrong to place such a burden on the LEAs through such a new clause. I hope therefore that the right reverend Prelate will not feel it necessary to press his amendment.
The Lord Bishop of Ripon: I am grateful to both the noble Baroness Lady Farrington and the Minister. I take comfort from the fact that the noble Baroness recognised the strength of the case that I make and that it may be possible to talk together about whether there are other ways in which the point may be met. In the light of that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton moved Amendment No. 41:
10.45 p.m.
After Clause 2, insert the following new clause--
(" .--(1) Before bringing into effect the provisions of this Part relating to increases in selection in county, voluntary and grant-maintained schools, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report setting out the results of a survey of good practice undertaken by local education authorities, together with any statement arising from it which the Secretary of State may wish to make as to the role of local education authorities.
(2) The statement referred to in subsection (1) above may refer to the following areas--
(a) proposals for the production by local education authorities of education development plans for their areas;
(b) the role of local education authorities in raising educational standards in institutions in their areas;
(c) the role of authorities in balancing resources and meeting educational needs which would otherwise fail to be met;
(d) the significance of specialist skills and support services available through local education authorities in the provision of education in their areas;
(e) the provision of discretionary services by authorities.").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 41 seeks to insert a new clause after Clause 2. Its purpose is to examine the role of the local education authority in the light of the selection changes that Part I introduces. Part I has potentially far-reaching changes for local education authorities on specific selection issues, although the LEA remains the admission authority for the schools. Governing bodies of county schools are to be required annually to consider the benefits of selection and its increase within their schools. The Bill incorporates a divisive proposal, along with others, on selection and the effect on the community could place many county schools under great pressure as GM and specialist schools expand selection at a rapid rate.
At this juncture it may be thought right to consider and reassess the role of local education authorities. As the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, and the noble Earl, Lord Baldwin, said at Second Reading, there is a lack of understanding of the role of the democratically elected authority in education as regards expressing the views of the community in a vitally important service. The noble Baroness Lady Warnock spoke of
She specifically attacked the new powers given to the FAS to start up new grant-maintained schools in an area and the threat from increased selection in existing grant-maintained schools in the range of LEA provisions. Rumour has it that the Government are
LEAs have adapted well to the massive structural and bureaucratic changes of the past decade. As was pointed out on Second Reading, an elected authority has both the status and the knowledge to balance resources across an area and to provide for specialist needs and expertise in support of the primary activities of schools and other institutions.
It was with sadness that I heard in answer to the previous amendment the Minister refer to one of the features of grant maintained schools being that they were better governed than other schools. Ministers and the Secretary of State do not hesitate to refer to that level of governance of schools as being somehow superior to the commitment, quality and dedication of governors of non-grant-maintained schools.
Contrary to the Government's assertion, and in my experience contrary to the knowledge, determination and skill of parents who wish to raise issues, many of those schools see a value in being part of the LEA and the local community. It is my experience across the shire counties--the noble Lord, Lord Tope, may speak for metropolitan authorities--that there exists more often than not, and more frequently than between those same schools and central government, at local level a balance, an agreement and a concern for all.
LEAs have an important role also in discretionary areas of education provision--adult education and community education--and a wide range of other issues; above all, the quality of special needs provision for non-statemented pupils. I shall read Hansard with great interest, but I have not noticed the Minister respond to what could develop from the Government's proposals, which is LEAs with minimal responsibility for a small number of schools forced to take on an ever-increasing percentage of children who have non-statemented special needs but who represent a particular and very demanding challenge for teachers and governors of the schools in which they are educated.
In summary, the point of the amendment is to draw attention to an important juncture in terms of the significance of the Bill's provisions to the coherence of the system in which LEAs play a central part and to warn that the weakening of their role could represent an enormous lost opportunity to improve the service for all pupils.
Since the Government have lost political control at local level of so many of the authorities which they controlled for so many years, it has become fashionable in some government circles to denigrate and attack local government. The British people have a long history of electing a degree of balance. With a change of government at national level, the Conservative Party could live to regret its attempt to demolish true local democracy and accountability for the education service in the areas which historically it controlled and which its many ill-considered and rushed through legislative changes have damaged, which has led to parents looking to authorities with Labour, Liberal or no overall control
"the slaughter of the powers of the LEAs will turn out to be one of the worst things that this Government have done".--[Official Report, 10/2/97; col.46.]
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