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Baroness Ramsay of Cartvale: My Lords, I support all six of these amendments: Amendments Nos. 7 to 9 and 19 to 21, to all of which I have my name. Their purpose is to ensure that there will be consultation by admissions authorities or grant-maintained schools in all significant cases where there are proposals to increase selection or make other changes to grant-maintained schools such as enlargement to give all concerned the opportunity to know what comments are being made on the proposals and to allow them a reasonable period in which to respond.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, mentioned, the Minister made clear on the first day of the Committee stage that the words "if any" were there in relation to the statutory requirement to consult to cater for those cases where,
- "there are bound to be some changes so small that formal consultation would be a waste of time, effort and money for all concerned".--[Official Report, 2/4/97; col. 998.]
We have therefore taken his words into consideration in framing these amendments and exempting any minor changes which are not at present required by law to undergo the publication procedure.
Any change, no matter how small, can have an impact on children, parents and other schools in an area. The Bill seems to contain no provision to prevent a school making small changes which incrementally would lead to a small change in character. If the Government really believe in consultation, I do not see why there is anything to prevent the Secretary of State's guidance differentiating between cases where the impact is, in the Minister's view, small and other cases. Surely insisting that consultation is not justified when a school wishes to increase selection brings into question the Government's commitment to considering the legitimate interests of the whole community in which every school has to operate?
I, like other noble Lords, have been concerned about the Minister's response [Official Report, 24/2/97; col. 999] to the points we raised about the extent of consultation and its timing. The Minister did not make it clear--at least not to me--whether the guidance would ensure that all comments received during the consultation period would be available for public inspection. I understand that it has been common practice for government departments to make available to the public any responses from interested parties whom they consult unless the respondent does not wish it. That seems to me to be a very good practice which does not place any additional burden on the respondents.
With regard to the period of time for comment, the Minister referred [Official Report, 24/2/97; col. 999] to a period of not less than one month for interested parties to respond to proposals to increase selection. I know from my experience as a chair of governors that when parents and governing bodies of schools have to be consulted that period of time is wholly inadequate even during term time and is completely unacceptable at any other time. Let us try to live in the real world for a moment and accept that a proposal to increase selection is likely to arouse strong feelings in any area. It surely must be right that parents and governors should have time to consider the responses and should not be made to feel that they are being pushed or railroaded into making very important decisions.
The wording of the Bill as it now stands is unfortunate in these regards at least, if not also in some other regards, but that can easily be corrected. After all, public consultation should not be considered a burden or something only to be undertaken when very large numbers of parents or children might be affected. These amendments would simply ensure that parents and others concerned would have an opportunity to know about, and to comment upon, proposals to increase selection by ability or aptitude. I hope that the Minister will find it possible to accept these amendments.
Earl Baldwin of Bewdley: My Lords, I support these amendments. I read with care what the Minister said in Committee. I was encouraged by what he said about the extent of consultation undertaken by his own department and consultation that could be expected from guidance to be issued on this point of varying admission arrangements under Schedule 1 and Clause 7.
Nevertheless, the words "if any" are unfortunate. In broad terms, I believe that they give the wrong message--the suggestion that consultation is less rather than more appropriate--and in narrow, legal terms they leave a significant loophole.
I do not believe that there is any disagreement of substance over what the Government intend, but it seems to me that this is one of the cases where, given the sensitivity of the issue in question, the Government could with benefit accept the minor change of wording, which concedes nothing in substance. Incidentally, I also associate myself with the two-month period even though my name was not down on those amendments.
Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton: My Lords, I too wish to speak in support on this group of amendments and in doing so to draw particular attention to the points made so strongly on the issue of the period of time for consultation. The Minister cannot have experienced the process of change proposed for a school in a locality which affects other secondary schools and the primary schools in the area if he is prepared to support, and adhere to, the notion that such a consultation should take place within a period of no longer than a month.
When a change is proposed that will affect the school at which their children are pupils--or would become pupils, if they are primary school children--meetings for parents and public meetings in the locality tend to be packed. People are concerned; there is a wider community interest in the effect that proposals will have.
If a proposal to consult is begun by holding meetings, either the meetings have to be enormous and attended by so many that people become angry and say that they have not had an opportunity to raise the concerns of their school and their particular set of circumstances or it is necessary to hold meetings one night after another in different parts of the locality. I say that having had that salutary experience myself. I would be surprised if the noble Lord the Minister had not, in his time in local government, become aware of that phenomenon. I cannot think of any changes affecting the type of entrants into a school which have not attracted that degree of parental interest. It is therefore deeply concerning if the Government are not prepared to accept that a period of two months would be more appropriate and would avoid the Government being blamed for lack of consultation, lack of thorough consultation or lack of time to have due regard to the outcome of that consultation.
I cannot believe that the Minister would want to set in place a system doomed to failure. I cannot believe that the Minister would want to set in train a procedure that would lead to criticism from all those attending meetings. I am sure that the Minister is able to concede this very small point.
Lord Henley: My Lords, the noble Baroness is absolutely right, I do have very similar experiences to those she has, though probably not as frequent in terms of seeing the consultation process when a number of schools are threatened with closure or merger. I particularly remember one consultation process I was involved with in
my own LEA. I think it was the year before county council elections. With a hung council, we were proposing closure or merger of a very large number of schools. The proposal had all-party agreement and, as one would expect, the whole thing fell apart at first instance, particularly after consultation. I believe that the document that the county council as a whole put forward containing these proposals was called The Way Ahead. I have ever since been deeply suspicious of any document called The Way Ahead; I have seen a great many over the years and most have suffered a similar fate.Perhaps I may start by giving an assurance to the House, as I made clear at Committee stage and as colleagues have made clear in another place, that we intend that in most circumstances consultation will be required. I believe that in moving this amendment the noble Baroness accepted that there are some occasions when changes are so minor that formal consultation would be a waste of time, effort and money for all concerned--I use the same words as I used on an earlier occasion.
There are two ways in which one could approach this issue. One could either adopt the Government's approach--which I think is the better one--of using the words "if any" and then offer a degree of guidance (I will go into that in due course) or, at the cost of lengthening the Bill by an extra three or four lines, one could take the approach adopted by the noble Baroness in her Amendment No. 9 and the other amendment, Amendment No. 21, to much the same effect. I believe that guidance is the better route. It will be guidance to which the proposers will be required to have regard and will clarify which changes would not require consultation. It will also clarify what periods of consultation might be appropriate in those circumstances. I will come to the timing in due course. I believe that that is the way in which consultation is treated at the moment and I believe that these amendments are another example of a degree of detail that it is not necessary to have on the face of the Bill.
We accept that consultation will be important where the proposed changes would have a perceptible effect on the functioning of the school. That is why we have a specific clause on the subject of consultation. As I said, for the very minor changes--variation of a few per cent., numbers to be selected, for example--within the overall threshold, that consultation would not be necessary. Again, that would be set out in the guidance.
I can give an assurance that the guidance will include, within the changes required, all those changes currently requiring publication of statutory proposals as set out in the noble Baroness's two amendments. Further, the Bill also provides that other changes which do not currently require the publication of proposals but nonetheless are of importance to other schools in the area would also require consultation. I also say to the noble Baroness, Lady Ramsay, that in terms of access to responses to the consultation, we would certainly expect that the guidance would include an expectation that the governors should place copies of the responses to the consultation in a public place, such as a local public library, unless there is some very good reason to keep them confidential. The noble Baroness mentioned the
fact that the respondents themselves specifically asked for their response to be kept confidential. That is the most obvious reason. There may or may not be others but I cannot think of one at the moment. That is something which could be left open. For those reasons in the main we consider that our more flexible approach of guidance is more appropriate.There are also the two amendments which suggest that there should be a minimum period of consultation. Again, it is our view that the length of consultation will vary according to the type of proposal and the number of interested parties. I go back to my own experience in a particular LEA where a great deal of consultation was required because some major changes were proposed. But to take the example of an isolated rural school catering for rapid growth in pupil numbers, it may not impact on any other particular institution. In those cases, to restrict them to that two-month period might not be necessary. The key is that those with a proper interest are consulted in a way that enables them to give serious consideration to the issues before them. One could also say that there would be a serious risk of judicial review if they were not given that opportunity for a serious review of the issues before them. Again, I can give an assurance to the noble Baroness that we shall make sure that the guidance offers appropriate guidance on what should be the length of consultation in individual circumstances.
With that explanation, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
5 p.m.
Baroness Thomas of Walliswood: My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. I believe that we have got a little further in that he suggested--so I understand--that the guidance would indicate that consultation is likely to be required on all those kinds of proposals which currently have to be published. That was one of our objectives. I should prefer to see some of the amendments on the face of the Bill.
I am a little worried about the timing proposal. Two months is not a very long time in the life of a school, of parents, of a local authority and of other schools. Meetings have to be put together and people have to talk to each other. It sometimes takes a little while for people to understand or even hear about proposals which have been put forward. I am not happy about that.
Although there are areas where I am still unhappy, I can see that the Minister will not change his mind and give way to what I call almost drafting amendments. Therefore I agree to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 8 and 9 not moved.]
Clause 2 [Duty of governing body to review selective admission policy]:
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