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The Lord Bishop of Blackburn: I thank the Minister for his reply, which goes some way towards reassuring those whom I represent that the Secretary of State will take due note that the consultation has taken place and that, before giving whatever consent is necessary, will investigate the situation in some way. I hope that my understanding of the Minister's response is correct. In the knowledge that that assurance is on the record, I am content to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 60 [Power to require LEA to obtain advisory services]:
Baroness Walmsley moved Amendment No. 230:
- Page 41, line 11, at beginning insert "following consultation with the local education authority,"
The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendment No. 231.
Clause 60 provides for the Secretary of State to intervene and direct the LEA to introduce a partner to assist with turning round a failing school or schools if insufficient progress has been made. However, there is nothing in the Bill to require that the Secretary of State must consult with the LEA in such a situation.
The exercise of those powers will have clear financial implications for the LEA, especially when a lot of money is to be delegated to the new partner. It will also have implications for other schools for which the LEA has responsibility as it could put in jeopardy the necessary critical mass of the authority's advisory and other services if a large chunk of those services were taken over by a partner.
It is therefore surprising that the Government think it appropriate for the Secretary of State to interfere with local decision making to such an extent without
even ascertaining from the authority what the knock-on effects of such action might be. The Minister may say that of course such consultations will take place, and perhaps with the current Secretary of State, they would. However, we shall not always have the present Secretary of State, so it is necessary to put this protection into the Bill for the benefit of other schools in the area. I beg to move.
Lord McIntosh of Haringey: In order to reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I shall explain in what circumstances those powers could be used. I emphasise that it is certainly our intention that they should be used extremely rarely.
I say that in the context that our policy in tackling failing schools is working well. In the past few years more than 900 schools have been turned round, and I pay tribute to the role of local education authorities in that achievement.
Many LEAs have established effective partnership arrangements. The power in the clause to direct an LEA to involve a partner to support the governing body of a weak or failing school, or to support the LEA itself, will be needed in only a very small number of cases, where the LEA has chosen not to do so itself.
There are two possible instances when the power could be required. First, when an LEA is preparing an action plan following an Ofsted inspection which has judged a school as having serious weaknesses or requiring special measures, it may be necessary to require the LEA to involve external support where action is clearly necessary and the authority has no plans to take such action. Alternatively, a direction may be necessary later in the process if it becomes clear that an LEA's recovery plan is not working.
In either case, we shall have been working closely with the LEA in question to help it to tackle the difficulties that it faces. Therefore, the Secretary of State or the National Assembly for Wales will have sufficient knowledge to be satisfied that a direction is the appropriate course of action. There will have been detailed discussions throughout this time, which I should have thought would go rather further than consultation in the formal sense. Therefore, we do not need a further requirement to consult. That would slow down the process of securing for children the quality of education that is their right.
I turn to Amendment No. 231. We expect the Secretary of State to use her power under Clause 60 to direct the LEA to obtain advisory services. We expect that to happen only rarely. The fact that it has happened in my borough of Haringey is perhaps irrelevant to the argument. We propose to provide guidance on the way in which any local education authority might use external partners to provide advice on turning failing schools around.
We want the guidance to be as helpful as possible and we believe that LEAs will find examples of model contracts more useful than detailed guidance about the terms and conditions which the Secretary of State
might include in a direction. We hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, will agree that that sort of guidance would be preferable to a formal direction.
Baroness Walmsley: I thank the Minister for his answer. Given that the circumstances in which the Secretary of State might have to use such powers—hopefully rarely—it would probably mean almost a complete breakdown in relations between the DfES and the local authority in question. I very much hope that the Minister is right and that it would be used rarely. I shall read his remarks with great care and possibly return to the matter at the next stage. I beg leave to withdraw.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 231 not moved.]
Lord McIntosh of Haringey moved Amendment No. 232:
- Page 41, line 34, leave out "an order of mandamus" and insert "a mandatory order"
The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 232 is a drafting amendment which brings the matter up to date. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Clause 60, as amended, agreed to.
Lord Roberts of Conwy moved Amendment No. 233:
- Page 42, line 42, after "State" insert "(in relation to England) or the National Assembly for Wales (in relation to Wales)"
The noble Lord said: Clause 62 and the succeeding clauses up to and including Clause 67 apply to England only. Some of us in Wales feel that it may be losing out by not opting in to some of these clauses and some of the possibilities that they contain.
Amendment No. 233 seeks to remedy this short-sightedness, particularly in relation to academies. The amendment, I hasten to add, is only indicative, in the sense that if it were to be accepted, other consequential amendments would be necessary in the clause. We have not littered the Marshalled List with them at this stage.
The argument is very clear. Here is a proposal that the Secretary of State may enter an agreement with a person to establish and maintain an independent school with a broad curriculum but with an emphasis on a particular subject area. That we know represents a popular approach to education among young people with a special interest. They take an interest in their schooling. With that kind of interest, there is something to combat the inertia that we all remember from our schooldays.
Such youngsters in Wales are to be denied any such opportunity and so are the potential patrons of such schools. And why? It is because the Welsh education system and the Welsh proposals in the Bill are anachronistic, backward instead of forward looking
and antipathetic to novelty and change. The ethos is static, self-perpetuating, anti-enterprise and, frankly, wrong. New ideas and concepts are anathema.It will be said that there is no demand for such schools as these academies and that there is no queue of patrons at the Minister's door. There certainly will not be now that the door has been firmly slammed in their faces. I am sorry to say that the best that we can hope for in Wales is that news of the success of these academies will percolate down in time and that someone will press for such academies to be established there. As the Bill stands, it will not be possible for Wales to benefit unless the amendment is accepted making Clause 62 apply to Wales as well as England. I beg to move.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 234, 237, 238, 242, 243 and 245. This series of amendments all relate to Clause 62 which deals with the setting up of new academies. Each one is, however, slightly different and addresses a slightly different issue. I shall address each one of them separately.
Amendment No. 234 seeks to ensure consistency of terminology. The 1988 Act's,
- "a balanced and broadly based curriculum",
The 1988 Conservative Government at the time clearly envisaged the national curriculum as providing the necessary breadth and balance. But with the need for sex education and careers education, it was always clear to teachers that a balanced and broadly-based curriculum referred to the national curriculum plus the wider school curriculum. The current Government appear to view a "broad" curriculum as something different again. In the proposals for 14 to 19s and the White Paper, terms like "balance", "breadth" and "entitlement" are used but clearly do not have the same meaning as before.
The Government appear to envisage that a "broad" curriculum will mean something different to different pupils. The amendment is intended to find out exactly what they mean. We suggest that the Bill refers to the Act by inserting the words,
- "curriculum which satisfies the requirements of section 74(1)".
Amendment No. 237 is intended to probe the Government to clarify pupil admissions to academies. Section 482(2)(b) of the Education Act 1996 states that the school, or in this case the academy,
- "provides education for pupils of different abilities who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which the school is situated".
I turn to Amendment No. 238, which is also a probing amendment regarding the Government's intention in relation to the establishment of additional academies. The amendment would ensure that no academy was established without prior consideration of its value in raising standards across the LEA. The establishment of city academies—or, as proposed, academies—may fragment local provision of secondary schools. Academies also involve the transfer of publicly funded assets to sponsoring bodies, which are not necessarily accountable. Sponsors provide about 20 per cent of the initial capital cost of setting up a city academy—up to £2 million of the average cost of £10 million. Public money is used to fund the remainder of the capital cost.
In the case of the proposed city academy in Haringey, for example, there have been numerous technical difficulties in transferring land and assets to the sponsors. The relationship of sponsors to the governance of city academies has not been adequately dealt with, which is why we want to insert the new subsection.
Amendments Nos. 242 and 243, which we have tabled at the behest of the Local Government Association, are intended to enable local leaders, in consultation with their communities, to decide on the planning of new secondary schools. That is currently the role of the schools organisation committee. The LGA is concerned that the Bill takes powers and responsibilities away from local community leaders and gives them to the Secretary of State. That undermines local democracy and provides for an unacceptable level of centralisation.
The role of community leaders is crucial, especially given the Government's proposals to make communities more cohesive in the wake of last summer's disturbances in some English towns and cities. The proposals for community cohesion are cross-cutting and extensive and will require the full involvement of local leaders and a level of local knowledge that only they can provide. They feel—and we on these Benches agree—that the Bill runs counter to those proposals and will make it difficult for local leaders to perform their community function. The Bill fails to foster a genuine partnership between local and central government, which we want to protect.
The Government are leading a consultation exercise on the new secondary school planned for Clapham, in a prosperous area in the borough of Lambeth. The school, a city academy, will be privately sponsored by the Church Schools Company and will take up to 180 students a year. The academy will meet the urgent need for secondary school places in Lambeth and the proposal has emerged after a long lobbying campaign by council and residents.
Issues forming the basis of the consultation include admissions criteria, the school's ethos, how the national curriculum will be delivered and the make-up of the governing body. The borough's executive director of education, Michael Peters, has asked residents to do all in their power to ensure that the city
academy delivers what is best for the community, the borough, pupils and parents. Those concerns are all relevant to the amendment.
Amendment No. 245 originates, I think, with the NAHT. It is self-explanatory. The duties imposed on the governing bodies of maintained schools should be echoed for the academies.
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