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5.22 p.m.
Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 55:
- Page 18, line 43, at end insert—
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, with this amendment I can be brief. Changing the school year has an enormous impact on the structure not only of the lives of people in an area but of schools within the area. If it is done without proper consultation and without proper endorsement, such a change would be ill-conceived. I beg to move.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, this is an area where the Government see no need to regulate existing arrangements for local decision-making if these are working well. Perhaps I may briefly explain why.
My department has received very few requests for any change to the present arrangements under which school term dates are decided locally by those most affected. Non-statutory consultation procedures appear to work well. We simply do not wish to add to the body of education legislation where it is not necessary.
Although it is not a statutory requirement, we expect local authorities to consult widely on issues that affect people in their areas; and the evidence is that local education authorities understand the need for wide consultation. We are satisfied that under the existing arrangements local education authorities are taking a responsible approach to this. The report of the Local Government Association on the six-term year, for example, includes a detailed account of the consultation carried out by Wigan before deciding to change the pattern of terms locally. We know of several other authorities that are conducting consultation exercises on this issue, involving parents as well as other interest groups.
The evidence indicates that local education authorities consult on changes that affect school terms. Therefore, the amendment is unnecessary. I accordingly invite the noble Baroness to withdraw it.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, it is unfortunate that the noble Baroness believes that local education authorities are doing everything right in this respect, but trusts them on almost nothing else—the Bill contains so much regulation because they are not trusted to do this, that and the other.
There is no legal obligation on local education authorities to consult, and there is nothing that says that they should. I thought that this was a perfectly sensible thing to do and—given that it is a cost-free option—that the Government in their generosity would accept the amendment. In despair, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford moved Amendment No. 56:
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I moved this amendment in Committee—but do so again because the response that we received was not at all satisfactory.
As I made clear in Committee, when the amendment was debated late at night, there are a great many countries where there is official representation of parents. In the US and Canada, parent representatives sit on state boards of education; and in Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Portugal and Spain, parents are represented on key national policy-making committees. In most cases, parental representation is set down in legislation. Only in England, Wales and Japan are parents not represented as of right on any national policy-making or advisory committee.
In his response in Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Davies, said that the amendment was not necessary because the Government have already done what I am asking for: we now have parent representatives on local governing bodies, so parents are well represented and that is all we need. My response to the noble Lord is that that is not all we need. As I said at the time, we need representation at national level.
Parents have a huge investment in education because in a sense they entrust their children to it. By proxy, they are the consumers of education, certainly up to key stage 4, because they make the key decisions for their children in education.
The Government place great emphasis in the provision of public services on listening to consumers and on taking note of what they say. Yet at the national level there is no body which they can consult which represents parents—in spite of the fact, as the Minister pointed out in Committee, that we have a very good way of representing parents: we elect parent representatives to governing bodies, and they elect representatives to sit on local education authorities. The amendment suggests that we go one step further and ask those who sit at each local education authority level, between themselves, to elect someone to go forward to sit on the national council.
As I say, this is odd, given the degree to which the Government are anxious to involve stakeholders in decision-making and given their recognition that the consumer voice should count in public services. The report written by Joe Hallgarten of the Institute for Public Policy Research, which I quoted in Committee, notes that a support network has been set up to support and pass information on to parent governors. There is a parents' centre on the DfES website. However, as the report notes,
Indeed, the Government consult several national teacher and head teacher organisations, and they consult the national organisation representing governors. They consult what might be termed the "producer interests" very well. But they do not at present consult the consumer interests very well. There is no national organisation representing parents. Yet in many respects we have all the structures set up and ready to create such a council. The School Standards and Framework Act 1998 made it a requirement for LEAs to have parent governor representatives, elected by parent governors, on the appropriate committee dealing with education. These elected parent governor representatives could, as suggested in the amendment, so easily come together to form national parents' councils.
I cannot accept the Minister's arguments that such a body would not be representative. We have elected parent governors who in turn elect their representatives on the LEAs. They have the legitimacy of being elected, not self-selected, which is true of so many other national bodies. Surely this is the best way in which to make them representative while at the same time creating national parents' councils which would add purpose and status to their position as governors.
If the Government believe in practising what they preach, in giving the consumer interest a real say in national decision-making, then here is an excellent point at which to start. Let us have national parents' councils. I beg to move.
Lord Peston: My Lords, I am very glad that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, has raised this issue at a reasonable hour today. I am very sympathetic to the underlying philosophy she has put forward. My concern is whether we really want this to be done in this way—via government regulations, government money and so on.
If I may start with an acerbic remark, the Government have set up a number of bodies, the common trait of which, I feel, is that they are powder-puff bodies. I shall not name names or the various
I reflect on Lord Young of Dartington, our late lamented friend who was a great man in this sphere. Looking at Amendment No. 56, I thought to myself, "What would he have done in response to the same set of needs?" I do not think that he would have thought that the way to do it was to say to the Government, "You make regulations. You find the money. You finance the secretariat". I think that he would have said, "I shall go"—he was an amazing man in this regard—"to various charities and trusts and tell them, 'This is what I want to do. I need this money to set up the secretariat, and I need this money to get the whole thing going'. I would therefore set up an independent body rather than this"—as he did with the Consumers' Association and many other bodies.
I am therefore totally with the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, in her objective. I do not, however, quite like the model of producers and consumers in education. I do not see the parent solely as a consumer, and I am sure that the noble Baroness probably does not see it quite like that either. I see the parent as a much bigger contributing factor to the whole way in which we educate in this country and not merely as a recipient. I should like to see such a body. However, what I would really like to see—perhaps the noble Baroness is the person to take the lead in this—is a body that is separate from the Government, with a great deal of independence. It should have the type of independence that enables it to say, "This is not right". I think that such a statement on a given issue would carry great weight because, as the noble Baroness said, the body would be composed of the elected members of other governing bodies.
So I am with the noble Baroness. However, I am not sure that it would be right to go down the path of letting the Government finance the body. When a government body is established, regardless of how independent its members seem, despite everything, they really do pay attention to what the Government want as well as to what they were set up for in the first place. The noble Baroness is right to raise the issue and, as I said, I am with her in her objective and philosophy. On the whole, however, I think that it might be better to take a path via our country's voluntary tradition and persuade one of the great charities that, if they would find the money, this would be a great achievement for them.
"( ) Nothing in this section shall permit the introduction by a local education authority or a governing body of a change to the number of school terms in a year without prior consultation with, and the approval of, the majority of parents of pupils in the school or schools affected."
After Clause 33, insert the following new clause—
"NATIONAL PARENTS' COUNCILS
(1) The Secretary of State in England and the National Assembly for Wales shall make arrangements for the establishment in each country of a National Parents' Council, which shall consist of elected representatives of parent governors, one from each local education authority area.
(2) Regulations shall provide for—
(a) eligibility for election to the respective Councils;
(b) the procedures by which such elections will take place;
(c) the terms of office of members and officers;
(d) the procedures by which the chairman and vice chairman are to be elected;
(e) arrangements for meetings of the respective Councils;
(f) the reimbursement of members for travel and expenses; and
(g) any other matters relating to the constitution, procedures and meetings of the Councils as are appropriate."
"There is one missing link; parents are still not represented by a single body at the national level".
It continues—and given the Minister's reply last time these words seem very apposite:
"The arguments against the creation of such a body are limp. Of course, parents are a heterogeneous group, and cannot be truly represented by a few individuals. The same could be said for virtually every national organisation".
5.30 p.m.
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