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Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 78:
- Page 27, line 42, leave out from "authority" to end of line 44.
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Clause 42 deals with yet more regulations—our perennial favourite—requiring,
- "the governing body of a maintained school ... to keep prescribed accounts and prescribed records in relation to the accounts".
- "to prepare prescribed financial statements or reports",
- "to comply with prescribed conditions with respect to audit".
Clause 42 also requires governing bodies,
- "to send copies of the accounts, together with such financial statements or reports as may be prescribed, to the local education authority".
- "or to the Secretary of State (in relation to England) or the National Assembly for Wales (in relation to Wales)".
Local authorities, in addition to preparing their accounts, and complying with all the rules that I have just read out, must also produce an annual report and accounts, which is a public document. They must provide all that information for auditors, whose report is part of the public accounts. They are inspected by Ofsted and every Ofsted report has to include a section on the way in which the school is managed and how its report and accounts are produced. All the information contained in every Ofsted report is held in public libraries and is available to the community and the parents. In addition, a copy of every Ofsted report is sent to the Secretary of State.
I should like Clause 42 to be removed from the Bill altogether. I suspect that there will be some reason why all previous statutes should be superseded by this clause as I cannot believe that it is not already a legal requirement to do all those things listed in Clause 42(1). It is taking it a little far if each school has to do that. If the information has to go to local authorities, which the amendment would allow, let them provide the information for the Secretary of State. Schools should be relieved of that duty. I beg to move.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, this clause supports the introduction of the consistent financial reporting initiative that will provide data so that all schools will be able to bench-mark their expenditure against a good range of comparator schools. We believe that this is an important new initiative that is already under way. The clause has been introduced to give it a specific legal basis rather than relying upon a set of current legislative provisions that were not designed with the CFR in mind.
We anticipate that returns from schools will usually go via their local education authority for quality assurance. Onward submission to the Secretary of State, or the National Assembly for Wales, for national aggregation of data could be required under Clause 42(4). However, we have inserted into Clause
42(1) the facility to require direct submission of material to the Secretary of State. Upon reflection, we have decided that that is unnecessary. The noble Baroness is right in this respect. It will be sufficient to rely on documents being routed via the LEA. We are, therefore, extremely happy to accept the noble Baroness's amendment.
Baroness Blatch: I feel faint, my Lords; I am having an attack of the vapours! I am grateful for that acceptance. I was about to say that it was inconceivable that the good sense of this amendment would not be seen. However, it has been seen. I am eternally grateful to the Minister. I commend the amendment to the House.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Blatch moved Amendment No. 79:
- Before Clause 44, insert the following new clause—
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I do not suppose that I shall be as lucky with this amendment. The Government are very fond of referring to the Ripon petition and ballot process as a panacea for the answers to absolutely every point that one raises as regards a problem with both petitioning and balloting. However, I should like for a moment to explain just how unsettling it is for any school to be threatened with the collection of signatures for a petition. That applies even more so when that process begins to gather apace, although very often it is abandoned. Indeed, that has happened in almost all cases, except in the Ripon grammar school petition and ballot. After it is abandoned, the school stops worrying and gets back to what it should be doing with the children but then another group of parents appear and the whole process starts all over again.
This process can continue for year after year in some parts of the country, so it is important for there to be some respite. A child starting in the first year at a grammar school can have his or her life of education disrupted by this kind of political—that is, "political" with both a small "p" and a big "P"—activity in the local area, which causes tension and is most unsettling for the staff, the head teacher, the parents, and the children.
I addressed the point fairly raised by the Minister during the previous stage of the Bill; namely, that if it were to count from the initiation of the petition, one
Lord Peston: My Lords, the noble Baroness starts from the position that she has asserted to your Lordships on several occasions; namely, that she favours academic selection at the age of 11, and the continuation of grammar schools. Therefore, it is not in the least surprising that she should take every opportunity to speak on matters relating to the ballot, and so on.
I share one view with the noble Baroness. I am totally opposed to petitions and ballots, the reason being that I am opposed to grammar schools. After all the wasted years, I had assumed that a Labour Government elected with a massive majority would have stuck to their fundamental philosophy of simply abolishing the grammar schools. Having achieved this great majority that those of us in the early days never had and, therefore, could not do what we thought was right, I was very taken aback when this Government decided to go down the petitions and ballots route. I say to the noble Baroness that, yes, we should not have petitions and ballots; but, equally, we should not have selection at the age of 11.
The bias involved in petitions and ballots has made things practically impossible for any parents' group. Most of the groups that I know are not party political; they are just people who believe that selection at the age of 11 is immensely damaging to children—a subject to which I shall return if we ever reach my amendment this evening. It is news to me that such ballots have actually been damaging to the education of children. When speaking to parents, I have heard nothing about the slight possibility that, via a ballot, a grammar schools might one day get itself abolished and, as a result, somehow affect the education of any children. I repeat a remark that I have made on other topics. I know of no research that suggests that the ballot process has led to that outcome. If we were to undertake the usual kind of survey, my guess is that on questioning the young children about the ballot we
The argument put forward by the noble Baroness is simply not a valid argument to which we ought to pay attention. The valid argument is the one that she does not put forward; namely, that she likes the grammar schools, she wants them protected, and she does not want any means put forward that would assist people in getting rid of them. That seems to me a totally forthright and straightforward position and something with which one could come to grips. However, that is not the argument that has been put forward. I assume that the amendment is proposed as a debating point. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will produce a debating answer. I honestly do not believe that it is about reality in terms of education in our schools.
Baroness Ashton of Upholland: My Lords, this proposed new clause has two purposes. It changes the current moratorium period of five years from the date on which the ballot result is announced to six years. Because, in practice, it will usually take the better part of a year for campaigners to gather names for a petition and for the ballot company to check its validity and hold a ballot, this aspect of the new clause would have little practical effect. More significantly, it would introduce a new moratorium in the event of an unsuccessful petition when a ballot has not actually been held.
I dwell on the Ripon example only for a few moments. When a ballot clearly demonstrates local support for the existing admission arrangements, as, for example, in Ripon, it is of course right that the school concerned should enjoy a period of stability. That is why our procedures allow a five-year moratorium on further campaigns. However, where there has been no ballot and, therefore, no expression of local feeling, it cannot be right to deny parents the opportunity to reconsider the issue.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, said, I spoke in Committee of my concern that the introduction of a moratorium following an unsuccessful petition could be open to abuse. The clause now before us, although worded slightly differently, does nothing to address that possibility. Someone would have only to register a request for a petition threshold to be set with the ballot company to prevent any attempt in the next six years to gauge support for change among local parents. The effect of introducing such a provision would only be negative. It would prevent local parents who, after consideration of local issues, came to believe that a grammar school was no longer appropriate for their community from testing opinion in a measurable way.
The question of grammar school ballot arrangements has been aired on a number of occasions in this House and in another place. I believe that we have had the opportunity during the debates on this Bill to put forward arguments. We on this side of the
"RESTRICTIONS RELATING TO PETITIONS AND BALLOTS
After section 106 of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 (c. 31) (ballot regulations: eligibility of the parents to request or vote in ballot) there is inserted—
"106A RESTRICTIONS RELATING TO PETITIONS AND BALLOTS
Where a petition of parents has been initiated and failed to acquire the requisite number of signatures within the prescribed time limit, or a ballot has been held and no change to admissions arrangements has been agreed, no further ballot may take place within a period of six years.""
"Where a petition ... has been initiated and failed",
because, if it has failed, the process cannot start again until the following academic year. However, if a petition has been initiated but,
"has failed to acquire the requisite number of signatures",
I believe that there should be a respite for a least the life of one child passing through one school. That is why I have chosen the period of six years. It is arguable whether it should be five or six years, but most of the schools about which we are talking are 11 to 18 schools. It is only fair that that should be so. It would not remove the petitions and ballots, and it would not remove the system—indeed, I accepted defeat on that during the previous stage of the Bill. There is a very real argument for allowing these young people to go through school without the constant war of attrition on their education by political activists, with both a small "p" and a big "P", in their local area. I beg to move.
7.15 p.m.
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