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Lord Filkin: My Lords, it is good to welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, to our processes. We will hear more of her, I am delighted to say. She was right to say that it had been a good Second Reading debate. It was characterised by a depth of knowledge and experience and by the fact that it did not have what can sometimes be agonising repetition. We opened up new areas of interest and challenge as the debate moved round the House. I welcome that.
As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and others said, I would be foolish and churlish if I did not also acknowledge the degree of welcome and support that came from many parts of the House for the broad direction of the Bill, even though everyone reserved their right to fight to the death on the detail. That is a positive foundation for a process of parliamentary scrutiny, and I welcome it. I also welcome the recognition from the Front Benches of the importance of getting the Bill right and getting it enacted. That is to be commended.
I do not know how long I dare trespass on the House's patience. It will not be much more than 20 minutes or so, otherwise noble Lords will start to leave. In that time, I shall not be able to answer all the many points that were made, partly due to want of wit and partly due to want of time. Before the end of the week, I shall sign off letters to everyone concerned with more specifics.
I shall have a go at some of the main issues. The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, spoke about admissions policies. We are consulting on guidance on admissions forums for developing admissions protocols that would ensure that all schools took a share of hard-to-place children, as they should. Similarly, the issue of foundation schools is out to consultation at present.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and the noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, asked about school forums. All that the Bill does is give the local authority and the school forum, if they agree, the power to bypass the Secretary of State. It does not take powers away from local authorities; it gives the local authority and the school forum more power than it currently has. They can do it without us, which is good.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, was right about three-year budgets. We had little discussion on three-year budgets. They are not the end of local government, and most people welcomed the move. However, I agree with the noble Lord that we must get it right in the detail. I was asked about schools being set up outside a local authority's area. That cannot be done between England and Wales, for reasons that are probably obvious. The systems are different. However, if two local authorities wanted to collaborate on setting up a school to serve across their boundaries, they could do so. That does not cover all the noble Lord's questions, so I shall write to him on the others.
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Savings will be directed to the front line, and the reduction of burdens will enable more resources to be devoted to quality teaching.
The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, raised many points. References to "serious weaknesses" are not the same as references to "significant improvement". The important part of the new differentiation in categorisation is that a school that, although not dreadful, shows no ambition and no ownership of its weak performance or underachievement can be as much of—or more of—a cause of concern than a school that is worse in outcomes but owns its responsibilities and has the strategies to change. In the latter case, we can have more confidence that the direction of travel will be the right one. That is what we sought to capture in the Bill.
Few schools opt for total quality management. It is an expensive process. However, the noble Baroness is right about trying to reinforce the importance of owning skilful, radical, realistic self-evaluation. That is what the inspection process will cover. That is why it will be different and why it will be possible in a shorter time. The inspection will not start trying to map what is going on, as if the school did not exist. The school and its governors—a key role for them—will be charged with responsibility for considering the school's performance in comparison with others, locally and nationally, identifying areas in which it is not good enough and should go further and considering whom it is not serving well enough. Increasingly, inspectorates generally have the role of evaluating the self-evaluation. It is a more efficient model.
The noble Lord, Lord Hanningfield, was worried about whether that process might increase the burdens on schools. It will not. Such things are a core responsibility of the leadership in a school, as in any institution. The point is not to have somebody else tell a school where it is weak or where it needs to be improved; that must be owned by governors and the leadership team in the school as part of their basic job. That is the central point about how the mechanism will work better and about why it will be possible in the rapid timetable proposed. I might have time to come back to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, on that in a minute.
We have spoken of the duty to co-operate in connection with previous Bills. We will probably need to come back to it in more detail in Committee. The key issue is that the school will be under an expectation, as part of the guidance on self-evaluation, to identify how it serves all pupils and co-operates with others to meet the needs of pupils. Ofsted will inspect that as part of the process. The joint area review will also consider how the school and the local authority support the co-operation that is necessary between schools and between schools and local authorities to meet the needs of some children. We believe that those mechanisms are in place. We will come back to that another time. Self-evaluation guidance will emphasise the importance of that issue, and joint area reviews will spot it.
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I was asked why the chief inspector was not accountable to Parliament. We do not believe that that is correct. HMCI is a Crown appointment and is subject to parliamentary scrutiny.
I was asked about the registration of inspectors. There will be quality controls in the contracting arrangements. Most are self-employed as RIs, and HMCI will have the flexibility to make sure that the team reflects what it is inspecting. I shall write to all noble Lords on that, as it was a theme of the questions about whether getting rid of the register would, in some way, be a loss of control. Noble Lords are owed a little more on that.
I got the sense that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, was not totally enamoured of academies. However, the issue of how we turn around a failing school is a serious public policy issue. We believe that we have sought to address it with the academies, and we believe that we are seeing evidence that they are working. It is one of the biggest challenges of public policy. Sometimes, inspections will do it, but, sometimes, we need more than just the inspection process. Academies are independent schools and must comply with the special educational needs code of practice. They often take more than their fair share of excluded pupils. No doubt, we will talk about that at another time.
I was asked about data, and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked who got the information. The Secretary of State may pass on individual-level information, as will be specified in regulations. Such information can be passed only to those who have existing powers to hold or be supplied with it. I hope that that will be a comfort.
Like the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester, we would have been pleased to have—as well, not instead—the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, who is a good friend of the House and a good friend of education. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester mentioned several points on which there was support from the Churches—not solely the Church of England—for elements of the Bill. He made important points about how the inspection of religious teaching in denominational schools would be carried out. I have had discussions with the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Portsmouth, and he knows that we share his serious interest in how to address that issue. We have not finalised the answers, but we are working on it. No doubt, I shall share details of that work with the right reverend Prelate and with the House before too long.
As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, did us proud. He asked so many thoughtful questions that, without giving the noble Lord all of my 20 minutes, it is impossible to even begin to do justice to them, which is code for saying that I do not have all of the answers.
Attitude and behaviour will be given specific emphasis with the joint Ofsted/DfES guidance and self evaluation. In other words, it will be part of what schools have to report on and think about when they are dealing with behaviour. For reasons that the noble
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Lord has made very clear previously, to which we are committed, unless behaviour creates a learning environment, there is an impediment to learning for everyone, not just those who are misbehaving. Behaviour will also be covered through the inspection framework and its associated guidance.
Can it be done in three weeks? The trials so far show that it can. As we have signalled, there is an extensive trialling process, which will not just produce pieces of paper within that timetable. Those who were inspected were asked what they thought about the process; so far they have been remarkably positive about it. Again, I shall share some of the detail on that in Committee.
As regards the natural justice of the appeals process, it is right that mistakes are rectified, errors of fact sorted without too much fuss, disputes resolved early and the sanctions, which I think are necessary in a system of public service, are not unfairly levied. Yes, that points to ensuring that there is a proper process so that people are not unfairly judged. Ofsted is currently developing a new complaints handling procedure to accompany the system of inspection. The procedure will make clear that judgments about inspections can be challenged and will be considered seriously and fully.
There will also be an independent complaints adjudicator who will be able to examine complaints about the way in which an inspection has been conducted and the way in which Ofsted has handled such complaints. There is also a range of issues about information and advice that can be accessed during the process of the inspection. Those are issues to which we will return in Committee.
On the cost of federations, as is our way, we are currently piloting a number of federations and evaluating them. There is a whole range of ways in which schools might want to collaborate. There are a number of ways in which federations can benefit from sources of funding, economies of scale, joint procurement and pooling part of their budgets. Federations could form foundation partnerships and could be contracted by the LEA to deliver an agreed specified set of functions. In a sense, we agree with the noble Lord that at times people need a little incentivisation to collaborate, particularly because the benefits may accrue for longer or to others. That must be looked at. We think that we have an adequacy of glue, but no doubt that will be tested later.
The noble Lord, Lord Dearing, is right as regards bursaries. Bursars will be increasingly important. It is bad enough to overspend on one year, but to overspend on three years really means trouble—I am speaking flippantly. The TTA—or the TDA as it will become—has had a bursary development programme. That function will transfer to the new TDA. Clearly, it will be an important part of its capacity building for ensuring that the system works well.
I share the concern of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, for a common vocabulary. She asked me to send her a map that shows how the framework of integrated children's services fits with our wider vision. Because I cannot wave documents, I shall have to write
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to her. I also agree with her that the school profile should reflect the broader ethos of the school, including its approach to personal and social development as well as academic record. We are currently trialling a version of the profile to do just that. The school self-evaluation should look at the quality of pupils' personal development and well-being, including how well the school is playing its part in delivering the five outcomes.
I am afraid that I am reverting to the noble Lord, Lord Dearing, which I hope he will not mind. He was also right to say how important physical well-being is in the inspection process. It will be picked up strongly. The guidance will see to that. Of course, it will not be just through inspection; it will also be through PE, school sport and the totality of what the school does, not simply through how the inspection process will work. The noble Lord felt that the way in which it was referred to in the Bill was not perfect. Time will not allow me to give him a full answer about why parliamentary draftsmen and the policy team have got it perfectly, but he will receive a fuller letter from me another time.
On failing schools and support for them, as the noble Lord knows, the Bill will introduce a new category on significant improvement, which recognises and therefore encourages a school's capacity to improve. The relevance is that where the leadership of a school—whether governors or the school leadership team itself—faces up to how bad it is, putting it at its harshest, and puts in place a statement of what it will do about the situation, it is conceivable that a school could avoid special measures because the inspector was confident that it owned the reality of the problem and had devised a realistic way out of it. That is a powerful incentive to self-improvement and self-ownership, which is built into the policy mechanisms of the Bill.
The noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Conwy, was not excessive in his praise for the Bill. He argued that it is not part of a cohesive system. Because of the time factor, I shall try to set that out briefly. As part of how organisations or institutions are improved, particularly government bodies, they need clarity of objectives and scope to succeed in terms of a financial environment that makes it possible to do so, which is not excessively burdened by input controls.
They do not need their governing bodies—either the local authority or government—excessively involved in detail about the inputs, but they need to be held strongly accountable for the outcomes—the results—through powerful processes of inspection, reward and stimulus. Essentially, that is the model of improvement that underlies this Bill, which we and, I think, many others think is right. It is a big move away from specifying through regulations a thousand ways in which one should do things. So I can tell the noble Lord that he is right to have confidence in the Minister's optimism.
There is not a separate Bill for Wales because the policies of the National Assembly and the DfES were not thought to be sufficiently divergent to justify two
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separate Bills. That is the line on which I am advised to advise noble Lords. Long may it be so. I am also told that there is much in common in the policies of the two governing bodies. In Wales, in line with proposals set out in The Learning Country, Estyn has already taken steps to introduce a common inspection framework in Wales.
The noble Lord, Lord Livsey of Talgarth, gave a slightly warmer welcome. But, no doubt, with the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, he will wish to put my noble friend to the test in Committee. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, made an excellent speech in a number of respects. He reminded us, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, about the genesis of the Bill—I had not realised that there had been a Chequers conversation. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness. In terms of the parents of the Bill, I should also pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Patten. I must be careful in what I say, although we would not be here now but for some of that earlier work. It is good that we are where we are now. As regards the noble Lord's point about the annual meeting in Wales and England, that should be dealt with in a letter rather than taking too much time now.
A key point made by the noble Lord and others was the role of parents in the inspection process, but, underlying that, the role of parents in education and educational outcomes more generally. That is the stuff of a fuller discussion at some stage. It is close to my heart because it is a subject on which I have the policy lead in the department. Knowing what we know about parents making a bigger impact on the educational attainments of their children than do schools, we have to think seriously in policy terms about how we harness that power of parents more positively.
Part of that view sees parents as part of the solution, as partners in educational attainment, rather than, as sometimes is seen in education, as the problem—that is, the people who get in the way of the system or cause trouble to schools and teachers at the end of a tiring school day. There is not time to do that justice, but the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, is right to point to its centrality. No doubt, I shall pursue those discussions with him or others at another time.
The noble Lord, Lord Chan, opened up a completely different perspective on the Bill, which again was valuable. He was absolutely right to point to the difference in educational attainment of ethnic minority groups in Britain. For example, there is a remarkable variation in the attainment of many children of Chinese origin—who I do not think that he mentioned—and other ethnic minority groups. We expect that the inspection system will examine how the needs of a range of pupils are being met. Therefore, in areas of high concentrations of children who traditionally had low educational attainment, I would expect the inspectorate to ask serious questions about how the school, and the local authority in its leadership role, will break out of that box.
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The noble Lord and others referred to different perspectives on nurseries reminding us that solutions for some children may not be available to others. Those are important policy issues on which we have to reflect.
My noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath welcomed the Bill but set out tough challenges on how it will work in practice, giving two examples. I shall not do justice to the points raised but clearly LEAs can add additional governors to the governing body and can withdraw the governing body's delegated powers to manage its budget. The withdrawal of delegated powers transfers the governing body's staffing powers to the local authority. Strong powers are available if local authorities want to use them.
We agree that the NCSL is supporting governor training, including the joint training of heads of chairs and head teachers. But the issue involves more than that and I apologise to the noble Lord for being unable to do justice to some important points in my brief summing up. I shall find a way of making restitution to him.
The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, touched on the subject of annual meetings. We do not say that the bodies cannot have annual meetings: they can do so. We say that they do not have to have them. More importantly, we say that the engagement of parents in the education of their child, in school, in challenging the standards of the school, and in helping the school to improve goes far wider than simply having an annual meeting. That requires a lot more thought by LEAs and schools. I do not wish us to focus on that aspect—that if we change the Bill on that issue we have sorted the matter—because there is a larger subject to be addressed by schools and LEAs.
I shall also write to the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, on serving teachers on inspection teams because time does not allow me to respond on that.
The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, suggested that the Secondary Heads Association would like a holiday from legislation. From my discussions with its members, I sense that they do not want a holiday from this legislation; they would like this legislation passed. However, that apart, I am sure she is right. The noble Baroness also referred to lay inspections. On additional inspectors, there is already a practice used by Ofsted for many years: they must be suitably qualified for what they are inspecting, including any professional qualifications. I shall come back to the noble Baroness with a fuller answer on that.
Targets can be burdensome but we would not be where we are if we had not set the challenge of targets, and reinforced them by an inspection system over the past seven years. So they are necessary.
The noble Lord, Lord Moser, made a welcome speech. He touched on the fundamental test of the Bill and the policy framework in which it sits. It is not whether we change processes but whether the outcomes change. The only point that matters is that we gain better education outcomes. I should like to put his challenge to us above our Committee processes.
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When the music stops, that is the test: do more children receive better education? As a society, we worry about the levels of literacy in adulthood and at schools. I have a passion for that in terms of vulnerable children in the early years. If we can rectify the situation at that stage, we shall not waste secondary education. He was right to raise the issue as regards what is happening at times in secondary education.
The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, invited us to listen to the children and to the universities; and why not? I am fully with him on the issue of local authorities as champions of children. He asked whether we can believe that they will be so, given that they have not always looked after children as well as we would have wished. But we have to support them and move them into their new role rather than trying to hold on to a world that they have lost. That is where they will add such value to the system. The test will arise mostly on whether they are doing something about special educational needs, looked-after children, and the effective use of PRUs.
I apologise that I shall not do justice to the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. The noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, raised a number of important themes which bear fuller inspection. She, and I believe my noble friend Lord Hunt, referred to the question of who inspects the inspectors. Ofsted recently carried out an inspection process of itself with the LSE.
On planning for school places, the Bill does not change the existing situation. The noble Baroness need not feel that the Bill is doing something different. She may not like the current law but the Bill does not change it. Nevertheless, I shall write to her as regards the planning of supply of places in an area as our policy is being implemented. I think it important to put that on the record to her; it was at the heart of her question. Although that issue is not at the heart of the Bill, it is a good question.
On TTA, the bodies have £500 million now. I am pleased to hear public bodies say that they will try to undertake these functions within their existing resources rather than automatically assuming that they need more in order to do so.
The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, took credit for a large number of familiar clauses in the Bill. I hope that means that I shall have her compliant agreement to all the Bill. It is a product of the excellent parliamentary draftsmen we have who, rather than making some changes, wanted to take the whole thing out and put it back in again. Do not ask me why they want that: I am sure it is for very good reason.
On Ofsted, the noble Baroness should rejoice over the sinner who repenteth rather than blaming for past sins.
We have had a good Second Reading debate. We have begun to sketch out the territory for further discussions and challenge. I very much look forward to working with the whole House on the Bill.
On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.
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