School Finance (England) Regulations 2006

My Lords, I also thank the Minister for outlining and explaining the regulations. We are not quite as enthusiastic as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe. My attitude might be described, in the words of WS Gilbert, as ““modified rapture””. I welcome the fact that these two sets of regulations are to be amalgamated and will cover two financial years, but that makes the regulations very complicated, as the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, outlined, with guidebooks, toolkits and all the rest of it. Complexity may be necessary, but it is the enemy of transparency. It also presents problems for the growing army of school bursars. There have been numerous changes to school budgets in recent years, which make my head spin. I feel sorry for the poor heads and bursars who have to deal with them daily. Is the Minister satisfied that they have had enough training? We welcome the move towards multiple-year funding, since it brings more stability and allows schools and LEAs to plan services. However, it is worrying that more and more control from the centre is proposed in the regulations, cutting out the discretion of LEAs. A little local discretion remains, but the problem with ring-fencing is that LEAs that used to spend more on education than the Government were passporting may decide not to do so any more. According to the LGA, that is happening already. We must not just think of education spending as money for schools. We on these Benches think of schools as part of a wider education service providing and supporting education for communities. If we leave it entirely to individual schools to decide which of those services to buy into, we might end up with a central service that is not viable. Look at what happened to music services when individual school budgeting first came in. It also takes financial levers away from the LEA, which democratically represents the local community. The Every Child Matters agenda pulls together services to ensure that the child, not institutions, is the centre of spending and policy, which is quite right, but one must not assume that only the school is in a position to know what services local parents and young residents want and need. If all the money is ring-fenced to the schools, the Government will undermine education in its widest sense, so there is a point beyond which it is not sensible to go. I think we are rapidly reaching it. To some extent, I welcome the new powers given to schools forums, since at least they are local, unlike the Secretary of State. But if one looks at the membership of those forums, one realises that they are dominated by the schools’ interests. It brings to mind the saying that ““Turkeys don’t vote for Christmas”” when one realises that the LEA has to ask that body for permission to withhold money from schools for central services under Regulation 5(2). I note that if it can get the approval of its schools’ forum, that should enable it to support the broader children’s agenda to fund multi-agency activity in support of vulnerable children. I wonder whether that could be extended widely enough to include mental health and counselling services, such as the Place2Be initiative, about which I am very enthusiastic, as the Minister knows. I also wonder whether there is any limit on the amount of such funding that can be spent in the voluntary sector. What guidance will be given to schools about how to balance the purchase of maintained sector services with services from voluntary and for-profit providers who need a flourishing and predictable market or they will go to the wall? I do not think that can be done by individual schools. It has to be left to a body with a strategic overview and the financial levers to make things happen—in other words, a properly funded LEA. Perhaps I may ask the Minister specifically about music services. I looked carefully at the regulations and notes to see where the funding for these services came from—perhaps the officials in the Box could help us. I looked at Regulation 7 and Schedule 2 and I could not see it mentioned. I came to the conclusion that it must be covered by paragraph 32 of Schedule 2, but perhaps the Minister can confirm that. If so, I am concerned about the upper limit of 0.1 per cent of the school’s budget that can be allocated to this group of non-specified services. Does this really give enough flexibility? I use music services as only one example. Another matter that causes me some concern is the new rule that pupil numbers must be determined at a single point in the year. What is the rationale for that, and is it for the benefit of schools or the LEA? I see that it takes away some of the discretion of local authorities, but, according to the notes, the stakeholder schools consulted thought that it would bring them a desirable element of funding stability. I note also that the regulations allow for changes resulting from staggered intake in primary schools from nurseries and pre-schools and for unusual and significant changes in the school populations to be funded by the LEA from central resources. However, I doubt whether most hard-strapped authorities’ central resources can stand much of that sort of demand. I read in the notes that 53 per cent of consultees were in favour of this change but 42 per cent were opposed. I wonder why, with such a large body of opposition, the Government have not decided to pilot this new arrangement in a few local authorities before rolling it out all over the country. It could well be advantageous to schools. Why have the Government decided not to try it first, just to make sure? I echo some of the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, about alternative provision for excluded pupils. I am very concerned when any pupil is excluded from a school and does not go immediately, not after five or six days or whatever it is—I think it is more than that at the moment—into alternative provision. If you are to have that availability, you must have spare capacity. That means that you have to look very carefully at how that alternative provision is funded. It could well be that not enough is going into that alternative provision. I wonder how these regulations will affect that. I hope the Minister can help me with these questions.