Academies Bill [HL]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister to his new position and thank him for his clear exposition of the Bill. I join others in congratulating him on its brevity and clarity. It is no secret that we Liberal Democrats have for some time had reservations about the academy programme because, like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, we have not seen the freedoms that were offered to academies as making the difference. We recognise that what made the difference was the teaching and learning under which many schools were turned around—although there were failures—by bringing in new heads and good leadership. Above all, where we differed from the Opposition and my noble friends in the Conservative Party was that we have never seen local authorities as oppressive powers. Above all, we have seen education as a system which serves a local community; it is very necessary for schools to work together, whereby nursery schools link with primary schools, which then link with secondary schools. Together they should provide for the educational needs of the local community. Serving the local community was, therefore, the most important part of the system. You needed to have some kind of authority which could judge the needs of the local community—whether it was in the provision of new places, helping to orchestrate admissions and exclusions, providing for special educational needs and other specialist services, or, for the smaller schools, especially primary schools, the provision of important back-office functions in terms of employment and payroll. It is also important to realise that since the Education Reform Act in 1988, local authorities have not run schools. Governing bodies and heads run schools. The bureaucracy that we all rail against—I did my bit of railing against it during the debate on the Queen’s Speech last Thursday—has been imposed by central government. I mentioned in that speech the report from the Merits of Statutory Instruments Committee of this House which looked at the impact over the years of the statutory instruments, guidance and directives that had been issued to schools. I noted that typically a school received 760 pieces of guidance every year. That is an appalling figure. It is freedom from this bureaucracy—imposed by central government, not by local authorities—that schools really need. The main worry of many people about the establishment of academies is that they will fragment this local community of schools that we see as so important. However, the academies introduced by this Bill are a different breed from those introduced by Labour. As many noble Lords have mentioned, for Labour, academies were introduced to raise the standards of poorly performing schools in disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This usually meant turning over a new leaf—a new building, a new head and a new governing board. In some circumstances, they have been very successful; in others, they have been somewhat less successful. This Bill introduces important changes. Academy status is aimed not only at reversing poor performance, although that decision will not now be jointly taken by local authorities and the Secretary of State, but will be that of just the Secretary of State. Academy status will also be a reward for good performance with the promise of a fast-track procedure for those 2,600 schools—900 secondaries and 1,700 primaries—which are currently judged to be outstanding by Ofsted. Again, the decision whether a school may become an academy is just that of the Secretary of State. The governing board, which includes the head, has to make the application, but the decision whether to grant academy status is that of the Secretary of State. The local authority plays no part in either the application or the decision. A number of noble Lords have spoken already of their reservations about the democratic deficit that this implies—whether the Secretary of State should have these powers without the requirement to consult with stakeholders, including the staff, parents, children and the communities which the schools serve. Other noble Lords have spoken of their concerns about whether, as independent state schools, academies will be able to cope adequately with the requirements of those from disadvantaged backgrounds—especially those with special educational needs—and how far the schools will remain within the community as local schools in relation to matters such as admissions and exclusions. I do not wish to add anything further on that, but my noble friend Lady Walmsley will, I know, talk about some of these issues. I want to probe the Minister on procedures, because the Bill as it stands is not quite clear on what is involved in these fast-track procedures, and neither the Explanatory Notes nor the impact assessment provide further clarification. First, as I understand it, the Bill comprehends two procedures for acquiring academy status. The first is the old procedure whereby failing schools are converted into academies, involving fairly lengthy negotiations over an academy funding agreement which sets out the details of how the new academy is to operate. This does not change much, except that the Secretary of State alone has the power to decide whether such a school should become an academy. What I am not clear about is whether in future such a school has to have a sponsor, as in existing procedures. If not, who appoints the governing board? The second procedure is the real innovation. This is the one that allows any school to apply for academy status and particularly encourages those schools which have been judged to be outstanding by Ofsted to apply. Here I seek clarification as to whether I have understood the procedures correctly. Under the first part of the procedure, in Clause 3, the school’s governing body expresses an interest and submits an application. The department examines the application and either accepts or rejects it—but on what criteria? The department has already received as a result of all the letters it sent out—not just to the 2,600 outstanding schools—1,100 expressions of interest, yet the impact assessment published with the Bill makes the assumption that only 200 schools will convert to academies this year and only 200 in the following three years. It seems that many schools may be disappointed. What will be the choice criteria? How will the Secretary of State decide, among all the applications that he is likely to receive, which schools will go forward to become academies? When a school is accepted for academy status, Clause 4 states that an academy order will be given. That enables a school to convert to an academy. But precisely what is involved after that? Does the school have to negotiate an agreement similar to the agreements for existing academies, which essentially lay down the way in which the school is to be run? If there is to be a standard form of agreement, it will still have to be individualised for each school. How long will that take? Presumably, the fast-track schools, which are the outstanding schools, will have priority over the other schools, but even with the fast-track procedures, how long will the negotiations over the agreement take? Is it feasible for schools to be established by September? Once a school has opted for academy status, can it revert to being a maintained school, as some of the grant-maintained schools did in the 1990s? Can the procedure go backwards? Since TUPE regulations will apply to any conversion, in so far as the school exercises its freedom to recruit teachers on its own terms, who bears the cost of meeting any redundancies? Will the schools be liable for those redundancies? Once an academy agreement has been concluded, will the detailed financing and, in an audit sense, the supervision of the academy, fall to the new quango, the Young People’s Learning Agency? How detailed will that supervision be? What happens if the school fails? Some schools that were judged outstanding were two years later judged by Ofsted to have serious weaknesses. Head teachers count enormously and a different head can make a great deal of difference. Presumably, the YPLA will have not only to look out for fraud, but to keep a supervisory eye on what is happening at the school. Finally, once a school has converted to academy status and become a company limited by guarantee, with the existing governing board as directors and trustees, presumably it will become a self-perpetuating governing board appointed by its own successors. Will there be any provision, for example, for elected parent governors? How is the local community represented? Is it all by choice of the governing board? I would like to probe a little further on the impact assessment. In a meeting with the Minister’s officials last week, it was made clear that the figure given in the impact assessment about the establishment each year for the next four years of 200 academies was merely a guess—perhaps one should say a guesstimate. That is okay, but I worry in the light of that guesstimate whether expectations have not been raised too high in the 1,100 schools that have already written in expressing an interest, although not yet applied. On the basis of 200 a year, it will take more than five years for those schools to become academies. That is a very different picture from being able to become academies by September. I understand that the department was just guessing and will adjust according to demand, but there are clearly limits to the number of schools that can be processed in this short period. September is less than three months away and, as indicated, an academy order is one thing and an academy agreement another. If thousands of schools apply properly before the summer holidays, can the Minister give the House an estimate of the realistic number of academy orders that are likely to be processed over the summer and how quickly those orders are likely be turned into agreements? I worry that there is a real expectation among schools that they can move forward quickly. If that is not going to be the case, it is important for Ministers to damp down expectations now. Talking of managing expectations, it is also important not to raise expectations among these schools about how much extra money they will get from being free from local authorities. I have spoken to a number of local government colleagues, and it is clear that the proportion of the budget going to the local authority is not 10 per cent. It is more likely to be 2 per cent to 3 per cent. Again, schools are talking quite loudly about how much they may get. It is important that that is realistic. I have two further questions for the Minister. In relation to the impact assessment, all the costings are of course related to the guesstimates of 200 academies a year being processed. The one-off costs are put at £66,000 per school or £17 million a year for the 200. The annual costs are £275,000 per school rising from £33 million for the coming year to £198 million in four years’ time, when it is estimated that 800 academies will have been established. Clearly, if more schools convert, those costs rise. If 1,000 schools were to convert this year and a similar number next year, the bills would be very different and much larger—much closer to £1 billion than £200 million. Finally, will the Minister clarify the position of academy applications already in the pipeline? A number of schools are currently being processed. Are those likely to be held up while the department processes the schools applying under the new procedures? Will outstanding schools wishing to convert be given priority in the conversion process?