Academies Bill [HL]

I understand the point that the noble Lord, Lord Knight, is making, but I did not discuss that matter with my honourable friend. After all, the procedure at the other end is not a matter for a Member of this House; it is entirely for the other end. On statementing, the general duty on local authorities to ensure that appropriate children are statemented is not within the scope of the SEN obligations. It is a discretionary matter for academies as to whether they put forward children for statementing. Therefore, on one view, children in academies might be disadvantaged; on the other hand, the likelihood is that academies might overpresent children for assessment for statements—but this, of course, has its own problems. That the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, has felt it necessary to table this amendment again highlights the fact that many noble Lords are still not satisfied that the mechanism is fair and transparent for calculating how much extra funding goes to the academies and how much will remain with the local authorities to enable them properly to carry out their duties in relation to the children in maintained schools. In Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Hill, accepted that these arrangements must be seen to be fair and undertook to, ""reflect on the underlying principle of making sure that there is transparency and trust in these arrangements".—[Official Report, 23/6/10; col. 1333.]" The ready reckoner on the department website has a lot to answer for and the funding mechanisms are clearly a work in progress. We have suggested that someone needs to take an independent view that these arrangements are fair to children in and out of academies. However, because of the rules on Third Reading, we were not allowed to table amendments containing further ideas on how this might be done. We are not convinced that the YPLA is up to the job and remain concerned about this matter. As I said earlier, we have briefed our colleagues in another place, who will now have the opportunity to explore these issues further. The Government have time to get this right and we on these Benches hope that they will do so.