argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): I am a little confused. In the White Paper, the Government’s intention around MATs is quite clear. I think the noble Duke is seeking some assurance that that will not apply to the schools that he is interested in.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
James Philip Knight (Labour, Centre-left): My understanding is that the powers in the Bill including ones for single-academy trusts to be subject to all the directions and all the compliance that we discussed on Monday. I believe there is a recent government amendment to make this possible. Therefore, my reading of it would be that the powers are there. If a Secretary of State decides that all single-academy trusts are going to go and they are all going to join multi-academy trusts, the powers are there for them to find reasons to do so and use the powers in the Bill to close down the single-academy trusts, which are then left having to find a home.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, to my mind, the various assurances the Minister has given present a further complication. If she is able to give reassurance to the noble Duke about a particular type of school, which is pretty well defined, being able to guarantee its continued independence away from a multi-academy trust, as it were, what does that say to other schools which may have particular characteristics? What is the defining characteristic that distinguishes schools which can remain if they want to from those that cannot?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): I think the noble Baroness knows what we are getting at here. She has said that she will endeavour to come back with something concrete for us, and that is appreciated. However, reflecting on this, this is not just about requiring these schools to join MATs. The noble Duke has highlighted for us that the powers contained in the Bill could get to the activities of these schools and undermine the essence of them, which my noble friend described. There is nothing in the Bill to protect those schools from that. Previously, my noble friend said that she would quite enjoy the ability to impose standards across all schools, but I do not think she was thinking of these schools when she said that. There is a bigger problem that we have come across here, which the Minister should also attend to.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Bruce Joseph Grocott (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I cannot resist making one general observation about the whole debate on these amendments. In winding up the previous debate, the Minister said that the strength of multi-academy trusts is that schools are stronger together. Talk about rediscovering the wheel; the whole argument of those of us who have been unhappy about so many aspects of academisation is precisely that we could see the strength of schools together in a community with local democratic control. I suppose that if you wait long enough these things come around again.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Deborah Wilcox (Labour, Centre-left): For the second successive year, I am here in the Chamber debating an education Bill. At least when I taught, I could leave at 4 pm For the avoidance of doubt, this group is about consultation. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Blower for proposing such a sensible way forward and reminding us of the value of governing bodies. We are supportive of the thrust of these amendments, which would give a greater voice to parents and staff and consideration to the local context and challenges. A struggling local authority may want to offload a school that is not equipped to academise yet—or indeed at all—so we cautiously note the government amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, which requires consultation with appropriate persons before this can happen However, we have a genuine question about why this consultation can be carried out after a local authority’s application, as noted by my noble friends Lord Hunt and Lady Blower. It cannot possibly be meaningful, and it looks as if it is a done deal. It is another example of the cart before the horse. Many times in this Committee we have mentioned the word "consultation", so we need to put it in the correct context and the appropriate order I will speak specifically to our Amendment 63, and I thank my noble friend Lord Grocott for his support. It aims to be proportionate. If the Secretary of State intends to accept an application for academisation and the school’s governing body opposes it, the Secretary of State must lay before Parliament a Statement explaining how academisation will benefit children’s education—it is as clear, simple and straightforward as that. Over the coming days, this whole debate will be about the benefit to children’s education. These amendments speak to the Bill’s general approach of imposing academisation in a top-down fashion on schools, children and parents. If a governing body is opposed, the Secretary of State must give robust consideration to, and justify the case for, approval. After all, they are the arbiters of the community, and parents, teachers, governors and children will have a much clearer insight of the situated context of the school and the wider community issues than—with the greatest respect—a Whitehall official. Many great plays have been written about the disruption caused when a stranger enters a community and the chaos that subsequently unfolds.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
James Philip Knight (Labour, Centre-left): I hope that this is an appropriate moment to ask this question. In listening to, and thinking about, this debate, my mind has gone to free schools and their duties to consult. We have not really talked much about free schools in the context of this Bill. The department’s guidance for starting free schools says on a statutory duty to consult that Section 10 of the Academies Act "requires the trust to consult with the people they think appropriate" Is the department’s thinking about free schools shifting around consultation in particular so that they do not just land among a group of schools in a community, throwing out all the pupil place planning and creating difficulties for existing providers in terms of the viability of the academies and other schools in that area?
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will take the opportunity of the Minister’s slight pause to ask her a question about my reading of her Amendment 68, which says: "Before a maintained school in England is converted into an Academy following an application under section 3A (application for Academy order by local authority)" By the time the local authorities have made an application, that is, in effect, the decision. The point my noble friend and I were trying to make is that, surely, there should be mandatory consultation before the local authority makes the application.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Christine Blower (Labour, Centre-left): Before I begin my remarks, I wish many happy returns to my noble friend on the Front Bench. Never in my wildest dreams would I think of the Minister as Machiavellian—absolutely not. However, the lived experience of many people is that discussions over issues to do with academisation, moving into MATs or other such things have not always been open and the system has not always been transparent. I am personally aware of representatives of particular unions who, after being called in to see head teachers, have been briefed and then been told that the matter is absolutely confidential, and that they must say nothing to any member outside that room. I am not saying that this is the position the Minister would take, but it is the lived experience of a lot of people who genuinely believe that there should be proper and open consultation. We can say that those head teachers were doing it completely wrongly, but the fact is that it would have impacted those union members, and there is the impact of someone in the school now knowing something which the parents and students do not know There is clearly something here about the need constantly to reinforce the fact that consultation should be open, appropriate and transparent. This is probably why, although the Minister said these things in very reassuring tones, I cannot see why we would not specify the need to consult with particular groups of people, including parents, staff and so on. This remains an issue. I am delighted that the Minister thinks that it is inevitable, but my experience is that consultation has not always been inevitable. However, I would like to believe that it was I will comment on the intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, about neatness, which I thought was very entertaining. To him, I would add: I do not think that all local authority schools are like cookie cutters and exactly the same; they pride themselves on the fact that they have a particular ethos. That comes from the student intake, the particular group of staff they have, the governors and the head’s style of leadership, so I do not think that they are all the same I am sure that those who have visited very many maintained schools will agree with me that they are quite different, whether they have a uniform or not—all sorts of things do make them different. But I was entertained by the noble Lord’s remarks about neatness. Again repeating that nothing in my remarks suggests anything Machiavellian, although I am not completely reassured by everything, at this stage I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, my Amendment 79 is part of a wider group dealing with funding of schools and provisions in the Bill for the nationally determined funding for schools in England. My amendment is rather narrow, but it introduces the subject of funding. My concern is the circumstance under which an academy or mainstream school comes under the control of a multi-academy trust, as there are questions about what happens to its reserves or income-generating activities. I want to see them essentially used, with the agreement of the local governing body of the school, exclusively for the benefit of that school’s pupils. I am very honoured to have an Opposition Front Bench amendment to my amendment, Amendment 79ZA, and I very much accept the principle of what my noble friend is proposing there The Local Government Association briefing has a lot of wisdom on the matter: "At present, MATs can reallocate an uncapped proportion of funding from schools’ budgets within their MAT, with no requirement for transparency as to how this money is spent or the outcomes it delivers. … While we support MATs having a degree of flexibility over budgets within their trust to best meet schools and pupils needs, the lack of public transparency over their expenditure should be addressed to ensure public funding is delivering the best outcomes for pupils." I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, will speak in this group, but on the first day in Committee he said that there is a danger of a multi-academy trust removing a highly skilled governing body and the trust, to cover its own costs, would end up top-slicing the school’s budgets, making successful, smaller schools a little less viable.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Deborah Wilcox (Labour, Centre-left): If I may intervene, much as I laud Kirsty Williams, who was a Liberal Member of the Senedd, that was under a Welsh Labour Government of which she was the sole Liberal Member. I dealt with her a great deal as the education spokesperson. I make that point in case the Committee is not aware.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I very strongly support the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, but I will return to that issue in the next group. I was not going to participate in this debate, but I have been forced to because of the references made to rural and metropolitan areas. I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench as gently as I possibly can that comparisons between allocations to different regions are always difficult and complicated The noble Lord, Lord Deben, said that we metropolitan elites do not have much knowledge of what happens in the countryside. Equally, people from the rest of the country have surprisingly little knowledge of what happens in metropolitan areas. The levels of deprivation in London—a vast area in terms of population—are enormous. In terms of picking out individual figures, I have the brief from London Councils, which provides figures demonstrating to its satisfaction that London has been hard done by over the last few years, with bigger reductions in the allocation to schools than the rest of the country. I do not believe bandying figures in that way is that helpful. What we want is sufficient funding across the country as a whole, and I think that setting one part of the country against another should be done with great discretion.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Social Welfare
Jenny Chapman (Labour, Centre-left): It is in some ways reassuring to hear what the Minister is saying. However, does she not accept that we have a situation where the lowest funding is going to parts of the country with the poorest outcomes? However much the Government think they are allowing for these factors, if something is going wrong, either the formula needs to be reconsidered in some respects or other measures need to be put in place to address this.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Philip Alexander Hunt (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate which has ranged very far and wide. I put in only an innocent little amendment to talk about the reserves of schools going into an academy trust or multi-academy trust. It is the gentlest of amendments, which the Minister ruthlessly swept away, saying that it would stifle the innovation and leadership of the multi-academy trust. However, behind it was an issue of substance, which is that the integrity of a whole school and its leadership is very important, and having control over its own budget goes with that Obviously, we have a load of interesting amendments around the whole concept of fair funding of schools. The noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, spoke on rural schools. I totally agree with my noble friend Lord Davies; he might have mentioned Birmingham schools in his analysis of the issues that metropolitan schools face. My noble friend Lady Chapman, in looking at a region’s ranking in the index of multiple deprivation, sought to bring a holistic solution to the undoubted different issues and tensions that are faced I noted the Minister’s helpful comments. Whenever you have a funding formula, it is easier to shift money when you have real growth in the overall funding settlement. One of the problems we have at the moment has been the squeeze on school funding—my noble friend Lord Adonis made a telling intervention in our previous day in Committee. From my own experience, the health service has gone through its own funding formula. We had RAWP for many years, and then ACRA. It was all about the same issues of teeing up deprivation in rural and urban areas, age factors, and a population who are growing older. However, my goodness me, it was much easier to shift money when you had real growth in the system.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): If my noble friend will allow me to butt in with some figures, London Councils points out that, between 2017-18 and 2020-21, 84% of schools in inner London saw a real-terms decrease in per pupil funding, compared with 55% in the rest of the country.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
James Philip Knight (Labour, Centre-left): My noble friend may know that the Institute for Fiscal Studies, which is regarded as pretty authoritative on these things, has said that school spending per pupil in England fell by 9% in real terms between 2009-10 and 2019-20—the largest cut in over 40 years.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Deborah Wilcox (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, we degrouped the amendment because, although it was related to an earlier group, we wanted a specific ministerial response on this policy choice to remove local authorities from the allocation. To fully evaluate the changes, the public will need—and indeed deserve—a robust analysis of how they affect the funding by region when we know that there are already huge disparities in how different areas have been funded, as was alluded to in the previous debate. Indeed, in some cases, this has worsened over the duration of the pandemic. We cannot have this change just happen without detailed analysis and democratic scrutiny. Recent examples, such as the woeful implementation and less than satisfactory delivery of the National Tutoring Programme, clearly demonstrate that monitoring, evaluation and scrutiny of the implementation of policies are key drivers of success The DfE has acknowledged that there is a critical question over whether there would continue to be merit in local control of certain aspects of mainstream school funding, and we would argue that there is such merit. But what does the profession say? I will quote Geoff Barton, the general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders. I am sure that my noble friend, although she is not in her place, will agree with me that ASCL is not the most revolutionary of trade representative bodies. Nevertheless, he says: "While we support the direction of travel, our bigger concern is that there is not enough money being put into the system in the first place. The cake is too small, no matter how it is sliced. We recognise that the government is currently investing more money in schools but we do not think this is enough to repair the damage done by years of underfunding and we are concerned that much of the new money will be simply eaten up by rising costs. This is even more critical because of the havoc wreaked by the pandemic and the pressing need for significant investment in education recovery." So if not this amendment—as I predict that the Minister cannot agree to it today—what are the Government’s future plans to assess these impacts? I beg to move.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Brinley Davies (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I totally support the amendment moved by the Front Bench. If this change in the system of funding schools goes ahead, it is essential that an assessment along the lines proposed is made However, I question the need for—indeed, am deeply opposed to—Clause 33 and Part 2 as a whole. I am against the proposal for a hard national funding formula, fundamentally because I am a believer in local education authorities—LEAs—as a matter of principle. My noble friend Lord Knight is not in his place, but he said that everyone would be raising their hobby-horse, and this could well be mine. I am in favour of a seamless education system that works for local people through their local representatives. I am prepared to accept that there is scope for debate on the structure of LEAs. Personally, I have a predilection for bodies of sufficient scale which have significant financial and organisational autonomy—basically, a service that is run democratically and is responsive to local voices. Unfortunately, the trend over the last 40 years has been the other way: centralisation and financial restrictions I have re-read the debates that have brought us here and it is my view that no case has been made for a hard formula. Some figures are quoted showing what might be thought were gross discrepancies in what individual schools were receiving in financial support, but without providing the context within which these figures have been reached, it tells us nothing. We are also told that the new system will provide "a consistent assessment," as if that in itself was sufficient justification, when in my judgment it will be consistently bad. In truth, a close reading of the White Paper tells us that it "supports the expansion of … trusts." What we have here is little more than a by-product of the move to full academisation I am against a hard formula in principle, but I am also against it in practice, because it will not achieve a workable or effective outcome. I endorse the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, during the last debate, where the problems were made clear.
Schools Bill [HL] — House of Lords, 2022-06-15
Topic: Education
Roger John Liddle (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will intervene briefly. I apologise that I have been away and therefore unable to participate in debates on the Bill as much as I would have wanted to. I start by declaring my interest as still being a member of Cumbria County Council I agree with quite a bit, but not all, of what my noble friend Lord Davies of Brixton has just said. I am personally not against academies and academy chains; I think they have brought fresh thinking into the education system. The problem is how to regulate them. My impression is that the Bill is adopting far too centralised an approach The essence of the point I want to make is that it is my impression that, in my own authority, the schools forum approach, allowing the per capita payment to be flexed, has worked well. It has worked well in two respects, and I hope the noble Baroness might address this. I have great respect for her and her concern for education, and I hope she might reflect on these points First, in an area that is a mixture of big towns and lots of rural village schools, the formula can be flexed to help keep open village schools that serve important local needs. This is particularly true in areas where there are big distances, such as Cumbria Secondly, there is a problem when a school gets into difficulty. Schools can get into difficulty quite quickly, particularly if there is a change of head or something like that, and it does not work out well. In an area where there is no shortage of school places and parents have a lot of choice—this applies particularly at secondary level—you then get into the situation where parents can choose to take their children out and put them into other schools in the area if they think a particular school is not doing well You cannot turn that situation around—perhaps the noble Baroness agrees with me—by having to cut teachers as a result of school income declining. Somehow, we have to get better leadership into the school, and I am sure that this is what an academy chain would want to do. The formula has to reflect that possibility. How is that going to happen? I fully support the amendment from my noble friends on the Opposition Front Bench.