Education and Adoption Bill — House of Lords, 2016-02-08
Topic: Education
John Nash (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 2, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and Amendment 3, tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt. Both concern the responsibilities and powers of regional schools commissioners. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, has proposed that the Secretary of State should be required to publish a document that would describe the powers and responsibilities of RSCs arising from the provisions in the Bill and other Acts of Parliament. Amendment 3 would extend this requirement to specify that the document must include a guide for parents and any other information to do with the powers and responsibilities of RSCs as may be appropriate I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for raising this issue once again, following the exchanges that he had with my noble friend Lady Evans on this matter on Report in this House. Since the last debate, he has also met officials from the Department for Education and he and I have had a number of exchanges on the matter. I hope that he has found these discussions helpful and has been reassured that the Government are committed to meeting the objectives of his amendment. As my noble friend Lady Evans explained in the previous debate, RSCs are not defined in legislation: they are civil servants, and exercise only the powers and duties of the Secretary of State that he chooses to delegate to them. Accountability for the decisions made by RSCs rests with the Secretary of State, who remains fully accountable to Parliament. It is important to emphasise that the role of RSCs is very different from the role of local authorities. RSCs operate within a clearly defined framework, with the focus on monitoring and tackling educational underperformance in academies and free schools, approving new academies, advising on free school applications and approving changes to open academies, such as expansions or age-range changes To support these functions, RSCs also work to develop the sponsor market in their regions. Subject to the passage of the Bill, RSCs will also take on responsibility for formal intervention in underperforming maintained schools. RSCs carry out their functions within a national framework and individual decisions are made in accordance with the relevant legislation, academy funding agreement and/or published criteria Information on the work of RSCs is already publicly available. We have already set out the remit of our RSCs and the membership of each head teacher board, published registers of interest and made available the criteria for RSC decision-making. Academy funding agreements are publicly available, as are the criteria for other individual RSC decisions. For example, the criteria that RSCs use to assess schools applying to become academies are set out online in the guidance document, Convert to an Academy: Guide for Schools. Notes of board meetings that detail each decision made are also published on a monthly basis In addition, we have recently consulted publicly on revising the statutory Schools Causing Concern guidance that describes the responsibilities and powers delegated to RSCs resulting from the provisions in the Bill, and how they will be used in practice by RSCs to intervene in failing and coasting maintained schools and academies. Alongside this document the Government are also required, under the Academies Act 2010, to provide an annual report to Parliament on the expansion of the academy programme and the performance of academies during the year. This year’s report will include commentary on RSCs We recognise, however, that we need to go further. We acknowledge that RSCs are a new concept and that, as more schools become academies and the RSC remit expands, we need to clearly articulate the role, improve understanding of its responsibilities and increase transparency. Noble Lords will be reassured to hear that the new national schools commissioner, Sir David Carter, considers raising awareness, particularly among parents, as one of his top priorities and he made this clear in a Radio 4 interview last month As with any new system, we expect the level of awareness to increase over time, but to expedite this I am today making a clear commitment to the House that the Government will publish a full description of the RSC role and a guide to all RSC powers and responsibilities. We will ensure that this more detailed information is in understandable form, includes a succinct summary of the role and has clear links for the public to find more detailed information should they require it. We will make clear that this information is for parents and the sector The information will be published on the education pages of the government website, GOV.UK. This is the website where all government policies, publications, statistics and consultations are published. It is already used by parents to find information on matters such as school admissions, school performance and childcare. It is used extensively. In January of this year alone, there were nearly 1.3 million visitors to the education pages of GOV.UK. The website is designed for the public and is intended to be simple, clear and quick to find information. We will make sure that the information is collated and published in good time for the Bill coming into force. Furthermore, I assure noble Lords that we will keep the information up to date and revise it as necessary, following any changes to legislation or to RSCs’ non-statutory responsibilities Alongside publishing more detailed information, we recognise that it is equally important to ensure the public know where to find it. Once the new information is published, we will alert parent and governor groups such as the National Governors’ Association and the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations and encourage them to direct their members towards it. We will also publicise the information through the email which the Department for Education issues direct to schools at the start of every term and which sets out important changes. RSCs will also be carrying out a range of activities within their regions to improve awareness, to raise their profile and to ensure the sector understands and is prepared for the new legislation As the noble Lord has described, since we last debated this matter the Education Select Committee has published its report on the establishment of RSCs. While the committee welcomed the introduction of RSCs as a pragmatic approach to the expanding workload of academies oversight, the report also made a number of recommendations, including that the Government should reflect on the need to improve understanding of the role of RSCs. I assure noble Lords that the Government take this issue very seriously and will increase and improve the information available to the public on RSCs, with a particular focus on simplifying and improving the information for parents The noble Lord, Lord Watson, referred to the situation in relation to E-ACT and parents. I can assure him that we regard the involvement of parents in education as crucial. The best way to do this is not necessarily through having two parents on a governing body. An equally good or better way may be to have parent forums. I understand that E-ACT has plans to do this and is meeting with Sir David Carter this week to discuss this further.