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Education and Skills Bill

This group of amendments and clause stand parts looks dauntingly large, but I will keep my comments as succinct as possible. I will speak to the group as a whole, because the real issue is that Part 4 as it stands diminishes the value of the Bill. I will not be moving our amendments among Amendments Nos. 214 to 225 and 233 to 235. Since we raised these issues at Second Reading, the Minister has taken great care and a good deal of time to look again at the Government’s proposals, for which I am enormously grateful. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is, too, and I thank her for supporting these amendments. I hope that we will all be able to reach an agreement that is satisfactory. The first issue is the registration of independent schools. The Bill would transfer the registration of such schools from the DCSF to Ofsted. The logic and thinking behind that proposal do not seem to match up to any real need for such change. The Bill was published before the consultation process was complete and much of the consultation seemed to be based on misunderstanding. The streamlining of this operation presumed that Ofsted already played a major part in the life of independent schools, yet it inspects only two out of every 10 such schools. The Independent Schools Inspectorate will continue to inspect schools that are members of the Independent Schools Council, an umbrella organisation for nearly 1,300 schools that educate about 80 per cent of pupils in independent schools in England, but Ofsted, rather than the Secretary of State, will, under the Bill, become responsible for regulating the whole independent sector. The current position is that regulation and inspection are separate. This position should be maintained, as it prevents an inspector from taking a regulatory decision that may be based on a flawed inspection. As the system stands, the responsibility for the regulation of independent schools rests with the Secretary of State, who is, of course, directly answerable to Parliament. The proposals were not sought by any of the parties involved; they seek to solve a problem that does not exist and they will add only confusion and disruption to a system that works very well. The second issue relates to Section 347 schools, which deal with pupils with special educational needs. The Bill will change the existing regime, whereby the Secretary of State approves Section 347 schools, to one with increased local authority involvement. However well intentioned these proposals, I am concerned that in practice they may have a detrimental effect on the provision of education for children with special needs. First, if approval is to be replaced by de facto approval by local authorities, there is a risk that the local authorities, with so many other responsibilities and demands on their budgets and attention, will simply lack the resources to carry out effective assessment of the school, as well as the suitability of the individual placement. Secondly, this extra duty to inspect schools may end up making extra demands of schools that will adversely affect their independence and increase the costs of compliance. If the abolition of approved status is allowed to go through, special schools will lose their hard-won kitemark of approval. As a result, if parents are forced to appeal because they cannot get funded placements for their child from the local education authority, the local authority may be able to cast doubt on the school’s ability to meet needs appropriately. The school will no longer be able to point to its departmental approval status. The upshot is that even fewer parents will have any chance of getting a place for a child with special needs. I fear that this is another area where government intervention will end up being counterproductive to the original intention. Finally, I should be most grateful if the Minister could clarify why the Government have chosen to define independent educational institutions so narrowly under Clause 77 so that an institution that provides part-time education for one or more pupils is caught. I recognise that the Government must be able to set certain standards and therefore be able to define who must meet them; that is in all our interests. The Minister must recognise, however, that there are some instances in which detailed government regulation is an unnecessarily intrusive burden. We have a number of questions on which I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure us. Does the home schooling of this year’s 14 year-old Wimbledon star, Laura Robson, which enables her to concentrate on her tennis training, merit the same treatment as an independent school? What exactly is the position on including lunchtimes and religious worship as time spent in education for the purposes of Clause 77(2)? I have tried to summarise the main points of contention that we have with Part 4 as succinctly as possible, without dealing too fleetingly with the issues. I have tried to avoid going into too much detail on all the provisions that it contains, because the Minister knows that we have problems with the totality. As I said, the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, has listened to our concerns with understanding since Second Reading and I know that he has been looking closely at Part 4. The OECD recognises that our independent education sector provides the best education in the world. There is currently an excellent working relationship between the sector and the department. The Minister has done much to break down the barriers between independent and state schools, so I hope that he accepts my criticisms as constructive, for that is how they are intended, and can accept whatever help we are able to give on restructuring this part of the Bill.