Frank Little

Councillor for East Central ward on Coedffranc Town Council Learn more

Building Schools for the Future, and Academies/Free Schools

by franklittle on 19 July, 2010

I wouldn’t normally comment on England-only political matters, but the coalition’s abolition of Labour’s BSF programme has impelled a leading Liberal Democrat councillor to threaten to leave the party: http://www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/liverpool-news/regional-news/2010/07/09/liverpool-lib-dem-leader-warren-bradley-we-ll-be-wiped-out-by-coalition-with-conservatives-92534-26816261/

What Councillor Bradley ignores is that the Liberal Democrats, and the Liberals before, have always been “sound money” parties. BSF was largely based on the Public Finance Initiative (relabelled as Public/Private Partnership by New Labour, but still basically the same beast) and also involved large payments to consultants. Other drawbacks were pointed out in this Guardian article from last year. Nor were all the promises from central government to be believed, as Lynne Featherstone has blogged.

Both Welsh Labour (R.Morgan 1, P.Mandelson 0) and Welsh Liberal Democrats resisted PFI funding  from the start of the Welsh Assembly with the happy result that there has not been the same check to the schools rebuilding programme here – so far, at least.

Academies Bill

The idea to extend New Labour’s Academies scheme comes from the Conservative manifesto and is something I am glad is being tried out in England first. Liberal Democrats in Parliament are concerned about many aspects of the Academies Bill. The following statement has been issued by Liberal peeress, Joan Walmsley:

We, the Liberal Democrat Peers, have achieved the following in the Lords;

1) a Government amendment, following pressure from the Lib Dems, about a
duty for applicant schools to consult with all appropriate people and
groups before conversion but not necessarily before applying for an
Academy order,
2)  a Government amendment, following pressure from the Lib Dems and
others, giving parity with maintained schools on the duties in regard to
SEN plus a Labour amendment (we abstained and let it through) to keep the
funding for children with low incidence, but usually expensive, special
needs, to stay with the Local Authority rather than go to the Academies,
3)  confirmation that the Human Rights and Freedom of Information Acts
apply to academies,
4)  confirmation that there will be a “needs” element in the funding as
well as numbers,
5)   confirmation that Academies will have to comply with the local
Admissions Codes and the local exclusion and behaviour partnerships,
6)   a Lib Dem amendment, accepted by the Government, for Parliamentary
accountability in the form of an Annual Report to Parliament which can
include such things as the effect on primary schools, looked-after
children, children with free school meals, SEN children, etc.
7)  a Government amendment in response to demands by the Lib Dems that
puts a duty on the SoS, in considering any application, to consider the
impact of the new or converted academy on existing schools in the area.
The duty in relation to both new and converted schools is the same.
8)  a commitment that the Government will work with Local Authorities and
the              LGA during the summer to define the role of LAs in
relation to planning for              and supporting academies and schools
generally.
9)   confirmation that the Bill will not allow expansion of selection
(though we                             know that this can happen to some
extent anyway through other means)
10)  confirmation that faith schools that convert to academies can retain
their faith               designation,
11)  confirmation that all academies that teach the early years will have
to use the
EYFS and will not be able to charge for the free entitlement,
12) confirmation that any selective independent school that becomes an
academy must give up selection and become inclusive
13) confirmation that any new faith school must have 50% of its intake –
inclusive of all faiths and none – from the local area,
14)  confirmation that funding contracts are two stage, (academy order
first and then funding agreement)  and that a school is not committed and
can draw back until the end of the second stage when it signs the funding
agreement. The academy order itself is “permissive, not coercive”,
15)  confirmation that the ‘financial grant’ route is not (Lord Hill
claims) seen as the ‘fast route’ for outstanding schools but as the
probable route for new schools with a two/three year termination clause in
case things go badly and that all the elements in the academy order (see
point 14) will also appear in the letter accompanying the financial grant
and be legally binding,
16)  a statement that the YPLA, after the signing of the funding
agreement, will be the main monitor, regulator and complaints handler for
academies (given that it is a new organisation with new responsibilities,
we are concerned about how it will handle this.) We tried suggesting
various other bodies, including the NAO, in consultation with Schools
Forums, and LAs, as monitors but these suggestions were not accepted),
17) a statement that “wholly or mainly” in relation to the catchment area
of an academy means that “over 50% of the pupils of an academy come from
the area in which the school is situated”,
18) confirmation that, while the number of parent governors at academies
is not laid down beyond the minimum of one, whatever the number, they are
elected not appointed. We did try to specify more, plus two staff and one
from the LA but we did not press the matter to a vote.

We are still concerned about the funding because the new money for
academies is clearly going to come not just from the DSG top-slice but
also from other LA pots.  The “ready reckoner” on the website gives some
schools more than the LA potion for their school and far more than their
share of the top-slice of the DSG. Schools need to take into account
exactly how much extra money they will get and what they will need to buy
with it.

On primary schools, we didn’t get anywhere (though we tried) on
restricting primary school applications to groups or federations and
slowing down the process for primary schools so we remain concerned and
the Commons will have to take up that issue.

We are also concerned about the potential for free schools to create
uneconomic surplus places and lots more faith schools with the potential
effect on community cohesion.

I don’t think we can claim all of these as wholly as Lib Dem achievements
as others expressed similar concerns in some cases, but they are very
useful additions to our understanding of the way things are intended to
work out and typical of the sort of achievements we have always got in the
Lords, so we are pleased that coalition has not changed that! Indeed, we
believe that we have obtained quietly, from within the coalition, probably
more than we would have done from the position of opposition.

I still think, on balance, that a maintenance agreement rather than complete coalition was a better option, but one has to applaud what has been achieved.

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