Clause 57 - Powers of secretary of state to secure proper performance of lea's functions
Education Bill
4:45 pm
Mr Stephen Timms (Minister of State (School Standards), Department for Education and Skills; East Ham, Labour)
Clauses 57 and 61 concern interventions by the Secretary of State in LEAs, but they are really a response to the lessons of the past few years rather than anything fundamentally new. I was pleased to note that only one amendment was tabled, which reflects the general consensus that the mechanism has worked effectively in the past few years.
I am not sure that the measures on earned autonomy will have much of a knock-on effect on the way that the process works. The intervention would be triggered by an inspection and report from Ofsted. The character of LEAs will not change much. The central task of school improvement that we have identified for LEAs will continue to be at the heart of what they do, and it is an important role. The schools that have exercised their rights under earned autonomy to variations on teacher pay and conditions and the curriculum will not affect the way in which the process will work. There will be some detailed changes to the day-to-day operations of the LEA, but the process that the clauses describe and affect will not change. I welcome the fact that there is largely consensus about the fact that the way in which those interventions have been carried out over the past three years has been helpful.