New Clause 15 - Reducing administrative burdens on schools, etc.
Education Bill [Lords]
5:00 pm
Mr Stephen Twigg (Minister of State (School Standards), Department for Education and Skills; Enfield, Southgate, Labour)
I can reassure the hon. Lady and the Committee that legislation is already in place on this matter. It renders the amendment unnecessary. Section 38 of the Education Act 2002 places a duty on the Secretary of State to have regard to
“the desirability of avoiding—
(i)the sending of excessive material to governing bodies or head teachers”.
I would like to say a little about what we are doing to implement that.
The Department has now stopped the batch, which is the automatic mailing of paper to schools, and has replaced it with an online ordering service. We have also established the implementation review unit—an independent panel of 12 experienced practitioners, most of whom are head teachers, who provide an external challenge to the Department on the impact that our work has on schools. We have found it vital that officials monitor the impact of their own policies and that we have outside input from people with experience of being on the end of those policies.
John Dunford, general secretary of the Secondary Heads Association, said:
“we welcome the way the Implementation Review Unit is playing its part in holding the Department and its agencies to account”.
The debate today has been largely non-partisan, but let me make one partisan point: I was interested to read that the Conservative party proposes in the James review to abolish the implementation review unit. It is one thing to add amendments to legislation, but that does not make a great difference if the means are not in place to implement the good intentions behind them.
The implementation review unit has been responsible for a series of changes to reduce bureaucratic burdens, some of which are being made under the Bill. They include reducing the burden on Ofsted, better data management through the common basic data set and provisions to allow electronic checks for free school meals. Those are just three examples of practical changes to reduce the bureaucratic burden on schools that follow the 2002 Act, and they are a consequence of the implementation review unit.
In the light of those comments, I ask the hon. Lady to seek leave to withdraw the amendment and to reconsider that Conservative party policy.