Schedule 2
Education and Inspections Bill
4:45 pm
Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)
These amendments are intended in the main to correct technical drafting flaws in the Bill and in some cases to preserve and clarify its original intention. I will provide the Committee with a brief overview of their effect, dealing first with the purely technical amendments.
Amendments Nos. 108, 112, 119, 121, 122, and 127 are designed to correct and clarify cross-references in the Bill to other legislation, including references to other sections of the Bill and to the Learning and Skills Act 2000.
The other main “sub-group” is amendmentsNos. 110, 111, 113, 120, 123, 124, 125 and 126.They are all designed to clarify at various points in the schedule that the requirement to link proposals for consideration, determination or referral to the adjudicator applies only when those proposals are yet to be determined.
Amendments Nos. 117 and 118 will widen the circumstances in which prescribed bodies such diocesan authorities, promoters of new schools and, in some circumstances, the governors of a school or the Learning and Skills Council may refer an objection to a local authority's decision on proposals to the adjudicator. As the Bill stands, such objections may be referred only when proposals have been rejected, which could mean that there would be no mechanism for appeal if a local authority approved proposals for an independent school to join the maintained sector despite concerns about the impact on community cohesion. The amendments change the wording so that objections may also be referred when proposals have been determined.
We are also allowing the local authority to comment on proposals when they are referred. That was always the original intention of the legislation, as was indicated in the White Paper, which made it clear that providers who were dissatisfied with a local authority decision would be able to appeal to the schools adjudicator. Amendments Nos. 117 and 118 fulfil that commitment fully.
Amendment No. 107 is designed to clarify the intention when a local authority is required torefer proposals to the schools adjudicator. As the Committee will be aware, when proposals are referred, the local authority has no role in determining them. Amendment No. 107 makes it clear that the local authority will not be expected to undertake any consideration of such proposals.
Amendment No. 109 corrects an original intention of the legislation. As the Bill stands, regulations would prescribe the changes that local authorities may make to proposals before they are determined. We do not think it necessary to prescribe such changes, because local authorities must be given the freedom to consider and respond to differing local circumstances and concerns. The amendment therefore removes the reference to prescribed alterations.
Amendment No. 114 removes the requirement on a local authority automatically to refer its own proposals to discontinue a school to the schools adjudicator if objections are received from any party. If this amendment is not made, the net result could be a massive and unacceptable burden on the schools adjudicator, as most proposals would be likely to end up at the adjudicator's door. Our intention was always that proposals should be referred only at the request of the types of organisation that I mentioned earlier—for example, those represented on the school organisation committee. The amendment corrects the Bill to achieve that intention.
Amendment No. 115 provides for regulations to allow that where a local authority refers to the adjudicator its own proposals or those concerning a trust in which it has a minor interest, objections to those proposals may also be referred.
I hope that members of the Committee agree that the amendments are helpful not only in tidying up some of the current drafting in the Bill, but in making our policy intentions clearer in some areas and providing useful additional provision in others.