Clause23
Education and Inspections Bill
1:30 pm
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
The clause deals with the rules and regulations thatwould apply in circumstances where a foundation school with afoundation wishes to remove that foundation. It deals withcircumstances where a foundation school with a foundation, and whichprovided for the majority of the governors to be foundation governors,wanted to change those provisions so that the foundation no longerprovided the majority of the governors.
There are two ways in whichsuch propositions can be initiated. The first is for the governing bodyof the foundation school to pass a motion to that effect in accordancewith its rules of procedure. That is the provision in subsection (2).The draft regulations circulated by the Minister add a furthersafeguard. Regulation 3 says that such a decision taken by thegoverning body will have to be reaffirmed by the governing body at asubsequent meeting, which must not be less than 28 days after theinitial meeting. That is an important cooling-off period for a decisionthat is important for a school and its future. We agree with thatapproach.
The second wayin which a proposal can be initiated is for a smaller group ofgovernors, referred to in clause 23(3) as a “prescribedproportion”, to require the governing body to publish itsproposals for the removal of a foundation or a reduction in the numberof foundation governors that would put them in the minority. Regulation4(2) says that the prescribed proportion should be one third. If wecould amend that regulation, we would. Instead, amendment No. 39 wouldamend subsection (3) to make the prescribed proportion of governors 50per cent. Although there is a safeguard provision that the procedurescan be used only once every seven years, giving a one-third minority ofgovernors such an important power could entrench conflict and encouragethe politically and ideologically driven to involve themselves in aschool only for the purpose of such votes. Changing the requirement tohalf of the governors would minimise thatrisk.
Amendment No.389 relates to the compensation to be paid by a governing body to afoundation when it is removed from a school and has incurred capitalexpenditure on land being used by the school. It would make therequirement to compensate the foundation a compulsory element of anyregulations made under clause 25. It would also ensure that anycompensation received must be agreed by the foundation. The Bill statesthat regulationsmay
“require thegoverning body to pay any part of the value of the transferred land tothe foundation.”
Thedraft School Organisation (Removal of Foundation and Reduction inNumber of Foundation Governors) (England) Regulations use the same wording as our amendment.I am not sure which came first, but I suspect that it was the draftregulations. Theystate:
“Wherethe foundation has incurred capital expenditure in relation to thetransferred land or other lands, the proceeds of which were used toenhance the value of the transferred land, the governing body shall payto the trustees such sum representing the expenditure incurred as maybe agreed between the foundation and the governingbody.”
We can see noreason why that requirement should not be put into the Billitself.