Clause 27
Education and Inspections Bill
2:00 pm

Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister (Schools), Education; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)

This clause is very welcome because it abolishes school organisation committees. Those committees were established by this Government in section 24 of their first education Act, the School Standards and Framework Act 1998, which stated:

“Each local education authority in England shall establish a school organisation committee for their area.”

The regulations that accompanied the section stated that those committees must consist of between one and seven members of the local education authority; between one and seven nominated by the diocesan board of education for the Church of England; between one and seven nominated by the local Roman Catholic Bishop; between one and seven appointed by the Learning and Skills Council; at least one member each of a governing body of a primary school, a secondary school, a special school, a middle school, a maintained nursery school and each category of school attended by at least 5 per cent. of the area’s pupils; and up to seven governors representing the interests of the community.

During the Committee stage of that Bill, Estelle Morris, as she was before she became Baroness Morris and a Labour rebel, in her capacity as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Education and Employment, as the DFES was then called—[Interruption.] Indeed, much has changed in eight and a half years. She said:

“The Government's underlying philosophy is that one of the unacceptable aspects of the present system is that many decisions about local school plans closures, expansions and so on are taken centrally in Westminster by the Secretary of State. At present, about 300 proposals a year are determined centrally...Therefore, our underlying principle is that it is better if such decisions are taken at local level.”

She continued:

“When we move on from that starting point...we have the challenge of ensuring that all the bodies responsible for providing education locally feel that their interests are guarded by the new structure. That is why we are introducing a school organisation committee and an adjudicator.”

When probed by Opposition Members, she said:

“To some extent, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating. Members of the school organisation committee will have a vested interest in making the system work, as well as defending their own interest within the committee.”—[Official Report, Standing Committee A, 10 February 1998; c. 367.]

If the proof of the pudding was to be in the eating, I guess that the clause reveals the Government’s judgment that it tasted rather bad.

The school organisation committees have been a serious impediment to reform in education, particularly important structural reform. In their important research paper for Policy Exchange, James O’Shaughnessy and Charlotte Leslie state on page 23:

“The SOC is made up of bodies that represent operators of schools within a given area. There is usually no representation on these bodies of parents groups, despite the exhortations of central government that their wishes are paramount. The threat to existing providers of new entrants into the system is  clear—they might attract pupils away from their own schools, thereby representing a loss of income to those schools.”

There is within the SOC system an inherent contradiction and a built-in block against useful proposals and against anything, including school closures, that might alarm existing vested interests within a school area. The types of people who are appointed to the SOCs all seem to relate to the existing school provision within an area, so it is inevitable that they will want to maintain the status quo. This is therefore a very welcome clause. It confirms—I hate to say it—some of the concerns raised by my hon. Friend in 1998. Nevertheless, better that one sinner repenteth, so we will support the clause this afternoon.

Jacqui Smith (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills; Redditch, Labour)

As the hon. Gentleman has pointed out, the effect of clause 27 is to abolish local school organisation committees, which were established under the 1998 Act to ensure that decisions on changes to schools were taken at a local level, whenever possible. As the hon. Gentleman said, they included representatives of the local authority, local church diocese, schools and the learning and skills council. I should like to place on record my gratitude for the good work of members of school organisation committees over the last six years.

As I suggested, that change and the comments of my noble Friend Baroness Morris that the hon. Gentleman quoted were in the context of a change from national to local decision making. We have to remember that under the last Conservative Government it was Ministers who took decisions about local school organisation issues when objections were referred to them. What was right about the School Standards and Framework Act was the way it shifted that decision making from a national ministerial decision to one made at a local level by local stakeholders.

The hon. Gentleman is also right that we are now moving to the next stage of reform. We are in a new era. I do not want to rehearse in detail some of our arguments and discussions about the new role for local authorities and their new powers and responsibilities, but I can say that the Bill introduces a new relationship between the partners in education, in which local authorities are the commissioners and quality assurers of provision, rather than the direct providers.

The hon. Gentleman is also right to a certain extent that, notwithstanding their important and good work, school organisation committees tend to be made up of providers in the local authority area. As the responsibility of local authorities changes and, as we envisage it, moves further towards them being the representative and champion of pupils and parents in an area, it is appropriate that the decision making should move from that school organisation committee to the local authority. The local authority will put the interests not of providers but of parents and pupils at the heart of decisions that it makes about local schools.

Other measures in the clause deal with other elements of the job of school organisation committees which are no longer vested in them. There is no longer a requirement for a school organisation plan to be agreed by the school organisation committee, though  of course planning will continue within the local authority, particularly in the context of the children and young people’s plan. That aspect of the SOCs’ work no longer exists.

As hon. Members are aware, and as we have discussed in relation to other clauses in this part of the Bill, there is provision to safeguard local stakeholders’ interests. We have made sure that dioceses and learning and skills councils can ensure that proposals about which they have concerns are referred to the adjudicator. That seems to me to be an appropriate way for stakeholders to be represented.

To return to the fundamental reason behind the arrangements, let me say that they are about ensuring a continuing, balanced, consideration of proposals within the context of a Bill that moves us to a more diverse and dynamic system—a system that new providers and supporters of education can enter. New schools can be established, and trusts can come in to help support existing schools. With that framework, we think that the school organisation committees, which represent the status quo, are no longer necessary. The provisions for decision making in part 2 of the Bill will result in a more appropriate, more democratic and less bureaucratic system, while maintaining the necessary protections.