Clause 27
Education and Inspections Bill
2:00 pm
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.