Clause 38
Education and Inspections Bill
6:10 pm
David Chaytor (Bury North, Labour)
I shall speak to amendment No. 212 and new clause 16. The context of the amendments is the increased emphasis by individual admission authorities on effective mechanisms of compliance with the code of practice for school admissions.
I must admit that I feel a little ambivalent about the amendments, particularly new clause 16. I welcome the content of clause 38 and the fact that the Government have recognised the potential of admission forums, which are comparatively newly established bodies. Some of them operate fairly informally, and they might not all have had time to establish their sense of purpose. The clause will give them an important role.
Clause 38 needs to be seen in conjunction with the Secretary of State’s letter to the Chairman of the Select Committee, which spelled out that membership of admission forums would be changed to ensure that all schools were properly represented, thereby supporting and strengthening their new and important role in monitoring admission procedures on the local level.
The purpose of amendment No. 212 and new clause 16 is to question whether the responsibilities in clause 38, which will give admission forums the key role in preparing annual reports on how admission policies and procedures are operating locally and in identifying any unfair practice, would not be better conducted by the local education authority. The arguments are quite straightforward and twofold. In clause 38, the admission forum simply has the power to prepare and publish the report on all matters connected with pupil admission. Many admission forums might decide to use that power; some might not. Given that participation in the forums is largely voluntary and that they do not have their own permanent secretariat, it is an open question whether take-up of the new power would be significant.
Because the argument about the role of admission forums in monitoring compliance locally has been won, there is now a further debate about whether it would not be more effective for the local education authority to be responsible for producing the annual report and for that to be a statutory duty and not simply a power. Those are the two issues.
New clause 16 lists fairly precisely what the local education authority should include when preparing its annual report on the proposed admission arrangements: detailed analysis of applications to schools and descriptions of the area from which schools recruit their pupils, together with the local education authority’s opinion whether the proposed admission arrangements comply with the code for school admissions.
Whether or not the Government accept the amendment—whether the function rests with the admission forum supported by the local authority in its secretarial function or transfers to the local authority—it is a significant step forward in the effectiveness of the compliance mechanisms and in the potential for building consensus among schools on what constitutes good practice.
As I said in the debates on clauses 36 and 37, the current arrangements for school admissions, to secondary school in particular, are unsatisfactory. They provide an administrative nightmare, and they generate huge pressure on parents to secure a place at their preferred school and on head teachers to ensure that their school is not disadvantaged by its position in the league tables.
There is a powerful argument to have new arrangements locally, involving the local education authority and the admission forum to try to build a stronger consensus, establish peer group pressure and ensure that all schools play by the rules.