Clause 38
Education and Inspections Bill
6:10 pm
Sarah Teather (Shadow Secretary of State for Education and Skills, Education & Skills; Brent East, Liberal Democrat)
I want to make some general comments about the clause, before turning to our motion, new clause 53, and the amendment that the hon. Gentleman has tabled.
To put the matter into context, we must separately consider four stages of the admissions process. First, there is the setting of admissions policy, which is done by the admissions authority—either the local authority or, if it is an own-admissions-authority school, the relevant school. Secondly, there is the administration of that policy. Thirdly, there is the monitoring and reporting of it. And fourthly, there is the enforcement of any breaches of the code.
In common with the hon. Gentleman, it seems to me that there is an important role for admission forums in trying to broker practice between schools and advising the local authority on setting its own admissions criteria for schools where it is the admissions authority. However, we have tabled an amendment to which we will speak later, in which we say that it would be far better if the local authority were to administer the admissions process. I am talking not about setting the policy, but administering it.
Then, there is the question of who should monitor and record the process. No matter who reports on it, there are some general principles in common with comments already made. First, whoever reports, it should be a duty, not just a power, because reporting is important and controversial.