For many years, successive Governments have assumed that simply tinkering with the structure of education leads to an almost automatic improvement in educational standards, yet the message that is coming loud and clear from schools and colleges is that much of that constant interference does not work. Schools want the autonomy to decide how best to achieve great results within their own unique community, supported only by local education authorities, when necessary. In my view, the local council's role should be to represent and advise parents in securing a good education for their children, while supporting schools by providing certain services that are beyond the capacity of individual schools to provide.

In an attempt to get that balance right in my constituency, the leader of Westminster city council, Councillor Colin Barrow, decided in June 2008 to launch an independent education commission, charged with calculating how our local authority could assist schools in improving the attainment of Westminster's young people. The education commission report proposed 10 recommendations to help the city of Westminster overcome the economic, cultural and social challenges of providing education in an inner city environment. Although the recommendations understandably focused on the city of Westminster, the commission believes that the challenges and opportunities facing the local authority are mirrored elsewhere. As a result, its analysis and recommendations have an important contribution to make to the wider debate and further policy development in education.

I often emphasise in the House how misunderstood my constituency is. Many assume that it is a place only for the global super-rich. Although it has pockets of great wealth, for sure, the reality is very different: it is a place where great poverty and great wealth live cheek by jowl. Anyone who had a chance to read the excellent recent Evening Standard series on London's dispossessed will know now of the huge contrasts present in that seemingly ultra-modern, prosperous and dynamic city.

The impact of that wealth disparity on schooling in my constituency makes the challenges of providing a good education in Westminster considerable. Many of our families are new to Britain. Westminster's population is 236,000 and of those people 51 per cent.-including me, I hasten to add-were born outside the UK. There is a massive population turnover, with 25 per cent. of residents arriving or leaving each year. Most of the children in our state schools do not speak English at home. As one might imagine, the difficulties of educating a child who arrives mid-year, whose classmates move to different areas regularly and whose parents are unaccustomed to the British education system present a major challenge to Westminster city council. Of course the same could be said of other inner city areas in the UK. Yet, together, our local schools and Westminster city council achieve good results, which are improving fast, in both absolute and relative terms.

The most tangible demonstration of the quality of Westminster schools, however, is the number of children from other boroughs, such as Lambeth, Southwark, Camden and Brent, who come here to be educated. Indeed, I know that when families in social housing are moved to other parts of London, they are normally keen for their children to continue to be schooled in Westminster. Nevertheless, the results averages mask wide differences in outcomes. Westminster city council wants keenly to rectify that by bringing every classroom up to the standard of the best; but how should it go about achieving that admirable goal when its influence over national education policy is limited and all secondary schools in the borough are independent of direct local education authority control? How can it be a useful partner to the right schools in the locality, while granting them the autonomy to make the right decisions for their pupils?

To begin answering those questions, Councillor Barrow launched the education commission in June 2008. Led by Professor David Eastwood, a group of education experts spent six months last year speaking to the widest range of local stakeholders, to gain a clear understanding of the current state of education in Westminster and to advise the council how it might improve its service. All the commissioners accepted that invitation on the basis that their work would be untrammelled, that their report would be entirely independent and that their recommendations would form the basis of a commitment to action.

The education commission report was eventually published in September last year. It recognised the social, economic and cultural challenges that Westminster faces, the significant improvement achieved in many of its schools in the recent past and the capacity constraints on a relatively small London authority. It also produced 10 key recommendations that it advised Westminster city council to take forward. First, it suggested that senior management from the children's services department should make an annual visit to all schools. Each school's wider achievements should be celebrated, in the publishing of a school report card, and collated into an annual "Education in Westminster" report. The report also strongly encouraged all councillors to become governors of Westminster schools. In a borough where a large number of Conservative voters send their children to private schools, the subsequent taking up of that recommendation is, I believe, a tangible demonstration of councillors' commitment to all those in the constituency, not just their political patrons.

The report recommended that the council should work with schools on extended services, such as programmes for the gifted and talented and for the raising of aspirations. It advised that early years provision should be reviewed to determine how effectively it is targeting those most in need and suggested the extension of educational opportunities for children with special educational needs and the improvement of care provision for students with behavioural and emotional difficulties.

As for the council's responsibilities to parents, the report called upon it to provide high quality, impartial guidance to parents and carers and to facilitate improved information sharing between primary, secondary and special schools and the pupil referral units at the point of transition.

On a broader level, the commission suggested that the council should acquire a right to strategic engagement with all schools if children's educational experiences are jeopardised and a right to access information from academies to allow such interventions to be made. It also advised that the council should increase its capacity to share best practice through the development of a collaborative inner London board.

Finally, the commission recommended that the council should invite the director of schools and learning to attend the strategic executive board and immediately appoint a cabinet member for education. That was the only recommendation that was subsequently rejected outright, once the council, after consultation, decided that having one cabinet member for all children's services was more likely to fit with statutory requirements.

I think that there is an acceptance, to be honest-trying to put party politics to one side-that because inner London authorities are very small, by their nature, some collaboration is needed and that, without necessarily moving towards the re-institution of the Inner London Education Authority, there are certain benefits to such collaboration, which I hope will be developed in the future.

The council later added two further recommendations of its own: to support parents so that children's outcomes improve and to give further attention and resources to enhancing attainment in the key subject areas of English and mathematics, setting two key ambitions-to improve key stage 2 level 4 results from 73 per cent. to 80 per cent. and to get the number of children achieving 5 GCSE grades at A* to C, including English and maths, up from the current 51 per cent. to 75 per cent.

Most importantly, the commission drew attention to the role of the local authority in the context of the continual change to which I referred earlier. Schools deliver education, but, as the Minister knows, the council has statutory powers to ensure that education is provided to the highest standard. The commission recognised that it is a challenge-it would be for any inner city council-to carry out that statutory role when all secondary and many primary schools, as in Westminster, are independent of direct council control. The mobility of students across borough boundaries also presents a further challenge in collaborating with neighbouring local authorities to raise attainment and achieve the best outcomes. Those challenges require the council to be clear about its role. In that sense, it was concluded that the ultimate objective should be to ensure that, when children leave Westminster's schools, they are prepared for the next stage of life-whether that is in college, work or university-and as far as possible for independence.

I attended the launch of the report in September last year, and I was inspired by the leadership of the council on this important matter, first under the dedicated Councillor Mark Page and now under the outstanding Councillor Nickie Aiken, who is cabinet member for children and young people. At the launch, the council leader said that he aspired to making Westminster's schools the first choice for local parents. He said:

"In throwing open our schools to external scrutiny and by setting up the Commission we have placed ourselves at the very heart of one of the most important debates of our time-how we can radically improve the life chances of children in today's society."

He continued:

"A particular challenge for us is how we ensure high quality, cost effective services and support all our schools within a relatively small authority. The report's proposals around the development of cross borough collaboration and potential mergers offer a real and exciting opportunity for a regional response which could deliver effective savings for local taxpayers."

We all know that it is one thing to aspire to change; it is another to enact it. As a precursor to applying for today's debate, I contacted the council to learn of its progress in adopting the commission's recommendations. I was pleased to find that the council had already responded with vigour. First, it hosted a series of workshops with local stakeholders to ensure that everyone-teachers, school leaders, members, officers, parents and others-was on board with the recommendations.

The council has also been building on the commission's recommendations. It recognises that it needs to ensure that Westminster has outstanding leaders and managers in its schools. The council will therefore strive to attract and retain the best, through academies and organisational changes such as executive headship, as well as monitoring challenge and intervention by high-quality school improvement partners. It is also putting renewed attention into early years services by providing multi-agency support through children's centres, where vulnerable children and those with additional learning and behavioural needs can be identified and properly cared for.

Through capital and joint-funded programmes, the council hopes to improve local learning environments and maximise the use of new technology. The Minister probably shares my view-we may have been educated at a similar time-but whenever we visit schools, we see how much they have changed. It is taken as read that there will be huge amounts of technology in all schools. That is a positive way forward, but we need to utilise that technology to the full in all schools.

The family information service in Westminster provides a single portal of information on all services for children and their families. The school report card gives parents clear and unambiguous advice on which to base their choices, and the service seeks to remove barriers to learning by building a special educational needs strategy. I hope that that will develop high-quality provision in the borough by maximising choice and providing better value for money.

Most importantly, it is proposed that the city council should become a commissioner of education rather than a provider, moving away from the traditional model under which all services are provided and delivered by the authority to one that has a strong, central team of expert education commissioners, with a focus on broader educational improvement. The aim is to improve outcomes; to provide stronger financial planning and control; to implement strategic commissioning; to achieve greater transparency; to develop a mixed economy model that balances good outcomes and value for money by using approaches such as outsourcing, the shared services to which I referred earlier and the use of the voluntary sector; and to commission services with neighbouring boroughs to create new capacity, specialist services and extended management capacity across the entire range of expertise.

Although the academic results in the challenging inner-city borough of Westminster are getting better, given the council's continued efforts to improve the state offering to local residents, Westminster city council has never been content to rest on its laurels. In launching its independent education commission, the council has made a set of robust recommendations that can be used as a catalyst to drive standards forward. The commissioners' report also provides a platform for thought and debate, and I hope that it will inspire politicians, council leaders, teachers and officers, who will all need to engage to take the initiative forward. One hopes that Westminster city council will become a beacon authority. In enacting the recommendations, the council looks set to lead the way again, remodelling the role of a local authority in the provision of education.

The most important of the suggestions put forward by the commission is that of clarifying the role of the local education authority as a commissioner of education, rather than as an old-fashioned provider. In pursuing that model, it is hoped that independence for schools and value for the taxpayer will be compatible with ever-improving educational opportunities for the youngest, both in Westminster and beyond the borough boundaries.