Education Bill

TUC Briefing
7 February 2011

Introduction

The Education Bill, which was introduced in Parliament on 26 January, takes forward a number of new measures set out in the Schools White Paper - The Importance of Teaching - and also builds on the provisions in the Academies Act. The TUC and its affiliated unions have raised a number of major concerns about the direction of the coalition government's policy reform on school education. Commenting on the introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons, the TUC said that many of the provisions are 'a direct attack on our democratically accountable school system' and that 'extending academies and introducing free schools will fail to serve the interests of the majority of families and pupils, and will instead divert resources away from the schools in greatest need of support.' The TUC is of the view that pursuing these radical school reforms will be much more costly than supporting schools to improve their standards within the family of maintained schools and with the vital support of local authorities.

It is also of concern that despite the stated aim of giving schools greater freedoms, the Bill actually gives unprecedented powers to the Secretary of State in a number of key areas, including the establishment of new schools and the closure of schools in challenging circumstances. The Bill also includes provisions for reform in a number of other areas, including: discipline and behaviour; the inspection regime; post-16 education and training; student finance; and early years provision.

Academies and free schools

The TUC and affiliated unions have opposed the government's policy of expanding academies and establishing free schools, arguing that in effect the strategy involves a concerted attempt to dismantle the state schooling system. The union campaign to date has in particular highlighted the following major concerns:

• Breaking the link between individual schools and local authorities (LAs) undermines the accountability of the entire school system in a number of crucial areas and also means that it will be increasingly difficult for LAs to provide centralised support services. As an increasing number of high performing schools move to academy status with the incentive of receiving direct funding to pay for support services, LAs will be left with a smaller funding pot to provide support services for those schools in the locality with disproportionately greater needs.
• Unlike the previous academy programme which was focused on deprived areas, the Academies Act has led to resources being diverted away from the maintained school system in order to provide additional incentivised funding for academies and free schools that now have little or no focus on disadvantage. The Local Government Association (LGA) has recently estimated that local education authorities face cuts of £413m over the next two years tied to the expansion in the academies programme and the LGA Chair (Baroness Margaret Eaton) has stated: 'Whatever you think of academies, it cannot be right that other frontline services suffer so that the government's academies programme can flourish.'
• There are limited rights of consultation for parents and the local community as regards the decision taken by schools to transfer to academy status and there is also no need to consult the local authority before opening a new academy. This means that it can be nigh impossible for parents, communities and staff to safeguard maintained school status if the headteacher and governing body unilaterally decide to go ahead with this.
• Academies and free schools are given a range of flexibilities as regards national standards that still apply to all maintained schools, including in key areas such as special educational needs (SEN) and the operation/coverage of the curriculum. In spite of some concessions given by the government to meet concerns about the admission of pupils with SEN, there remain concerns that academies and free schools have huge discretion to flout national standards that provides essential safeguards for the quality of educational provision and position of vulnerable groups of pupils.
• As part of its school reform agenda, the government is explicit in its aim of attacking national and local agreements/standards on pay and conditions for teaching and support staff in schools. The Secretary of State emphasised the flexibilities given to academies on staff pay and conditions in his initial letter to all schools inviting them to become academies and this will also be an integral feature of free schools.

New powers and the impact on local accountability

The TUC believes that provisions in the Education Bill, and the thrust of much of the Schools White Paper, reinforce the above features of the new school system and in turn intensifies their detrimental impacts. The TUC is in particular concerned about the fact that the Bill gives the Secretary of State a range of new direct powers that will enable the government to accelerate its school reform programme. These powers will further limit the democratic accountability of schools within the local community and the ability of parents, staff and others to have any influence in safeguarding the model of maintained schools with close links to the local authority that continues to have widespread public support.

Many of the TUC's concerns in this area have been reflected in the recent report - The Academies Programme - by the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, which raised serious questions about the accountability of academies in a number of crucial areas and especially in relation to financial aspects of their position. The report also questions the capacity of the Department for Education (DfE) to cope with the administration of academies - at the same time the Education Bill will hugely increase the administrative demands on the department by abolishing the Young People's Learning Agency.

There are a number of measures in the Bill which will further undermine the accountability of schools within their local community, including the following:

• New powers given to the Secretary of State which will in effect enable him to dictate that all new schools are either an academy or free school rather than a maintained school
• Changes to legislation relating to school land in order to increase the Secretary of State's ability to make land available for establishing free schools
• No longer requiring school governing bodies to have staff and local authority elected governors on their board, thereby reducing the 'collective authority' of governing bodies
• Changes to the role of the School Adjudicator and local authority in relation to school admissions procedures, including removing the requirement on LAs to establish an admission forum for their area
• Abolishing the role of schools in linking in with local strategies designed to improve the wider well-being of pupils (e.g. links with Children's Trusts)
• Abolishing the School Support Staff Negotiating Body before it could begin to set minimum standards for pay and conditions for these school staff.

Inspection regime and school closures

The Bill introduces major reforms to the format of the Ofsted inspection regime and also exempts schools with an 'outstanding' grade from regular inspection unless major problems are reported. The Bill also gives major new powers to the Secretary of State that enables him to require local authorities to close schools for 'poor performance' under a much wider set of criteria than is presently the case. For example, the Secretary of State will be able to instruct that certain schools be closed even if they have not been graded by Ofsted as being in 'special measures'. This increases the remit of the Secretary of State as regards the management of schooling at the local level and consequently further reduces the role of the local authority.

Discipline and behaviour

The Bill includes a provision that will extend the power of staff in schools and colleges to search pupils without their consent for items that are banned by the school or are likely to cause injury or offence. There will be mixed views among the school workforce about this new power - while many will welcome the need to ensure pupils are not in possession of such items, many individual staff will be wary about personally undertaking searches and confiscations.

Unions have however overwhelmingly welcomed another provision in the Bill which will provide anonymity for staff facing unsubstantiated allegations from staff or parents (this was something that the school workforce unions had been pressing the government to pursue). However, the GMB union has voiced concerns that these safeguards will not provide equivalent protection to school support staff as it will do for teaching staff.

Post-16 education and training

The Bill includes a number of measures relating to post-16 provision that were set out in the government's skills strategy (Skills for Sustainable Growth) last autumn. One measure legislates for the decision taken by the government to abolish the 'Level 2 entitlement' for adults (i.e. those aged 24 and over). This entitlement had previously entitled all adults to access education or training to achieve their first Level 2 qualification and in recent years many employees had done so under the auspices of the Train to Gain programme. In its submission to the Skills Strategy consultation the TUC had called on the government to retain this entitlement as it was playing a crucial role in helping to tackle the disproportionately high proportion of the UK workforce lacking this minimum skill standard.

The TUC has welcomed the coalition government's commitment to expand the apprenticeship programme and to invest additional funding in this area. It is also welcome that the Education Bill reaffirms that the coalition government will implement the 'raising of the participation age' policy and that an 'apprenticeship offer' will be a key element of the strategy to ensure that in the future an increasing proportion of 16-18 year-olds remain in education or training. However, it is of concern that the Bill is repealing previous legislation that would have required the Skills Funding Agency 'to secure an apprenticeship place' for suitably qualified young people (i.e. the 'apprenticeship guarantee') and is instead replacing this with a form of 'apprenticeship offer' for certain groups. It would be especially disappointing if this policy change reduces the opportunity for disadvantaged groups to access apprenticeships in comparison with the policy intent of the 'apprenticeship guarantee.' Another provision in the Bill repeals the requirement on local authorities to ensure that every young person has access to 14-19 Diplomas.

Student finance

The Bill includes provisions to implement aspects of the coalition government's reform of higher education funding, including applying the tuition fees cap for full-time courses on a pro-rata basis to part-time courses and introducing a tiered interest rate on student loans so that higher earning graduates can be required to pay a higher rate of interest on these loans.

Early years provision

The Bill confirms the welcome commitment by the government to extend the free entitlement of 15 hours provision (that 3-4 year-olds are currently eligible for) to certain 2-year-olds facing disadvantage. However, unions have expressed concerns about the provision in the Bill which will now allow 'nursery schools (and schools with nursery classes) to charge for early years provision that is not funded by the local authority.'