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Education and Inspections Bill

moved Amendment No. 58: Page 29, line 35, at end insert ““including the need for all names to be removed from admission applications when they are considered by schools and admissions forums,”” The noble Baroness said: My Lords, in moving Amendment No. 58, I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 60 to 69 and 71. I shall speak briefly about the former amendments, as the main debate should be about the ideas put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, on the various experimental admissions procedures that he proposes in his amendments, which I think are interesting and which all seek to make admissions systems fairer in different ways. Amendment No. 58 seeks to make applications anonymous by removing the names of the applicants, so that the only factors that apply are the criteria laid down in the admissions policies set out both in the code of admissions and by the relevant school or local education authority, whichever is the admissions authority. Sometimes these factors are proximity, Church membership—in the case of faith schools—or banding, for a local education authority. The whole notion of anonymised admissions means that admission cannot be influenced by preferences such as ethnic origin, which can be told from names, or by staff acquaintance or any other such factor. When we raised this matter in Committee, I mentioned that it had been favoured by the Commons Select Committee when it considered the White Paper proposals. We were somewhat disappointed that the Government had not taken up that suggestion. The Minister was surprisingly encouraging in his response. He said on 18 July at col. 1275 of Hansard that the Government might take up that suggestion in the future but that for the moment it was ““a step too far””. He saw one obstacle as the current state of IT systems. But in all conscience, given the number of examination papers that over the years have been submitted and marked anonymously, I cannot see why that should pose a problem. We realise that large IT systems have caused the Government problems but that does not necessarily seem to inhibit them putting forward proposals for even bigger systems; for example, the development of a computer database itemising all children on the national children’s register and an even bigger database covering identity cards. But in this case any such system would have to be administered not by central government but by local authorities. A lot of local authorities have shown themselves adept at handling the size of database that would be required. The Minister also mentioned the sibling issue. Since the Government have in their current admissions code come down against schools giving preference to siblings, that seems to me irrelevant. From a personal point of view I believe that there is a good case for giving preference to siblings. Even if such preference were to be given, it seems to me that it could be well handled within such a database. We have retabled the amendment because we did not consider that either of the two objections—the fact that a database would be required to handle the anonymised applications and the sibling issue—held much water. We are anxious to press the Government to give the matter a little more consideration. As I say, in this context it might fit well alongside one of the pilots and the various schemes suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I have added my name to his Amendment No. 71, which suggests that oversubscribed state schools should allocate a proportion of places via a ballot. We were particularly attracted to his amendment in Committee that a school might allocate some 75 per cent of its places on the basis of proximity or faith based criteria and put the remaining 25 per cent up for ballot. His proposals are now slightly different but I shall let him argue his case for himself. I wish to speak to Amendments Nos. 60 to 69, including Amendments Nos. 60A and 60B, which were originally overlooked. This whole series of amendments, which we have tabled on behalf of the LGA, seek to amend Clause 40 to put a duty on local authorities to produce a report on admissions rather than just giving the power—it is a question of may rather than must—to admission forums to do so. It is worth remembering that admission forums act in effect as agencies for local government and are composed of representatives from local schools as well as LEA officials. Their job is to sort out admissions, given the criteria laid down by the code of admissions and by the appropriate admission authority at the local level. They work for and are answerable to local government and the schools that are the admission authorities at that level. It is also worth remembering that Clause 1 places a new duty on local authorities to ensure fair access to educational opportunity. Admissions are a crucial part of fulfilling that duty. Being required to produce a regular report would strengthen the hand of local authorities in fulfilling their strategic role in overseeing the fair admissions process. Moreover, it is logical that as the body responsible for ensuring fair access, and given that the admission forum is answerable to the local authority, it should be the local authority rather than the admission forum that is ultimately responsible for producing the report. It should, of course, be written in consultation with the admission forum. That is why we have drafted Amendment No. 60 to read: "““A local education authority in England, in consultation with the admission forum for that local education authority area, must””." The report would encompass all state schools in that area including academies and city technology colleges. In the amendments, on the one hand there is the notion that in applying for schools the name of the child should be taken away when they are being considered by the local admission forums so that the application is in all respects anonymous. Secondly, there is the idea that the report on how admissions are working should be a responsibility of the local education authority. Both seem to us to be reasonable amendments. I hope that the Government will look favourably on them. I beg to move.