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Education and Skills Bill

Fair admissions are also vital in ensuring universal access to educational opportunity, and excellence for all children and young people. That is why the Education and Inspections Act 2006 introduced the schools admissions code, with cross-party support in Parliament, to ensure a level playing field for all parents and to ban unfair practices, such as interviewing parents or asking them for financial contributions as part of the admissions process. The code has been in operation for just one year. As my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sheerman) said, we have been building on the Select Committee report that preceded it and on the 2006 Act, and I believe that we have made real progress in delivering fair admissions. In January, the Minister for Schools and Learners wrote to all local authorities to remind them of their new obligations under the code. Also earlier this year, my Department's officials undertook a spot check on admissions arrangements in three local authority areas. The areas were chosen by officials on the basis that they represented a London borough, a metropolitan borough and a shire county, and were areas where the schools adjudicator had received no complaints about admissions in the first year of the code's operation. As we have discussed before in this House, we were taken aback by the findings reported to us. One in six schools in the areas surveyed were found to have been in breach of the admissions code—18 schools were in breach on more than three counts. A total of 96 schools had adopted admissions arrangements that were unlawful under the code without any objection having been made to the schools adjudicator. In the light of those findings, which I published to Parliament, and following detailed consultation on reforms to strengthen the admissions arrangements, which we have undertaken in recent weeks, the new clause introduces a package of proposals further to strengthen the admissions system on the basis of the announcements that I made to the House on 2 April. We believe that our proposals will constitute a further transparent and important step towards fair admissions. The Minister for Schools and Learners wrote to the Chairs of the Public Bill Committee on 8 May to explain the detail of the proposals, and the letter was copied to the members of the Committee and to all Front-Bench spokespeople in the House. A copy of the letter was also placed in the Library. I should like to record that since we started that consultation, and since the proposals were published in draft, the chief schools adjudicator has written to me to welcome them, and I am grateful to him for his support. In addition, we have consulted widely with faith groups and parents groups, which all support the actions that are needed in order to strengthen the code and to ensure fair admissions. The new clause and the amendments relate to the code in three areas. First, we need to do more to ensure that the admissions arrangements for all maintained schools are fully consulted on and scrutinised at a local level to ensure that, school by school, they comply with the code, and that therefore they deliver fair admissions for all parents. The requirement for admissions arrangements to be consulted on annually, irrespective of whether they have changed since the previous year, is, in our view, an unnecessary burden. Also, parents and their communities are required to play no role in the consultation process. The amendments will therefore allow us to set out in secondary legislation a more flexible and adaptable consultation process, which will enable us more effectively to engage parents and communities. It is our intention to consult in the summer on proposals that would require admission authorities to consult on their arrangements not every year, but every three years, to lighten the burden on schools. Where changes are proposed within the three-year period, then, and only then, would a full consultation have to take place. It is our intention at that stage to ensure that parents and communities would be consulted. It is my intention separately but in parallel with that work also to ensure that in local areas elected local councillors can represent their constituents at appeals under the admissions code. The second thing that we are doing in relation to the new clause is placing a clear duty on local authorities to report to the schools adjudicator on admission arrangements in their area. That is as part of their responsibility to monitor actively the compliance of admissions arrangements in their areas with the code and with admissions legislation. It is our intention to consult in the summer on regulations that prescribe the exact form, content and timing of those reports. Thirdly, I am extending the role of the schools adjudicator so that, rather than being reactive as he is now, he will have a power to consider any admissions arrangements that come to his attention by any means, rather than waiting for complaints or reports to come to him. The schools adjudicator has no power to consider whether a school's admission arrangements are unlawful unless he receives an objection from a local authority, a school, a faith body, a parent or an admissions forum. It is clear to me, on the basis of the evidence I have seen, that the adjudicator's powers do not go far enough. He agrees with that. Also, when particular admissions arrangements are referred to the adjudicator by my Department or are highlighted in a local authority report on admissions, the schools adjudicator will be obliged to consider them and to act accordingly. By extending the adjudicator's role in that way, together with the other measures we are introducing through the Bill, we believe that we will be able to ensure greater compliance with the code and achieve fair admissions. In fact, we believe that the steps we have taken in recent months will themselves constitute a decisive step towards fair admissions in our country. It is the only way to ensure that not some parents, but all parents, and not some children, but all children, have a fair and equal chance of gaining a place for the child at the school of their choice. I should point out, as the letter to the Committee explained, that although those are the three main changes, there are other changes in relation to the new clause, which are consequential amendments Nos. 133 to 140, in particular to reorganise this chapter of the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 so it is easier to understand and to draw the distinction between those amendments that relate to England and those that relate to the devolved Administrations. I should also briefly mention the amendments to clauses 134 and 135, which we tabled and which were inserted during consideration of the Bill in Committee in the Commons. They support young people in fulfilling their duty to participate in education or training to the age of 18 by giving young people of whatever age the right to express a preference as to which school they want to attend to receive sixth form education, and give young people aged 16 to 18 the right to appeal to an independent panel against decisions made. Amendment No. 119 will remove the regulation-making power from clause 134, as the law already provides for children on a roll at a school and transferring to the sixth form to be kept on the roll unless there are lawful grounds for them to be removed. Amendments Nos. 120 to 123 are consequential to clause 135 as a result of amendment No. 119. The admissions code demonstrates a substantial step towards fair admissions in our country. As I said, it was passed with cross-party support in the House, and I pay tribute to the Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Huddersfield, for the work he did and the leadership he gave in delivering that code.