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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 45: 45: Clause 38, page 21, line 5, leave out from ““(c. 56)”” to the end of line 6 The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendment No. 212. Both amendments were suggested by the National Governors’ Association. They have little in common, although they are grouped together. Amendment No. 45 raises the issue of who is a parent, and what happens when the so-called parent of a young person, who flouts his duties under Clause 2 of the Bill, is a local authority. Clause 38(4), which comes at the end of the chapter dealing with parenting contracts and orders, defines a parent using the formulation given in Section 576 of the Education Act 1996. This excludes a person who is not an individual. The ordinary person might wonder what sort of person is not an individual. To the legal mind, the answer is obvious: institutions are sometimes defined as persons, but are not individuals. In this instance, the person who is not an individual is presumably the corporate parent; and specifically, the local authority in the guise of the corporate parent. The question therefore arises, what happens when the young person who fails to attend education or training is in local authority care? Since the local authority is responsible for monitoring what the young person is doing, and for remonstrating with the parents, who is responsible for remonstrating with the local authority? What procedures are there for making sure that the local authority fulfils its role as a responsible corporate parent? I hope that the Minister can give me a response. The second amendment, Amendment No. 212, is about a different issue; schools forums. As the House knows, schools forums are a relatively recent innovation, introduced in the Education Act 2005. We set up procedures for the passporting of moneys for schools directly to schools’ budgets, giving local authorities no discretion on the size of the budgets. However, the allocation between schools, although formula based, leaves a little discretion to local decision making. This was put into the hands not of local politicians, through the local education authority, but of the newly created schools forums, to be composed of representatives of school head teachers and governors. The guidance on schools forums issued by the department is explicit. Paragraph 1.18 of the good practice guide states that, "““it is good practice for Schools Forums to aim for a membership structure based on an equal proportion of head teachers and governors, though this is not always possible for a variety of reasons. Nevertheless it is vital that even where equal numbers of head teachers and governors cannot be achieved there is sufficient representation of each type of schools member in each group to ensure debate within the forum is balanced and representative””." It is clear that this is not happening in many parts of the country. The National Governors’ Association has had many complaints about this from its members. Indeed, its research has revealed that, while some authorities have equal numbers, many do not. Norfolk, for example, has a schools forum of 22, with 14 heads and, at present, only five governors. Nottinghamshire has nominally 32 members, but currently 16 heads and eight governors. West Sussex has nominally 28, with 18 heads and eight governors. Birmingham has nominally 22 members, with 17 heads and four governors. There are, of course, other authorities—Oxfordshire, Durham, East Sussex and Essex—where there is parity in numbers. However, there are enough examples of where there is no parity, and where local authorities seem to be doing little to achieve it. Rather, they retreat behind the excuse that they cannot find governors to fill the slots. I have received a comment from the chair of the National Governors’ Association in response to that criticism: "““I would add that we receive comments periodically from our members about the lack of governor representation on schools forums, but have never had any suggestion from them that there are difficulties in recruiting members for this very important purpose. Most governors recognise how vital the schools forum is and want to ensure that the governor voice is present and are concerned to have parity with the heads’ representatives””." Amendment No. 212 takes advantage of the fact that Clause 148 deals with the constitution of schools forums and seeks to tighten up the wording in relation to membership. Whereas new subsection (4A) states that the forums shall include membership representing schools’ bodies and head teachers, the amendment would ensure that, as the good practice guide suggests, there should be equal membership from both parties. I beg to move.