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Schools: Statutory Instruments (Merits Committee Report)

My Lords, I am not a member of the Merits Committee, but I have two interests that are relevant to the debate, the experience of which will I hope corroborate the excellent report that the committee has produced. First, I am the chairman of the governors of an independent school, Dulwich College, and, secondly, I am chairman of the shadow board of trustees of the Isle of Sheppey academy, of which Dulwich is the lead sponsor. The trustees are responsible for planning the opening of the academy in September. It will be one of the largest and most complex academy projects in the country but also one of the most needed. I do not have any formal connection with the maintained sector. Noble Lords might infer from the report that therefore I could have no problems, but that is not correct. Independent schools are affected by many aspects of regulation, and I fear that the committee is being excessively trusting of the claim that academies enjoy a "light-touch regulatory framework". I thought that that notion was rather abruptly disavowed by the department’s response, when it said that funding agreements through which academies are regulated are, ""detailed and lengthy legal contracts"." I can tell noble Lords that they really are detailed and lengthy. Before the Isle of Sheppey academy can get final sign-off to open in September, it needs to get signed off from Ofsted, and before that we will have to have approved about 50 policy statements. Because about 80 per cent of the staff are being TUPE-ed across from the predecessor schools, the academy is fully enmeshed in the national teachers pay and conditions regulations. My starting point is that much of the corpus of regulation is essential. First and foremost, children must be protected from those who might harm them. I accept therefore the chore of securing CRB clearance. However, what I do question is that when I became involved in the second school, the question I expected was, "Are you registered, and, if so, what is your number?", but instead I was required to make an entirely separate application; and I have ended up with two certificates for identical roles in two schools. Meanwhile, schools up and down the country are unable formally to appoint governors because there is a waiting time of several months. While accepting the case for CRB clearance, we should not administer the system in a way that discourages parents and volunteers from the community contributing to school activities. The second area where regulation is necessary is health and safety. This was highlighted dramatically last month when the sports hall at Sheppey, which had been laid out with 150 desks for exams, had a huge air duct fall from the ceiling. Sadly one boy was seriously injured. It was only by luck that the incident was not a lot more serious as most of the ducting fell in the space between the rows of desks. It is clear that proper risk assessments are required for activities such as school trips, but these need to be carried out with a great deal of common sense. That said, it is clear from the committee’s report that a lot of regulation is overly prescriptive, too focused on the how rather than the what, and the committee has been very successful in identifying serious flaws in the process. The Merits Committee is renowned for the understatement of its language, so a recommendation from it that the department should "seriously consider" is, in my view, just as imperative as 245 "you musts" from the department. The committee has hit the target in arguing that for most statutory instruments there must be a common commencement date, coinciding with the start of the school year, and that notification should be given at least a term ahead. The evidence the committee has unearthed showing that July and August were the favourite months for laying statutory instruments is really quite damning. One can ask why such an obvious principle as common commencement dates with adequate notice should not have been introduced years ago. I do not think that we should be too churlish, but rather we should welcome the clear assurances given in the response by the former Minister with responsibility for schools. Another target hit by the committee was the tendency to produce statutory instruments on the "fire and forget" principle, and to treat pilots not as a step which is then only followed when evidence of a pilot has been evaluated, but as a foot in the door in a predetermined process. One issue that I think could be revisited is the use of time in schools. The statutory framework requires 380 sessions of attendance each year—that is, pupils are required to attend twice a day, morning and afternoon, on a fixed 190 days across the year. Pupils are in class only about 15 per cent of the time even in the weeks that they are at school. Results have got to be achieved by integrating the use of time in the school with the use of time outside the school, even if this means rethinking this age-old framework about statutory timetables. There are also issues relating to independent schools. The inspection process has been delegated by Ofsted to the Independent Schools Inspectorate. Dulwich College had a thorough inspection last November, which included an examination of its boarding provision. Ofsted still insists on retaining responsibility for boarding and it will make another inspection in September, which will undoubtedly duplicate much of what has already been done. To conclude, the Merits Committee is to be congratulated on its report and on the evidence that it has unearthed. What is now needed is some stability of purpose in the department to see this through. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I think it is a pity that the former Minister with responsibility for schools, who was developing a very good reputation and who gave the pledges on behalf of the department, was caught up in the frantic game of musical chairs masquerading as a reshuffle. It is essential that the commitments given are carried through and are not elbowed aside by a new set of ministerial priorities. Like the noble Lord, Lord Filkin, I will finish on a philosophical note. Regulation is often seen as a response to market failure, where the market or the free choice of individual players does not produce the best outcome for society. However, regulation is itself an example of market failure, because those who impose it do not bear the costs. Left to itself, it is inevitable that regulation will grow beyond its optimum point. It is therefore necessary that this corpus of regulation is periodically revisited and hacked back. I am grateful to the Merits Committee for its part in that process.