EDUCATIONALLY DISADVANTAGED PERSONS (MANCHESTER) (Hansard, 11 June 1980)

§ Mr. Ken Eastham (Manchester, Blackley)
Mr. Deputy Speaker, I am grateful to Mr. Speaker for kindly agreeing to give me time on the Floor of the House to raise a special issue, namely, the centre for the educationally disadvantaged, the only one of its kind in the country, which is located in the city of Manchester.
Prior to entering this House as a Member of Parliament, I was the chairman of the Manchester education com- 758 mittee, which naturally gives me an added interest. But I wish initially to state that I am not making a special plea for a Manchester-run education establishment because, as the Department knows full well, this project is a separate entity supported by numerous interested organisations. I also have the fullest support from my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Ardwick (Mr. Kaufman), in whose constituency the unit is located.
The subject has been an issue of much concern and, indeed, anger, with many people feeling let down after placing so much effort, support and good will into what is considered by many knowledgeable people in education, including many non-political personalities, to be a most worthy and essential education development. If we are to attempt to encourage 759 higher standards of education and fairer opportunities for all children, this is the type of project to command respect and support.
As the Minister is aware, I wrote to him on 19 December 1979 relative to this matter, and it was only finally on 17 May 1980 that I received a considered reply. It stated that due to the economic climate it was not intended to keep the centre open. That was in line with the Secretary of State's final statement made on 6 May this year.
The letter went on to say that the Minister wished to stress the continued importance attached to the work of combating educational disadvantage and even stated that the concept and practice of identifying and assisting pupils with special needs has been an established feature of our educational system. What is more, it was even recognised that for local authorities there was much to be done in that area. It was a depressing statement expressing a contradiction of values. If the work is so valuable—as seems to be recognised in the correspondence—surely it should merit a high priority in money values as well. That is the basis of my submission.
I turn now to the historical background of the establishment. A White Paper, Cmnd. 5720, was published in August 1974, and I quote from it : To establish an information centre independent of the Department of Education and Science concerned with giving advice on curriculum, teaching methods, etc and on good practice generally relevant to the education of the disadvantaged and immigrants. In January 1975 Mr. Fiske, the chief education officer of Manchester, was approached and asked if Manchester education committee would be able to help with the provision of premises. In April of that year the education committee offered No. 11 Anson Road, a site adjacent to the city of Manchester college of higher education. The offer was accepted in July by the governing body which had been established and which had held its first meeting on 7 January. The then Secretary of State authorised the appointment of a seconded HMI, Mr. Colin Roberts, as the first director. Upon taking up his post in December of that year, temporary accommodation was afforded to him by the local authority until Anson Road was available.
760 The establishment consists of a house and temporary hutted accommodation. The site was bought for £15,000 and the building work cost £56,000, which is currently valued at £92,000 for insurance purposes. Manchester education committee is the landlord and the governors are the tenants paying a rental of £3,500 plus rates of approximately £3,000. I wish to add that the city council welcomed the centre, which has provided about 30 jobs in the inner city area and has also encouraged regular visitors to the city.
The work of the centre has steadily progressed since starting with a staff of five. Educational work, however, did not begin until September 1976. The centre, therefore, had had a life of little more than three years when, in November 1979, decisions were being firmed up to close the centre.
I fully realise that the cost of the centre is met by the Department of Education and Science by direct allocation. The expenditure for the year 1979–80 was £235,000, which I believe is a small price to pay from the national education budget.
It is important that we appreciate that the centre was conceived as an information centre and not as a place to solve the problems of educational disadvantage. As was recognised at a one-day conference in London, nobody in the education world had any doubt that the problems of disadvantage were wide ranging. There are, therefore, no quick or easy solutions, and the centre is faced with a major challenge.
Various statements about the closure of the centre must not be allowed to pass without comment. In a parliamentary answer on 22 May, the Secretary of State listed 25 educational bodies with executive and/or advisory functions for which he had some responsibility—the quango list. They included the centre.
In November 1979, without any previous consultation, the Secretary of State announced that he had decided to cease funding the centre and that it would wind up in August 1980. His letter to the governors said that the centre had not wholly fulfilled expectations and had been disappointing in many ways, adding that it was not likely that it was providing value for money. It was only after that letter that the Secretary of State met 761 representatives in December to consider their protests, and he promised to review his decision. At a further meeting in April 1980, the right hon. and learned Gentleman met Mr. Max Morris, the acting chairman of the governors, and advised him that he was minded to confirm his previous decision. That brings us up to the Secretary of State's confirmation in May.
It has been claimed that the Secretary of State has acted on advice, but the source and nature of the advice has never been identified. It can be said that no HMI advice to close the centre has been given. I therefore challenge the decision as not being on education grounds. I also strongly criticise the fact that no advance warning of the possible closure was mooted. That denied the possibility of alternative funding.
The Secretary of State has said that he will continue some provision which will be channelled through HMIs and the Department's educational disadvantage unit. Is it not a fact that currently part of the time of only one HMI is assigned to that work and that the overall establishment of inspectors is being reduced? The educational unit, which was established in 1975, consists. I understand, of two or three civil servants and the same single part-time HMI.
It is claimed that in five years the unit has not produced one publication or any visible evidence of its existence to those who work outside the DES. How can it possibly fill the void when the Manchester information centre closes?
I recall that in December 1979, the AMA education committee, with a Conservative majority, passed the following resolution : This meeting requests the Secretary of State to open discussions with the local authority associations concerning the future of the centre. It is recognised that Her Majesty's Government plans to curtail public expenditure, but this meeting considers that adequate consultation about the place of this body in the pattern of education should take place before any decision is made. Apart from a brief discussion on 31 January this year, nothing was done to take action on that request.
The Secretary of State said in his letter to the governors on 6 May that his decision is coloured by our greater understanding in 1980 of the complex demand embodied in the 762 rather broad hopes expressed for the centre in 1975. What is that "greater understanding" and how has it been achieved? The governors are baffled by the whole affair.
As for the timetabling of the closure, I find the period of notice rather brutal for the staff who will inevitably be made redundant if the centre closes. Surely 31 December 1980 would be a more reasonable date on which to close the project.
I make no secret of the fact that I am greatly offended when additional funding has been authorised by the Government for privileged education, irrespective of the so-called financial climate. That is, I believe, a serious flaw in the justification given by the Secretary of State for rejecting our appeal. Those are not comments of envy, but hard facts that many fair-minded people cannot avoid recognising.
I have always considered education as an investment for the future. We are discussing a classical case where our speculation will be practically guaranteed. At a time when the jobless figures are piling up, we are seeing people who have been carrying out valuable work being casually thrown aside. Human values should still be of paramount importance to any decent Government. I warn the Government that, after three years of so-called unparalleled austerity, it will not work if they again turn on the tap of financial give-aways 12 months before the next general election. The old and the young alike are on the Government's hit list, while at the same time worthless elements in society are reaping big profits and making massive overseas investments which do not create more jobs.
When we compare the cutbacks in education, books of learning, music and culture with the apparent jingoism in armaments and certain elements of law, we begin seriously to worry. Every man of my age can look back to the 1930s when similar things were taking place on the Continent, with all the dreadful consequences for the rest of the world. I recognise who are the paymasters for most of the media in Britain, but I feel that editors have some moral responsibility at least to attempt to give a balance to help save a nation that is rapidly losing its way.
There is still time for the Minister to review his stand on this matter. It would 763 not in any way be a loss of face if he were to show a change of heart on such a worthy and commendable project.

§ The Under-Secretary of State for Education and Science (Mr. Neil Macfarlane)
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Manchester, Blackley (Mr. Eastham) for raising this subject. I hope that his comments and the comments that I shall make will help to clear up some of the observations and innuendo that have appeared in some of the specialist education journals in the past few weeks. He brings a special expertise to the House, having been a chairman of the Manchester education committee. I respect his opinion and his views.
I wish to add to the historical and factual background of the centre, which I hope will put some gloss on the comments made by the hon. Gentleman, which more or less coincide with my understanding of the creation of the centre. It was established by the previous Labour Government as part of their response to a report by the all-party Select Committee on Race Relations and Immigration. Their intention, set out in a White Paper issued at that time, was to establish a source of information and advice on curriculum and teaching methods for the disadvantaged which would draw together the results of research and development by other bodies, and which would disseminate information and advice on such work to local education authorities and teachers.
Before establishing the centre, the then Government discussed the matter widely with the local authority and teacher associations, and the matter was also discussed during the course of a national conference on educational disadvantage in April 1975. One of the main points made repeatedly by those consulted and at the conference was that the centre should not launch out into vast schemes, and that it would have a valuable role by simply acting as a clearing house for information about existing good practices by schools and teachers in combating educational disadvantage.
With that last intention very much in mind, the centre was set up by my right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Prentice) later in 1975 in Man- 764 By the time that we took office last year, it had grown considerably and had a staff complement of 32. The cash limit on its budget for 1979–80 was £312,000.
The chairman of the centre's governors from its foundation until he retired due to ill health in March 1979 was Sir Alec Clegg. I am sure that previous education Ministers would wish to join me in using this opportunity to pay a sincere tribute to the very considerable work which Sir Alec did over many years to help the educationally disadvantaged. I hope that his health will improve. Since last April the acting chairman of the centre has been Mr. Max Morris, and I should like to recognise the voluntary efforts which he and his fellow governors have made to pursue the aims of the centre.
This brings us to last May. As hon. Members will know, one of the things that we immediately set in hand when we assumed office was a review of quangos. Our aims in that review—the outcome of which was published in a White Paper in January—were to identify those non-governmental bodies that perform functions relevant to national need which are not undertaken by other statutory agencies ; those bodies which have the necessary degree of public accountability ; and, most importantly, those bodies which are really effective in carrying out their allotted functions and which are thus providing real value for money.
One of our conclusions as part of that review was that in the present economic climate we could not justify the continued expenditure of public money on keeping the centre open. My right hon. and learned Friend wrote to the centre's governors telling them of this conclusion, and he announced it in the House on 15 November last year.
I should like now to turn to some points raised by the hon. Gentleman in the course of his remarks.

§ Mr. Kenneth Marks (Manchester, Gorton)
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I should like to continue with this point. I shall give way very briefly, but a number of important points were raised and I want to deal with them.
Let me turn now to some of the reasons why we decided to close the centre. No 765 self-governing organisation which is financed from public funds has an automatic right to stay in existence for ever. Each organisation must be able to justify its existence through its record and by inspiring confidence that it can achieve its main aim. In this case, my right hon. and learned Friend concluded that the expectations raised when the centre was first mooted were not matched by its performance. With hindsight, perhaps, we can see that the broad hopes expressed when the establishment of a centre was being considered could hardly be met.
Educational disadvantage, as Labour Members will readily recognise, is a very complex issue, and over the last five years there has been a growing awareness of that complexity—not least by he 105 local education authorities of England and Wales. The grand hope that we could claw our way to a new understanding of this issue by having a centre such as the one in Manchester has not been fulfilled, and, I might say in retrospect, possibly could not be fulfilled.

§ Mr. Charles R. Morris (Manchester, Openshaw)
Will the Minister give way?

§ Mr. Macfarlane
Other factors were, of coarse, weighed in the balance. The Secretary of State had taken into account the real difficulties which arise when a centre of this sort is established. There was the appointment of suitable professional staff—this is very important when one considers the numbers there—and the accumulation of information about good practice. In making a judgment about the record of the centre and its future my right hon. and learned Friend had to make allowance for those difficulties.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
On the other side of the scales—[Interruption.] If the hon. Member for Bolton, West (Mrs. Taylor) will contain herself, I shall try to advance some of the reasons as I get into my speech. The more sedentary observations there are, the less likely am I to get to those reasons. I hope that the hon. Lady will therefore contain herself, and that hon. Gentlemen will also try to do the same.
In making a judgment about the record of the Centre and its future, my right hon. and learned Friend had to make allowance for those difficulties. On the other 766 side of the scales, the present economic climate had to be taken into account. We cannot afford to fund organisations if we cannot be confident that they will achieve their main aims. But it is this last point—confidence in future achievements—that is paramount.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I want also at this stage to draw to the attention of the House the Government's continuing interest in matters relating to educational disadvantage. [Interruption.] The clossure of the centre does not mean that the Government have lost interest in work to combat educational disadvantage—far from it. Through the work of the inspectorate and the educational disadvantage unit in the Department, we shall continue—[Interruption.]—to be involved in these matters.

Several hon. Members
rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Bryant Godman Irvine)
Order. The Minister is not giving way.

§ Mr. Morris
Why not?

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I have not said that I shall not give way, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I have only asked hon. Members to be a little patient so that I can answer some of the points. I hope that they will be patient.
Through the work of the inspectorate and of the educational disadvantage unit in the Department, we shall continue to be involved in these matters. There is no intention of appointing additional civil servants to undertake the work of the centre or of building up within the Department an advice service to individual local authorities and teachers. But at national level we shall remain involved in and concerned about all aspects of work to combat educational disadvantage.
Perhaps I can give one example of this—the educational needs of ethnic minorities. Just before the last general election, the Labour Government started to set up an independent committee of inquiry to look into the education needs and attainments of children from all ethnic minority groups. We have taken over where the previous Government left off. Last year we settled the terms of reference of the committee, provided it with a secretariat and encouraged it to 767 consider as a matter of urgency what practical steps should be taken to meet the education needs of children of West Indian origin.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I shall give way to the right hon. Gentleman in a moment.
I understand that the committee is working at a cracking pace to produce an interim report by the end of the year. I hope that that will be some source of solace to Labour Members. It is not only the committee's speed that I welcome. I am pleased that for the first time we have a committee commissioned by the Government that is considering the education of children from ethnic minority groups.

§ Mr. Marks
Should not the Secretary of State await the report that will be produced at the end of the year before closing down the centre? Has he any evidence from educationists or from HMIs in his Department that it was not giving value for money and not fulfilling expectations?

§ Mr. Macfarlane
The better part of a year has elapsed since the decision was taken. My right hon. and learned Friend consulted fully with a wide range of individuals who were involved. There were numerous discussions—

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
—with numerous representatives from the agencies that were involved. I must tell the House that only three of the 105 education authorities saw fit to make an approach in defence of the centre. That is interesting. It also applies to HMIs.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
No, I must get on. The existence of the committee is a clear indication of our continuing concern for those who face educational disadvantage. We look to education authorities to play a fundamental role, but it is not the only role. There has to be departmental funding to meet the education needs, especially language needs, of Vietnamese refugees in reception centres, research projects related to the disadvantaged and the general work of the inspectorate in these areas. All these 768 projects indicate that we remain concerned and involved with the work that local education authorities undertake and should undertake for those who are educationally disadvantaged for whatever reason.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
The hon. Gentleman raised an important issue when he talked about consultation with the CED governors—

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order.

§ Mr. Morris
The Minister said that he would give way.

§ Mr. Macfarlane
Prior to my right hon. and learned Friend's announcement—

§ Mr. Morris
He said that he would give way.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
If the Minister is intending to give way, he will indicate that that is his intention.

§ Mr. Morris
You heard him say, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that he would give way to me.

§ Mr. Macfarlane
The only approach that my right hon. and learned Friend received from the centre's governors was a request for a speedy decision to end the uncertainty about the centre's future.

§ Mr. Morris
rose——

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I have said that I will give way to the right hon. Gentleman. There are another five minutes before the debate ends. Timing is all important.
My right hon. and learned Friend therefore judged it right that the centre should close at the earliest opportunity rather than create further delays and uncertainties by waiting for further consultations. Nevertheless, my right hon. and learned Friend subsequently met representatives from the governors at their request on 5 December and discussed the centre's work for over two hours. There was some agreement among those present at that meeting that the centre had made a slow start. The governors were requesting an act of faith in its future achievements. At the end of the meeting my right hon. and learned Friend agreed to give 769 further thought to the centre's future and invited the governors to send him any other information that they considered relevant. I think that the House will agree that a wide degree of consultation has taken place.
Earlier this year the governors submitted a detailed document describing the work currently being undertaken by the centre and arguing for its continuation. My right hon. and learned Friend considered the document carefully along with other representations made to him about the centre, including some from Labour Members. After a great deal of thought he was minded to confirm his original decision on closure. Before doing so, he decided to have yet a further meeting with the acting chairman of the centre's governors, Mr. Morris. That meeting took place on 24 April. The centre's future was discussed for about one and a half hours.

§ Mr. Morris
The Minister has made a long speech seeking to justify the closure of the centre, but he has not identified the criteria on which the Secretary of State has based the decision to close the centre. Will he respond to the valuable point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Mr. Marks), when he said that the decision to close the centre is not supported by any member of Her Majesty's inspectorate for education? Will the Minister give us an undertaking that if he does not accept our arguments he will come to Manchester and observe at first hand the work that the centre is doing?

§ Mr. Macfarlane
I have not made a long speech. I started to speak up only 11 or 12 minutes ago, and I have given way twice.
The widest consultations took place, both with the acting chairman and the governors, and with the inspectors and Department officials. Those involved with the work of the centre acknowledge freely that perhaps it got off to a slow start, and that its terms of reference and direction did not achieve the sort of work that the then Administration were seeking. We now look to local authorities, to the Rampton committee of inquiry, and to a host of other agencies to provide the important back-up for this work.
770 After those consultations, my right hon. and learned Friend finally wrote to Mr. Morris on 6 May, saying that after careful consideration of all the points put to him he had decided that his original decision about closure should stand.
The centre's governors have made much about the advice that was received from civil servants and Her Majesty's inspectors, and about the process by which the decision to close the centre was taken. In my view, this is not a central issue, because the decision to set up the centre was an administrative one, taken by the previous Administration. The decision to close the centre is similarly an administrative one. In such cases it is not the practice to make public the advice received from officials and inspectors, and my right hon. and learned Friend docs not propose to adopt a new practice in this instance. The closure decision was not taken lightly or without regret, particularly as regards the future careers of the staff of the centre. The issue was considered from many points of view, particularly in relation to the need for the Government to have confidence in the centre's ability to meet its aims. The Secretary of State could not place that confidence in the centre, and that was crucial in the matter.
I wish to speak briefly about the staff at the centre. First, I strongly reiterate the statements which my right hon. and learned Friend has made in the House and in correspondence with the centre's governors. He has made it clear that his decision about closure, and the reasons he set out for that decision were not intended to deprecate in any way the work of the centre's staff.
Secondly, I should like to make it perfectly clear that the centre's governors—not my right hon. and learned Friend—are the staff's employers. Thus, it is for the governors to determine, in the first instance the arrangements which need to be made for the staff arising from the centre's closure. However, in so far as those arrangements would involve expenditure above the normal amount of grant aid available to the centre until the end of August, they will need to be agreed by my right hon and learned Friend. He has made it clear that he will look sympathetically at the proposal 771 which the governors put forward. Such proposals have—