Schools Self-Management (Hansard, 20 January 1987)

§ Mr. Robert B. Jones (Hertfordshire, West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to reform the system of school financing in England and Wales by re-allocating funds to schools on a per capita basis. At present, as all hon. Members will know, the governors and heads of schools are responsible only for the management of such school funds as are allocated to them by the local education authority. That money is generally known as capitation and it is supposed to cover such items as books and writing materials. While practice varies from local education authority to local education authority, the overwhelming piciture is that capitation is the small change of the system.

Typically, in my constituency a school whose running costs would be about £500,000 would have discretion over only £3,000—less than 1 per cent. of the total budget. Even in Cambridgeshire, which has certainly set the way for and pioneered the delegation of greater responsibility for financial management to individual schools, the actual sums represent well under 10 per cent. of the total and few authorities are even moving in that direction.

Any hon. Member who has been a school governor or senior teacher will be familiar with the problem. I was chairman of the governors of a comprehensive school in Hertfordshire for four years and have been a member of the governing bodies of several primary and secondary schools. We have all come across situations where relatively minor maintenance tasks have to be referred to divisional education offices or even to county hall officials. That causes problems due to both delay and costs.

Such requests have to be accompanied by paperwork and receive proper authorisation from the duly appointed official. If he has a lot of requests at any one time, or is absent or ill, delay occurs. Hon. Members can speculate how many burst pipes in a county might have been reported last week and the delays that might have occurred. Therefore, how very much better it would be if the head, perhaps together with the chairman of the governors, were able to get such jobs carried out properly, paid for out of school funds and with work commissioned from local tradesmen.

I am not suggesting that education is about more efficient plumbing maintenance, but what is true of maintenance is also true of equipment and pay. Presently, 762 schools have to abide by national and countywide arrangements, yet heads and governors have a much better idea of which teachers are worthy of pay increases and promotion and which are not. Therefore, the Bill proposes a new system, based on the following principles.

First, the management of all current funds should be by the head teacher under the policy direction of an accountable board of governors. Secondly, there should be an election on a three-yearly rotating basis of a school board by parents by means of a postal ballot. Thirdly, there should be an allocation of current funds on the basis of the number of pupils on each school roll at the beginning of each year. Fourthly, school funds should be paid directly by the Department of Education and Science. Fifthly, power should be delegated to school boards to fix on an individual basis the remuneration of teachers and their terms and conditions of employment. Sixthly, a national capital fund for development should be created with powers to make long-term loans to schools. Seventhly, the terms of reference of the schools inspectorate should be revised for it to take over the role of specialist advisers as well as to ensure the maintenance of appropriate minimum standards.

The consequence of the introduction of this new system will be, firstly, to introduce more efficient financial management of schools, but, far more importantly, because schools will have to attract pupils in order to fund their activities, they will strive to improve their reputations by delivering better education than their rivals.

Such a system would be more responsive to parental aspirations and would enshrine parental choice. It would lead to higher standards, not just in the few schools but in the many, and I commend it to the House.