§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Pope.]
10.14 pm§ Madam SpeakerOrder. Will hon. Members please move away from the Bar as there is an hon. Member who wishes to speak.
§ Mr. SedgemoreI should like to begin this debate by congratulating children and teachers in Hackney on their sustained and steady improvement in achievement in the 1990s. Whereas in 1990 only 14 per cent. of pupils obtained more than five GCSE grades A to C, in 1996 that figure had risen to 31 percent. This year, the improvement in the grades was one of the best in the country. Better still, The Observer showed in a comprehensive survey that two Hackney schools, Clapton school and Haggerston school, were in the top 10 schools when value added was measured. I say well done to everyone concerned.
There is no contradiction between praise for those achievements and a recognition that the Office for Standards in Education report earlier this year was right to say that there were too many schools in Hackney that were performing badly—after all, one badly performing school is one too many. The Ofsted report was also right to say that the administration of education in Hackney was in a state of turmoil that could only be characterised as chaos. It was also right to report that things had become much more chaotic since the Liberal Democrats and Tories had taken control of the council, 18 months earlier. The blame lies with Councillor Kevin Daws, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, and Councillor Joe Lobenstein, the leader of the Tories. Those two councillors are living proof of George Villiers's aphorism:
The world is made up for the most part of fools and knaves.Faced with that situation, I have no hesitation in saying that the only course open to the Government was to intervene directly, despite their limited legal powers, to help Hackney's schoolchildren. The Government's intervention was welcomed by teachers, parents and school governors. It is the considered view of most people—myself included—that the Minister for School Standards, who will reply to the debate, handled the intervention with great skill and sensitivity. I was present when he met head teachers in Hackney and can therefore pay tribute to his understanding, knowledge and professionalism. We were all impressed.
The improvement team that was sent in came up with some good suggestions. One of its members, Pat Collarbone, the former head teacher of Haggerston school for girls, is known to me, and I have the greatest respect for her ability. The team produced an education structure that valued the work of teachers and recognised that providing a service for education cannot be carried out in the same way as providing a service for refuse collection—there is a qualitative difference.
However, the alarm bells rang in Hackney, Whitehall and Westminster when Tony Elliston, Hackney council's chief executive, announced on the radio that he was 131 prepared to go to war with the Government over the future of Hackney's education services. Tony Elliston is an unelected bureaucrat, yet here he was entering the political arena and declaring war on the most popular Government in history, without consulting the council's education committee or the full council.
In acting as a politician and usurping the role of elected politicians, he made a mockery of the notion of the public service ethos; he was also clearly in breach of the express and/or implied terms of his contract and in breach of the Widdecombe rules, which forbid senior local government officers to enter the political arena publicly. He let the people of Hackney down and lost their confidence. In his startling broadcast, he sounded like a man who had just had electro-shock therapy that had gone wrong—as though his brain was about to explode.
Ministers were right to respond by insisting that, whatever the chief executive thought, the council should employ a new director of education on the salary recommended by the improvement team. However, that still leaves open two questions: why did the chief executive allow chaos to develop in the education department and why was he unwilling to put it right? Why did the first, second and third-tier officers leave the education department during Elliston's reign of chaos? Was it only because he became obsessed with vacuous sociological jargon that was described by the National Union of Teachers' representative, Mark Lushington, as
the toxic waste of American management theory circa 1975whichreads like a menu for a Harvester restaurantand which was viewed by head teachers as plain idiotic?Or was it because Tony Elliston, Hackney's chief executive, is a public school bully masquerading as an East End barrow boy who has nowhere to go but Hackney because he has exposed himself as unemployable elsewhere? He seems to believe that he can bully and threaten people into accepting his crude solutions to problems. Chief executives from other boroughs have told me that he has not tried to adapt his new management structure to Hackney's needs. I have written to him about Hackney's education services, but all I get in reply is that sinful pride which Alexander Pope characterised as
the never failing vice of fools".It is my considered view that bullies and fools such as Mr. Elliston have to be faced down. Just as the bully boy in the playground has to be excluded if he does not mend his ways, so the bully boy in charge of Hackney council should, if he does not change his ways, be excluded from public life.
It is deeply regrettable that when talking about education the chief executive should have demonstrated a vulgar streak which debased and demeaned our borough and brought it into hatred, ridicule and contempt. You probably will not believe this, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but last week I was browsing in the Library through a magazine called "PR Week", of which I have a copy with me. Speaking of what he described as "maverick teachers" in Hackney, Tony Elliston, at a meeting of the Institute of Public Relations, said:
Hackney is always in the said. It's just a question of how deep it is'.132 Speaking, furthermore, about Ms Lorraine Langham, an executive director of the council, he said:Lorraine's approach to the media is that you can't polish a turd.Where else in Britain is there a chief executive who refers to his council staff as shit? Does his executive director really use the schoolboy language of bodily functions when she speaks to the chief executive? And how does any of this help our schoolchildren who get only one chance in life? Perhaps Liberal Democrat leader Councillor Daws and Tory leader Joe Lobenstein, who support the chief executive in his filth, can tell us.
When the chaos was at its height in Hackney's education department I went to see one of the officers, Mohamed Mehmet. By then, the director of education, Gus John, had been driven out of his post, all the second-tier officers had gone, and Mohamed, who was about to leave, was the last of the third tier officers. It was like being on a beachhead where the battle plan had gone wrong. All around was desolation, and as the bright Byronic sun of the beachhead disappeared behind the clouds, the wind withered in the stagnant air, the waves died, the tides returned to their graves, and darkness became the universe. A whole department had been destroyed, morale had been sapped and Mohamed was getting out before he took the hit for everything that was wrong.
The new management structure prepared for Hackney by the chief executive is based on the dumbing down of intelligence, professionalism and specialist expertise. It was rejected by head teachers, governors, the National Union of Teachers and Labour councillors. Amazingly, for the first time in history the head teachers and the NUT found themselves on the same side of an industrial dispute—between the chief executive and the Government.
The great virtue of the work of the improvement team was that, for the first time in the history of Hackney education, everyone was consulted and everyone agreed—except for the chief executive and a couple of political parties motivated by malice.
I ask the Minister of State to make it clear in the immediate future that the work of the improvement team has his full confidence, and that it should not be deflected from its task of doing the best that it can for the future of Hackney's children. Everything that the local education authority does must be geared to that end, and that end only. Any help and resources that the Government can give to meeting that goal will be much appreciated. More resources really are needed.
Unfortunately, some of the administrative and political problems will not be overcome until the local elections in May 1998, when Labour will be returned to power. Political stability combined with common sense will then return. I suspect that, come May 1998, the advice of the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions will be sought on the proper method of getting rid of a recalcitrant chief executive.
For too long, too many people have played politics with the lives of Hackney's schoolchildren. It now behoves us all to raise our expectations and our performance in relation to their needs.
§ Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington)I associate myself with the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) and especially with his closing remark that for too long people have played politics with Hackney schoolchildren. However, the main thing that I want to do in the few minutes available to me is to emphasise the amount of positive work going on in Hackney schools and the fact that very many teachers and very many children are still achieving, still doing their best in difficult circumstances.
When I first read in the newspaper that a hit squad was coming into Hackney schools, I was a little worried, because although those of us who are familiar with the position now know that the hit squad was coming to address problems at the centre, the press coverage at the time gave the sad impression that all schools in Hackney were failing. That was very unfortunate. One of the problems that we have in Hackney is a flight of parents once their children reach the age of 11 because of the poor reputation—undeserved, I believe—of secondary schools in Hackney.
Like many parents, I have difficulty with the policy of naming and shaming because, ultimately, we are naming and shaming not the school but the children. Not so long ago, I visited Morningside school in Hackney. Teachers told me that, the day after Morningside was plastered all over The Evening Standard as one of the worst schools in the country, the atmosphere in the school was like a morgue. We must have a care with policy, because the people who bear the burden of the stigma are the children in the schools.
The hit squad is at work now, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch is right to say that it has the support of teachers, councillors and parents in playing its part to improve education in Hackney. However, in a borough like Hackney, with the fourth highest unemployment in the country, with the one of the highest numbers of single parents in the country and with some of the worst housing in the country, education and achievement can never be satisfactorily addressed unless issues of poverty are also addressed and unless a policy of redistributing wealth is also considered.
I am not a class determinist when it comes to education; I do not believe that working-class children cannot achieve because they are working-class. I come from a working-class immigrant background and went to Cambridge university—a rather politically incorrect thing to admit nowadays. If children in Hackney are to achieve all that I know they can achieve, Hackney will need more resources and support and it will need policies to tackle the poverty and poor housing that we have in Hackney.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch mentioned Clapton school for girls. It is actually one of the most improving schools in the country. I am very sad that the council is now talking about turning it into a mixed school. There is a history of educating girls on that site dating from the 19th century. I realise the difficulties in Hackney and I realise the pressures for more mixed-sex schools, but Clapton school for girls has an important history of educating girls. There are not that many schools in Hackney with a positive history. It is a good school.
134 Clapton school for girls educates substantial numbers of Muslim girls; a mosque has been built a stone's throw from it precisely because the community wants the girls to attend that school. I fear that, if the school is turned into a mixed-sex school, Muslim parents will withdraw their girls and there will be pressure for a single-sex Muslim girls' school in Hackney, which would be a backward step.
It is to the credit of schools in Hackney that they are able to educate so many children from so many different creeds and backgrounds together in one system. The decision to turn Clapton school for girls into a mixed-sex school is wrong. It will be detrimental and I believe that it will give rise to pressure for single-sex Muslim schools. Clapton school for girls should continue to be a school for girls.
As I have said, with all the politics and media hype we must remember that children, parents and teachers in Hackney are doing their level best. I should like that to be acknowledged in the House today.
§ The Minister for School Standards (Mr. Stephen Byers)I am glad to have the opportunity to deal with the question of education in the London borough of Hackney. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch (Mr. Sedgemore) on securing the opportunity to debate the issue this evening. I also congratulate him on being a constant supporter of the Government's decision to establish the improvement team and on being an assiduous attender at the various meetings that have been held to consider the way forward for education in Hackney in these most difficult times.
I noted the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), especially towards the end of her speech. I guarantee that we will take her concerns into account should the Government be in a position to respond to any reorganisation proposals from Hackney.
As both my hon. Friends said clearly, the Government are concerned about the 30,000 children who get only once chance of a good education. I want to take this opportunity to say, on behalf of the Government, that many schools in Hackney are doing good work, often under difficult circumstances. I am pleased to put that on the record.
When I met the head teachers of Hackney—all 69 of them—just a week or two after we established the improvement team, I was struck by their commitment and motivation. As I come from a local government background myself, I thought of how much more they could do if they had the support and assistance of a good local education authority. They have been denied that. I happen to believe—I know that the Opposition disagree with this—that a local education authority that works well adds value to what its schools can do. It is a great shame that the schools in Hackney have not had that support.
I reinforce the points made by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington: there are difficult circumstances in Hackney. It is one of the most impoverished urban areas in western Europe. In 1993, one third of all Hackney households had a gross income of under £5,000. Two thirds of households have no car; two thirds of children in Hackney secondary 135 schools take free school meals, the highest number in the country; and Hackney has the highest rate of unemployment in London.
The Government believe that children of unemployed or impoverished parents do not have to do badly in school—education should be their ladder of opportunity into work and off welfare, the wage slip replacing the giro cheque. Poverty should not be an excuse for failure, but a reason for targeted support and assistance. Children in Hackney, perhaps above children in all other parts of the country, deserve the highest-quality teaching, just as their teachers deserve the best possible support.
I acknowledge that the LEA in Hackney faces an immense challenge, but the magnitude of that challenge does not and will not excuse the provision of an inadequate service. On taking office in May, I asked for an analysis of the performance of all LEAs. That was an exercise distinct from the review of the performance of individual schools.
One LEA above all others gave us cause for concern—Hackney. As a result, we invited the Office for Standards in Education to inspect the authority. It agreed, and Hackney accepted. Ofsted was originally due to report at the end of this year, but it was so concerned at what it discovered that it brought its report forward and published it on 18 September. The report's conclusions were damning. Ofsted said:
The current position is unacceptable. Some significant statutory duties are not being met.What needs to be done is, in fact, very clear. If Hackney children are to realise their potential, then the Authority must, above all else, act to raise standards in literacy and numeracy and focus on the needs of those pupils whose first language is not English".It concluded by saying:The LEA is in a state of disarray.The Government would have failed in their responsibilities if they had not acted on the basis of those clear recommendations. We were not going to stand to one side, turn our backs on the children of Hackney and see them made the innocent victims of administrative and political failure, so the Secretary of State for Education and Employment established an improvement team under the leadership of Richard Painter.There were concerns about the establishment of that team and, given some of the press reports before it was even appointed, I understand why. It has sought throughout to bring parties together, particularly governors, teachers and head teachers, in the interests of the children of Hackney. It has succeeded in doing that.
We gave the improvement team a remit, first, to ensure that Hackney met its statutory responsibilities; secondly, to work with head teachers and officers of the authority to prepare an education development plan; thirdly, to review urgently the LEA's management structure. We had no power to force the team on Hackney, as we had no power to require an inspection of the LEA by Ofsted. At all stages, the co-operation and agreement of Hackney has been necessary.
It is regrettable that the previous Government failed to provide legal backing to efforts to raise standards, particularly in relation to LEAs. This Government are prepared to take action to give themselves those legal 136 powers, which is why, later this week, we will publish a measure to allow us to intervene directly in LEAs that are failing to provide an adequate education for the children for which they have responsibility. Next year, Ofsted will begin a regime of LEA inspection, starting with 12 LEAs that will be inspected during 1998.
There is no doubt that, over the past few weeks, there have been periods of frustration for the improvement team and for all of us who are concerned about the education of children in Hackney, but I am pleased that the Hackney LEA has now accepted the team's recommendation of the appointment of a director of education at a salary that should attract quality applicants. The post was advertised last week and the appointment should be made by the middle of January 1998. At the request of the team, head teachers and chairs of governors will be involved in the recruitment process.
That is a vital breakthrough, ensuring that those who have responsibility for the day-to-day delivery of a quality education—the teachers, head teachers and chairs of governors—are involved in the appointment of a director of education for Hackney, but it is not enough. The team will vet all shortlisted applicants. For the reasons outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, South and Shoreditch, we do not have confidence in the present administration making a suitable appointment, which is why the Secretary of State will approve the final shortlist. We need that power. I am pleased that Hackney has agreed that we should have the final say.
We have been pleased by the high level of co-operation throughout between the improvement team, many local education authority staff, head teachers, chairs of governors and the unions—not just the teacher unions, but those representing non-teaching staff. It is a long time since there has been liaison in Hackney at that level with the single aim of securing a better education for the young people of the borough.
A good example of that working together has been the discussions about the uses for the Government's £1.25 million of new capital money to be spent between now and March 1998 as part of our new deal for schools. Some head teachers have accepted that their schools will not benefit this time because there are other more pressing cases. That says a lot about co-operation among Hackney head teachers. The money will improve the condition of buildings to create an environment for quality education. I look forward to working with the head teachers and the improvement team to ensure that Hackney will benefit again from round two of the new deal for schools capital money in 1998–99.
Those are positive developments. The improvement team is to be congratulated on sticking to its task, often in the face of resistance and hostility. However, it tells me of its concern about the projected deficit of approximately £3 million in Hackney's education budget for the current financial year. That follows a substantial deficit in 1996–97. The improvement team has raised the matter directly with the elected members of the local education authority. Later this week, a joint meeting will be held to determine what action needs to be taken.
The district auditor is also concerned about overspend in other service areas. We shall monitor the situation closely. We expect elected councillors to take positive action to discharge their responsibilities.
137 There were 30,000 reasons why the Government set up the improvement team—the 30,000 schoolchildren in Hackney. We would have intervened more directly and more strongly if we had had the legal powers. When we have those powers, we shall use them in similar situations. Working with councillors, being prepared to put old dogmas and prejudice to one side and putting the children of Hackney first, the improvement team, with the Government's support, will seek quality 138 education. Next time we debate Hackney and its education service, I hope that it will be to celebrate the success of its schools—as we have done this evening—supported by a regenerated local education authority and assisted by a Government that regard education as the top priority.
§ Question put and agreed to.
§ Adjourned accordingly at seventeen minutes to Eleven o'clock.