Head Teachers: New Responsibilities (Hansard, 7 February 1991)

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, since 1983 we have supported such training with specific grant as a national priority area. In the current financial year we are providing support for over £10 million of expenditure in this area. We have also established a school management task force to promote further improvements in standards of management training. The task force is currently helping establish regional groupings of local education authorities to review and develop their provision in this important area.

§ Baroness Brigstocke
My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that Answer. I have a specific concern regarding the head teachers in inner London boroughs. They need help in preparing for the LMS—the local management of schools—which for these head teachers will not take place until April of next year. The whole process will not be completed until 1996.

Noble Lords
Question!

§ Baroness Brigstocke
My Lords, I am asking a question. I shall get there. Is my noble friend aware that at least one London local authority has closed playing fields used by its secondary schools for decades because it can no longer afford the maintenance and the upkeep?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I understand the concern of the noble Baroness. The legacy of the Inner London Education Authority is that because it acted so much as a prop for these schools the management skills simply do not exist. My officials are in touch with all the inner London boroughs and education authorities and are working with them to ensure that they are ready and prepared for 1992, when the system will be introduced in London.

§ Baroness Seear
My Lords, can the noble Baroness tell the House—I do not suppose she can—how many schools have professionally trained finance officers or bursars even on a part-time basis? Does she agree that it is more sensible to provide professionally trained financial people for the amount of time required than to give training to head teachers? If they had wanted to be accountants they would never have become head teachers.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, again the noble Baroness makes an important point. Training in management not only concerns understanding finance in schools. Head teachers need training in management. Another point is that an increasing number of schools are using their ancillary points to appoint a bursar. This year the Government have made available £3,000 for every secondary school and £1,000 for every primary school, in addition to their funds, which will help them in that context.

§ Lord Molloy
My Lords, is the noble Baroness aware that some of us have spent a decade or two in London government, with the responsibilities of London councillors (or, as I was, the leader of a council) and we recognise that the Inner London Education Authority, which included members of the Conservative, Liberal and Labour Parties, was doing a remarkably conscientious job in bringing everything together? It has been to the detriment of London that this Government have once again destroyed something that was valuable to the entire metropolis.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I do not know many people who regret the passing of the Inner London Education Authority. However, from my own observations across the country and as a spokesman in this House on education I know that the degree of independence of schools outside the London area is considerably greater than that of schools inside the London area.

§ Lord Elton
My Lords, is my noble friend aware that some of us who spent a decade or more in teaching recognise that one of the great anomalies of education in this country is that the better one teaches the less one does it? In other words, the better one teaches the more quickly one becomes a head teacher who then administers the school for 90 per cent. of the time. Is she also aware that we, who were recently in or of the profession, welcome the recruitment of bursars in the manner indicated so that the real talent of this country can be used where it is most effective?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for that comment. Perhaps I could also say that the new education reforms and the new pay arrangements are designed so that teachers who are good teachers are kept in the classroom teaching.

§ Baroness Ewart-Biggs
My Lords, is the Minister aware that I am a governor of a primary school close to my home? The head teacher there is so overcome by his administrative duties that he fears he will not have time to teach. Does not the Minister agree that that is a worrying situation?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I understand that that is a genuine fear among teachers. I like to think that the way in which the system is working is that the teachers will become less afraid of that happening. With good organisation and better management skills it will be possible to both teach and manage schools properly. That distinguishes a teacher from a head teacher.

§ Lord Pearson of Rannoch
My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the Government's policy of local management of schools is starting to prove very successful in returning our state education system to the people whom it is supposed to serve in the shape of pupils and parents? That is why it is proving so unpopular with noble Lords opposite. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will do everything they can to reduce to a minimum the percentage of funding which local authorities are allowed to withhold from schools?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, local financial management at school level is working. Schools prefer to be masters of their own establishments and have local control over their own finance. With regard to funds being held at the centre, that is very much a live issue. We are doing all we can to ensure that local education authorities do not hold excessive funds at the centre and that as much as possible of the funding is sent town to school level.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, is the Minister aware that the report of the school management task force was published as long ago as March 1990? Progress on the report and its recommendations, many of which were concerned with training, has been extremely slow. Can the noble Baroness be a little more precise in explaining what has been done to implement its recommendations?

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, in terms of training we are in the middle of a five-year programme for preparing both governors and heads for their 1278 responsibilities. A total of £247 million has been spent over three years and more is promised for 1993. We have made progress in support and training for school governors, management information systems for schools, training for school administration staff, support for local education authorities centrally to help introduce LMS, support for administrative costs in schools with delegated budgets and management training for head and other senior teachers. I could go on.

§ Lord Denham
My Lords, we have spoken on this Question for a long time. Perhaps my noble friend could ask one more question.

§ Lord Ironside
My Lords,—

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, on a point of order—

Noble Lords
, Order!

§ Lord Ironside
My Lords, teach-ins are being provided for governors of schools, particularly in the case of Kent Education Authority. Can the Minister say whether teach-ins are being provided for head teachers in schools to assist them in financial and management affairs of schools?

§ The Lord Privy Seal (Lord Waddington)
My Lords, I am sure—

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I can give my noble friend an absolute assurance that teach-ins are happening. The way in which that is done is a matter for the local education authorities.

§ Lord Waddington
My Lords, I was over-eager to say that I am sure that the House will wish to hear the noble Baroness.

§ Baroness Fisher of Rednal
My Lords, I wish to raise a point of order. I want to know why I was prevented from speaking the other day. The Chief Whip said "no, no," as did everyone else, but for a Member on the Government side the Chief Whip gave way. What we need is fair play even if we do not get fair answers.

§ Lord Denham
My Lords, the noble Baroness is accusing me of unfair play. Members on my own side very often accuse me of being extremely unfair to them in that I sit on them far harder than I do Members on the other side of the House.