Red Tape Affecting Teachers (Hansard, 13 June 2000)

§ Baroness Blatch
asked Her Majesty's Government:
What action they intend to take as a result of the Better Regulation Task Force report entitled Red Tape Affecting Head Teachers.

§ The Minister of State, Department for Education and Employment (Baroness Blackstone)
My Lords, the Government welcome the task force report. It is a helpful contribution to the campaign to raise standards in schools.
The Government were working to reduce bureaucracy long before the task force report and have implemented measures which reach far beyond the recommendations of the report. For example, on 1st June the Government announced that, from this September, they would cut by a third the amount of materials and by a half the amount of paperwork they send automatically to schools.

§ Baroness Blatch
My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. Does the noble Baroness agree with the comment made by the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, in paragraph 7 of the report. He stated that: A good deal of red tape arises from the large number of detailed reports". In Appendix F, he lists 30 reports, most of which have been introduced since the Government came into office. All those reports take up a great deal of head teachers' and teachers' time. Which of those reports will be abolished and what will be the timescale?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I have already set out the timescale for reducing the amount of material to be sent to schools. None of the reports will be abolished. I do not believe that it is possible to abolish a report that is already in the public domain. Perhaps it would help the noble Baroness if I told her that most of the paperwork sent out to schools during the past year has been in support of the introduction of the literacy and numeracy strategies and the revised national curriculum, which gives more flexibility to schools. Almost three-quarters of the paperwork sent to primary schools concerned literacy, numeracy or the curriculum. The same applied to nearly one-half of the paperwork sent to secondary schools.

§ Lord Tomlinson
My Lords, does my noble friend recall that the Conservative Party has pledged to abolish the literacy and numeracy hours? Can she confirm that we have seen a considerable improvement in the academic attainment of 11 year-olds as a result of those policies, introduced and sustained by this Government?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, my noble friend is right on both counts. I understand that the Conservative Opposition have declared that they wish to abolish the literacy and numeracy hours in primary schools. The Government find that very surprising, 1517 given that very big improvements in standards for both literacy and numeracy skills attained by large numbers of children at the age of 11 have been achieved. In one year, the literacy results for 11 year-olds rose from 65 to 70 per cent, while for numeracy they rose from 59 to 69 per cent. The Government hope to see a further improvement this year.

§ Baroness Sharp of Guildford
My Lords, is the Minister aware that during 1999 the average school received each month nine consultation papers, 16 sets of regulations, 18 sets of guidance and were asked to contribute to five data surveys? I am delighted to hear that the Minister will lessen this burden. Is she further aware that this level of administration impinges not only on head teachers but also on teachers, in the occupation that has been singled out as suffering the highest levels of work-related stress? What does the Minister propose to do about this?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, I have already set out the pledge that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Education and Employment made on 1st June. That is what the Government intend to do about it. Moreover, the Government will be inviting six head teachers from both the primary and the secondary sector to take part in the work that they will introduce to monitor the situation. It is absolutely right to try to cut down the amount of material that is sent to schools. But the Government make no apologies for their commitment to raise standards in our primary and secondary schools. Some of this material provides teachers with much-needed guidance on how to achieve just that.

§ Lord Dormand of Easington
My Lords, the Standards Fund, which is central to the report, has been increased by £1.7 billion this year. How much of the increase is new money? Will the allocations from the Standards Fund be made separately to LEAs and schools? If not, does the LEA decide on the allocations to each school? If they are made separately, does not that imply that all these decisions will be made by central government?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the Standards Fund is a good mechanism for making sure that resources are targeted on areas of high priority. However, the Government accept that the fund needs streamlining to make it simpler for schools. Next year, we shall reduce a number of separate ring-fenced grants in order to give schools greater freedom to determine their spending priorities. We shall also make payments to LEAs automatically so that we can cut the paperwork in filing claims against actual expenditure. Certainly, we want to introduce a light touch in the arrangements for monitoring payments from the Standards Fund. I can confirm to my noble friend that the allocations from the Standards Fund are new money.

§ Lord Pilkington of Oxenford
My Lords, will the Minister take note of the remarks by the noble 1518 Baroness, Lady Sharp? Will the Government trust head teachers to run their own schools, rather than issue the amount of detail that has been sent out to them? There is no way in which the Department for Education and Employment can run every school in the country. Will the Government realise, and learn the lesson, that head teachers are possibly more competent to run schools than Ministers are?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the Government work very closely with head teachers. I am delighted to say that the vast majority are competent to run their schools, although there are occasional exceptions. As I believe the majority of head teachers would agree, there has been a case for working to raise standards and, indeed, head teachers are collaborating in doing so. The Government have delegated greater authority to head teachers by providing them with more freedom to spend their budgets as they wish and as they think appropriate in their particular schools. Indeed, the Government have delegated more funding from LEAs to schools so that heads have that extra freedom.

§ Lord Peston
My Lords, while one always opposes unnecessary bureaucracy, the Government have the ultimate responsibility in this area. If they are to know what is going on and to be able to monitor the situation, do they not have a duty to collect data on a considerable scale, and to use it to let us know whether we are achieving higher standards and, more generally, what is going on in schools? We may favour a decentralised system, but a centralised database is necessary in this area.

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, my noble friend is right; he is showing his background as a social scientist. We need adequate information in order to inform policy. If we do not collect data of this kind from schools we shall have no idea where we are going; we shall be unable to tell whether we are improving our performance—an objective which I am sure all Members of this House share. We are trying hard to lessen the burden for head teachers of data collection. One way in which we shall be doing so is by computerising far more of the data, so that they can be updated more readily than is possible using more traditional methods.

§ Baroness Seccombe
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, states in his report: there are still 38 funding streams within the Standards Fund for schools to find their way through. This number is rising. We believe such a plethora of funding streams is unmanageable and can only serve to distract schools from their key priorities". Does the Minister agree?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the number of funding streams in the Standards Fund has been reduced to 14 and is being reduced further, to seven. The Government agree that there was a need to streamline the fund and make it easier for head teachers in primary and secondary schools to operate. However, I stand by my earlier remarks. The 1519 Standards Fund is an important way of targeting schools where there is a need for extra help and of making sure that standards rise in those schools.

§ Baroness Thomas of Walliswood
My Lords, the Minister referred several times to the literacy hour. Is she aware that, when it was first introduced, some parents were told—and I know of such cases—that their child was already far in advance of the average literary achievement for the class but would nevertheless have to take part in the literacy hour as designed for that class? Has greater flexibility been introduced—as was the hope of the primary school teachers involved—now that the literacy hour is established?

§ Baroness Blackstone
My Lords, the Government have introduced flexibility in the national curriculum in a variety of different ways. However, as regards the literacy hour in primary schools, even a child who is reading very well can benefit from continuing to read, and from being given the opportunity to read more demanding, more advanced and more difficult books. I believe that that is indeed what teachers in primary schools are doing.