HL Deb 28 May 2002 vol 635 cc1331-6

Each local education authority may make arrangements for pupils with specific educational requirements which can not be met at their own school to have access to any appropriate teaching and facilities available at other maintained and independent schools within the authority's area. The noble Baroness said: This is a probing amendment, designed to explore the relationship between the private and maintained sectors. The cessation of assisted places has meant that some gifted and able children have not been able to access some of the superb resources in the private sector. I declare an interest as a member of the governing body of Howell's School, Llandaff, and patron of the Minerva appeal of the Girls' Day School Trust, which funds the education of children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Approximately, 20 per cent of the GDST pupils receive financial help through bursaries and scholarships.

There are gifted and able children in many maintained schools whose educational development could benefit from the use of resources other than those that their schools can provide Some schools have better science laboratories, music facilities, sports facilities and so on. For example, some of the GDST schools participate in schemes such as the Liverpool Excellence in Cities initiative. Other examples are science seminars open to children from local comprehensive schools or children invited in to practise for Oxbridge interviews, so actively using the teaching expertise and the resources in those schools.

However, it is important to remember that sometimes the better resources reside in the maintained sector. Examples include information technology, language and arts teaching. It may be appropriate for a child whose parents pay fees for the bulk of his or her education to be able to move across to the maintained sector for some lessons, particularly at advanced stages of his or her schooling. In my own school zoology A-level was not an option so I went to the local secondary modern school to take it. My education benefited from taking my A-levels in three different schools rather than just one.

I want to probe whether that inter-relationship and the commitment that has been shown in earlier discussions on the Bill to public/private partnerships is being supported within the context of this Bill. I should be grateful if the Minister could explain whether such flexibility will be possible to ensure that each child can meet his or her educational needs and hence his or her full potential. I beg to move.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote

As my noble friend Lady Finlay said, Amendment No. 363ZA was designed as a probing amendment. I hope that it will give the Minister the opportunity to say how the Government see the role of the independent sector in helping government to achieve their educational objectives once this Bill has become law. Although sadly I have not been able to be present on every occasion when this Bill has been debated, I have read Hansard fairly assiduously. With the exception of nursery school provision, I do not remember seeing any reference to the role of educational public/private partnerships in helping to deliver government policy objectives. However, as the Minister will know, in almost all other areas of government policy, such partnerships are given a high public profile indeed.

Educational partnerships are, of course, in existence and have been for many years, as my noble friend has indicated. I can remember the same kind of situation when I too was at school. I believe that as recently as 7th May the fifth round of the independent-state school partnership was announced, a £778,000 package. This round was being designed specifically to benefit gifted pupils, music and citizenship. As I believe Stephen Timms the Minister said, all projects so far funded have the common aim of benefiting pupils and staff in both independent and state schools. The aim is to break down barriers through that kind of a partnership.

Interestingly, in the light of the previous discussion on language teaching, I gather that one of the successful applicants was Monkseaton Language College, North Tyneside, in partnership with the Church High School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and the Open University in the North. That project will create exceptional provision for gifted and talented pupils in modern foreign languages. It will provide university-level studies delivered by the OU in the north. A support system will also be created for extending provision of language learning to pupils in local Excellence in Cities schools.

As we have also heard from my noble friend, the Girls' Day School Trust is collaborating very actively in such partnerships with both primary and secondary maintained schools, sharing best practice and joint extra curricular activities. They have even developed long standing links with international schools. I believe that Notting Hill and Ealing High School are examples with a rural school in Tanzania. I hope that we can hear endorsement of these kinds of public-private partnerships and that they should continue to be mutually beneficial to both the maintained and the independent sector. I mention this because occasions will arise when the desired expertise or facilities which it is hoped will be shared will be provided by the maintained sector.

A current example where there are doubts as to whether the process will be truly beneficial to both sides is whether the remit of the new National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth will include access for suitably qualified children from the independent as well as from the maintained sector.

It would be reassuring to everybody to have it confirmed that educational public-private partnership will continue and remain mutually advantageous, as my noble friend Lady Finlay has said, in meeting the needs and aspirations of individual young people and the Government's overall educational priorities.

2 a.m.

Baroness Blatch

I confess that I was remiss earlier when I did not thank the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, for her support on the drugs amendment. I meant to do so, but I did not.

I support the amendment. It seems to me that for children with special educational needs the statement should include the appropriate provision to meet the needs of a pupil. But whether children have learning difficulties or children at the other end of the spectrum are highly academic, and everything in between, including those with physical needs, appropriate education should be made available. There are many young people who fall short of the criteria for having a statement of special educational needs. For them it is sometimes the case that the host school cannot always meet their needs. Therefore, this amendment would provide for transferring to a school where the needs of the young person can be met. It must be the ambition of all of us to see that the particular educational provision for any child, whether of high ability or otherwise, suffices.

The Minister will not be surprised to hear me supporting this amendment. It would provide a real opportunity for bright young people from low income families to have an education which, according to the amendment, cannot be provided in the host school. It is only under those circumstances that this amendment kicks in. The direct grant and the assisted places schemes both addressed the particular needs of bright young people from low income families.

It needs to be said that the Girls' Day School Trust and many of the schools which benefited from the direct grant system became independent at the time and that was phased out. That incredible tradition has continued of going out of their way to raise money to help young people from low income families. If' this amendment were on the face of the Bill it would go a very long way to making sure that the educational needs of all children, whatever their abilities, will be properly met. I warmly support the amendment.

Lord Lucas

I add my voice to my noble friend's support of the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay. I still cherish hopes that one day the Labour Government will return to a little unfinished business from the 1945 government; that is, ending the divide between state and private education in this country. It was a missed opportunity then. The Government again missed the opportunity because they chose to destroy the assisted places scheme rather than turn it into something which might have worked.

I would be quite radical and probably horrify my noble friend Lady Blatch by what I would do. I would put VAT on all independent school fees. I would use the money raised to give parents who sent their children to independent schools the right to take with them the funding that they would have had for that child in a state school. I think that the two would reasonably well balance each other.

I would make sure that the moneys that independent schools' charitable status gained were devoted entirely to helping children who genuinely could not afford independent education to get it, rather than the rather inefficient and inaccurate methods that we had under the assisted places schemes. I would hope that that would allow a range of schools to grow up in the middle. It is certainly somewhere where the likes of Manchester Grammar School would move, and maybe the GDST would too, and genuinely look at how they could take pupils from the state system and provide a genuine addition to the state system with a smooth transition between the two forms of education providers.

I do not like the social ghetto which has been created in the private system. I do not think that it is a good idea, nor is it healthy for the nation. I should have thought that it was something that the Labour Party felt that it ought to find a way of ending. One day perhaps that thought will get just as dusty an answer as the amendment of the noble Baroness.

Lord Davies of Oldham

The noble Baroness, in introducing the amendment, indicated that it was a probing amendment giving the Government an opportunity to express their views on the developing partnership. I begin by assuring her that the reason why I shall be asking her to withdraw the amendment is simply that it is unnecessary. There is nothing in law to prevent local education authorities from making arrangements for children to make use of other educational facilities under existing legislation. It is already by no means unknown for pupils registered at one school, particularly sixth-form pupils, to attend another school in order, say, to take an A-level subject which is not available at their own school.

To facilitate such arrangements, we recently made regulations under Section 50(3)(b) of the School Standards and Framework Act which specifically authorise the use of a school's budget share to run provision made by the school for pupils registered at other maintained schools. That removes any barriers which might have been created by the rule that a school's budget share may be used only for the purposes of that school.

If an LEA wants to make arrangements for a pupil at a maintained school to receive education at an independent school, it has the general power to do so under Section 18 of the Education Act 1996. Provision already exists for pupils with special educational needs, to which some reference has been made in the short debate.

There is also nothing to prevent LEAs from making such arrangements now in respect of gifted and talented pupils who attend maintained schools in their area, provided that funding is agreed and that the receiving institutions are amenable. Although schools should be able to meet most of their younger pupils' educational needs, this kind of flexible approach may well be appropriate for a pupil who is exceptionally gifted or talented. Moreover, the Green Paper for 14 to 19 year-olds proposes similar arrangements for older pupils, enabling them to spend some of their time in FE institutions, for example. We are also fostering partnerships between maintained and independent schools through our independent-state school partnership scheme, which has been in place since 1997.

For those reasons, the amendment would not add value to the Bill. I hope that the noble Baronesses are reassured by my response and that the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

Baroness Blatch

Is the Minister actually saying that children can be selected on the basis of their ability, which may not be being met in a particular school, and transferred to an independent school where their needs can be met?

Lord Davies of Oldham

Yes, that is possible in law.

Baroness Howe of Idlicote

Perhaps I may press the Minister slightly more on the issue of how valuable the Government consider those partnerships to be in pursuit of their educational objectives. It has surprised me how little attention has been given to this whole area. I realise that the amendment refers to one aspect and one group of gifted children, but it would be reassuring to many people to know that such partnerships are in a broader sense part of government policy.

Lord Davies of Oldham

As I said, we have recently taken steps to provide for schools to be able to use their budgets in that way. But in the oldest phrase, it takes two to tango and it takes two to form a partnership between state and independent sectors. That requires initiative on the part of the schools concerned. The noble Baroness will recognise that it may not be the highest priority for schools to act in that way. However, the legislation certainly permits it.

Baroness Finlay of Llandaff

I thank the Minister for his reply and the noble Baroness, Lady Blatch, for her support for the amendment and for her comments and questions. As she pointed out, a highly gifted child may need as specialised a provision as a child with learning difficulties. I am also grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, for his support for the amendment.

As my noble friend Lady Howe pointed out, a child in the private sector may be able to benefit from the new and imaginative academic provisions that exist in the maintained sector. I was relieved to hear from the Minister that such arrangements are already possible and will remain possible under the Bill. I was pleased to hear that the facilitation arrangements can already occur to authorise a school budget to be shared across the maintained school sector and into the independent school sector.

As the Minister rightly said, it takes two to tango. It may well be that such arrangements need to be slightly better publicised among some LEAs that have been resistant to any form of dialogue. Such dialogue would open up access to resources from which some highly gifted children may benefit enormously who will go on to contribute to the nation when they have completed their education. Given the welcome reassurances that I have heard from the Minister, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

2.15 a.m.

Baroness Blatch

moved Amendment No. 363ZB Before Clause 203, insert the following new clause—