Education Committee
Oral evidence: Role and Responsibilities of the Secretary of State for Education, HC 196
Wednesday 14 September 2016
Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 14 September 2016.
Members present: Neil Carmichael (Chair); Lucy Allan; Michelle Donelan; Marion Fellows; Suella Fernandes; Lucy Frazer; Catherine McKinnell; Ian Mearns; Stephen Timms; William Wragg.
Questions 208 – 295
Witness
Rt Hon. Justine Greening MP, Secretary of State for Education.
Witness: Rt Hon. Justine Greening.
Q208 Chair: We are under way with our meeting with the Secretary of State for Education. Justine, welcome to our Committee and congratulations on your appointment as Secretary of State for Education.
Justine Greening: Thank you.
Chair: You have certainly arrived at an interesting time. There is lots on your agenda and of course you have an expanded role from your predecessor with further education and higher education. We will be talking about those issues today. It is a pleasure to have you here and we are going to complete this by about 11.30 am.
Justine Greening: Okay, that sounds great.
Chair: You have two hours of opportunity to express your views and answer our questions, so thank you.
Yesterday this Committee held a conference entitled, “The Purpose and Quality of Education”. It is basically aimed at engaging with stakeholders beyond just this complex. We want to reach out to the whole world of education, so to speak. It is inspired by the fact that over the last 40-odd years or so we have had lots of changes in education, but the question of where we are going is an important one. What is your vision about the purpose of education? What do you think it is?
Justine Greening: Our Prime Minister has talked about making sure that Britain is a country where everyone can be successful no matter where they start, and education is clearly at the heart of how we are going to ensure that happens. I do not believe that anybody’s starting point in life should define where they finish. I did not accept that for myself and I do not think we should accept it for anyone else.
Education is at the heart of how we tackle that issue of improving social mobility. For me it means that we need to get children coming out of our education system with the knowledge and the skills, with access to the right advice at the right time, but also having had the chance to have the right kinds of experiences, whether in terms of extracurricular activities or indeed later on work experience so that they have a rounded approach that means that they can then be successful in life.
How do you do that? Well, that means that at the heart of it we have to make sure we have enough great school places for every child. That was part of our Conservative manifesto at the last election. That means more good schools; it means excellent leadership; it means more great teachers; and it means a broad-stretching academic-based curriculum. It also means improving pathways after school, whether an academic pathway that many children and young people may want to pursue, getting into university, but also it means significantly strengthening the technical and vocational pathways that most of our young people will follow who do not go to university. I think the fact that we have a broader Department that now has all of these things under one roof does give us a golden opportunity to make a difference by not just having a series of Government policies working in isolation, but we can bring it together and make the whole of that work even more powerfully.
I think improving social mobility is a generational challenge. We will not just fix this generational challenge overnight, but I certainly plan to make sure that my Department plays a central role in starting to move our country in the right direction for the long term.
Q209 Chair: Thank you very much. Your in-tray is probably fairly full, but is there an item you could select for us that is probably the most important and the most pressing?
Justine Greening: There is not one item, of course. There are a number. We need to make sure that the curriculum changes to GCSE are delivered effectively as they come through over the next several years. We need to make sure that we continue to have the great teachers that our schools need. We debated a lot over recent days on having more good school places for children, but we need great teachers in those classrooms, so continued teacher recruitment and retention is something I will focus on significantly.
Of course we have put out some proposals for consultation to have a debate this week about how we feel we can start to make sure that all children benefit from the broader reforms that we must continue with, but for 1.25 million children who are not in good or outstanding schools, we need to make sure that we really look at how we can change their prospects for the better. That is not just about the proposals that we have put out for debate and consultation this week; it is also about looking more carefully at a much more broader holistic approach on social mobility that we need to do in certain parts of the country to give ourselves a better chance of improving things on the ground.
Q210 Chair: Thank you. The Prime Minister, when she first took office, in her first speech at Downing Street, commented on social mobility, the fortunes of white working-class boys and state school pupils. How are you going to translate the aspirations behind that statement into action?
Justine Greening: The state school built me, educated me. I would not be where I am today without my education. It is something I massively focused on in my last role in DfID because I do not think any country can be successful if it does not make the most of its biggest asset, which is its people, so this is absolutely central.
But if we are going to crack social mobility, I think we have to understand that education is probably at the heart of that, but it requires more than just a strong education approach from our Government. It requires Departments working together, whether it is the DWP or the Department of Health, perhaps working to make sure that other things like apprenticeships are particularly delivered in areas that can most benefit from them, looking at National Citizen Service, International Citizen Service, all those fantastic experiences that can help develop young people.
But I would argue it requires us to go above and beyond that and this gets to the heart of why genuinely shifting social mobility is so difficult. There is not a country in the world that has really cracked this, but I think Britain should be the first. We need to look beyond what purely Government can do. That means looking at what is happening in home and home learning environments with parents, it requires us looking at what is happening in communities and making sure that there is advice and mentoring. It involves us working with business. I come back to some of the proposals we put out this week. It involves universities, for example, playing a much stronger role in not just driving attainment but continuing a lot of the work that they are already doing in raising aspirations and expectations.
I remember my childhood in Rotherham. I never thought about doing a law degree because I had never met a lawyer. I did not even know what law would be like, so it is clearly more than just putting in place a fantastic education. What we need to do is make sure that children have the right advice and the right experiences so that they have a clear sense of broader opportunities, they themselves and their parents are having high expectations and those expectations can be met and enabled through the education system, but then a stronger, much more structured approach by business and industry to then unlock those opportunities and pull forward and through our talent and make sure it gets to the top.
Chair: Thank you very much, Justine. Lucy is going to be focusing on evidence and financial management.
Q211 Lucy Allan: Secretary of State, I am delighted to see you in your new job and I wish you all the best with that.
As the Chairman mentioned, you have a huge Department now to take responsibility for. I would just like to understand how you are going to ensure that children’s services and social work reform and those very important issues that were talked about in the Queen’s Speech, such as the covenant for care leavers, children in care etc.—that those critical issues do not get squeezed off your very, very busy agenda.
Justine Greening: Lucy, I can assure you that they will not. I think that the challenge in this area is for many of us as local MPs, we may see cases around looked-after children and children in care in our surgeries and parents who are concerned, but the reality is for the broader public many of these challenges are often out of sight. I think that is why it is so important for me in my role and all of the work that Edward Timpson is doing that we nevertheless doubly prioritise this to make sure that we push on with it.
We know that there is a need for improved regulation to drive better standards. We know that there is a need for the profession itself to be able to play a stronger role in driving standards and making sure that there is continued professional development. I know, Chair, that we owe you a Government response to your social work reform report and that will be coming to you today, but you are quite right to focus in on this area.
If we are going to deliver on this issue of making Britain a country for everyone, particularly focusing on those children who probably get the very toughest start in our country really matters. Children who are looked after or fostered or in care have overwhelmingly suffered neglect or abuse and we should be doubly careful to make sure that they are not disadvantaged by that.
Q212 Lucy Allan: So life chances will still be a key part of the Education Department agenda, but it might be called social mobility or something else? Life chances is still up there?
Justine Greening: I would say a couple of points. One is you are right to highlight that there is this broad strategy that we need to pull together around social mobility and a part of that does include these most disadvantaged young people who might have multiple challenges that they face in their life.
That is why we need to work with the DWP and it is also why, as part of the consultation document that we published earlier this week, we are recognising that while a lot of policy necessarily focuses around free school meals and of course around children who are looked after or in care, we want to have a broader definition as well so that we do not lose the rest of those families who are just getting by. We need to do both, in other words. They are part of a broader problem.
Chair: Marion, evidence and financial management.
Q213 Marion Fellows: Indeed. Good morning, Secretary of State. As Neil has said, I am going to ask you about evidence. How will you ensure that policies are evidence-based and not founded on ideology alone? Because there has been criticism from various organisations that this is the case at present.
Justine Greening: I think it is important that evidence drives policy. The evidence that we are driving our consultation document policy on is that there are still 1.25 million children in schools that are not good or outstanding. Right now, there are children sat in schools that are classed as either requiring improvement or in special measures. Many of us may have one of those schools in our community and we cannot just sit back and say that that is acceptable. We have to challenge ourselves to quickly take action and that is what we are doing.
I recognise that there will be a debate on the proposals that we have brought forward this week. I think that is really important and it is because it matters and it is because people care. But our proposals are absolutely not driven by ideology and dogma; they are driven first and foremost by asking ourselves the question: what is it going to take to really deliver for our young people?
Q214 Marion Fellows: How will you be monitoring the impact of changes brought about in the last Parliament?
Justine Greening: We have put in place a very robust system of accountability and assessment right the way through the school system and we are continuing to develop that. I know the Committee will be aware of the fact that we have just introduced stronger monitoring around progress as well as attainment. It is important that we continue to develop that and develop it smartly, working with the profession and listening to teachers carefully about how they are seeing it play out on the ground.
I think the proof of the pudding is in the fact that we now have better schools, a 17 percentage point growth in the numbers of schools that are good or outstanding, 1.4 million more children now in those schools. We are continuing to try to drive standards higher and higher, which is what the GCSE curriculum reforms are all about. It is about finally making sure that whether it is at key stage 2 or GCSEs the standards that we are trying to get our children to are the ones that we know they need to be at, but also our country needs them to be at if we are going to be successful in a 21st century world.
Q215 Marion Fellows: Can I move on to financial management now? Given the recent poor record of financial management, how will you ensure that the Department has the capacity to handle its new areas of responsibility? How, for example, will the Department cope with balancing the funding needs of higher education, schools and further education?
Justine Greening: We work with Treasury, clearly, on our spending review settlement. We had a good spending review settlement last year that did protect schools’ funding. I think I probably am the only chartered accountant sat round the Cabinet table, so hopefully I should have a pretty strong technical skillset to be able to get a clear sense of not just whether we have the right sizing, if you like, Marion, across our different parts of the Department, but also critically that we are driving value for money and we have a good clear sense of what value for money represents.
Q216 Marion Fellows: When Chris Wormald came here in March he told us that no approach to accounting for academies could be guaranteed to work. Is this a problem at the heart of the academies programme and what are the implications for the effective management of public money? This is the real issue the Committee found.
Justine Greening: Indeed, that is something I am looking at very carefully. I am very well aware that academies are spending taxpayers’ money and we want to make sure that it represents good value for money but also there are strong controls over it. I think overwhelmingly that is the case, but you are right to highlight the fact that we should be asking ourselves systematic questions, as academies bed down as part of our education system, to make sure that we are content that we have the right controls and that broadly we have set ourselves up to deliver value for money.
Q217 Marion Fellows: I think as well the real difficulty we had was the integration of the academy accounts into the Department’s accounts, that there is no real synergy and there have been make-up solutions to get us through the next wee while. But this is going to be an ongoing programme and it is going to be an ongoing problem, so are you going to put steps in place to mitigate this and to end this lack of integration?
Justine Greening: The short answer is yes. It is complicated, as you say. It is not made any more simple by the fact that obviously there is an academic year that of course could not possibly coincide with our financial year as a Government. That would be far too simple, wouldn’t it? It is complex, but we are now working around clearly how we can make sure that we do have some proper signed-off accounts and we are putting ourselves in a position to be able to do that. That is important, as you say.
It has been difficult as we have moved through more schools becoming academies. It has made our life a lot more complex, but we need to manage that complexity and work through a sustainable answer to how we can make sure we get our Department accounts signed off, which is what I think we are now in a position to do.
Q218 Ian Mearns: The thing with that though, Secretary of State, is that local authorities and maintained schools and VA schools etc. have been working with a 5:12/7:12 split since LMS was introduced in the early 1990s.
Okay, there were teething problems for local authorities when that occurred and there were teething problems for schools, but surely if the Department and the politicians at the head of the Department embark on a programme of fully academising all the schools in the system, there must have been an anticipation of those sorts of problems before the whole thing kicked off. This does need to be rectified rather quickly, because there is a great unknown there about exactly how much is being spent via academies at the moment.
Justine Greening: There are different things you have talked about. I agree that on the statutory accounts perspective we need to make sure that we can deal with the fact that this is a significant consolidation that requires us to do that effectively, but also to make sure it is transparent in the data it is proposing.
The other part you have talked about goes to the heart of what I was saying before. It is around having the right controls in place, but also being clear that we can make sure that the system is designed to drive value for money in academies as well as in maintained schools.
Q219 Ian Mearns: It may well be worth your while having a discussion about this with the LGA, because I am sure the LGA in their membership have many, many people with expertise in managing school accounts.
Justine Greening: I will take you up on that, Ian. Coming into this job, I am having a range of meetings with various stakeholders and I am looking forward to meeting the LGA.
Chair: Thank you. Lucy, fairer funding.
Q220 Lucy Frazer: Welcome to your new post, Justine.
Justine Greening: Thank you.
Lucy Frazer: You said on 21 July that the Government are firmly committed to introducing fairer funding for schools. Can I just check you are still committed to that happening in 2018-19?
Justine Greening: Yes.
Q221 Lucy Frazer: I presume that you are committed to it because, as your predecessor said, it cannot be right that there are thousands of pounds’ difference between neighbouring authorities and we have to iron this out. For example, in the area I represent, we have £2,000 per pupil difference between what we get, which is much less than some other areas. If it is not right that that should continue and it is not coming in until 2018, should we accept another year with schools struggling or should there be some sort of interim support between now and 2018?
Justine Greening: We are going to provide interim support. The first thing I should say is that we are committed to bringing forward fairer funding. It is important and in a sense we have allowed the system to steadily get more and more out of date. It is time to not only generally look at how it can work more effectively, but make sure that it is fundamentally fairer in operation than it is today. I need to do that whole process incredibly carefully and I am committed to talking to a number of MPs who represent communities that are caught up, if you like, in the unfairness of the current system.
In terms of interim support, we are obviously going to provide additional funding for high needs later in the year. We have to look at the October census figures to enable us to particularly lock down final pupil numbers, and we will finalise school funding allocations in December, again in the light of those latest pupil numbers. But local authorities that gain from the minimum funding level reform, which was in 2015-16, will see that continue. It did in 2016-17, but it also will into 2017-18, so there will be that additional funding support.
Q222 Lucy Frazer: Some schools say that some of that additional funding—which is hugely welcomed and a lot of schools were very pleased to have that additional baseline funding and are pleased that it is continuing—is taken up by, for example, pension payments, so it does not necessarily give them the additional funding that they need. There would be a great deal of support for further funding for the year that schools were anticipating getting it, in 2017-18, because now they have to wait until 2018-19. Is that something the Department is considering?
Justine Greening: It is unlikely that there will be further support for this forthcoming year, but we will keep the additional funding that is already put in place. What is important though is that we make sure that when we publish our second phase consultation that has more of the details about how precisely we think we can deliver a fairer funding formula that all councils—I am sure including your own—look really carefully at that and understand how it will affect them and then respond accordingly.
As I said, this is a complex funding formula to get right; it has lots of different elements, so we need to take some real care over how we progress it. But I want to make sure that I work with local authorities, with schools, with local MPs to try to get it as close to an optimum outcome as I possibly can.
Q223 Lucy Frazer: Which I am sure will be hugely welcomed. You mentioned that you are working on the census figures of October, which I presume therefore will play into the formula generally—that you will take the figures in October for the funding formula for the following year. In areas of high growth that is an issue, because if you have high growth in an area and your figures are based on something at the start of the previous academic year, then you are under-funded for that year.
For example, in Cambridgeshire we have nine schools planned for 2021. That is nine schools in a six-year period, which gives you some idea of the significant growth in the area. If all those schools do not get the right funding because it is based on the previous year, again we are going to have a situation of some schools on a year-on-year basis getting less money. Is that something the Department is looking at or could look at in terms of the actual funding formula year-on-year?
Justine Greening: Yes. We are very conscious of that and it is one of the elements that I think we need to take some care over when we launch our second phase consultation.
Q224 Catherine McKinnell: Chair, would you mind if I follow up with a question? I also want to welcome you to your position. You spoke very passionately and I believe sincerely in your opening response to the Chair about your desire to tackle social mobility.
Obviously in different parts of the country the challenge is different. In relation to the funding formula, there are huge concerns that while everybody wants to see fairer funding, some of the current proposals, as they are understood, may compound some of the issues and the funding disparities between the north of the country and the south, particularly in the north-east, where the current differential between the national average and the north-east average is £45 million per year.
There are huge concerns about that and I wanted to know what you are going to do to ensure that not only does it maintain the current situation, but does not make it worse, which is what the concern is in the north-east in relation to the area cost multiplier in particular.
Justine Greening: That is a helpful clarification. There are a number of different parts of this formula that need to be in place and working effectively for it to be able to operate correctly. Whether it is in terms of the high-needs formula, whether it is in terms of how deprivation is looked at, whether it is in terms of local cost drivers that are particularly prevalent in an area, these are precisely the issues that we will be consulting on in this phase 2 document.
I do think it will be important to try to look in the round at not just the individual components of getting a fairer funding formula, but how they work together, as around some of them are in related areas. I have spent a fair amount of time already going through the existing work that the Department has done and I am looking forward to finalising that so that we can get the second phase consultation published because it is important that we do get on with this.
Q225 Catherine McKinnell: Yes, and allay some of the concerns that I think are very genuine in particular parts of the country. There is also obviously a funding envelope for this and it is a case of redistributing the current funding that is available rather than there being additional funding as part of these proposals. The IFS estimate said there will therefore be a 7% real terms reduction in funding for schools across England. What can you say about the potential consequences of this for schools in England and do you share concerns that while it may more fairly potentially redistribute the funding, there is going to be a shortfall in your Department?
Justine Greening: I do not think that is right. As I said, I think we had a substantial and a significant spending review settlement from Treasury when that was announced. All of this work on the national funding formula sits alongside the additional support that is going in to support children in terms of pupil premium. What I am saying is that we need to have an overall strategy in terms of improving opportunity that goes beyond just the pure money that is going in, to look at how we can improve broader advice and experiences that children get.
I would say no doubt you will have your response to the second phase consultation, but certainly as a Government we have tried to make sure that funding follows the child as far as we can. We want to improve that through the national funding formula, but also we particularly focused our efforts and our resources around tackling disadvantage. What we are saying now is we think we need to take a broader approach to looking at families who are just getting by, but it is important that our education approach reflects that too.
Chair: Thank you very much. William, we are going to talk about mental health and PSHE.
Q226 William Wragg: Good morning, Secretary of State, and many congratulations on your appointment.
Justine Greening: Good morning. Thank you.
William Wragg: I want to talk about PSHE and mental health. To start with, your Department’s own figures show the number of school hours spent teaching PSHE has fallen by about a third over the past four years. Directly, when will you and the Government make PSHE a statutory requirement in schools?
Justine Greening: That is a good question, William. Neil asked me about my in-tray and this is one of the things that is in it. We have all seen the report that came out yesterday in relation to sex and relationship education and I think it is time that we looked to how we can do a better job. I also think that in the context of PSHE there is a real opportunity. I talked about advice and having the right kind of knowledge and skills.
I think there is a real opportunity to make sure that that area plays a full role in helping our children come out of school not just knowing all the stuff that they need to know and having the right academic capabilities, but they are able to make informed choices about a variety of different areas that they will need to take a view on as they reach adulthood.
Q227 William Wragg: Yes, you are absolutely right to allude to the Women and Equalities Committee report yesterday about the statutory SRE as well. I think your predecessor was reluctant to give the commitment for a statutory obligation. This is something that this Committee and other Select Committees of the House have pushed for. In terms of not only making it important and on the agenda, I think very specifically about it being made statutory, what are your opinions on that?
Justine Greening: It is one of the areas I am looking at, William. I have not reached a final view on it yet, but I think you are absolutely right to ask the question about what it is going to take to make sure that we do a stronger job.
The only other thing I would say about this is I recognise that it is not even as simple as making it mandatory and statutory. There is a quality issue of how this education is delivered in school and making sure it is delivered in a way that is high quality and does enable children to learn what we are hoping that they can learn through putting it in place. That is the other piece of this that I am quite concerned to make sure that we look at.
Q228 William Wragg: Yes, absolutely spot on there. I agree with you entirely.
Moving on maybe to mental health, with your portfolio now containing further and higher education, it is reported that about a quarter of university students have a mental health problem. What do you intend to do to tackle that and are you working with the Department of Health?
Justine Greening: Jo Johnson is currently taking the Higher Education and Research Bill through Parliament at the moment. What that does, as one of a number of different things, is put students at the heart of the regulatory system and that includes student welfare. I think in the end, William, it is about universities themselves being prepared to recognise that their responsibilities to students go beyond just having excellent teaching and excellent facilities.
We have world-class universities, but there is a student welfare issue that perhaps more traditionally has been left to student unions to deliver, but that we want universities to play a more active role in ensuring that student welfare is carefully managed and taken care of.
Q229 Michelle Donelan: Just to move on from that, do you accept then that if PSHE was improved—because I agree with you there is a quality issue as well—and made statutory that it could potentially answer a lot of problems and a lot of gaps that are in our education system? There has been a long-running debate about adding first aid to education, we have talked about mental health and sometimes with mental health it is the issue of awareness, especially at that age. Do you accept the principle that potentially this holds an answer to filling in a lot of the gaps?
Justine Greening: It is something that is already part of what children are taught in many schools, and I think we are right to say is it doing as much as it could do; is it making as big an impact as it can? I do not think there is a silver bullet approach on PSHE. I am sure a lot of people would have a lot of different things they would want it to focus on, but I do think for children it is important.
Whether it is sex and relationship education or indeed having strong financial skills to basically be able to rent your first place or understand what mortgage deal is better, all of these are quite important life skills that ideally we want young people coming out of our education system to feel that they are confident in knowing where to start with some of these basics of being able to lead an independent life and do that in a way that makes you feel you have taken an informed decision.
Q230 Ian Mearns: Secretary of State, I know you are a fresh pair of eyes, as it were, at the head of the Department and you might want to revisit a publication from this Committee, the predecessor Committee, from 2015 about PSHE and sexual relationships education. There were some good recommendations in there, which have been largely ignored by the Department. What evidence there was then was that not only were schools not taking on board the guidance from the Department, they were just ignoring it completely, so the question about a statutory requirement does need to be examined closely by yourself.
Justine Greening: I will make sure I go back and look at that report. I feel like I had a very clear steer from the Select Committee about your views around this area, which is helpful.
Q231 Chair: Justine, do you think there is a link between social mobility and the need to improve life skills teaching in schools? Because it strikes me in your answer to my first question about the purpose of education that you might do so, because if we are serious about social mobility, we have to equip people with that confidence and that sense to be mobile. Life skills are certainly, I would have thought, part of the story and that would, if you agree, further strengthen the case to make them statutory.
Justine Greening: Neil, you are doing a great job of pursuing this argument. I think there is something in what you are saying that is right. Essentially it is about as children reach key transitions in their life, whether it is going into primary school or secondary school or indeed the workplace, these are moments when they are faced with a plethora of choices. We know that often children from more disadvantaged backgrounds just do not quite have the support, the advice, the knowledge to be able to take as strong a choice perhaps as children who just simply have more around them that they can reach out to in terms of resources. So it is important that we look at how we can address this.
To my mind, we need to take a lifecycle approach in terms of looking at social mobility, how we can bend the arc of opportunity up at each one of those transition stages as a young person progresses, and indeed once they get into their career as well, which is why I think business has such an important role to play. Because if we can start to bend the arc of opportunity, if you do that at several transition points, then our young people will end up in a much different and a much better place than they otherwise would do.
I personally believe that if children and young people can set their own expectations high that they are more than capable of getting themselves through to the goals that they set. It is why the Department has looked at how we can look at character and resilience, and all of that is important, but often that can come from the people around you. That is why looking at mentoring and a broader offer matters if we are going to make a difference on social mobility.
I think it is just a simple fact, but it has to sit alongside the strong education reforms that we are already bringing through because they underpin all of this. It does not matter what advice and experience children get, if they cannot come out of school knowing how to read and write, they will not have a chance of progressing.
Q232 Chair: Thank you. Moving on to social work, this Committee has recommended that we have a professional body for social workers. Do you agree and how are you going to implement it if you do?
Justine Greening: We will respond formally to the social work reform report that the Committee has produced. The Committee will know that there was a college for social workers that was set up and did not work. We do want to see the profession leading, driving standards and improving social work. We think that it is important through the Bill that is going through the Lords at the moment that we use a new regulator to be able to do that, but we do want to come back to this issue of the profession itself playing a strong role in driving up standards.
I am a chartered accountant and like many professions in our country, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales plays a key instrumental role in driving up standards. The original intent was that we would see the social work profession do that. That did not work as it stood, so we need to come back to look at that, but what we should not also do is slow down on the rest of the other reforms that we think can help drive up standards in the meantime.
Q233 Chair: Thank you. We look forward to your response to our recommendations.
You have moved on to the other reforms. They are expensive. Do you think that that is a wise use of money, which is basically amounting to changing regulations?
Justine Greening: Yes, because if you look at the moment, overwhelmingly local authorities’ performance in this area is not good enough. Unfortunately, we do not have enough local authorities that are rated by Ofsted as good in relation to the social work that they are doing, the care of children who are looked after or are being fostered and adopted, the services that all of those young people get. No, we have to challenge ourselves to do better.
In many respects, this is long overdue, so what we are seeing are some of the challenges as to why we have the situation that we face today. It is a challenge of a profession that needs to be supported to professionalise and there is a lot of innovation out there, but that means stronger qualifications; it means proper support for social workers after they formally become social workers and qualify; it means continuing professional development; it means over time coming back to this issue of making sure the profession itself can drive standards.
But in the meantime we absolutely need to make sure that we have strong regulation in place because that is going to be the way that we can drive up standards, but also make sure that we uncover areas where, frankly, things are not being done well enough for our children.
Q234 Chair: In line with that, presumably accountability needs to be strengthened as well or certainly improved in certain local authorities. Is that a drive you are going to take forward?
Justine Greening: Yes. We challenged many local authorities in response to Ofsted ratings that were simply not good enough to look at how they can improve. Many of them are rising to that challenge and looking carefully at how they can improve. In other areas, we are having to take a more interventionist approach, frankly, to make sure we get the improvements. But one thing is clear, that we do need change in this area. That is what the Bill going through Parliament is intended to bring about and it does require investment alongside it.
Q235 Chair: Lastly on social work, what are your thoughts about social work bursaries in terms of their longevity? Because the delay in announcing them this time has raised issues about their future.
Justine Greening: In the end, I think we have to take a holistic approach not just on how we improve standards in the profession and indeed support for social workers, who I think have one of the most challenging jobs that anyone can have, frankly, but we also want to make sure that in doing so that is a profession that is attractive to people to come into.
As the Committee knows, we have looked at different ways, a bit akin to Teach First in a way, to encourage great graduates to think about social work who possibly would not have done before. I think that is work in progress; it is quite new. Some of the programmes like Frontline, for example, are showing some real signs of delivery. The bursaries question that you have asked about, Neil, sits alongside that because I like to make sure that we get value for money.
Chair: Thank you, Justine. Lucy, fostering.
Q236 Lucy Allan: Sir Martin Narey recently did a report into residential children’s homes and in it he said that fostering is long overdue a fundamental reform. Following that, the Government then announced it would be undertaking a national stocktake of fostering. I just wondered if you could say a little bit more about the timeline for that and what this national stocktake of fostering would entail.
Justine Greening: Three-quarters of children in care are in foster care, so the first thing to say is Martin’s report was incredibly important, because it did effectively say that a review of fostering is long overdue. The first step around that is that we are doing a national stocktake of fostering. Part of the challenge is just a poor evidence base on the quality of fostering by definition. We are still designing that stocktake.
I will write to the Committee once we have further details about the timelines, but just to reiterate what I said before about how important this is to me personally that we make some progress in these areas. I am really proud of the work that we have done as a Government around adoption. I think we need to continue all of that, but I think we also now need to look carefully at fostering and make sure that children who are being fostered get a great start, but also that we provide support to people who are doing fostering, who do often an incredible job in stepping in where a family’s circumstances have failed for a child.
Q237 Lucy Allan: Just to be clear, that stocktake could result in some fundamental reforms and it will be on the horizon in the next 18 months?
Justine Greening: It is going to look from a child’s perspective at what children need and want from fostering, but as I said, it is also going to look from the fosterer’s perspective at how we can make sure we have enough and the right kind of fosterers and that that is high quality. As I said, Lucy, we are not going to delay on this, but let me write to the Committee once I have some more specific timelines. I would not want to give you a timeline that was wrong, especially not if we are hopefully going to push on faster.
Lucy Allan: There is a lot in your in-tray that is long overdue and I have some sympathy for you, I have to say.
Justine Greening: No, I understand that.
Q238 Lucy Allan: If I could just move that along to something else that Sir Martin Narey picked out in that report, which was commercial fostering, he identified I think eight different commercial fosterers that made a total of £41 million in profit. I just wondered if you had any initial thoughts on commercial fostering agencies generating such large profits.
Justine Greening: We do have mixed provision and I have no doubt that that will be one of the areas that we look into. Again, it is about value for money. In the end, what I am most interested in are the outcomes that we get for those children and making sure that we have, as I said, not only the number but also the right kind and quality of foster carers so that we can place children quickly.
If you look at what we have been achieving, we are taking faster, better decisions, but this is still the group of children in our country for whom life ahead of them is likely to be most challenging, if you look. To my mind, it has to be central if we are really going to tackle disadvantage.
Q239 Lucy Allan: But in principle, commercial fostering, making that kind of profit, is not something that you would welcome?
Justine Greening: I think private players play an important role. As I said, my main focus is around value for money, but it is also around whether different providers are delivering strong outcomes for the children that we want to see having better opportunities, frankly.
Chair: Suella, mindfulness.
Q240 Suella Fernandes: Yes. Just going back to mental health that we were talking about before, 32% of 15 to 25 year-olds are diagnosed with a mental health difficulty. The use and prescription of antidepressants has soared in recent years for young children. There is a growing body of evidence and good practice based on mindfulness, and advocates include Anthony Seldon, who saw remarkable increases in improvement in Wellington College, the Alliance for Learning teacher training.
There was a debate last week in Westminster Hall on mindfulness in schools to prevent the occurrence of mental health problems for young people. What is your view on learning from that good practice and evidence base and promoting it in schools?
Justine Greening: We should look at the evidence base. I think over time in the adult mental health services system there has been a growing understanding of, for example, cognitive behavioural therapy, how different responses to help people deal with mental health issues work effectively. I think it is important to take a similar approach with children’s mental health. As you say, in many respects it may be that children and parents have a better understanding now than maybe we did 10 or 20 years ago about mental health, but that raises a challenge for us to make sure that we do a stronger job in our schools.
We have put children’s mental health as a priority for the Government. We are putting, for example, £150 million into support services to particularly help children with eating disorders and this is something I have also focused on as a local MP in my part of London. I very much welcome the sorts of evidence and practical evidence that we are getting from a variety of sources, frankly, to tell us how we can do a better job in this area.
Q241 Ian Mearns: Secretary of State, your predecessor had an aspiration that all schools would become academies. That was the thrust of the White Paper. Do you still retain the aspiration of your predecessor to move towards a fully academised school system eventually?
Justine Greening: Yes, I do want to see all schools over time become academies, but I think our focus has to be on the schools that are struggling and not doing well enough for children at the moment. Our hope and expectation is that schools will want to steadily take advantage of the benefits that academies can bring, but our focus will be on those schools where we feel that standards need to be raised and they need to do a better job of delivering attainment and progress for children.
Q242 Ian Mearns: Do you feel there is a strong enough evidence base to back that approach?
Justine Greening: Yes, I do. We have seen academies turn around many schools in our country. It is the beginning of a long-term reform, you are absolutely right, Ian, so it is important that we see this through. But I think it really has delivered. We have 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools, but at the heart of this of course is understanding that the determinant of a child’s education outcomes is great teaching and behind that strong leadership. That is what academies have enabled to happen more effectively.
We have a long way to go but we also need to ask ourselves other questions about what more it is going to take, particularly in areas where children just do not have access to a good school place, how we get more good school places, which is why we launched the consultation this week and we are having the debate that we are having about what it is going to take to make sure that every child can benefit from the reforms that we have brought forward and the benefits that so many millions of others are. There are still some that are not and we cannot leave that on one side.
Q243 Ian Mearns: You have used a statistic there that implies that the 1.4 million extra children who are in good or outstanding schools are in academies and that is not the case. Some of those children will be in academies, but many of them are also in improved voluntary aided and maintained schools. Would you accept that that is the case?
Justine Greening: We see many different schools across our country do a better job of delivering for our children and that is great news. What it says, Ian, is that it is not just about schools becoming academies; it is the changes to curriculum reform that we have brought forward, the nature of the curriculum and how we are making that more academic in nature. I also think that over time we have seen schools learn how to do a much stronger job on school improvement. What we tried to do—and I think successfully in many areas—is move towards a school-led improvement system, so schools helping themselves and in doing so lifting everybody’s performance. That has been incredibly effective.
Again, I come back to those areas where we still see weak educational outcomes. We need to say how can we put those building blocks of success into the areas where currently they are still not? That is not an uncomplicated thing to do. If it was easy, I think our reforms would have started to deliver in many of those areas. We need to go beyond those and that is what we are setting out this week. That is part of how we can help those children and, dare I say, enable teachers in schools to be able to get on with helping those children learn.
Q244 Ian Mearns: Your predecessor was also open to the Committee scrutinising the Education for All Bill. Would you retain the instinct that it would be good for the Select Committee to do prelegislative scrutiny?
Justine Greening: I guess that is probably a matter in some respects for the Committee, but I have no doubt that whatever process we have on this Education for All Bill, when we finally bring it forward later in the year, there will be a lot of scrutiny on it. In a sense, I am not particularly worried about whether it will not be scrutinised enough because I am absolutely sure that it will.
Q245 Chair: Is the Bill being prepared now or is there some sort of timetable that might be more longer term?
Justine Greening: I am pulling it together, Neil, and you will no doubt see later in the year what it comprises. Obviously, it is taking forward the White Paper that came out earlier in the year.
Q246 Chair: If we are going to be scrutinising it in terms of prelegislative status, we would need a draft Bill. Are we thinking of doing that?
Justine Greening: Let me come back to the Committee with some kind of a proposal on a way forward, but what I want to do is make sure that the Bill that we bring forward is a strong one and that is where my focus is at the moment. As I said, I have absolutely no doubt that it will get very scrutinised as it passes through Parliament.
Chair: Thank you. Suella, multi-academy trusts, the next step forward, so to speak.
Q247 Suella Fernandes: The Government’s White Paper set out the objective of increasing the number of multi-academy trusts. Secretary of State, I was wondering what your view is on the plan and the support and indeed the criteria for allowing or determining whether a chain should expand.
Justine Greening: I think multi-academy trusts have really delivered as part of our education reforms, because what they are doing is enabling schools to work effectively together and I think they have been a very strong mechanism for spreading best practice. Indeed, one of my schools in Putney, the now Ark Putney Academy, had been in special measures. Ark has truly turned that school from one that simply was not delivering for our local children to one that now is one of the most improved in the country. That matters to me, it matters to our local community, but most of all it matters to those children who are now in a school that is doing so much more for them than they were getting before.
MATs have a clear role to play and I think that the approach we have taken on, for example, free schools gives us a very strong process for looking at whether MATs should expand, what the criteria is, the pace of expansion and also clearly understanding the existing challenges they might face if they are a MAT with a school that has become part of it, that they perhaps sponsored, that is now one that they are trying to turn around.
I think we do have a sensible approach, in a nutshell, but it is important and it is also important that we reflect on the fact that when MATs fail to deliver, we need to strongly take action to make sure that those failures are also addressed.
Q248 Suella Fernandes: What is it about the arrival of a MAT or an academy into an area that you think is brought to affect standards in the area?
Justine Greening: Obviously, different MATs have a different ethos and some of them may have specialism in an area, for example, sport or music, that they particularly bring. I can speak from my own experience, which is I think they can bring into an area knowledge of an approach that they know works. They can bring in that, plus also then a support system around a school that the wider MAT provides to enable that school to steadily deliver on improved outcomes for children, but to do it within a support structure that can respond when inevitably challenges arise on the school’s path steadily getting better. Generally for schools that are performing well, I think it is important for them to be part of a family of schools that continue to challenge themselves to do better. I think it is when schools get isolated that we tend to see more problems.
Q249 Suella Fernandes: How do you see local authorities’ roles changing? What is the role of local authorities?
Justine Greening: This is something that I am looking at at the moment. There has been a lot of change in the landscape, if I can call it that, over the last few years. We now have a much more diverse school system. We have MATs of course operating and steadily growing and changing in their size and nature over time. We still have the free schools programme that means new schools are being created as well, which we need because of the school places, but also the need for good school places. Steadily we are seeing MATs play a strong role. I am sorry, Suella, your original point?
Suella Fernandes: How do you see the role of local authorities?
Justine Greening: For local authorities, we have also finally seen the regional schools commissioners now take their place within this structure. I am looking to make sure that as the academies process steadily ripples through our school system—and we are absolutely committed and want to see that continue—we clarify for local authorities what is expected of them. I think we can do a good job on that and that is one of the things, Chair, that I do need to do over the coming months and will seek to do.
Local authorities can play a role; it is making sure that they have the right role and it is making sure that local authorities, regional schools commissioners, MATs, head teacher boards, everybody has a clear sense of where they fit into this picture, what their particular role is and also how it relates to the other people in the schools ecosystem around them, if I can call it that.
Once we have finalised that, then I think we really will be clearer cut on what a successful model looks like. That is important, because we need to have that clear in our minds for those areas that currently do not have those sorts of jigsaw pieces in place and operating effectively. It is a two-phased approach.
Q250 Suella Fernandes: I think there is a lot of variability.
Justine Greening: Indeed.
Suella Fernandes: In some areas, the local authority is very effective and they may like the opportunity to set up their own MATs or people from that authority to have that chance. In other areas, the local authority is holding back progress and that is where more diversity from other providers can add value.
Justine Greening: In the end, for me, you come back to this fundamental challenge, which is we cannot accept a situation where children are in schools that are not delivering them the education that they need. Nobody can accept that. We have to be prepared to ask ourselves what it is going to take to change that. As you say, Suella, in different parts of the country, in different circumstances, there will be different barriers to success and we need to be prepared to look quite broadly at how we get over them. That is my determination in this role.
Q251 Lucy Frazer: The multi-academy trust has the potential to share excellence with schools who are not doing so well, so there is a good structure there to build good schools. We have an independent sector that provides good education.
I know in the paper that you have just published that might be one of the conditions on an independent school maintaining its charitable status. Is there a broader push or obligation on independent schools and is this a structure in which they can contribute? Is that a discussion that we should be having with independent schools more broadly outside of the charitable school status issue?
Justine Greening: I think it is a good point, Lucy. The ethos behind the consultation document that we set out this week was broadly more good school places. We have to see those in place, particularly for children who do not have them. We want to build capacity in the system though as well and this comes to your point. We think independent schools can play a role, should play a stronger role in doing that, and particularly if they have charitable status, we are saying that they need to.
Again, we have kicked off a consultation. I will be interested to see some of the comments that come back. It may be that people respond in the way that you have phrased your question, which is to say yes, there is an almost narrow question about what it takes for an independent school to be classed as a charity and have charitable status, what they need to do.
But you are right that there is a broader question that sits behind our challenge to independent schools, which is we do think that they have a constructive role to play and we would like to see them do more of that, irrespective, frankly, of whether they are a charity. There are some independent schools that are not, and I think when they are good or outstanding and they have something to offer, we want to see that school community working collaboratively.
Chair: We are going to move on to accountability and governance with Stephen.
Q252 Stephen Timms: The research evidence shows that there are some multi-academy trusts who are doing a very good job, and Ark that you mentioned is one of them. But there are a lot of multi-academy trusts that are not doing very well and a growing number of schools in which, having become academies, standards have fallen. Do you agree with your predecessor that multi-academy trusts should not be allowed to expand unless they have shown a track record of successfully improving the schools they are responsible for?
Justine Greening: Broadly, yes.
Q253 Stephen Timms: Do you have thoughts about how that test should be applied?
Justine Greening: We have developed this thing called a MAT growth health check, of course, and it has a number of different criteria that we would look at to help us look in the round at whether we felt a MAT was in a position to grow at that stage. It would include the track record of school improvement, but not just that.
We would look at risk management, governance, financial sustainability, people in leadership, this sense of looking across, how I would look at things in terms of people, processes and then systems and management information, making sure that fundamentally MATs are in a strong position in order to be able to then grow further. Yes, I think it is important, because what we want is managed, sustainable growth that leads to improvements.
Q254 Stephen Timms: Evidence to the Committee highlights a growing problem with the accountability of multi-academy trusts. The Committee has recommended previously that Ofsted should be empowered to inspect trusts. Do you agree that that should be allowed?
Justine Greening: It is one of the areas I am looking at. Where there is this consistent family and ethos, I think you are right to put that on the agenda, Stephen. It is one of the areas that we need to reach a conclusion on. We need to take a decision whether we should or we should not and be clear-cut about the rationale for doing that.
My sense is there is a question to be asked about how Ofsted can effectively inspect MATs and whether there is a smarter way to do it that is not just good in terms of understanding how MATs are operating overall, but also can hopefully work for schools so that when we are looking at a consistent school the Ofsted inspector perhaps can and should take more into account the MAT that it is part of and an assessment of that MAT.
I should also say though that we need to be clear that some of these other issues I talked about—governance, financial sustainability, risk management—are not necessarily things that Ofsted per se would necessarily have the expertise to particularly take a view on. It is important that for the DfE we are clear-cut on how we assess those broader governance structures that are really beyond where Ofsted would normally look, but are important if MATs are going to operate successfully.
Q255 Stephen Timms: Are you suggesting that someone other than Ofsted might inspect MATs?
Justine Greening: I am saying that whichever way you need to gain assurance on the broad performance of MATs, that is less about, if you like, how per se a school is operating and more about how a MAT per se is governed and run generally—you need to have the right person with the right skills. I would not ask an accountant for legal advice. All I am saying is that we need to get the right person looking at the issues, but that is precisely why we have the growth check within the Department.
Q256 Stephen Timms: I think you are agreeing that MATs ought to be inspected by somebody, but you seem to be suggesting it might be somebody other than Ofsted would do that job. If so, who might that be?
Justine Greening: Stephen, these are the questions that I am asking myself. What I am saying though is I think that we need to have quite a thoughtful approach to ensuring that MATs are able to deliver. We also respect autonomy, of course, but at the same time we want to have a system where we can head off problems before they arrive rather than deal with them after.
Q257 Stephen Timms: I think what we would urge is that MATs should not be let off the hook, that somebody does need to look at them.
Justine Greening: I would be very happy for the Committee to send me through thoughts on work that the Committee has already looked at in this area, which I think is possibly also under way.
Stephen Timms: We are doing an inquiry.
Q258 Chair: We are doing an inquiry on what a good multi-academy trust looks like and the issues that Stephen has raised are the ones that we certainly will be commenting on. You did mention the MAT growth health check, which sounds good to me. Is that a public document and is this something that we could have sight of?
Justine Greening: I do not believe it is a public document, Neil. Why don’t you let me get back to the Department and see whether it is in a state that we can give you sight of? What I was trying to do was just give you a sense of the range of things that we would look at when we judge whether we feel a MAT is in a position to grow.
Chair: Okay, thank you.
Q259 Stephen Timms: There is this growing problem though of accountability about MATs and I think it is likely to get worse if, as the White Paper proposed, elected parents are removed from academy governing bodies. I wonder whether that is a proposal that you might be willing to reconsider.
Justine Greening: It is. I do not think we should be saying that MATs do not need to have parents. I think parent governors play a vital role. I have been a governor for a long time. I am not a governor now, but I spent 15 years, maybe more, as a governor. The parents on the governing body that I was part of always played a vital role.
I think part of the way that we can ensure that schools that are doing a less good job of delivering for children who are disadvantaged is getting parents more involved.
In my experience—we have all seen it as a local MP—often when schools turn around, one of the reasons they have managed to do it is that parents have become more engaged and more invested in the school’s success and that has helped build the school up from the outside as well as all the hard work that teachers are often doing inside. It does not happen overnight. It takes years often to do, but parents are part of how I think that success gets delivered. So, no, I do not think we should proceed with that.
Ian Mearns: Secretary of State, the building is well soundproofed, but you can hear the cheering out there already.
Chair: That is a very welcome change of heart. We are grateful for that. Thank you. There is one word we have not mentioned yet, but we are going to now. Michelle, grammar schools.
Q260 Michelle Donelan: First of all, let me formally congratulate you on your new role and also commend you on your work to improve social mobility.
Justine Greening: Thank you.
Michelle Donelan: The key question I want to get straight to is how and why you think grammar schools will improve social mobility when there is a lack of sufficient evidence and also the evidence suggests the opposite in areas such as Kent. We have other issues that have come up as well such as the tutoring issue, where middle-class families and families that can afford it will pay for children to be able to succeed in that 11-Plus.
Justine Greening: I think the first thing to say is that for the children in grammars, particularly children on free school meals, their progress comes on in leaps and bounds. The grammars are closing the attainment gap that we have between disadvantaged children who are on free school meals and other children and doing a great job of that. They absolutely have something to offer in helping us make sure that children do not get left behind, but if they have been left behind, catch up. The real prize is making sure that they do that, but at the same time play a role bettering other schools around them as well. That is the real prize and that is what we were consulting on, Michelle, because it is important that we get both of those issues addressed.
I suppose what we were saying and why we wanted to raise the debate and kick off the consultation document is we have frozen grammar schools policy literally for decades and it is now time to say we are where we are, but how do we take this forward? Grammars can play a role in driving social mobility, so what is that going to take? Shouldn’t we give parents more choice at the same time if that is the kind of school that they want to send their child to?
Q261 Michelle Donelan: Do you accept though that that is based on a concept and an idea and there is no evidence to suggest or to prove that grammar schools do have the power to pull up other schools? What about the stigma and the disincentive it causes to those that do not get into the grammar school? Do you worry about that in terms of social mobility?
Justine Greening: I think there is evidence and a lot of good work of grammars already in working closely with other schools. What we want to see though is that become the norm. We want to drive it further, faster, and we want grammars to do more, but we think that there is a successful approach there that we need to look at, so we want to get on with it.
When Michael Gove would have sat here and talked about what he wanted to do in terms of academies and how much more broadly he wanted to use it, or indeed Lord Adonis, those are important steps forward, but I think our policy and proposals are based on a clear sense of how grammars are doing—99% of them are good or outstanding—but saying that we have to ask ourselves these challenging questions about what more we can do to make sure that children have access to a good or outstanding school place.
Q262 Michelle Donelan: So if we accept all that you are saying, are you not concerned about age 11? Because age 11 is very early to decide a child’s future. The empirical evidence suggests it should be done at age 13 or 14 and a lot of children do develop later. You are taking a test across the spectrum, so you are not testing aptitude in one particular area. You could be segregating a child that is going to win a Nobel Peace Prize in the future in science, and they might not pass an 11-Plus, especially at age 11. Is that not concerning to you?
Justine Greening: In the end, you do not improve opportunity for children by taking it away from some others. What you would have to do is say, “How can we level up children’s chances?” So that means some of the proposals we have brought forward in our paper. I am very keen and interested to see the response that they get. We should be asking grammars to do a stronger job of working with primaries.
We should be looking, as we are doing, at how we can challenge them to take a higher proportion of free school meal children. We should also be asking primary schools to make sure that where they are in areas where there are grammars whether they could do more themselves to get children prepared to be able to do a test.
There was an interesting piece of work done by Kent that looked at whether part of the problem was that children were not being put forward for the test in the first place and they looked at issues around school uniform and around transport. These are all the quite practical things that you are right to put on the table and say that we can look at. You have also talked about the test as well. Kent, indeed working with the Sutton Trust, has looked at how the test could be made so that it is more open for children who have not been tutored.
It is worth pointing out that there are a lot of children getting into grammars who do not have tutoring. These are all practical issues to challenge ourselves to get over, not things that we should just put in a box. We have selection, we have grammars. We should not just put it in a box and say, “Let’s not have the debate about how we can make it work more effectively and how, if it can work more effectively, it can really deliver for England for schoolchildren.”
Q263 Michelle Donelan: I agree with you, but if you take the instance that 11 is fundamentally not the correct age to segregate, then the whole debate is dead in the water in effect, because you have to transform the education system completely if you are going to alter the age.
Justine Greening: I am sure you will have seen in the consultation document one of the points we raise is more flexible entry points into grammars. What you are seeing is a real challenge to all of us as to how we get over some of these longstanding complaints, in a way, and issues that have been raised about grammars. But many of them are predicated on maybe a personal experience at a grammar school that was literally 40 or 50 years ago, and our school system is in a very different place now.
There is a real diversity of school; there is much more choice for parents. Schools do and can have specialisms. Many of the MATs do have a specialism and there is an element of selection that they are able to do based on that, whether it is in music, sport or arts.
I think it is about saying for some children who are academic, they want to be stretched too. We should be giving parents choice. We know parents want more choice in some areas for grammars, but we cannot just simply freeze-frame grammar schools policy forever. We were always at some stage going to have to ask ourselves how we can have grammars work more effectively than are already existing, but also, yes, let us give them more freedom to expand and new grammars to set up, but let us do that with some conditions to make sure they really do drive social mobility.
Q264 Michelle Donelan: I know some others want to get involved so I will just ask two final questions. In reference to your point about the further points of entry for young people, are you not worried that first you already have the disincentive, so the child might not be as inclined to go for that, but also about the strain that will put on the school—the comprehensive where the children will be going out of? In addition, the grammar school will constantly be getting more children. Won’t that affect budgeting for schools?
Justine Greening: In a way, there are lots of practical debates around how we can make sure that grammars work effectively as engines of social mobility, but they are ones that we should try to confront and get over. It is important that we now take a close look at this. I think grammars can play a role in driving social mobility.
The final thing, and the point I tried to make earlier this week on Monday, is that this is about working with the local community. Local communities who have good or outstanding schools and are happy with those schools, this is going to be an approach that works through local communities and it is about what parents want and it is about choice. It is not about us saying that communities that do not want grammars should have them. It is about saying that at the moment there is not enough parent choice and we should be prepared to meet that.
Q265 Michelle Donelan: There is a slight danger there, isn’t there? My constituency, for instance, has some of the best schools in the country. If one of them applies for this grammar school status it could affect that, because it would have a ripple effect on all the other schools.
Justine Greening: It is important that through this consultation we look at the area of local engagement, and that is one of the issues that we raised in the consultation and I have no doubt that people will respond to that. I was very clear in Parliament earlier this week that it is important that we work with and through local communities. This is all about responding to what local communities want and it is important that we do not see communities having grammars that in the end do not want them.
The point is it is about building more capacity in the school system and making sure that we have more good school places, particularly in parts of the country where we do not have them at the moment. So we want to get that prize of grammars doing a better job on social mobility, but also responding to parent choice and we want to see grammars playing a role in lifting all schools in their local communities.
Q266 Stephen Timms: The Green Paper tells us that 80% of grammar schools are outstanding. What proportion of secondary modern schools is outstanding?
Justine Greening: In the broader school system, 20% of schools are outstanding.
Stephen Timms: Secondary modern schools specifically?
Justine Greening: It depends how you define a secondary modern, but we are not in a system where it is grammars and secondary moderns, Stephen, obviously. What I am saying is of the 99% of grammar schools that are good or outstanding, of those 80% are outstanding. Of the broader school population, we have seen a lot more of them become good or outstanding and of those, 20% of them.
Q267 Stephen Timms: I think we do need to know the figure for secondary moderns. You referred to the Sutton Trust. Let me just read what their briefing note from last week says, “No evidence that grammar schools help social mobility as admissions are closely linked to income, while standards for those who don’t get in and end up in secondary moderns are poor”. They are right about that, aren’t they?
Justine Greening: The Sutton Trust have done research that shows that the progress that free school meal children make when they get into grammars is twice as good as their broader school population and also that grammars have not had a detrimental impact. But the point I am making is that grammars can play an important role in closing the attainment gap, but we can see them play a role in raising attainment across the broader school system, and that is what we want to happen.
I think that is a prize that we should aim for, and I do not think it is right for a Labour Party at all to say that they have a policy proposal of simply scrapping grammars, which as I understand it is the policy approach of Jeremy Corbyn. I think that would be a disaster, to see children who do have opportunity have it taken away.
Stephen, we have put a debate on the table that is important, it is emotive and we think we need to have it. The worst thing would be to argue against the status quo, but then say that we should not try to challenge and change it for the better. That is what we are trying to do.
Q268 Stephen Timms: I am simply making the point that the Sutton Trust says there is no evidence that grammar schools help social mobility.
Justine Greening: I can point to a different Sutton Trust piece of work, but my point to Michelle was that that is a reason to ask how we can change and reform so that we see grammars play a stronger role driving social mobility for children who get to them, but also for schools around them. I cannot understand the logic that says we would not want to ask those questions.
Q269 William Wragg: Secretary of State, can I preface what I am going to say by saying that it is welcome to have an approach to education that is not focused and obsessed perhaps with governance structures, that you have issued a Green Paper rather than a While Paper as a consultation rather than as a statement of intent, and that you used the word “emotive” to describe this debate? Can I put it to you that it becomes emotive when people talk of segregation of winners and losers? Is it not, do you think, a way to take that emotion out of the debate to talk about aptitude and if a school can select on the basis of a pupil’s ability at sport or at music, why can it not select on the basis of a pupil’s aptitude at maths, English or languages, for example?
Justine Greening: That is a good point, and it gets to the heart of the fact that we need to have a much more measured debate about grammars and about the consultation document that we put out. What we are saying is that we need more good school places for children and we need to build capacity in the system. We think the existing grammar schools can play a stronger role in doing that. We think that we should respond to parent choice that has been there for some time. I do not think it is good enough just to tell parents they are wrong when they want a grammar school place for their child and they cannot get one.
But it sits alongside much broader reforms that have already delivered for 1.4 million children, and I set out at the beginning of this evidence session, Neil, how I am determined to make this broader Department that we now have as the DfE work more collectively effectively together on a generational basis to change and drive social mobility in our country for children.
It does not matter where you start in our country: you should be able to go as far as your talents and hard work will take you. I am not just talking about people who have the capacity and talent to get to the top; I am talking about absolutely everyone, and that is what these policy proposals are about, but it is the beginning of the debate and we want to have the debate.
I am looking forward to hearing from people on all sides of the spectrum over the coming years, and I would say, Michelle, you talk about evidence: how about getting some evidence? How about letting a grammar open up in one of those deprived areas and seeing how it does?
Q270 Suella Fernandes: Two short questions. The problem that this proposal is seeking to resolve is the selection by postcode that is currently pervading the system. What effect do you think that that has on social mobility?
Justine Greening: In a way, it is obvious, isn’t it? If you can afford to buy a house close to a good school, often a grammar school, then you get the advantage of that. If you cannot or you are in a part of the country where you might like to have a grammar school but there just is not one there, then you don’t. Of course there are some parents who, if that is what they are confronted by, can simply pay for their child to go privately and have them educated outside the state sector, but that certainly is not an option for most parents and I think we need to respond to that.
Parents want choice. We should not just simply turn around and tell them that they are wrong. We have seen choice be something that people have really welcomed in our system, particularly over the last six years. The approach in academies has enabled more and different schools to open up across our country. We need to learn from that progress, but grammars should be challenged and asked to play their role too.
Q271 Suella Fernandes: Lastly, it says in the consultation that the proposal to allow selective schools to expand or open new selective schools will be subject to certain conditions, such as taking a proportion of pupils from low income households or obliging them to open a non-selective secondary school, among others. How do you think those conditions will achieve this aim of increasing social mobility?
Justine Greening: First of all, it can help address some of the points that Michelle made around, for example, having a grammar sponsoring or setting up a primary feeder school in an area precisely where some of the children are who are least likely at the moment to go into grammars. It can break down those barriers. It can raise attainment more broadly in the system and we can look at some of the practical challenges that sometimes get in the way of grammars being open effectively to all children from all backgrounds to be able to get into.
I think we all recognise many of these challenges. My attitude was I think it is time that we ask ourselves and challenge ourselves to address them, rather than just simply putting them on one side and saying, “We do have grammars, we do have selection”. Some people will say there are some issues about that and they are issues that I recognise too. I want to see grammars having more children from disadvantaged backgrounds go to them. I think we should just confront those head on, and in doing so we will not be just enabling grammars to be true engines of social mobility, I think they can play a strong role in improving attainment across other schools more broadly.
Chair: Thank you very much. We are going to have to move up a gear because we have several areas to cover in half an hour. Ian.
Q272 Ian Mearns: Secretary of State, the Public Accounts Committee said that your Department does not understand and shows little curiosity about the size and extent of teacher shortages around the country. Does the Department use its own data or does it rely on data collected and monitored by other organisations about the question of the supply of teachers?
Justine Greening: I am aware of that report and it has been something that I have started to dig into on arriving in the Department. We do a lot of modelling of the teacher workforce. We need to, because we need to make sure that we have the numbers of teachers in place that our system needs.
I think we can do more to look at the specific issues around locality and making sure that we have the right teachers in the right places. That does tie into teacher training, but also as we progress down the EBacc route we have the right kinds of teachers in the right subjects and we have a demographic bulge that is steadily moving out of primary into secondary. In secondary, the issue of teacher recruitment and getting the right teachers for the right subjects is the challenge that we need to rise to. I think we have strong modelling, but I am digging into how we can improve it.
Q273 Ian Mearns: We also nationally have a significant problem with teacher retention. The OECD figures show that we have the youngest teaching workforce of any country in Europe, and that is because younger teachers are coming in, but they are not progressing through because many of them are leaving and moving on elsewhere. Is there anything that you can think of that we need to do in order to make sure that we are retaining trained teachers? It is not a cheap exercise to train teachers from the national context.
Justine Greening: It is important to raise the issue of teacher retention, Ian. Broadly, the picture on retention is pretty consistent over the years, but I would like us to do a better job on keeping teachers in the profession. I would like us to do a better job of getting teachers back into the profession who have left, and the whole issue of teachers leaving sometimes to start a family and then not losing their expertise and finding stronger pathways for them to come back.
For example, we do not have a huge number of part-time teachers, which necessarily means it is harder for women often to get back into that profession that they have been part of. These are the areas that we can look at quite carefully.
While our school system steadily expands, it is probably worth finishing off by saying we have more teachers in our schools than ever before. The challenge is making sure it remains an attractive profession that gets the top graduates coming into it and then can hold on to those people once they have qualified.
Q274 Ian Mearns: There has been some smoke and mirrors expressed to this Committee about teacher recruitment, saying that we have over-recruited in terms of the global number of teachers, but that hides a huge deficit in terms of particular specialisms. It is okay having far too many PE teachers if you do not have enough maths, physics, general science or IT teachers. That does need to be addressed.
Justine Greening: Certainly the issues around making sure that we have enough maths and physics teachers in particular, modern foreign language teachers, you are right to say these are important. We have a £67 million package of investment specifically aimed at making sure we can recruit and train more maths and physics teachers; similarly in relation to modern foreign language teachers. This is incredibly important, that we have the right number of teachers and we are going to have to think creatively about how we can meet the demand that is coming from schools for language teachers.
Q275 Ian Mearns: Additionally, many of the teachers who we are losing from the system are not leaving the profession, but there has been an expansion internationally of international schools. Many of those schools around the world prefer English or British teachers and so that is something in terms of retaining the professionals within the United Kingdom, particularly England, from our perspective here on the Select Committee.
Justine Greening: In many respects I think it is a testament to the quality of teachers that we have in our country. I think that many of the reforms that we are bringing through around giving schools more autonomy, but also helping the schools play a stronger role in working together to lift collective attainment of our children hopefully is steadily getting us into a position where we are making the profession more attractive.
I recognise that there are still issues on workload and some of the first meetings I had coming into the role were of course with teacher unions, so I am very conscious of that. It is a real challenge to make sure that we keep a profession that is attractive. I think the reforms that we are bringing through are helping to make sure that we are on a strong footing, but this issue of teacher recruitment and retention, as I said to Catherine in her question earlier this week, is always going to be very close to the top of my agenda.
Q276 Ian Mearns: Are you examining any retention incentives, for instance?
Justine Greening: I am looking across the board at what we can do to keep teachers in the profession.
Q277 Stephen Timms: A worrying aspect of the recruitment crisis is the growing number of pupils being taught by teachers who are not subject specialists. The Public Accounts Committee did ask that the Department should report back by the end of last month on the extent and impact of teachers teaching subjects they are not qualified in. Was that report provided by the end of last month?
Justine Greening: I think it is going back to the PAC shortly. The issues you have raised are clearly ones that have built up over time and also do not get fixed overnight. The bottom line is overwhelmingly we have seen more and better teachers teaching subjects that they are trained for. It is why we have been strengthening the initial teacher training route, so I do not think your characterisation is correct.
If you look at, for example, our increased focus on STEM and maths in particular, we have to work right down the pipeline to make sure that we have the right numbers of maths graduates, and of those maths graduates then we have a population of well-trained maths specialists who can then become some of our teachers.
Of course we are competing with other professions that they might want to go into, so it is not just about, as you say, keeping an eye on what is happening today. It is working down the pipeline to make sure that we are building a strong pipeline of teachers in the right subjects that our country needs for us to be successful.
Chair: We are going to move on to a new subject, which is further education, with Suella.
Q278 Suella Fernandes: The Government is currently undertaking major changes to apprenticeships and technical education in response to the Lord Sainsbury recommendation set out in the Post-16 Skills Plan earlier this summer. What stage are these changes at and how likely are they to be implemented?
Justine Greening: We published the Skills White Paper just before the summer, as you said. I think it is exciting and I think for a long time in our country we have focused on academic routes for our children and for those children who are academic they have been able to go far and able to go fast, but for many young people who are not going to go to university the vocational route has been a weaker one. It has also been one that has had a plethora of qualifications that have not always been easy for young people to navigate their way through, and they have often been disconnected from what employers want.
Broadly, the reforms are aimed at simplifying the system. There was a lot of work done by Alison Wolf prior to Lord Sainsbury’s work that has helped us to do that. It is about simplifying the system and being clearer cut on career pathways in technical education and then having employers more fundamentally owning our approach on skills more generally and apprenticeships, so that we can make sure that young people are going down the technical route that is one that is going to deliver a career for them at the end. It is about more than jobs; it has to be about a career.
Q279 Suella Fernandes: What level of engagement or response have you had from employers in regards to this employer-led approach?
Justine Greening: There has been very strong engagement. I met with Carolyn Fairbairn of the CBI last week and of course employers have been very involved in the changes that we are making to apprenticeships to improve quality. We want to have 3 million apprenticeships over the course of this Parliament, but we need to make sure they are of high quality.
Employers need to feel that they own apprenticeships and that they own the standards. That is why we are setting up the Institute for Apprenticeships and the CBI, for example, are very keen to be involved in that. I think there is good engagement. I also think though we have a long, long way to go.
Stephen, you were asking about computer science. We have a computer science GCSE now that is probably world-beating. It is as good as any computer science exam at that level for children out there, but we probably need to work with industry to make sure that we have the right quality of teachers to help children get through that.
I want a more collaborative approach, not just in terms of further education and apprenticeships, but I want to work with business across the education system to ask them to provide more of what they can bring, their skills, their knowledge, their people, to help our children do better, whether it is work experience, extracurricular activities or whether it is perhaps inspiring and indeed helping children in some subjects. I think we need to knit these communities together. If you like, I want the opportunity givers, which are the business community, to play a stronger role in helping the opportunity designers and drivers who are in our education system.
Q280 Suella Fernandes: In terms of the funding of apprenticeships, with the apprenticeship levy introduced, imposing a 0.5% levy on companies, and the consultation that is currently ongoing in relation to the apprenticeship funding plans, how committed are you to that? What do you envisage emerging from the consultation and viability for funding for apprenticeships?
Justine Greening: We are pushing ahead with the apprenticeship levy, I want to be absolutely clear about that. It is being introduced and we are actively working on the digital apprenticeship system that sits behind it that is going to enable employees to see what is in their account and to then understand which providers they want to use. We are working on developing that right now. We are doing that in conjunction with many of the apprenticeship levy payers, so that is a big piece of work for us and it is important that we get it right. It is a big step forward as well and it is a big injection of investment into apprenticeships. It will steadily shift the provider market over time.
That is what we want to see as well, so we should not underestimate just what a sea change this is, if you like, in skills and training in Britain, but it is moving in the right direction and I am very conscious of the need to hopefully introduce that apprenticeship levy with employers supporting it and then realising the benefits for young people.
Q281 Suella Fernandes: The area reviews in some parts of the country have reported, and in my part, in Hampshire and the Solent region, they have just issued recommendations. How do you think the reviews will affect wider post-16 provision?
Justine Greening: These are jigsaw pieces of a broader strategy around post-16. It sits alongside, for example, the work around Adrian Smith’s review on maths. The local area reviews are now under way. A number of them have already come up with recommendations and they are about making sure that we can have an FE sector that is financially sustainable, but critically one that is properly delivering for local employers and employment so that there is that strong, clear pathway for our young people in what they are doing post-16 on FE, but then the career routes that come out of that study that they are engaged in.
Q282 Catherine McKinnell: Justine, do you share the very serious concerns about the proposed apprenticeship funding rates that were published in August—that they will see current rates paid to college and training providers for 16 to 18 year-olds cut by up to 50% in some of the most deprived parts of the country? Do you have any concerns about how that will fit in with your social mobility ambitions?
Justine Greening: It is a consultation and we need to get on with the apprenticeship levy. It is important that business contributes to making sure that the young people our economy needs and business needs are being properly trained. We are looking very carefully to make sure that we see opportunities for apprenticeships across the country. This is about more apprenticeships and better apprenticeships, rather than less.
The consultation is underway. We will look carefully at all of the responses, Catherine. It is important that employers can work looking at their supply chains, and that is particularly important in some of those areas, for example, up in the Midlands where we see some of our fantastic companies like Rolls-Royce operating.
So this is a big step forward. We need to try to make sure that we get it right. Fundamentally it is about a significant additional investment into skills, training and apprenticeships from business and we want to make sure that those benefits are experienced across the country. The FE college piece of course is critical within that.
Chair: A couple of questions from Lucy about careers.
Q283 Lucy Frazer: The Sub-Committee on Education, Skills and the Economy found in its evidence on careers that careers advice in schools was patchy. Sam Gyimah, when he was in post in Education, said in 2015 that there would be a plan for the Department to publish a careers strategy, which we are still waiting for. Do you know whether the Department is publishing that, and if so, when?
Justine Greening: It is important. Robert Halfon wanted the time as a new Minister in this role to make sure that he felt what we were coming back with was good enough and the strategy was good enough. We all bring our own experiences into all of these roles. I do not think I had great career advice when I was coming through school. I do not think I had a good sense of what the broad spectrum of opportunities were that were ahead of me.
Right at the beginning of this I said it was about knowledge and skills, advice and experience, and I will come back to that. I think the careers piece of this sits in that, but again we want employers much more involved in this. I talked about employers in business playing a real role in improving prospects for our children. That is where it can start further and earlier in our education system than perhaps it does now. Robert Halfon is deep into this, looking at it, and I think it will be all the better for the time he is spending on it, Lucy, but he is conscious of the need to reach completion of it soon.
Q284 Lucy Frazer: Some of the things that might be good to look at in that report, you mentioned businesses and the importance of businesses as absolutely critical in the skills space. There is a charity that is set up by someone just outside my constituency called Founders4Schools, which I know is supported by some quasi-Government funding. Do you think that is important? It links up mentors from business. Is that the sort of thing that you would be encouraging in careers?
Justine Greening: We need to look at what works. It is a bit like the SRE question. It is not just about having careers advice; it is about making sure it is good quality. Sometimes there will be schools that are very capable of doing that, but there are other times when the right kind of people are not in the school and need to come from the outside. I think we just need to have a much more flexible approach that enables schools to reach for the right people that they feel can help make sure children get good advice, but also that there is advice more broadly outside that children can reach for as well, and young people.
I do not think we have cracked this nut yet, and mentoring is part of it. I think we can do a much better job and the careers work that we have done already gives us a good platform for that. Robert will push it forward.
Q285 Lucy Frazer: Some of that external advice could be something I know Nick Boles was very interested in, which was the labour market information, seeing the destination data of where people went to school and then what careers they had and what jobs they had and how much they earned. Is that something that you think is an important tool in giving children careers advice?
Justine Greening: I think it is. Young people need to have a broad sense of what different careers are in terms of the challenge and what they will be doing, but also of course they are going to be interested in what the earnings are. A couple of years ago I was getting local people from my own community into what was then not quite Ark Putney Academy. Laura Kuenssberg came in and talked to them about what being a journalist was like and her path. I was there, I got a couple of other local business people there. The first question a lot of the children asked was, “How much do you earn?”
Of course in the case of Laura Kuenssberg I guess our BBC proposal will mean that is more public anyway, but the point I am making is this is important to children and these are the questions young people ask. We should make sure that they have the advice they want, but also we should make sure they realise that a career is much more than just that, as important as it is. They should be encouraged to think of routes and careers that they have not even considered, because they just do not necessarily know what they are all about.
Q286 Lucy Frazer: Very quickly, sometimes schools do not want to let in as careers advice other schools who might be offering different alternatives, like apprenticeships. Is that something that should be discouraged, so that all children early on, 11 or 12, might be considering moving schools to go into a further education environment that is apprenticeship-based?
Justine Greening: I talked about children and young people having the right advice at the right time, and I want to systematically work through with the Department about what that means in practice, not just on careers, but on broader education issues. I think we need to say where things are not working we have to fix them, and we may have a broad approach that is the right approach for most schools, but when it is not working we need to look at what we can do to sort that out. Children have one shot in our education system. They probably get to 16 and they might have just a few discussions about what next. It is absolutely vital that when they get to those transition points we do our best for them. That is all I am concerned to do.
I have talked about lifecycle and those transition points in particular are ones that we should look at, because if we can help children and as they become young people to navigate through those effectively with all the opportunities but also managing the risks, then we know they can come out on the other side better.
I would just say, my previous role in DfID, we know on girls in education, we were getting girls into school, but there was a risk of them dropping out the minute they hit puberty. So if we can navigate them through the school system and keeping them in it through that transition point particularly, then we have disproportionately improved our ability to deliver for those girls. It was a lot harder then, but if we can fix it then we really made the difference to them.
It is that same kind of learning here in education, saying we know there are some transition points where things can go right and things can go wrong, so we need to make sure that as children and young people get to those points that we particularly look at how we can more systemically help them come out on the right side rather than the wrong side of a decision.
Q287 Ian Mearns: There was never a golden age of careers advice and guidance, I think we all accept that, but the demise of Connexions has seen a situation where much of the advice, if it is provided at all in schools, is anything but impartial. Quite often youngsters are being advised to do things for the benefit of the institution rather than for their own particular educational and career furtherance. What can we do about that? Something does need to be done about that.
Chair: A short answer please, Justine.
Justine Greening: We need to help bring information more effectively together; the internet age means that is eminently possible. Then it needs to be backed up by locally accessible advice for young people when they just want to sit down and have a discussion with someone who has been there and done it before and can answer specific questions.
Chair: Catherine, universities access and the Bill, of course.
Q288 Catherine McKinnell: That sounds like a proposal to reinvent Connexions, but obviously the bringing together of schools and universities into one Department provides, I think—and I am sure you would agree—lots of opportunities, but without doubt also some risks. How do you see, for example, the opportunity for widening participation as part of this, but also managing the risk of ensuring that we do not lose that crucial link between industry and our universities?
Justine Greening: I think British business and industry have never been more involved with our universities. That is something I welcome. In terms of the first part of what you asked, universities are already doing more than ever before on access, which is why we are seeing a record number of disadvantaged children and a record proportion of children who are disadvantaged getting to university, which is great news. But we need to go further and we need to do more than that. That is part of what the consultation document was focused on as well. What we were saying is we want to look at universities partnering and sponsoring schools and we want to look at them working more carefully to raise attainment.
The Higher Education and Research Bill going through right now is in many respects going beyond that, because what we are saying is we have a Director of Fair Access, Les Ebdon. Through that role access agreements are set. They are having an impact. We think we can do better than that, but there is this issue of retention and the fact that often even if we get students, particularly some BME students, into university they will often drop out. So that has been broadened out to not just focus on access, but also to focus on participation, so that we do not just get those young people into university, that that they are doing the right subjects and they stay and come out of it with a degree, as intended.
Q289 Catherine McKinnell: You rightly say that the current links between universities and businesses are better than ever. Obviously that is potentially at risk with the change and the new focus now on the link with the schools, which clearly I agree needs to improve significantly. How are you going to make sure that is not at the detriment of the link with industry?
Justine Greening: I do not agree with you, so I do not think it is an either/or question, Catherine. I come back to my earlier comment: I think British business is ready, able and largely willing to play a broader role. I think what they want is to have a bit more structure to fit into. I think they have shown what they can do working with more universities, but it gives us a taster of just how much further and farther that relationship could be developed.
Q290 Catherine McKinnell: Yes, I would agree. What specific measures will you put in place to make sure that our world-leading universities are not destabilised, particularly as a result of the market being opened up, but also at what is quite a critical time with our exit from the European Union?
Justine Greening: This is the first Higher Education Bill for pretty much 25 years, so it was important that we reform the regulatory landscape that universities found themselves in. I think universities will rise to the challenge. Above all, it is going to be good for students to have more choice.
In the context of Brexit, clearly there are some short-term issues around making sure, for example, we are being clear about the support that will continue to be there for universities on research, but longer term we need a university sector that remains world-beating but also innovates to deliver degrees in the right way for students, who of course are paying for them, so that they can really deliver value for money.
It comes back to the point that Lucy made, in a way. It is about informed choices, so that when young people are looking at going down a degree route compared with a technical route that they have a clear sense of whether the investment that they will be making in time and money is going to deliver a return for them.
Q291 William Wragg: You have just touched on it, of course: Brexit means Brexit and we are all Brexiteers now, so with that similar instruction from the Prime Minister, what opportunities have you identified in your Department that Brexit presents?
Justine Greening: I think it particularly means for education we have a lot to offer the rest of the world, whether it is on higher education or indeed people were talking about the fact that our teachers are in demand. I think it does give us more freedom, frankly, to work collaboratively with other countries on the education sector as an export for us.
If you look at some of our initial teacher training and the higher education institutes that are doing that, many of them are also doing work around the world on teacher training, which is not just good for the institutions, but it is good for Britain and our soft power and it is good for our exports, so I think it opens up that.
At the same time though I do not think we should shy away from the fact that this is a significant step for our country, a decision that we have taken. There are a number of areas that I need to work very carefully on, not least and in particular the university and higher education sector. Those are the things that I am truly focused on, making sure that we manage our way through the Brexit proposals effectively.
Q292 William Wragg: On that, how would you respond to those who say that, for example, the Higher Education and Research Bill needs a fundamental rethink on the basis of our exiting the European Union? How would you respond to that?
Justine Greening: I just do not agree. I think it is all the more reason that we have in place some 21st century reform for universities, and I think that is precisely how we will make sure we keep a world-beating university sector.
Q293 Suella Fernandes: Ofsted—or pressure from Ofsted—is often cited by teachers as one of the top three reasons for leaving the profession, often because of its arbitrary methods of assessment, prescribing an Ofsted-preferred teaching style, being quite interventionist and inconsistent reports. Do you have plans to change Ofsted’s role and structure?
Justine Greening: I was talking to one of my local head teachers about their experience in Ofsted inspections only over the last few days. I think it is important that I do listen to teachers and not just their experience on Ofsted, but more broadly about what is going on in classrooms and how they feel. We need to take forward education reform, so I did want to be clear about that and I am aiming and looking forward to getting out and about so I can meet as many teachers and get into as many schools as I can over the coming months.
I think Amanda Spielman has an important opportunity to look at some of these questions and to look at what Ofsted is doing in the light of the accountability reforms that were brought in and the assessment changes. We want a smart approach.
Having said that, we should recognise that Ofsted has played a critical role. For many parents when they are looking at schools, one of the first things they will look at is the rating that Ofsted has given that school. I think it is important and I have no doubt that Amanda will want to look at what the next step of Ofsted’s development will be, as will I.
Q294 Suella Fernandes: Your Department has two positions to fill, the chairs of Ofqual and of Ofsted, both of which are not subject to pre-appointment hearings by this Committee. Would you be open to adding the two positions to the Committee’s pre-appointment list to ensure that the right people are appointed?
Justine Greening: It is not something I have considered, Suella. I am quite keen to make sure that we push on with getting those positions filled, so why don’t I write to the Committee once I have had a chance to consider that?
Chair: Thank you. That is a very helpful suggestion, Justine. Last but not least, a question about summer-born children from Michelle.
Q295 Michelle Donelan: Yes, thank you. Last September the Minister of State for School Standards committed to amending the School Admissions Code to ensure that summer-born children could enter reception at age five and then continue on into the school year with that cohort of children. Do you have any idea of when that will be done?
Justine Greening: I am conscious that people want us to set out the next steps on this, which we will be doing shortly. It is a long-running debate and the Minister of State for Schools, Nick Gibb, has been very clear that he wants to make progress on it. I think we should.
The final point I would make, Neil and Michelle, is that one of the things I am looking at is summer-born children obviously is summer term. The reality is that the challenges are faced by probably parents of mid to late July and August children. What I want to do is make sure that as we take this forward we are clear about who we particularly want to give more options to. But yes, we will be progressing this and we will be setting out how we are going to do that shortly.
Chair: Justine, we have come to the end of our questions. Thank you very much indeed for being in front of us for just over two hours; two hours four minutes to be exact. It has been a great privilege and pleasure to have you here and we will obviously be inviting you back and following up one or two of the points that you have made throughout this morning, so many thanks.
Justine Greening: Thank you. It has been really helpful to get all of your questions and comments, so much appreciated.