To receive and consider the recommendations of the Cabinet relating to Councillors Hannan and Greenslade’s Notices of Motion.
The text of both the original Notices of Motion, the Cabinet’s recommendations and any reasons therefor may be seen in full in the Minutes of the Cabinet Minute 40(b) held on 8 June 2016 (Page 6 - 8, Green Pages).
Minutes:
Pursuant to County Council Minutes 18 and 19 of 12 May 2016 relating to the Notices of Motion set out below as previously submitted and formally moved by Councillors Hannan and Greenslade respectively, and duly seconded, and the Chairman having exercised his discretion to take these two items at the same time, that:
‘This Council notes that the Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Skills, the Deputy Leader of the Council and the County Councillors Network along with many District and County Councils, of all political colours, have made statements that oppose various aspects of the changes to our education system proposed in the White Paper ‘Education Excellence Everywhere’.
The Council welcomes the decision of the Secretary of State for Education to abandon plans to force all of England’s schools that are still maintained by their local authorities to become academies. However, it regrets that some schools may still be forced to convert, including those in local authorities where academies are in a large majority, those in authorities whose maintained schools are deemed to be failing overall to meet a minimum performance threshold, and those seen as struggling or failing to improve sufficiently.
The Council remains concerned about other aspects of the White Paper and the government’s continued commitment to full academisation, with regard to:
1. School exclusions – giving schools from which excluded pupils originate the responsibility to fund AP (alternative provision such as placement in a pupil referral unit) and to continue to ensure the quality of their education. This makes informal exclusion more likely and encourages schools not to admit vulnerable children especially those with behaviour problems. There will also be problems providing for pupils already in referral units and for those who move with their parents to Devon from other local authorities.
2. Further academisation making it more difficult for local authorities to ensure 'sufficiency of AP in their area' without the power to direct academy/free schools and without the AP funding which they currently use to commission pupil referral units as Devon does via Schools Company.
3. The lack of acknowledgement of the considerable additional costs falling upon local authorities in managing the transition of schools to academy status, and through having continuing responsibility for school transport and safeguarding.
4. The impact on small rural schools that could suffer ‘a spiral of decline’ if the networks to support them provided through the local authority were removed.
5. The diminution of the role of local authorities in undertaking school monitoring (holding schools to account) and providing support for school improvement.
6. The impact on vulnerable children with local authorities continuing to have a statutory responsibility for their education, but with very few powers to help them to fulfil that duty with more schools becoming academies.
Therefore, this Council confirms its opposition to forced academisation and joins with others in expressing its concerns about other aspects of the White Paper, including those mentioned above, and will write to the Secretary of State for Education and to all Devon MPs to make its position clear and to ask for the proposed changes to be reconsidered’.
and also that:
“County Council congratulates all those who have successfully lobbied and persuaded the Government to abandon its plans to force all schools to become academies. However County Council continues to have concerns that some schools may still be forced to become academies and resolves to support the LGA, CCN and others in ensuring all schools, which are not yet academies, have the opportunity to take their own “democratic “ decisions about their status and not be forced by Government dictate to convert.”
and having had regard to the advice of the Cabinet set out in Minute 40(b) of 8 June 2016:
Councillor Hart MOVED and Councillor McInnes seconded that the Cabinet’s recommended advice (submitted as a formal amendment) set out at Minute 40(b) be accepted and both Notices of Motion be endorsed.
The amendment was put to the vote and declared CARRIED and subsequently thereafter also declared CARRIED as the substantive motion.