Ministers have been warned that the government’s Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill will strike at the principle of parent choice, by creating powers that could prevent good schools from expanding.
Shadow schools minister Neil O’Brien objected to a clause in the bill to allow the Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) to set a school’s pupil admission number where it has upheld a complaint about that number.
During a bill committee hearing yesterday, he highlighted , which warns that these plans could “limit the ability of popular schools to grow”.
‘Clause strikes at school choice’
He added: “This clause strikes at one of the most foundational reforms of the last 40 years. It strikes at school choice by making the size of the school not a matter for the parents’ choosing and voting with their feet but instead making it a matter for local councillors and the schools adjudicator.
“If you strike at parental choice then you strike at one of the most powerful engines of school improvement.”
Schools minister Catherine McKinnell addressed the clause covering the OSA’s ability to set the published admissions number of a school in cases where the adjudicator has upheld an objection to that number.
She said that it “provides an important backstop to ensure that all children are able to access the school place where they can achieve and thrive”.
Mr O’Brien and former education secretary Damian Hinds also asked whether the powers could prevent new schools from opening, or could close schools if the OSA sets a school’s pupil admission number (PAN) at zero.
Mr O’Brien said: “There is nothing in this bill to stop the local authority applying to the adjudicator to stop the first year PAN of a new school.”
In response, Ms McKinnell said opposition concerns were “hypothetical” and that she could never see a case where an adjudicator would set a PAN at zero in order to close a school or prevent a new one from opening.
She said that adjudicators were very skilled and experienced and that she expected “most issues to be resolved locally through engagement and collaboration”.
Expansion ‘where that’s right’
Ms McKinnell added: “I can reassure the honourable member that, as I said already, this government supports good schools expanding where that’s right for the local community.”
The DfE’s impact assessment about its plans says the OSA’s ability to set the pupil admission number would include scenarios where the number is “set too low and the local authority needs the school to offer more places to support demand”; it would also apply “where the local authority is trying to manage a surplus of places in the area, and a school’s PAN is set at a level which creates viability issues for another local school which needs to remain viable for current and future place-planning needs”.
Mr O’Brien later told Tes: “This is a massive step away from the principles of improvement being driven by parental choice and the expansion of good schools.
“The government’s own impact assessment says that it will create situations in which parents don’t get the choice of school they wanted and good schools are prevented from expanding.
He added: “It will create a huge amount of very complicated local politics and conflict, yet so far the government is unwilling to write even the principles of how these conflicts are to be managed into the bill.”
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