13 October 2006
You can't put a price on education – but you can do a lot to narrow the gap between the best- and worst-off pupils. Tash Shifrin reports on efforts to involve the private sector in raising school standards
'Education, education, education' – Tony Blair's famous soundbite might not be what he is best remembered for when he finally quits Downing Street. But this issue looks set to remain a touchstone for Labour.
At last month's party conference, Blair's would-be successor, Gordon Brown, sought to claim the agenda as his own – 'my priority for the future' – with a pledge apparently aimed at soothing the running sore of the British education system: the divide between state and private schools. 'We cannot tolerate second-best investment in our schools,' he told conference delegates. 'Step by step, we will raise investment in state school pupils from £5,500 per pupil now to today's level for private school pupils – £8,000 a year.'
Education unions welcomed the announcement, with National Union of Teachers general secretary Steve Sinnott calling it 'exactly the kind of vision we want from this government'.
But the promise is hardly new: it echoes an earlier commitment made in the Budget. And what it will mean in reality is unclear.
Alissa Goodman, deputy director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, points out that there is no set timescale for this boost in spending. She calculates that an extra £17bn would have to be pumped into schools, something that would take 'a big tax hike' to do in one go. If spending per pupil was raised in line with the growth in gross domestic product, it would take until 2024 to reach the target £8,000 figure, she says.
'It's not a moving target, so if the private sector spends more, it wouldn't necessarily close the gap,' she adds. Increases in education spending per pupil under Blair have largely been matched in the private school sector, preserving the differential, she notes.
But although Brown's aspiration does not add up to the equal spending his rhetoric suggested, Goodman says: 'I think as an expression of intention it does have political weight. Strictly, a pledge without a timetable is not very meaningful, but it may be that spending commitments follow to substantiate that pledge.'
Perhaps another part of the significance of Brown's announcement lies in what he did not say. It seems clear that he is no more likely than public school-educated Blair to abolish or attack private schools.
Instead, Labour remains committed to a 'mixed economy' in public service provision. The government has promoted links between state and private schools as well as a big increase in wider private sector activity in the state school sector and a new 'diversity of providers' in the form of different types of school.
Richard Brooks, associate director for public services at the Institute for Public Policy Research, says: 'One of the powerful intellectual bases of the New Labour government has been the idea that you should not focus on who owns or provides a service but on the outcomes the service achieves.'
The role of the private sector under Labour started with building schools under the Private Finance Initiative and providing services to schools and local education authorities. Now private sector sponsorship is integral to the process of becoming a specialist school and, in turn, to the development of city academies – state schools where private sponsors have a major say in the general running and the curriculum.
The Education and Inspections Bill, now in its later parliamentary stages, is in line with the government's broader public sector policy, with local authorities becoming primarily commissioners rather than providers of state-funded services. It will also create a new type of school – a trust school – run by businesses, charities or faith groups acting through a charitable trust, which will own the school's assets.
The state versus private debate is no longer the stuff of tit-for-tat party sniping. David Cameron's conference speech to the Conservatives focused on faith schools and the importance of ability streaming, rather than on the relative merits of private schools or Labour's structural shake-up.
And the centrality of the private sector in Brown's planning is revealed in the fact that his education spending pledge appears to factor in private sector investment under the PFI. Goodman says the baseline per pupil figures quoted by Brown 'include current spending – pay, consumables and so on – capital spending purely through the public sector, and capital spending through the PFI'.
The world of local government is adjusting to the mixed economy model too. Local Government Association adviser Brenda Bignold says: 'The LGA view is that the easiest way is to look forward rather than back.' What the LGA is most concerned about is that local authorities should be able to work with all the state-maintained schools in their area – whether community schools run under the aegis of the local authority, city academies or trust schools.
'That is a key lobbying view,' says Bignold. 'If there is a concern, it is not so much who's involved [in running the schools] but whether all the schools are working together.'
But Labour's attempted melding of private and public sectors has proceeded less smoothly elsewhere. Backbench Labour MPs, unions and campaigners have opposed what many see as moves to privatise state schooling.
Meanwhile, the private schools – now seen as another element in the mixed economy of schools – no longer fear the axe from Labour. But there are signs that they are finding the government embrace just a little too friendly and perhaps not business-like enough.
Earlier this year, the Department for Education and Skills announced £3.4m to back partnership arrangements that will give around 50,000 state school pupils lessons from private school teachers. But Andrew Boggis, chair of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference of independent schools, last month warned: 'If the mixed economy is to become reality, we need serious discussions with government involving really serious money.' He called for 'a serious and properly funded service agreement... paying the market rate for what we have to offer'.
The partnership scheme between private and state schools is a fringe affair, however, compared with the services market, which covers everyone and everything from advisory services and supply teachers to school dinners. And it is dwarfed by the economic scale of the Building Schools for the Future programme to rebuild or renew every secondary school in England within 15 years. This was allocated £2.2bn for 2005/06, with £1.2bn of this provided under the PFI. Nor does it approach the political importance of the flagship city academies scheme or the structural changes outlined in the Education and Inspections Bill.
It is the academies programme – under which 46 out of a target of 200 schools have been opened – that is likely to keep controversy over the role of the private sector bubbling.
The National Union of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers produced a report earlier this year examining various areas of private sector involvement in schools. It concluded that there was a role for businesses, says general secretary Chris Keates, 'but that should not involve them in actual governance and management of public sector education'.
The union offers a mixed verdict: broadly happy with some areas of private sector work but with some concerns about the PFI, both because of delivery problems and the fact that the private company retains ownership of the buildings over the term of a lengthy contract.
The fire is reserved for academies. 'Involvement of the private sector in the management of state-funded schools such as academies has potential and actual adverse and retrograde consequences for teachers' pay and conditions of service, equality of opportunity, union recognition, democratic accountability, value for public money and raising standards of education,' the report says. 'The schools with private company sponsors meet to a significant degree the criteria for the definition of privatisation of state education provision.'
Keates asks: 'Why does someone want to make a contribution to education by taking over and running a school? If it's genuine philanthropy, I don't see why they want to run the school and own the building.'
The Department for Education and Skills denies that the p-word applies. 'We are not talking about privatising state schools,' a spokesman says. 'Many businesses welcome the opportunity to engage with and raise aspirations in their local community by sharing expertise and skills with local schools and contributing to policy development. They also welcome engagement with young people who are going to be the employees of the future.'
But the NASUWT is not alone in finding academies the difficult pill to swallow in the wash of private sector involvement. Prominent education campaigner and school governor Fiona Millar says: 'Academies are completely different. We're talking about the ownership and governance of a public institution by organisations that are completely unaccountable.'
She cites concerns that academies have boosted their exam results by channelling children into vocational qualifications that do not require mathematics or English. She says: 'I think there are questions to be asked about what sort of curriculum they're offering kids.'
But the academies' independent status prevents parents getting full information about the schools, which she suggests could be little more than 'shiny new secondary moderns offering a possibly second-class education to kids'.
By contrast, Sir Michael Wilshaw, principal of Mossbourne Academy, Hackney, is enjoying the academy structure. He says that not only has it given him an award-winning building designed by the Richard Rogers Partnership, but that unlike working with a local education authority, he now works with a sponsor with no political axe to grind.
Sponsors can get 'very close' to a school and champion it, unlike LEAs with 100 schools on the books, Wilshaw says. His academy's sponsor, Seabourne Group life president Sir Clive Bourne, 'sees his job as championing the school any way he can – he's very good at encouraging other sponsors and very good at PR, selling the school to other organisations'. Asked about any disadvantages, Wilshaw says 'none whatsoever'.
The strange thing about the academy row is that big business does not seem to have been clamouring for its new role. The IPPR's Brooks notes: 'Interestingly, there hasn't been a lot of interest from the private sector.'
Although a few major firms – such as support services contractor Amey and electronics retailer Dixons (now DSG International) – have backed academies – the list of sponsors is filled out with church bodies, city livery companies and individual business people, who in some cases have stamped their own mark on the schools.
Concerns about the transfer of governance to academy sponsors reached a peak over the schools sponsored by evangelical Christian businessman Sir Peter Vardy through his Emmanuel Foundation, where creationism has found a place in the classroom.
The individual nature of the sponsorship is less controversial but clear elsewhere in some of the schools' names: Mossbourne is named after its sponsor's father Moss. In other areas of London, Conservative peer and former carpet tycoon Lord Harris of Peckham sponsors three academies that bear his name.
At the CBI, principal policy adviser Neil Carberry is anxious to stress the breadth of the private sector's involvement in education, ranging from its work with the DfES on national strategies and interventions in failing local education authorities to PFI contracts and school support services. 'There's been a steady development of the use of competition in terms of deciding who provides certain services under Labour – that's a good thing,' he says. 'The competitive process drives up the performance of all providers.'
The CBI has long been an advocate for what Carberry calls 'a competitive supply market', but he adds: 'It's important to distinguish between business as a supplier... and the sponsorship model of academies.'
Carberry is supportive of businesses that get involved through their 'discretionary spend' or corporate responsibility programmes, but makes it clear that academies are not a central interest for the sector. 'We welcome that commitment on their part, but businesses are generally more focused on delivering their core competencies,' he says.
It seems strange that the government should risk controversy over a role for the private sector that businesses themselves are not rushing to fulfil. Keates argues that 'the time is right to pause and examine' the situation, 'and perhaps start having some nationally agreed criteria for the involvement of private firms in public services'.
Blair, ever keen to step up the pace of reform, is not known for his pauses. But the prime minister is finally heading towards the exit. Who will follow him is still unknown. And although his farewell party conference speech included a few words on his flagship academy programme, Millar notes that Education Secretary Alan Johnson's speech did not.
What he did say, though, was that private schools should open up their 'excellent facilities' to 'all children in the community – surely this is what their charitable status is for?'
Like Brown's pledge on state school spending, it was a nice populist touch. And perfectly in tune with the pragmatic mood of the times. l
Private entry: firms involved in education
The range of companies now at work in or around state schools is huge. The biggest players are the construction giants involved — with varying success — in Private Finance Initiative schemes. Mowlem, Amey, WS Atkins and Jarvis have all been there, while Balfour Beatty Capital Projects and infrastructure investment group Innisfree have set up a partnership, Transform Schools, specifically to work on school building projects.
The Building Schools for the Future initiative has also boosted technology companies, with firms such as Research Machines and Ramesys involved.
Major services contractors are also at work, including Initial Rentokil and Compass Group subsidiary Scolarest, which both provide school meals, while specialist firm Cambridge Education Associates and Education Leeds — a partnership between Leeds City Council and the Compass Group — are among those providing local education authority services.
The academies have attracted individual business people as sponsors, along with firms such as Amey and Dixons (now DSG International), and not-for-profit foundations. The list includes Alec Reed, chair of Reed Executive, the Corporation of London, the United Learning Trust, the Haberdashers' Livery Company, the Roman Catholic Diocese of Southwark and the Church of England.
Those looking to run new trust schools include the not-for-profit CfBT Education Trust, KPMG and Microsoft.
PFoct2006
