Leora Cruddas CBE, Chief Executive, CST
The first of my blog posts focuses on what 2023 might bring in terms of policy priorities for schools and trusts. The second takes a longer view looking at the macro-political, social and economic trends beyond domestic policy that are pertinent to trust leaders as public sector leaders.
Cost pressures, uncertainty and funding sufficiency remain a concern for most in the sector as we start the new calendar year. We have seen a proportionately significant investment in education through the Autumn statement – and this funding will start reaching our schools and trusts from April 2023, but the macro-economic issues continue to create uncertainty and budgetary pressure. This is why CST is developing an economic narrative to put around our school funding analysis.
In domestic policy, the new ministerial team at the DfE has yet to make important decisions about the direction of travel in the eighteen or so months before the next election. The tail-end of parliament is not the right time for big policies, but we can expect the government to pursue at least the following five priorities.
1. SEND review
In November 2022, the Education Secretary Gillian Keegan has confirmed that she and the Minister for Children, Families and Wellbeing Claire Coutinho would be taking time to listen to children and parents, sector groups and teaching support staff before publishing a full response in the form of a plan to the SEND and Alternative Provision green paper early in 2023.
In a letter to the sector she said: "This plan will reflect the feedback we have heard throughout the consultation and be clear on Government’s next steps. It will focus on delivery; outlining the immediate steps we will be taking, and how we will ensure long-term sustainable systemic change.”
This commitment to the SEND review is good news, but I worry about how much progress can be made without legislation.
CST, working with Ambition Institute, continues to pursue the case for greater dignity for pupils and indeed adults with learning disability as set out in Ben Newmark and Tom Rees’s compelling Bridge to the Future Paper, A Good Life. We are working across the political spectrum to develop these ideas.
2. Regulatory and commissioning review
In December 2022, the Secretary of State confirmed that the Schools Bill would not be progressing in this parliamentary session. She made clear that she remains committed to the important objectives that underpinned the Bill and the policy positions in the White Paper. She said a lot of the Schools White Paper is being implemented and does not require legislation.
The important message here is that we should not conflate the White Paper and the Schools Bill. The now defunct bill only ever dealt with some of the technical details related to academy standards and new powers of intervention.
The regulatory and commissioning review is now focusing how we define, measure and judge trust strength, building on the principles in the Schools White Paper:
- The Department’s overall approach to commissioning.
- The Department’s work on developing and iterating the strong trust definition – CST published an influential discussion paper on the strong trust definition prior to the publication of the White Paper.
- What metrics should be used to support each part of this definition now and in the future.
- How any judgements made can be nuanced and risk-based, reflecting a balanced picture of performance.
- How decisions about trust growth should be made.
CST continues to work closely with Ministers, regulators, the inspectorate and senior civil servants on behalf of the trust sector.
We believe our original conceptualisation of the elements of a strong trust remains more ambitious than the DfE’s definition. There is very strong alignment between the elements, but there are points of difference. CST’s working definition begins to pose a set of questions for Trusts to answer rather than pin down the definition so that trusts have no room to give creative and innovative expression to what it means to be a strong trust. We believe that that there is not a single way of being a strong trust but that we can work towards a common definition of what good looks like. The strong trust definition must not become a strait jacket that hampers innovation or limits the autonomy of trusts.
3. Clarity on the White Paper and priorities for the remaining term of government
The government has provided some indications of what its ambition for the system should be. But it must now outline what it wants to achieve in the remaining term of this government, including the Schools White Paper and ambition for all schools to be part of a trust.
This should not be piecemeal policy as we have seen in the Prime Minister’s announcement about young people continuing to learn maths to age 18. We need a coherent approach to policy making which sets out this government’s intentions over the next eighteen months, including how the system will be supported and regulated.
4. Teacher and support staff recruitment and retention crisis
I would hope that we see a focus on the teacher and support staff recruitment and retention crisis.
The headlines data from ITT census published in December 2022 is that the government met its overall recruitment target for primary and secondary by 101 percent, but it recruited only 82 percent of the secondary teachers needed. In physics, just 22 percent of the necessary teachers were recruited, down from 45 percent in 2020. The picture for special schools is even more dire. And of course recruitment and retention of support staff is affecting schools and trusts all over the country.
CST has said to the DfE that we would expect to see a full analysis of recruitment and retention challenges across the whole workforce, including support staff and a comprehensive strategy for addressing the severe issues that face us.
5. Industrial relations and public sector pay
We have had confirmation that the government intends to introduce a bill in Parliament in the coming weeks to take the power to ensure that public services will have to maintain a basic function and deliver minimum safety levels during industrial action. This will focus first on ‘blue light’ services.
For the other sectors covered in the bill, which includes education, the government has said that it expects to continue to reach voluntary agreements and would only look to consult on minimum safety levels should these voluntary positions not be agreed.
We believe that this bill, if it is passed into legislation, would have significant implications for employers and to this end, will be seeking legal opinion once the bill is laid.
It is interesting that the Labour Leader has said that the Labour Party would repeal this legislation if they were to win the next election.
Manifesto preparation
Both political parties will be starting to develop manifesto priorities. CST is working with both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party as they start to develop their manifesto policy proposals.
In the next of this blog series, I will be considering the longer-term horizon in terms of policy and its impact on the work we do as public leaders.
The CST Blog welcomes perspectives from a diverse range of guest contributors. The opinions expressed in blogs are the views of the author(s), and should not be read as CST guidance or CST’s position.
