The political position of Catholic schools in the UK

Since posting about Ed Balls support for faith schools on the letters page of the Times a couple of days ago, I have come across a couple of bits of background.

The first is the existence of a group called ACCORD. This group aims to influence government and others to help ensure that places of state funded education are provided for everyone irrespective of race or religion or belief. Its principles include the following:

All state funded schools should:-

Operate admissions policies to take no account of pupils' - or their parents' - religion or belief.
Operate recruitment and employment policies that do not discriminate on grounds of religion or belief.
Follow an objective, fair and balanced syllabus for religious and non-religious beliefs - whether determined by their local authority or by any future national syllabus for curriculum for religious education.
Be made accountable under a single inspection regime for religious education, personal, social, health education and citizenship.
Provide their pupils with inclusive, inspiring and stimulating assemblies in place of compulsory acts of worship.

Whilst my source is "impeccable", and the group is in its early days of existence, I have not yet been able to find an internet presence for this group. The group's principles clearly oppose the historic "dual system" by which Catholic schools in this country operate within the state funded system yet retain control over the delivery and inspection of those aspects of their life that most closely affect their Catholic character. No school could genuinely remain Catholic were it to operate under the regime proposed by ACCORD.

Referring to their last point, I must say that I am not a supporter of the continued requirement for a daily act of public worship in maintained schools (ie schools without a religious designation). So far as I can see, many schools ignore this requirement and, if inspectors comment on their failure to observe it, they happily continue to ignore it. I would much prefer to see it replaced by chaplaincy provision to schools, much along the lines of hospital and port chaplaincy. Another story ...

My second interesting bit of background was to spot the Catholic Education Service's report of their annual Parliamentary reception to celebrate the work of Catholic schools. The full ministerial team turned out from the DCSF, including of course Ed Balls himself. With hindsight, I realise that his letter to the Times was probably only saying what he had said at this reception.

Mr Balls, who was joined later by Schools Minister Jim Knight, told of his respect for the efforts of the Churches, noting that historically, they were the first providers of free public education and emphasised that Catholic schools and colleges are “leading the way” on many key issues, including the promotion of community cohesion. He thanked providers of Catholic education and the CES for all the work we do with the Government to raise standards and create opportunities for all.

Ed Balls is "100% committed" to the continuing of faith schools in Britain

Those readers of this blog who have good memories will recall that I posted in March on the action of the Secretary of State at the Department for Children, Schools and Families with regard to releasing data about schools not complying with the new Admissions Code. If you look at this post, I clearly speculated that Ed Balls had released unverified data about breaches of the Admissions Code the day before representatives of Catholic education were to appear before the Commons Select Committee for the DCSF to be quizzed about the role of Church schools in the state education system. I was certainly correct in saying that the release of that data completely set the agenda for the questioning of Bishop O'Donoghue - this will be very clear to anyone who consults the Parliamentary record.

On Monday of this week (30th June), Cristina Odone wrote an opinion piece in the Times in which she accused Ed Balls of launching a "witch-hunt against faith schools". This refers to the action of the Secretary of State about which I posted. I have to say that, whilst I do not know enough about the detailed activity of the DCSF since Ed Balls took over as Secretary of State to make a definitive judgement, Cristina Odone's attack did appear to come from a well founded evidence base. I certainly have had the feeling that the position of Church schools in the state education system was less secure under the Gordon Brown/Ed Balls regime than it had been previously.

But an interesting letter from Ed Balls appeared in the Times on Friday 4th July. He defended himself against Cristina Odone's accusation of a "witch-hunt", saying that this is "absolute nonsense". After discussing exactly what action he has taken on the Admissions Code, Ed Balls writes:

Secondly, faith schools are popular, successful, thriving and the oldest established part of the schools system - I am 100 per cent committed to that continuing.

So far as I am aware, this is Ed Balls first clearly expressed support for Church schools. And he cannot go more publicly "on the record" than in the letters page of the Times. (Well, I suppose a Commons statement could be argued as being more strongly "on the record" ...)

There is no doubt that faith schools play a leading role in fostering understanding and integration in their communities.

Again, the political import of this is huge. Church schools are most often attacked by their opponents as undermining social integration. Such a view was expressed in the letter from the Director of the National Secular Society, published alongside Ed Ball's letter. Ed Balls has clearly put himself on the record as gain-saying that point of view.

One of the first actions I took in this job was to sign the Faith in the System statement, alongside all the large faith groups. It is the first time any government and all the leading religions in England had ever set out a long-term joint statement about faith schools' wider role in society and the importance of nurturing young people in their own faiths.

It is a little disingenuous for Ed Balls to claim credit for this statement. It was there, ready to go, as a result of the work of his predecessor. He did not really have any choice about signing it, and it has certainly been seen by me as reflective of the position of the pre-Gordon Brown/Ed Balls regime rather than of the present regime. But Ed Balls has now come out and clearly indicated that it is a kind of manifesto for faith schooling that is supported by the more recent regime.

So, if one takes a positive view of this: congratulations to Cristina Odone for "smoking out" such a public commitment from the Secretary of State!

Or, if one takes a less positive view: is this really as good as it looks, or is there some hidden disingenuity that will emerge at a later date?

Regulator joins row

This is the headline for the following little snippet in today's London Times.

"The statistics regulator has written to the Department for Children, Schools and Families about how the publication of secondary school figures this week was handled. Ed Balls, the Children’s Minister, made a statement, based on unverified research, that some schools were breaking the admissions code. "

I haven't been able to find out more, but will keep an eye out!

Disingenuity at the DCSF? (or, how to steer a Select Committee)

The electronic news media - and, no doubt, tomorrow the print media - will feature the announcement from the DCSF (Department for Children, Schools and Families) that some schools have not been complying with the revised School Admissions Code that came into effect for the September 2008 new intakes.

Here is part of the statement by the Secretary of State at DCSF, Ed Balls, with my emphases and my comments (the full statement is on the DCSF website at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/pns/DisplayPN.cgi?pn_id=2008_0046):

"The new School Admissions Code prohibits those criteria and practices that could be used by schools to unfairly select children. For overseas readers, most schools in the UK are comprehensive, that is, they do not select pupils on academic ability. Fairness of admissions criteria is intended to put this into practice. The new Code has been widely welcomed across the education sector and by faith groups ... Note this - all the organisations representing the major providers of Church schools, such as the Catholic Education Service, have strongly supported the new Code, and so are not likely to defend non-compliance

"In January I also asked officials to undertake, for the first time and for internal purposes, an analysis of the published admissions arrangements for 2008 in three local authority areas in order to sample the level of compliance. Having considered the evidence gained from this sample I believe that it is right that it should be made public and acted upon now ... Why? The data is as yet unverified (see below), and the analysis was undertaken for internal purposes. What has happened to make the "internal purpose" now a public one? I may be cynical, but do I detect a (hidden) political motive? Let's read on ....

"Initial evidence across these 3 local authorities suggests that the large majority of schools appear to be complying with the Code, including an overwhelming majority of academies and schools where local authorities are the admission authority. However, a significant minority of schools in our sample appear not to be compliant with the Code, of which a disproportionate number are voluntary aided or foundation schools". Now, lets try and work out what this means. The "large majority" will include some voluntary aided and foundation schools, and the "significant minority" looks as if it includes some schools that are not voluntary aided or foundation schools. So it is quite possible that there are more voluntary aided and foundation schools that are compliant with the new Admission Code than not. Why does this matter? Virtually all Catholic schools are voluntary aided schools, and these schools (and foundation schools) decide their own admissions policies, though these policies must be compliant with the Admissions Code. Other faith schools are sometimes voluntary aided. So, though the Secretary of State has been careful not to refer to the religious character of most voluntary aided schools, he has nevertheless allowed the impression to be created that it is schools with a religious character that are not complying with the Admissions Code.

The DCSF has written to the three sample local authorities, and voluntary aided and foundation schools in their areas that appear not to be compliant with the Code, to verify their information Ah, but I wonder if they are going to verify the situation of those schools that "appear to be complying", which would of course give them a robust data set on that side as well as on the non-compliance side - but still felt able to make today's statement before the information is verified.

The Commons order paper for today just indicates "Ministerial Statements (if any)", and there also seems to have been a rather makeshift media operation in place (the copy of the statement that I have seen through my trade union network is faxed, incomplete and partially illegible; and the statement appears to have found its way on to the DCSF website a good 2-3 hours after the news first hit the broadcast media), suggesting that the presenting of this statement has been rushed to get it out today rather than, say, tomorrow or Thursday or Friday. The electronic and broadcast media attention will therefore be taking place on Tuesday afternoon/evening, with the print media attention on Wednesday morning.

So what is special about Wednesday morning?

Bishop O'Donoghue and others are due to give evidence to a meeting of the Commons Select Committee that shadows the DCSF. The purpose of that meeting? To examine the place of faith schools in the education service. Am I being too cynical?

A last point to note: the Secretary of State has, in his statement, announced a series of steps to ensure an end to some of the non-compliant practices that were identified in the (unverified) sample data. But, notice, none of these steps in any way relate to the religious character or otherwise of the schools concerned. So even if we grant that it is schools with a religious character that are breaching the code (and that I don't grant), the non-compliant practices do not relate to the religious character of the school anyway.