12/06/2011 The Politics Show East Midlands

In the East Midlands, why it city councils of warning schools not to

Apology for the loss of subtitles for 2217 seconds

join the rapid expansion of Hello, I'm John Hess, and coming up

in the East Midlands: The city council that's warning

schools not to become academies. It says they risk losing a vital

lifeline. Is it right? The chairman of the health select

committee, Charnwood MP Stephen Dorrell, gives me his verdict on

the Government's changes to its own health reforms.

Plus, so why should Roy Plumb have to retire as a magistrate at

seventy when he's exactly the same age as Ken Clarke? He has Ali been

in his job for a year, he is doing a super job and there is more pure

First, there were seven last year. But by next year there could be 67

academies in the East Midlands. Now one council is so worried that it's

warning schools not to quit the local authority sector. Chris

Doidge reports. Firing up their imagination.

Children at a Nottinghamshire school which specialises in science.

Now get me the bottle with a copper in it. But until recently, there

was a big cloud hanging over the place. The council was ready to

turn off the gas and shut the school. The local authority had a

look at how they might rationalise the number of schools in the area.

One of the options was too close this score. Looking at the academy

status was one of the options of being able to keep the school open.

Academies give greater control to head teachers and school governors.

Schools are responsible to local governments at the moment, but

academies are responsible to themselves and ultimately to the

government. The cult -- the collision is willing to sweeten the

deal for those who want to switch. But academies are controversial.

They allow schools to select some pupils based on aptitude. Staff

contracts can be changed. And some say breaking the link with councils

will make schools more selfish. But another reason academies are

controversial is the introduction of private companies and other

organisations into state education. Charitable trust E-Act will help

Gedling become an academy and will be paid for its efforts. We will

help them at build on its stance. We will identify places where they

need to improve in order to become more successful and more popular,

and we will secure the future of the school.

This school is being forced to become an Academy in order to

survive. But like this call in Derby, they want to become an

academy and they are getting help from the council to do it.

In February, Derby City Council brought in a policy of "supporting

academy schools and academy trust proposals in Derby, as one part of

the Council's approach to securing a high-performing school system".

Lees Brook school is taking up the council's offer - its application's

just gone in. I am interested in that scene schools to what is best

for the children. It schools and the local authority area wish to go

to academy status, I will give them as much support as they need. If

they wish to stay within the local authority, I will give them that

support as well. But a very different approach is being taken

in Nottingham, where the city council's actively discouraging

schools from leaving its control to become an academy. I do not believe

that all the implications of academy status had been taken into

account by some of the schools. What are the implications and

dangers? At the moment, as a local authority, we have support from

schools, we are not a shackle to schools, which is something that

has been suggested. The local authority picks up the slack in a

lot of different ways, for example, we bear the large cost of

redundancy costs if people take early retirement. We give lots of

specialist advice in things like asbestos too complicated matters of

human resources. His concerns are shared by teachers, some of whom

have taken strike over their plans to convert. Philosophically, we are

opposed to them because they are an attack on quality comprehensive

education. Secondly, we are opposed to them on administrative grounds

because practically, it is far better to deliver education in a

co-ordinated way across a geographical area or rather than

individual schools working on their own in isolation. But some believe

all schools might eventually become academies. I think the sky is the

limit. When I started working in that 11 years ago, we were pleased

to get one project a month. But now I gather there is a new Academy

opening more than one a day in the country. The Prime Minister wants

all schools to become academies, but who knows how long that will

take. One year ago, there were seven old school academies in the

East Midlands. 12 months on, that has gone up to 18. There are now a

further 49 which are planning on becoming an a can of beer. That

could make them a sizable chunk of the schools in the region. --

becoming an academy. Many headteachers remain to be

convinced by the idea of becoming an academy. But with the government

giving its full backing to academies, the days of the council-

run school may be numbered. So are schools taking a real risk

by becoming academies? With me now Nottingham councillor, David Mellen,

who we heard from in Chris's report, and Councillor Philip Owen, the

cabinet member for education on Nottinghamshire County Council.

Philip Owen, the first of all. You're encouraging schools to

become academies, but you're not pointing out the dangers.

policy is to support those schools which want to become academies and

a research carefully all aspects of becoming an academy. We think it is

important to allow schools to have a diversity of governance and that

is our policy. We will continue to support them in whatever they want.

We think it is a good thing. It beat schools want to do it, on the

whole, it is good. David, you can see the political direction of

travel, so why is a Nottingham City not getting on board? We work

closely with the Academy's we have. They were brought in in a different

system with business partners and educational partners. My concern is

that the offer to all schools is taking place in a rush and that not

all of the implications for becoming an academy, taking on that

new status, are being considered. Rush, impatience, you hear that

quite a bit about this government. Are they doing that with education?

I do not think they are. They have been academies for a number of

years. It is not a new policy, but an expanding policy. I think that

if there are pitfalls, they will have been sorted out and realised

by now. But local authorities can give a special support at the

moment you schools if they get into illegal financial difficulties.

Isn't there a danger that they soon it will not have enough money to

support those calls if the cash, the Revenue, is not coming in?

that is not the case. What Academy Schools will do it is to buy in the

support that they need. There can be from the county council or the

city council if they so wish, or it can be from another provider. The

choice is for the score and that is an important issue. It is a choice,

and if schools to decide they want to go down this route, we will work

closely in Nottingham with all schools with all governments

varieties. -- governments. I think as schools together, we have shown

in Nottingham, a huge rise in standards recently when we have

worked together. Why shouldn't authorities like yours keep the

money when the services that could be offered far more cheaply by

other operators? At the moment, the schools that remain in local

authority control do not have a choice. They do. The whole phrase

local authority control is a bit misleading because schools have

freedom in the way they buy their services, but they choose, most of

them, to buy their services back from local authority because they

know that they are geared for schools in the City and they have a

say in how they are delivered. it is turning the concept on his

head, in effect? I think it is, but the possibility is that a lot of

independent schools in an area could be a recipe for chaos in

terms of admissions, place planning, the whole way that education to

citizens of Nottingham and the family is in Nottingham is provided.

Let me put the same question to you, Philip. When Blair introduced this

idea initially, it was to help failing schools but now it is about

encouraging sex assault course. -- successful schools. It is about

driving up standards and bringing in their expertise. But what about

those schools that become academies and the issue of admissions policy.

If those schools are oversubscribed, how does the school decide who they

are going to take him? Are we in effect seeing a return to selection

at 11? We are not seen that because academies, like all other schools,

have to abide by the school's admissions code. And there is a --

an adjudicator if there are questions Amy be booting a code.

Nottingham, there isn't any selection in that way. We work

closely with our academies and we have got good relationships, but

the governance structure of an academy does not allow

accountability to local people. Not in the same way. These are

independent trust governing bodies and of course parents have the

choice to send their parents -- children there or not, but there is

accountability through the council as well. They -- this argument is

quite illusory. Local authorities have not had direct control over

the scores for getting on for 25 years. When local schools were

introduced, this argument was put ahead then. Thank you to you both.

David Cameron has made five pledges in an attempt to reassure voters

and NHS staff about his health service reforms. Will they do the

trick? One politician who should know is Charnwood MP, Stephen

Dorrell, a former health secretary himself and now chairman of the

Commons health select committee. At Westminster, I asked him if those

pledges are enough, or would he add any more?

I do not think it is a question of adding to it. It is a question of

carrying through a commitment to maintain an NHS free at the point

of delivery, but critically maintaining commitment to ensure

that the NHS changes in order to deliver improving standards and

improving efficiency. Resources are going to be tighter and that does

require changes in the way the care system is delivered. But the Prime

Minister was a rattled by a controversy over the original

proposals and in turn losing the confidence of voters. A government

that listens when a proposal needs to be refined, that is good

government. What the Prime Minister launched in the listening exercise

was a commitment to ensure that all the expertise available through the

can local community in -- clinical community is brought to bear to

ensure that we have the whole structure which is best able to

deliver care for patients. It is the care for patients that is key.

Politically, it was always a high- stress -- high risk strategy.

you say high risk strategy, will we are committing to doing is ensuring

that the health service changes. Sometimes it raises questions in

people's minds, but the truth is that all of our lives, things are

changing. In the health service, change is being driven by new

medicines, new techniques, new expectations. Change is a fact of

life and what we have to ensure is that the care that is delivered to

patients reflects the best and most up-to-date practices. Too often in

our health care system, it is fragmented. Separate parts of

health and social care of do not Tote -- talk to each other and they

do not relate to each other in the way that they have to if we are

going to deliver the best quality and the most efficient forms of

health care. That is the kind of change the Prime Minister is

advocating. I think he is right. But you also advocating greater

work to improve the productivity of the NHS, to release those funds.

Where can that be found? It has become commonplace to almost that

people are sent from the primary care centres to the community to

the social services. The systems do not talk to each other so elderly

people end up answering the same set of questions several times over.

That is not only very bad care for the elderly person concerned, it is

also extremely wasteful. Making those systems work more efficiently,

more integrated care, is both better care of and more efficient

care. The is that something you have seen on the ground in your own

constituency? Absolutely. This is not something that is separate or

exists in one part of the country and not another. There are

differences, of course, but the separation which currently exists

between the GP service, the Community Nurse Service, the social

services and all of those, and the hospital service, that is endemic

in our system and that is what need urgently to be addressed. In terms

of an issue that is on your doorstep as well, the issue of

Glenfield Hospital. What are your concerns about the proposals?

not an issue around the hospital as a whole, it is an issue around

child heart surgery which is delivered there. This is a very

specific specialism. It is delivered in nine centres around

the country at the moment. It has been -- there has been a

departmental professional review to look at the standards and

efficiencies in each of their centres. But if the review goes

against the Children's Heart Unit, what then?

What am not in favour of his local institutions arguing against each

other and patient care suffering as a consequence. One final thought:

It was noticeable when you were interviewed by David Dimbleby on

Question Time, he prompted that you could be the ideal next Secretary

of State for state. Would you welcome back? I was elected at the

beginning of Parliament to beat the chair of the Health Select

Committee. I stood for the post because I wanted to do it for the

lifetime of Parliament and that remains the position. Added to

which, there is not a vacancy anyway. I think that is a no.

Now we're certainly not ageist on the Politics Show. But is the

Government? Kettering MP, Philip Hollobone seems to think so.

Why do magistrates have to retire at the age of 70 when the Lord

Chancellor who appoints them is 71 The point I would make to my

honourable friend is that it is important, and I speak as someone

whose mother served as a magistrate further breeder groups, but you get

turnover in the magistracy is so mauled -- new people come in. He

has only been in his job for a year and he is doing a superb job. There

is plenty more fuel in his tank. Now if there's one person who

agrees with Philip Hollobone it's certainly Roy Plumb. He's been

forced to retire as a magistrate because he's 70. And he's not happy.

In your case, Roy, the age distinction seems even more absurd.

Absolutely. I have the same birth there as Ken Clarke. I am born on

the same day, in the same year, at the same hospital, in the same ward.

I rather suspect that we have an equivalent amount of equality.

is the justice secretary and you have been forced to retire as a

magistrate. Had the feel? I'm not happy, I did not want to retire. I

did write to the listers bash at the Ministry of Justice and to Ken

Clarke when he had been appointed. -- I did write to the Ministry of

I have spoken to him about the subject and his response was that

if we had any ideas about what would improve the prospect of

ageism and doing away with it, he did admit that ageism was something

that he would reconsider. He would have another look at the issues. I

wrote to him and never got a reply. You can see the problem you have

got because the Prime Minister is not convinced. The Magistrates'

Association have told us that they agree with the prime minister.

may agree with him, but maybe if the Prime Minister was covered by

the same rules that I'm covered by, perhaps the MPs would -- or to

retire at 70. Have you got more fuel in your tank? Absolutely!

David Cameron and the Magistrates' Association say that that

retirement age is to get more blurred into the magistrates'

system. Have they got a point was no idea not disagree with that.

There is a reason for getting new blood into the magistracy, but at

the same time the experienced magistrates would be offering

absolutely ideal experienced support for the new magistrates to

get through the courts system. where does this campaign of yours

go? You have contacted your local MP. The I have. All I can say is

that I'm really hoping that someone will at long last see the light. I

am still in contact with the government departments. All of whom

are either do not respond or respond in a rather bland fashion.