Consultation on the Improvement in Scottish Education Bill

Supporting Best Performance in Schools

1. If Scotland is to have a world class education system based on consistently high performance in all schools, it is necessary that every school performs at the highest level that it can. It is important that arrangements are in place to ensure that schools or parts of schools do not drift into poor performance over time.

2. Inspection is one way to ensure that standards are maintained. However, on a day-to-day basis it is schools and local authorities who are in the best position to determine how well a school is doing and whether it is properly fulfilling the potential of its pupils. Where that is not the case, action to correct it must be swift and effective. When how to achieve the best is known, second best cannot be tolerated. It is for schools and authorities to take this responsibility and Scottish Ministers have started from the presumption that any new duties in this area should fall on local authorities.

3. The specific context for this new duty is the key role of the education authority to monitor progress and to stimulate, support and guide schools to ensure that satisfactory progress is made and sustained. This activity should provide the important early warning signals as to whether there are problems in a school which represent, or might lead, to performance tailing off.

4. Good performance is not just about examination results and simple comparisons between schools. Nor should attention be focussed only on schools in difficult areas or circumstances. Schools with many apparent advantages in their pupil mix and the areas they serve may not be achieving as well as they should. Schools with ostensibly similar circumstances can exhibit significant differences in achievement. Such comparisons should form part of schools' and authorities' self-evaluation processes.

How the Provision Would Work

5. Each local authority would be placed under a specific duty to identify the criteria which they will use to identify schools that are falling behind or have yet to achieve the standards of which they are capable. It would be for the authority to determine what criteria are appropriate and necessary based on their experience and local circumstances. The arrangements would include monitoring procedures and the evaluation criteria that would be used.

6. The underlying objective would be to prevent chronic or sustained underachievement occurring, rather than responding to it once it has occurred. No single measure is likely to be a reliable trigger - a complete picture of the school's performance would be necessary. A range of factors would be important.

7. Scottish Ministers propose that each local authority should be under a duty to take effective steps to address weaknesses in schools where the authority is satisfied that standards of performance are unacceptably low. In doing so, the authority would be able to allocate such resources as it considered necessary.

8. Scottish Ministers will develop further guidance in discussion with authorities on the procedures and criteria that authorities might decide to adopt. This guidance would suggest factors which an authority might use to identify and address any underperformance occurring and offer advice on arrangements to monitor schools.

9. These arrangements are intended to make clear that in the first instance the responsibility for ensuring that schools perform effectively rests with schools and authorities. Ministers expect that those responsibilities will be discharged effectively. The monitoring and support arrangements authorities have in place will be a key part of the approach to independent, external evaluation of education authorities as set out elsewhere in this document. However, in the unlikely event that any authority fails to put in place proper mechanisms to support a school which is not performing adequately, Ministers will use existing provisions in the 1980 Act to require them to do so.

Devolved School Management

1. Devolved School Management (DSM) is the system whereby education authorities pass aspects of financial management responsibility on to individual schools. Each school receives an annual budget which allows them to purchase items such as furniture and equipment and to arrange minor repairs and maintenance. They may also have responsibility for management decisions on other financial issues such as staff related costs. At school level, decisions on DSM are taken by the headteacher in consultation with the School Board and parents.

2. Each education authority has developed its own scheme for devolving financial management to schools. The schemes vary from authority to authority in the extent of expenditure devolved - although all exceed the 80% identified in Scottish Office guidance, some significantly so - and the restrictions placed on financial practice. For instance, in some authorities, schools have the power to carry forward into the next year amounts of money not spent during the current year or, for some types of spend, to transfer money between budgets. This gives schools much more flexibility in dealing with their priorities.

One authority has a Devolved School Management scheme that allows schools to carry forward an underspend of up to 10% or an overspend of up to 5 % of the school budget into the next financial year.

One school used this flexibility to carry forward savings from one year to purchase new materials for the library. Without this flexibility the school would not have been able to afford the new materials.

4. DSM has been well received by headteachers and School Boards. It is fundamental to schools taking responsibility for their own improvement. Schools are able to respond quickly to changing needs and priorities and have increased control and responsibility over financial matters. This has a positive effect on morale and results in the more efficient use of resources.

5. The Scottish Executive wishes to build on this framework. There are a number of ways in which DSM could be extended to give schools greater control over their budgets. The options include;

• Increasing the percentage of school level expenditure which is to be devolved.
• Extending the range of items of expenditure which are devolved.
• Removing or relaxing restrictions placed by education authorities on virement and carry forward.

6. With increasing experience schools and authorities are developing approaches which ensure that managerial decision-making is devolved, not just the financial administration of budgetary matters. It is important that further development is focussed on this objective. The extent of expenditure devolved above the present 80% may best be left for agreement between schools and authorities - although the Scottish Executive believes there is a strong case for devolving a greater proportion of resources. Ensuring greater delegation within decision making frameworks is however more important.

7. Targeting Excellence proposed that DSM should be placed on a statutory basis. Many respondents to the White Paper expressed the concern that this would cause the necessary local flexibility to be lost. Scottish Ministers acknowledge this concern and have no wish to reduce the flexibility at local level. They do however consider that there may, on balance, be value in requiring that all authorities should continue to have in place arrangements for DSM and for that reason would propose to impose a simple duty that each authority should have such a scheme. In due course the Scottish Executive would intend to review, in partnership with local authorities, the arrangements for DSM with the intention of ensuring that decision taking frameworks are fully consistent with the expectation that schools take responsibility for their own improvement. Further guidance could be developed where that would be helpful. Ministers are particularly interested to hear views on this issue.

Inspection of the Education Functions of Local Authorities

1. Local authorities have the key responsibility for creating a framework and sustaining the culture for continuous improvement in schools. Ministers' proposals will reinforce the responsibility of authorities focusing their attention on action to support and challenge schools to promote excellence and attain higher standards. The new duties to be placed on authorities relating to improvement also reflect this responsibility.

The Value of Independent External Evaluation

2. The procedures and processes that authorities adopt to ensure that they continue to provide the highest level of support to schools and to their communities are important. The importance of such systems is recognised by the Best Value Initiative under which authorities are required to evaluate and monitor the services they provide.

3. Ministers consider that regular independent, external evaluation forms an important component that can support the improvement agenda. Arrangements are already in place for the inspection of schools. There is value in extending these arrangements to include the inspection of the education functions of local authorities.

The New Powers

4. Ministers propose to seek new powers for the regular inspection of the education functions of local authorities. This will allow external evaluation of the effectiveness of the management and quality assurance of educational provision within the council. It will also provide the basis for identifying and sharing good practice in these key areas and offer an independent assessment of where things can be improved. At the same time, if weaknesses are identified they should be addressed. The inspection process will provide an opportunity to offer support and assistance to authorities.

5. The proposed powers will allow for three types of inspection;

Regular periodic inspections - this will allow Ministers to put a programme of inspections in place under which all authorities are inspected at least once in the next five years.

Thematic inspections these inspections will focus on a particular aspect of the education functions of a local authority or group of local authorities, such as the arrangements for pre-school provision or the implementation of the New Community Schools initiative.

Special inspections - these inspections would only take place where there were serious concerns regarding the management of the education service in a particular authority. Under the proposed Code of Practice (discussed below) Ministers would make a statement to the Parliament explaining why the inspection had been commissioned.

How Inspection Will Work

6. What is inspected and how inspections are conducted are important. Inspection must be independent and it must be rigorous. However, to be of maximum effectiveness it must operate within an agreed framework. Directors of Education will be asked to work in partnership with HMI and the Scottish Executive Education Department to develop criteria for inspections. Under the provisions included in the draft Bill Ministers will prepare a Code of Practice setting out how the inspection of authorities will be approached. Ministers would intend to use this power at the earliest opportunity and a copy of the draft Code follows this section. Ministers will be interested in the views of authorities and others on the draft Code.

The Role of HMI

7. As a matter of policy Ministers would propose to delegate the management and co-ordination of inspections of authorities to Her Majesty's Senior Chief Inspector. HMI already conducts inspections of schools and other educational establishments. Ministers consider that HMI is uniquely placed to provide the overview of the quality of provision, and its management based on their existing experience and expertise. The Code of Practice will set out how HMI will be expected to approach this task. Ministers will ensure that the inspection process itself is reviewed by key stakeholders.

8. The inspection of education authorities has already begun on a non-statutory basis leading to 2 published reports. HMI has taken the lead role but representatives from the Accounts Commission have also participated in the process as part of their responsibilities in evaluating the success of the Best Value policies of councils. The draft inspection guidelines and the performance indicators, which have guided these first voluntary inspections, have been produced by HMI in collaboration with the Accounts Commission and representatives of education authorities. Ministers will ensure that the further development of this framework is conducted on a similar basis to ensure a shared approach to establishing standards of service which are demanding but achievable.

9. Scottish Ministers believe that the collaborative approach adopted by HMI, both in the conduct of inspections and the production of draft inspection guidelines and performance indicators, is a positive and healthy continuation of an approach which has served Scotland's schools well and will continue to do so. The approach provides the necessary measure of accountability for the delivery of a key public service and builds on consensus about the standards of service to be expected. As such, the delegation of the inspection function to HMSCI would require that other professionals would be involved in the inspection of each authority and that at least one member of each team was an education professional from a different authority.

Follow-up to Inspection

10. Scottish Ministers wish to give further consideration to arrangements to ensure rapid and effective action on points identified by inspections. At present the draft Code of Practice proposes that the local authority should prepare an action plan to be published with the report and that evaluation of progress would be through a further visit by an inspection team. Ministers would welcome views on whether, and how, this process could be improved. One option might be to adapt the arrangements recommended by the Commission on Local Government and the Scottish Parliament (the McIntosh Report) for assessing and monitoring local authorities' self-review of their management of business and working practices. This could involve a role for a panel of advisors appointed by Ministers jointly with CoSLA to review the proposed action plan and its implementation, prior to the follow-up inspection.