150 year-old Committee system to be abolished

Posted on June 27, 2025 by John Howson

Earlier this week the government announced the end to Council Committees as a decision-making process within local government, requiring all councils to move to a Leader and Cabinet model. Fortunately, scrutiny committees will still be permitted. Written statements – Written questions, answers and statements – UK Parliament

So, it will be a Labour government that will finally ends the governance of state education by Committee. For over a century, the Education Committee, comprised of councillors and other persons, usually representing the main faith groups with schools in the area and ‘persons with experience in education’ was the mainstay of policy-making for the nation’s state schools, and up to the early 1990s further and public sector higher education as well.

Indeed, my first appointment to a Council was to the Education Committee, as one of the persons of experience. In that role, I was appointed to Oxfordshire’s Education Committee, and one of its sub-committees in the 1990s. I served until the County moved to a Leader and Cabinet model at the end of the decade. Some 20 years after that original appointment, I became the Cabinet Member covering the education portfolio in the same county.

This move to ban committees is a curious one at the present time when so many councils do not have a majority for one Party, and are run by coalitions. Managing coalitions in the cabinet system makes it harder for each Party to have an input into all portfolios, except at the level of cabinet. I suspect it has made cabinet meetings longer when there are differences between the Parties within the Cabinet. The alternative is that difficult decisions are dropped, rather than dealt with.

The cabinet model is also bad news for back bench councillors, especially where there is a large majority for one Party, because other than the scrutiny function, where they may sit as the occasional substitute, they will have little or no formal role in decision-making. The committee system did allow greater participation from councillors, even if it was slower at reaching decisions.

My guess is that even when formal committees are banned, unofficial groups will still be formed to help cabinet members. They may be Cabinet Committees; task and finish groups for particular projects or even unofficial committees such as the Corporate Parenting Panel of councillors from all Parties that was revived during my time as cabinet member.

The real tragedy of this move is that it represents a further nail in the coffin or local democracy. Committees meet in public for the most part, and that means there can be public input before a decision is made. The risk now is that decisions may be scrutinised after they have been made, but less so before being agreed.

One solution is to ensure that there is widespread consultation before decisions are made, as has just taken place in Oxfordshire on whether or not to charge for SEND transport for the 16-19 age group.

Councils are businesses, but not companies. How they manage decision-making with their democratic responsibilities is no matter to be taken lightly. But a time of political turmoil is an odd time to mandate that only one system of governance is possible.

Solve the High Needs Block statutory override issue now

Posted on June 16, 2025 by John Howson

June is the time of year when local authority Directors of Finance start thinking about the budget for the following April. HM Treasury is doing the same thing for the government but, with a Spending Review just announced, their task this summer should be much easier than usual as Ministers have already negotiated with the Chancellor. Directors of Finance have no such protection and are bound to produce a balanced budget for councillors to approve or face the prospect of having to issue a s114 notice and default, as some councils have already had to do in recent years.

It was very surprising not to see an announcement in the recent Spending Review about the statutory override many upper tier councils are carrying on their balance sheets,

The statutory override on council balance sheets is a result of overspends on council’s High Needs Block spending that finances the pupils and young adults with special educational needs in their local area. (SEND)

There are suggestions that a significant number of upper tier authorities with be unable to present a balanced budget for 2026/27 to councillors next February for approval unless something is done about the present statutory override that currently ends in March 2026. If nothing else is put in place, some councils will not be able to present a balanced budget and hence will default.

The simple answer would be to extend the override until March 2027 to see what the White Paper on SEND, now promised for the autumn, will bring. That move just buys time for a longer-term solution.

I wonder whether the DfE thought local government re-organisation might be a way of dealing with the deficit when new councils were being formed. After the results of May’s elections, I cannot see the present government wanting to push ahead with reorganising councils and creating new elected Mayors if such a move were to hand more victories to their opponents, and notably to the Reform Party. If reorganisation grinds to a halt that route out is no longer available for solving the issue of the override.

Another alternative is to switch the 2% precept on Council Tax from adult social services to SEND and let the NHS take the strain on funding for the mostly elderly residents currently being paid for out of the local government funding 2% precept. Such a move would not be popular but could be possible. As it wasn’t in the Spending Review it seems unlikely.

The DfE could rearrange their spending and transfer the consequences of falling pupil numbers from the Schools Block to increase the High Needs Block and do the same for the Early Years funding to keep it constant on a per child basis but recognise fewer children means less total spending. Such a move would affect funding for schools and early years setting with falling rolls.

Do nothing and councillors in Parties running councils will return from their summer breaks to be confronted with a list of serious reductions in services and personnel that might be needed in 2026. Such reductions won’t be efficiency gains, but unacceptable cuts on the level of a fire sale.

Solving the problem of the statutory override between now and the parliamentary recess for the summer should be the number one priority for all involved with education and local government. Not to do so would have consequences that are unthinkable.

The situation regarding the statutory override should not have reached the present position. In my view, it would be a gigantic failure of political will if it is not solved now.

A broken system: not just mismanagement

Posted on June 8, 2025 by John Howson

When searching the DfE website this morning for the latest numbers about schools and pupils to allow me to compare the number of teachers per school for different subjects, I was distracted into looking at the number of ‘open notices’ from the DfE to Councils across England. Currently they total around 30 such notices and there are others that have been closed in recent times. These notices refer to the provision of either special needs (SEND) or children’s social services.

There really must be something wrong with a system where nearly 20%, or one in five, of all upper tier local authorities have such notices that are issued to councils for ‘poor’ or ‘inadequate’ performance. I had expected the majority of such notices to be for SEND services, but in fact half are for Children’s Social Services. This raises the question of whether in some authorities, and especially smaller unitary authorities, there is the funding to cope with both SEND and Children’s Social Services?

Of the local authorities with ‘open’ improvement notices for children’s social services, most are small metropolitan districts of unitary authorities.: Liverpool, Nottingham City and the counties of Herefordshire and Worcestershire are the exceptions. The pattern for SEND notices is different, with six counties, four metropolitan districts, four unitary councils and one London borough with ‘open notices.

What is striking about both lists is the geographical split. The relative absence from the list of well-funded London boroughs – only three appear, and only one in the SEND list, compared with eight metropolitan districts really is worthy of note and discussion. Comparing the distribution with my recent report on pupil teacher ratios does suggest that funding, or the lack of it, may play a part.

If the 16 other authorities with closed notices since 2020 are added to those with ‘open’ notices, then almost a third of all local authorities have been on the ‘naughty step’ with the DfE and Care Quality commission so far in this decade.

If that percentage and the split between types of authorities doesn’t raise questions about why and why some authorities are more likely to be faced with improvement notices than others, then I think we have a serious lack of inquiry.

The relationship between the size of an authority and competence to deliver high quality services is important, both because of the Reform Party’s pledge to cut out waste, and the Labour government’s intention to reform local government. Both need to be seen in light of this list. Is bigger better, or is local government outside London just not well-enough funded

Of course, I must declare a personal interest, since I look over as Cabinet Member for Children’s Service (excluding SEND) after Oxfordshire received a ‘notice’ in the autumn of 2023 about the quality of its SEND provision.

To some extent with SEND, authorities are at the mercy of the NHS, over which they have little power, and that relationship with SEND needs to be investigated thoroughly. Penalizing democratically elected local government for the failing of a nationally run NHS is neither fair not equitable. That the government’s funding of the High Needs Block may add to local government’s problems also needs to be taken into account. Oxfordshire is in the bottom 30% for SEND funding.

Are you paying too much to advertise a teaching vacancy?

Posted on January 26, 2023 by John Howson

The most read blog post this month is the one from 2020 entitled ‘How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy?’ Teacher Recruitment: How much should it cost to advertise a vacancy? | John Howson (wordpress.com) So far, yesterday’s 10^th birthday post comes in second highes, with 20 views as against the vacancy post that reviewed the publication of the tes company accounts for 2019.

Today, the tes group, now entirely shorn of it print heritage, released its accounts for 2021-22 to August 2022. The company, fronted by its UK management, is ultimately owned by Onex Partners V, part of the Canadian ONEX Group of equity investors. Their third quarter report for 2022 identifies an investment of $98 US in the Tes Global (“Tes”), an international provider of comprehensive software solutions for the education sector 18d46e0 f-a5b9-435a-a039-9849ef723683 (onex.com) page 9

So, our major teacher recruitment platform, now offering a much wider staff management service to schools, increased its UK (mainly England) turnover from £54 million to £68 million in the year to August 2022. How important both staff management and the UK are to the profit of ONEX can be determined form the following figures

Turnover 2022 2021

UK £68.2 mn £54.0 mn

Europe £ 2.9 mn £ 2.6 mn

Rest of World £ 9.0 mn £ 9.0 mn

Income

Staff

Management £61.2 mn £56.5 mn

All activities £80.2 mn £66.1 mn

TES accounts – see link above page 29

So, in the last school year the tes took £68 million pounds from UK schools, the bulk of the money for recruitment and staff management by subscriptions from schools. 84% of staff management revenue came from subscription income and, as the accounts note (page 2) this was a 26% increase in revenue, presumably as more schools and Trusts migrated to subscription packages from point of sale purchase of advertising. The profit for the operating year was £28.7 million compared with £2.3 million the previous year that was badly affected by covid.

The group values its software at £46 million. That leaves me wondering what the book value of TeachVac’s simple but effective job matching service should be? Perhaps the £3 million suggested by our advisers is a little on the mean side.

TeachVac http://www.teachvac.co.uk costs less than £150,000 a year to operate. Being generous, it might cost £500,000 if operating on a similar cost model to the tes. The DfE job site probably costs a bit more, but we don’t actually know how much. The question for schools, MATs and the education sector is ‘How much of the money you are spending with the tes is for the downstream activities on staff management and how much for the job bord and matching service, and is it value for money?

Assume only 10% is for the matching, that could be £5-6 million of the subscription income after allowing for the tes turnover on Hibernia and other activities. TeachVac was established to demonstrate to the sector the cost-effective nature of modern technology over the former print advertising methods of recruitment. Readers can make up their own minds over value for money when comparing the £500 annual subscription to TeachVac that will reduce as more schools sign-up, and the cost of a subscription to tes.

How PTRs have changed over time

Posted on January 19, 2023 by John Howson

Forty years ago, I wrote an article about variations in local authority provision for education that appeared in the Oxford Review of Education (Volume 8, No2). Part of the discussion in the article centred around the range of pupil teacher ratios within schools after local government reorganisation outside London in 1974 had completed the changes to the local government landscape started in London a decade before.

Of course, our school system was very different in 1974. Most authorities were still transiting from a two tier selective system to a fully comprehensive system; most based their new systems upon the traditional two tiers, but some used one of the variations of first, middle and upper schools that constituted the three tier system.

Local authorities had the freedom in the 1970s to decide how much of their funding to spend upon schooling, and although there were national guidelines on spending on resources and staffing, they were not mandatory. However, teachers’ pay, then as now the largest item of a school’s expenditure, was centrally controlled, as was the ratio of promoted posts to classroom teachers. The differential between the highest paid teacher and a classroom teacher was much narrower than it is today, especially in the secondary sector.

On the staffing side, there were few support staff, and hardly any classroom assistants working in schools forty years ago, so one class one teacher was very much the model across the board, with classroom teachers in the primary sector, and comprehensive schools following the model of the selective sector with subject specialists replacing classroom teachers that had been commonplace in some secondary modern schools.

Pupil Teacher Ratios (PTRs) can be calculated in the same way today as they were in 1974. Helpfully, the DfE published the results for all state-funded schools in England, by local authority, based upon the data collected in the November Staffing Census. The latest data, published in June 2022, was from the November 2021 census, so now some 14 months old.

What is interesting, despite the changes in local government boundaries is to compare the range of 1974 PTRs in the secondary sector with those from the 2021 census.

	Best PTR	Worst PTR	difference
1974	15.7	19.7	4
1980	13.6	18.6	5
2021	13.6	18.4	4.8
Source Howson 1980 and DfE 2022

Source Howson 1980 and DfE 2022

Compared with 1974, the difference between the best and worst local authority areas was greater in 2021 than in 1974, and similar to the difference in 1980 when the article was being prepared. What is noticeable is that both the best and the worst levels improved between 1974 and 1980, but are now, forty years later, still very similar to where they were in 1980. This despite academies, unitary authorities and the devolution of budgets to individual schools.

Even more interesting is the position of London schools. In 1980, London boroughs occupied eight of the top ten places for ‘staffing’, using data from the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy data. In the 2021 census, four outer London boroughs have dropped down the ranking, as has Newcastle, to be replaced by northern towns and cities. However, London, now with individual boroughs rather than the combined Inner London Education Authority still takes a disproportionate number of the places in the authorities with the most favourable PTRs.

Since 2010/11, all but two local authorities with data for the whole period have seen a deterioration in the secondary PTR for their area. Slough and Southend on Sea, both authorities with selective school systems, have seen the biggest worsening in secondary PTRs over the period of Tory government.

With the pressure on funding, it is interesting to speculate what the outcome of the 2022 census will be when published this June. Could we witness some of the worst secondary PTRs in half a century?

When are deficits called reserves?

Posted on October 11, 2022 by John Howson

Local authorities are currently starting to put together their budgets for 2023/24. Upper Tier Authorities with responsibility for the High Needs block of the Direct School Gant that deals with expenditure on pupils with special needs will be looking at a year-end overspend in many cases that will need to be added to the amount already sitting off-balance sheet in a temporary solution to the problem of how to pay for this expenditure. The money has been spent by the local authority, but not paid for by central government, so it sits awkwardly in an account waiting for a solution.

At some point, if the DfE or The Treasury deems that the local authority should no longer carry the deficit, but fund it from reserves, this would be a major headache for, I suspect, many local authorities, regardless of their political control. In the present financial climate, the solution is more challenging than it might have been a year ago. As a result, I expect the government to ‘kick the can’ further down the road extending the current arrangement until March 2024, and leaving local authorities with even bigger numbers to worry about.

How might the issue be solved? Before devolved budgets came into being for schools in the 1990s, authorities might just have top sliced their education budget. I cannot see Schools Forum, the body that discusses education funding at a local authority level, agreeing to such a move these days, although the DfE could no doubt mandate it somehow.

An alternative would be to use the precept method, as has been used for social care funding, by allowing local authorities to increase Council Tax by an amount to cover the deficit they have incurred that is not on their balance sheet, but in ‘reserves’. This passes the problem to local taxpayers, despite schooling now being a centrally financed activity.

The government at Westminster could just pay off the figure authorities have in their reserves, either in one lump sum or more likely over a period of several years. But, with their demands for cuts in public expenditure to finance tax cuts, this seems an unlikely option.

Increasing pupil numbers, better healthcare and the acceptance of new medical conditions was always going to put increased demand upon a school system and its funding for pupils with special needs, and especially one that both had not always planned for the changes and was required to do more after the switch to EHCPs from Statements of Need following the 2014 Education Act. A good example of worthy legislation that doesn’t seem to have been fully costed as to its on-gong effects.

Meanwhile, parents probably see declines in service locally, as officers struggle to keep the costs of running the service within bounds. These parents often carry a heavy burden caring for their offspring and fighting a local government system is not something they want to do, but sometimes are forced to undertake. There must be a solution that puts the needs of these young people first.

TeachVac’s intelligence reports

Posted on June 13, 2022 by John Howson

TeachVac has created a new suite of reports on the labour market for teachers. These report on the current state of play in the market for specific areas. However, reports by subjects and phase across wider areas are also available on request to those interested in specific curriculum areas. http://www.teachvac.co.uk

The basic report tracks the vacancies for teachers from classroom to the head’s study across schools in a given area and reports the finding by subjects or the primary phase in three categories:

The reports can be tailored to cover any grouping of schools, although local authorities and dioceses are the most common formats. However, MATs and parliamentary constituency-based report are also possible, along with reports for schools in either Opportunity Areas or the new Education Investment Zones or whatever they are called today.

Academies

Maintained schools

Private Schools

Reports are produced up to the end of the month, with current report for 2022 covering the period from January to the end of May 2022.

The reports are currently useful for those considering the shape of teacher preparation provision in the future by demonstrating the actual need for teachers in specific parts of the country across both the State and private school markets. The DFE’s own evidence doesn’t take into account the private sector demand for teachers and misses out on some school in the TeachVac pool.

TeachVac’s reports can also be useful for those concerned with professional development by identifying middle and senior leader vacancies where the new postholder may need some professional development.

The basic reports on an individual or group of local authorities costs £250 per primary or secondary sector for a 12-month subscription. Prices for other grouping or for multiple groupings are negotiable depending upon the amount of work required.

Sample reports are available on request from either John Howson at dataforeducation@gmail.com or enquiriies@oxteachserv.com

Reports can be generated for data up to the end of the previous month in a matter of days once an order has been placed.

What is the role of a school in its community?

Posted on April 11, 2022 by John Howson

For everyone interested in either the role of a middle tier in our school system in England or in how pupil place planning and support for vulnerable children is handled in the current shambles around the arrangements for schools in England, this is an important report to read. Local authority provision for school places and support for vulnerable children – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) The recent White Paper on Education was the second one to pledge to change in-year Admissions and this Report indicates why Ministers should act swiftly to make the necessary changes to the current system.

At the heart of the debate about the middle tier is the role of local authorities and the role of academies and the Trusts that run them. The following two quotes from the report sum up current situation nicely in relation to these important issues for the management of our schooling system:

‘Nevertheless, our research also suggested that there are two ways in which academisation can affect local education systems. First, because there are different processes for making decisions and resolving disputes about place-planning and placements of vulnerable pupils for academies and maintained schools, where an “isolationist” school is an academy, it can be more difficult, complex, and time-consuming to resolve issues. Second, while not generalising, school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers reported that, among the minority of schools that took an “isolationist” approach, these were more likely to be schools that were part of larger regional or national academy trusts.’

‘Furthermore, there was broad agreement among school, trust and LA leaders and parents/carers that LAs were uniquely placed to play this role [place planning]. (In relation to place-planning, a minority of trust leaders and national stakeholders argued that the RSC should be wholly or partially responsible for delivering place-planning.) Whichever way roles and responsibilities are configured, there was consensus about the need for clarity, alignment of responsibilities and decision-making authority, for reciprocal expectations of schools, trusts and LAs around participating in local partnership-based approaches to place-planning and support for vulnerable pupils, and a renewed, more collaborative relationship between local and central government.’

The situation is summed up by a quote from a local authority officer:

‘Nobody wants to roll back the clock. But if we have MATs not working for the best interests of young people in the community, we don’t have any direct levers. We would have to go through the RSC, and not sure they have many levers. A lot of accountability sits with the LA, but the responsibility of delivery sits with schools. Doesn’t feel appropriate. We need some accountabilities placed on academy trusts and schools to deliver expectations [for vulnerable children].’ (LA officer page 106)

We need a system that works for the children seeking an education, and not primarily for those that provide that schooling. This is especially true for our most vulnerable young people and I hope that Ministers will spend time over easter reading this report and then acting upon its findings. State schooling is a public service and must be managed as such.

33,000 in three months

Posted on April 2, 2022 by John Howson

How are we to interpret the record number of teacher vacancies logged during the first three months of 2022 by TeachVac?

Subject	2020	2022	Percentage +/- (The nearest whole %)
Design & Technology	1089	1643	51%
Leadership	2278	3353	47%
Business	701	1018	45%
Computing	828	1191	44%
Primary	5059	7140	41%
RE	615	835	36%
Music	498	648	30%
Total	25939	33580	29%
Geography	816	1046	28%
Creative Arts	334	423	27%
History	589	748	27%
PE	727	906	25%
Languages	1397	1737	24%
Science	3427	3956	15%
Art	493	552	12%
English	2427	2681	10%
Mathematics	3115	3328	7%

Source www.teachvac.co.uk

There is little point comparing 2022 with 2021, as the covid pandemic resulted in very little activity in the teacher job market during the first three months of 2021.

So, how to explain this year’s surge in vacancies, and what might be the consequences?

Is the surge down to schools catching up vacancies not advertised last year; is it – at least in the secondary sector – down to increased pupil numbers; might private schools be recruiting more pupils from overseas and, hence need more teachers; could TeachVac be better are recording or even over-recording vacancies than in the past? I asked the team to check on the last point, and since most of them have been entering vacancies for several years, and we haven’t changed their way of working, it seems unlikely as a reason for the large increase in vacancies.

On the other side of the equation, could the increase in recorded vacancies be down to more teachers quitting schools in England, either to take up tutoring; to teach overseas or to either reduce their hours or even retire completely? Since we don’t have exit interviews, we will have to wait for the DfE to match teacher identify numbers for those moving within the state system and retiring with a pension and then conjecture what has happened to the remainder of leavers?

As to the consequences, regular readers of this blog will know what will come next because various posts since the ITT Census appeared in December have already been discussing the nature of the recruitment round for September 2022 and January 2023.

The table earlier in this post shows English and mathematics with relatively low increases. Perhaps schools feel that with the change in Ministerial team last autumn the focus on the EBacc subjects might have reduced. If so, might the White Paper provisions see an increase in vacancies in these subjects after Easter?

The increase in leadership vacancies needs further investigation in order to see which sector, and which of the leadership posts; head, deputy or assistant head are most affected by the increase or whether it is a general increase.

Design and technology, business, and to some extent computing are subjects that the government has under-played in its various attempts to increase interest in teaching as a career. Schools still want teachers in these subjects, and the government must help them fill the vacancies.

With many subjects not even meeting the DfE’s indicative target for the need for teachers on teacher preparation routes in 2022, the remainder of the recruitment round may well be a real challenge for many schools.

There is one other possibility, and that is the notion of schools bringing forward recruitment this year, so the peak will have been in March rather than in late April, as has been the normal practice in past years. If so, April will be a lean month for those that put off job hunting until then, unless schools have been unable to fill some of the 33,000 vacancies, and there is a string of re-advertisements this month and next.

TeachVac has a number of different reports to allow schools, local authorities, recruitment agencies and anyone else interested in trends in the labour market in real-time to track the behaviour of the market in anything for real-time to monthly. Email the staff using enquiries@oxteachserv.com for details.

White flag or shifting the blame

Posted on January 29, 2022 by John Howson

There is a saying that one should beware of unexpected guests. For reasons obvious to those that know the saying, it is clear why I prefer to compare it with the other saying of ‘not looking a gift horse in the mouth’ – should that be looking an electric car in the battery these days – but without using the actual expression. No matter, what does matter is whether or not local authorities will be able to form and run Multi Academy Trusts/Committees?

Ever since Mr Gove raced the 2010 Academies Act through parliament in the period before the summer break that year, and less than three months after the 2010 General Election, the Conservatives have wanted all schools to become academies. At that time, local authorities were beyond the pale, and a model with no local democratic involvement, similar to that of the NHS, seemed on the cards for education. Peter Downes a former Cambridgeshire Lib Dem councillor and long time secondary head led the Lib Dem charge at their 2010 September Conference, an event where delegates made their support for local democratic involvement in education very clear to Nick Clegg and David Laws.

Over the ensuing decade, most secondary schools have either opted or been forced to become an academy. All new schools are required to become an academy. However, except in a few parts of the country, academisation of the primary sector schools has been slow and patchy. Many primary schools only became academies after a visit from ofsted resulted in compulsory academisation.

The picture that has emerged around the county is of an expensive mess that could make the reputation of a Secretary of State if change is handled properly with a view to the longer-term effectiveness of the school sector.

There are now noises in the press suggesting that the next White Paper from the DfE might allow local authorities to establish and run Multi Academy Trusts or Committees or some new structure such as a Multi Academy Board might be created. Such a suggestion would effectively be a change of direction on the part of central government. Is it either a white flag or preparing the ground to shift the blame for a period of challenge that will face the primary sector where most maintained schools are still to be found?

There is a third possibility. This is that civil servants have been so impressed by how some local authorities have handled the covid crisis that they now recognise their value as part of the middle tier, especially in handling the large number of small primary schools spread across rural England. Certainly, the work by the local authority team in Oxfordshire, where I am a county councillor, has resulted in an email from a headteacher of a private school expressing thanks for the work of local authority staff. Not something you receive every day.

Allowing or even forcing local authorities to take all schools not already academies into a LAB or Local Academy Board would allow the government to tell the public that all schools were now academies. It would allow local authorities to feel that they might be back in the game of education politics and it would allow for more coherent planning for the primary sector less hampered by the legislation on closing rural schools. This may be important should the National Funding Formula create the need to rationalise the school estate.

John Howson

Education and the numbers that affect what happens

Tag Archives: local government