Baroness Spielman (Con)

My Lords, I want to speak briefly on academy orders and to support Amendments 445B, 446 and 446A. My noble friend Lady Barran rightly said that I did not support the extension of academy orders to those schools that require improvement. I remember writing to the then Secretary of State to warn him that, among other things, it would place inspection under impossible pressure, and I think that my assessment was borne out. This Government were quick to change their regulatory policies to remove their dependence on overall inspection judgments, so that those judgments could be removed. What we have seen over the past year is interesting, because it has shown that the sector also dislikes opaque and unpredictable processes, such as are now operating. With the loss of clarity, every intervention decision potentially becomes just the opening salvo in a long war of attrition. I experienced quite a few of these sadly sometimes misguided parent campaigns to defend a school that was in fact in a desperate state and where the parents simply did not realise quite how bad it was. I know how debilitating some of these situations can be for all concerned and how drastically they can delay the kind of work and action that is needed to sort things out for children. Getting things sorted out for children typically also sorts things out for staff, making their jobs doable again. We also now have years of experience of RISE teams and their predecessors. None has been found to be fully satisfactory. Each incarnation starts by recruiting school or MAT leaders but, over time, tends to morph into being a team of generalist officials who are not themselves equipped to provide support and, sometimes, struggle to identify the most appropriate alternative sources of help. I therefore support the proposals for improvement made by my noble friend and urge the Government to think hard about how to make sure that the consequences of failure—it is important that we can recognise failure—are clear, brisk and well implemented, with the maximum certainty and the minimum delay, limbo or uncertainty for all concerned.