The Catholic Education Service believes that the publication of Shaping the Education Bill: Reaching for Consensus is an important and welcome step. It is clear that the authors and supporters of the report are genuine in their support for state education and in their attempts to improve the proposals in the White Paper:

“The fundamental concerns of many colleagues centre around the potential for pupils from poorer areas being disadvantaged as popular schools expand, and wealthier and better informed parents are able to set up their own schools operating their own admissions policies. There is also concern that education policy should remain democratically accountable.”

We welcome their call for the government to re-examine and clarify the nature and role of Trusts and local authorities. We have constantly stressed that the governance arrangements for voluntary aided schools are not a sufficient condition for their success, and that replicating them for the wider community sector will not ensure that new Trust schools have the values and ethos which parents appreciate in Catholic schools.

However, we would like to repeat our opposition to making the admissions Code of Practice statutory as proposed in Shaping the Education Bill. Instead, we agree with Philip Hunter, the Chief Adjudicator, who said, “It wouldn’t be possible to translate the whole of the Code into regulation”. We are also concerned at the paper’s suggestion that local authorities need to have identical powers for different categories of school. Different governance and management arrangements makes this unnecessary.

The CES continues to consult with its partners, and to engage in a positive dialogue with ministers and officials. We hope that this period of consultation will be used by the government to improve its proposals before they are published as a Bill in 2006.