BLAIR’S BRITAIN, 1997–2007
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be looking increasingly to the early years as a means of tackling the persistent rump of children, particularly boys, leaving primary schools
unable to read, write and add to the expected standards. In primary education, after the big push on literacy and numeracy, the DfES issued
Excellence and Enjoyment in which it sought, not entirely successfully, to
broaden out primary education by re-emphasising music, the arts, creativity, PE and sport, and introducing a modern foreign language.
Schools were also asked to identify ‘gifted and talented pupils’ for master
classes, but without being provided with a reliable means of doing so.
In contrast to the battles over the content of the national curriculum
when it was introduced in 1988, it was modified with little fuss under
Blair. At the secondary level, citizenship, personal, social and health education (PSHE), careers education and work-related learning were added
to the Conservative’s original ten-subject curriculum plus religious
education. The requirements for the individual subjects were slimmed
down and some subjects, such as a modern foreign language, were made
optional after fourteen. It is one of Blair’s achievements that in his ten
years in office the national curriculum came to be accepted as a normal
part of the school landscape.
Autonomy and accountability
A key issue in the relationship between central government and schools is
how to strike an appropriate balance between autonomy and accountability. Michael Barber, drawing inspiration from a paper published by
the Centre for Educational Outreach and Innovation at Columbia
University,35 persuaded both Blunkett and Blair that the answer was
‘strategic management’, in which top managers (the government) and
‘local educators’ (headteachers) both have ‘a unique and important contribution to make’. The ‘former holds the big picture’ and ‘the authority
to intervene when things go wrong’, while schools ‘having the close up
picture’ are ‘free to determine means and proximate ends’. Fine in theory,
but it led to a deluge of directives from the centre (322 in 1998 alone),
described with feeling by one headteacher as ‘independence with a big
thick collar and chain’.36
35 Center for Educational Outreach and Innovation, Re-Centralization or Strategic
Management? (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University), cited in Pollard, David
Blunkett, p. 251.
36 Smithers and Robinson, School Headship, p. 71.
The government under Blair held schools to account in two main ways:
the test and examination scores in relation to the targets, as we have
already discussed; and external inspections. The inspection service was
beefed up by the Conservatives as the Office for Standards in Education
(Ofsted) in 1992. The process initially involved a four-year cycle, but
under Blair it was first replaced by a six-year cycle and then radically
changed as part of a New Relationship with Schools.37 The inspection now
turned on a detailed self-evaluation form (SEF) that the school is responsible for updating and having ready as a basis for a two-day Ofsted inspection at short notice. It became mainly a check on what the form contained
rather than classroom observations, making reported results even more
important. Headteachers have felt increasingly prey to poor pupil results
and inspection reports, making many senior teachers unwilling to take on
the role. It was compared to being a football manager, but without the
huge salaries and pay-offs.38
Funding
Unlike many areas of policy, Blair was given a relatively free run on schools
by Brown. But the Chancellor relished the power his role as paymaster
gave him. Funding for education was tightly constrained in the first two
years, but generous later. In order to establish a reputation for prudence
Brown kept to Conservative spending plans for the years 1997–9, even
though, as Kenneth Clarke his predecessor admitted, the Tories themselves would probably not have done so. This presented difficulties for
Blunkett and his Schools Minister Stephen Byers, who could not move as
fast as they or No. 10 would have wished. In an attempt to be seen to be
doing good they continually announced and re-announced new initiatives, a habit which New Labour found hard to break. Brown did find an
extra £19 billion for education for the period 1999–2002, but rather overegged the amount by reaching this figure through triple counting. In the
2000 Comprehensive Spending Review the Chancellor also introduced
pockets of money to be paid directly to schools for them to use as they
wished. But at the end of the first Blair government the percentage of
GDP devoted to education was still less than it had been under John Major
in 1995.
37 Department for Education and Skills, A New Relationship with Schools, www.teachernet.
gov.uk/management/newrelationship/.
38 Smithers and Robinson, School Headship, p. 80.
In contrast, in the second term the government boosted education (and
also health) spending.39 From £21.43 billion, in 1997–8, schools current
expenditure in real terms had risen to £23.48 billion in 1999–2000 and to
£34.36 billion in 2005–6, an increase of 60%. The extra funding did not
always find its way into schools, since a not inconsiderable sum was held
back to fund initiatives and pay consultants. The Blair governments also
wanted to fund on a ‘something for something’ basis, with schools bidding
for money from various pots. This led to some schools drawing on their
staffing budgets to employ full-time bid writers. The government’s move to
three-year budgets was popular, since with annual settlements, perhaps
made partway through the financial year, they could find themselves lurching from relative comfort to crisis, such as when there was a panic over
teacher redundancies in 2003–4. The Chancellor seems to have shared
Blair’s enthusiasm for delivery through targets and used them in signing
Public Service Agreements (PSA) with government spending departments,
including education. But in practice these were largely meaningless, other
than allowing the Chancellor some control and to claim the expenditure was
investment, since there was no clawing back when the targets were not met.
Government funding for school buildings more than doubled from
£1.26 billion in 1997–8 to £3.02 billion in 2005–6, with the rolling out of
the Building Schools for the Future programme – again subject to bidding.
New school buildings were also provided through the private finance initiative (PFI), whereby the public sector rents on long leases premises built
by the private sector. Whether PFIs have intrinsic benefits as the government has claimed is contestable, but they did enable schools to be built
immediately on a live-now-pay-later basis. While Blair’s first term in
office was disappointing in terms of school funding, the second more
than made up for it. The share of the GDP spent on education40 rose from
4.8% in 1996–7 to 5.7% in 2006–7.
Summing up
As his time in office came to an end Tony Blair was distinctly bullish.41
He claimed to have overseen, among other things, higher academic
39 Department for Education and Skills, ‘Replies to Questions Sent by the Committee on 5
June 2006’, House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, Public Expenditure.
Fifth Report of the Session 2005–06, HC1201, Ev 43–46, table A.
40 Treasury figures from http://csr07.treasury.gov.uk/spending/areas/education.
41 See, for example, the transcript of Tony Blair’s speech to the Specialist Schools and
Academies Trust, 30 November 2006, www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page10513.asp.
achievement in primary and secondary schools, the embedding of
diversity leading to high-quality choice of school, the recruitment of a
motivated and highly qualified teaching profession with increased
prestige, and the funding of state-of-the-art buildings and equipment.
Table 17.1 bears him out to some extent. Scores in tests and examinations have indeed risen, there is now a greater variety of schools, there
are more teachers, and extra money has been found. But table 17.1 also
contains hints that the situation is not so rosy. There were more day
pupils in independent schools in 2007 than in 1997 in spite of the
rising costs and a decreasing school age population, and one wonders
why parents were prepared to fork out so much if the state sector
had improved as dramatically as Blair claimed. More children were
truanting and one wonders why they should not want to be in school
when it is there for their sake. And while there are more recruits to
the teaching profession, more are leaving. The claim to have established a genuinely post-comprehensive schools system is also open to
question.
Blair’s policy of creating different types of schools for parents to
choose from has been welcomed in many quarters, not least by the
Conservatives from whom it was taken over. But it suffers from a central
weakness, which neither party has been able to resolve. That is: what
happens when more parents want their child to go to a school than can be
accommodated? Independent schools hold competitive entrance examinations, an option not open to most state schools. Blair first attempted to
provide a fair basis for admissions through a code for which schools were
‘to have regard’, but it was clear from the differences in school intakes
that various kinds of social selection were going on. The Education and
Inspections Act 2006 strengthened the code by specifying that schools
must ‘act in accordance with’ it, requiring the government to spell out
what was possible, including that places could be decided by ballot.
However, this proved mightily unpopular with parents, particularly those
who felt they could manipulate the old system. Brighton announced that
it would take advantage of the provision,42 but the council was booted out
in the May 2007 elections.
The diversity which Blair prides himself on as having embedded presents parents with a confusing and incomplete mix of specialist schools,
faith schools, academies, trust schools and other school types without a
42 BBC News, ‘Schools to Give Places by Lottery’, 28 February 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/
hi/education/6403017.stm.
Table 17.1. Ten years on
1997
2006/7
Test and exam scores a
KS 2 English level 4
63.0%
79.0%
KS 2 maths level 4
62.0%
76.0%
KS 2 science level 4
69.0%
87.0%
5 A*–C GCSEs
45.1%
59.0%
A-level passes
87.8%
96.6%
A-level A grades
15.7%
24.1%
Schools b
Specialist
245
2,695
CTCs/academies
15
46
School staffing c
Qualified regular teachers
396,200
417,600
Teacher turnover
35,700
46,000
Pupil:teacher ratio primary
23.4
21.8
Pupil:teacher ratio secondary
16.7
16.5
Teaching assistants
60,600
162,900
Other support staff
79,200
142,000
Pupil:adult ratio primary
17.9
12.4
Pupil:adult ratio secondary
14.5
11.4
Pupils d
Unauthorised days absence
5,354,000
6,956,000
from secondary schools
Not in education, employment
47,690
62,650
or training age 17
Day pupils in independent
395,940
441,758
schools
School funding e
Capital
£1.26 billion
£3.02 billion
Current
£21.43 billion
£34.36 billion
Per pupil
£2,970
£4,590
Sources:
a Department for Education and Skills, National Curriculum Assessments at Key
Stage 2 in England, 2006 (Provisional) National Statistics First Release
SFR31/2006; Department for Education and Skills, ‘Jim Knight Puts English and
Maths at the Heart of Driving up GCSE Results’, press notice, 11 January 2007;
Table 17.1 ( cont.)
table 1; annual publications of InterBoard Statistics, compiled by the Centre for
Education and Employment Research at the University of Buckingham.
b Specialist Schools and Academies Trust, press release, 3 April 2007,
www.specialistschools.org.uk.
c DfES, School Workforce in England, January 2007 (Revised), tables 2, 15 and 16;
Local Government Analysis and Research, Survey of Teacher Resignations and
Recruitment 1985/6–2005, Report 39, December 2006.
d Department for Education and Skills, Pupil Absence in Maintained Secondary
Schools in England in 2005/06, National Statistics First Release SFR35/2006, 21
September 2006; Department for Education and Skills, Participation in
Education, Training and Employment by 16–18 Year Olds in England, 2005 and
2006, National Statistics First Release SFR22/2007; table 5, 26 June 2007.
e House of Commons Education and Skills Committee, Public Expenditure,
Fifth Report of the Session 2005–2006, HC1201, Ev 43–6, tables A and
extended 8.4.
fair way of deciding who gets into where. While undoubtedly some
schools have improved considerably during Blair’s watch, insufficient
attention has been given to the overall shape of the system, so it is hard to
claim that state education provides equivalent opportunities for all children. An imperfect market has been created that is hard to reconcile with
equity, which at the outset Blair declared to be one of his twin goals.
Everyone wears clothes but of different quality; compulsory education
has gone the same way.
test and examination scores. He was clearly right to tackle literacy and
numeracy in the primary school and to be concerned about educational
standards. One would not want to deny that the rising scores reflect some
real improvements and a number of failing schools have been turned
round or replaced. But the chosen method of relentless pressure from the
centre through targets and league tables with a real prospect of being relegated out of existence is flawed. Blair may have been persuaded by his
advisers and friends in business that targets were the key to raising performance. But test and exam scores are not a product in the sense that
barrels of oil or tins of baked bins are; they are surrogates for the education we hope is taking place. Treating the scores as products has turned
schools into something like exam factories. Thus while results may have
gone up, the narrow focus has inflicted collateral damage. Truancy
increased (see Table 17.1). Behaviour became a major concern, with
scheme after scheme being tried.43 Employers continually complained
that school leavers lacked ‘soft skills’.44 The UK came bottom of twentyone developed nations in UNICEF’s 2007 Report Card on child wellbeing.45 It also became more difficult to attract headteachers to state
schools because they felt vulnerable to the targets and league tables, and
burdened by the numerous initiatives thrown at them.
I sense that Blair himself, in spite of his upbeat pronouncements, is
somewhat disappointed with his legacy in education. From ‘education,
education, education’ at the outset, schools came relatively low down
among the achievements claimed. During his time in office other priorities have emerged – notably, Iraq, Afghanistan, Northern Ireland, global
warming, world poverty, Africa and the environment. But he has also been
in the grip of numerous societal changes which will have had a bearing on
the way schools operate, among them the fluidity and variety of family
life; the loss of deference; the changing script for women; alternative forms
of employment; immigration leading to multiculturalism and multi-faith
communities; and a revolution in information technology. It has also not
been fully understood that over half the variance in pupil performance is
associated with pupil characteristics such as ability and background and
only about a tenth can actually be linked to schools.46 This must have been