Michael Gove answers your questions
Michael Gove, Shadow Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families, answers your questions.
David Belchamber: "Mr Gove, having spent most of my working life in an around schools - mainly independent - might I raise the question of grant maintained status? I had the pleasure of meeting you in Desmond Swayne's constituency and I probably asked you the same question then. Why don't the Tories pledge to reintroduce GM schools? They worked very well and drove up standards by the simple expedient of cutting out the middle man."
David, I remember our meeting and it’s nice to hear from you again.
Grant-maintained schools were a great success, and the principle which underpinned them – greater autonomy to pursue excellence – is still at the heart of our schools policy. Tony Blair revived a watered-down version of GM schools as ‘Trust Schools’, and we supported the Education & Inspections Act which introduced them last year. In our Green Paper we outlined proposals for more new schools within the state sector - New Academies - which would have even more freedoms than the GM schools did. And we will be developing more policy ideas in the New Year which build on the principle of reducing bureaucratic control.
James Maskell: "Why has the Conservative Party been so very quiet about the very serious issue of looked-after-children?"
My apologies if our concerns haven’t been communicated clearly enough. My colleagues Tim Loughton and Trish Morris have worked immensely hard to improve Government policy in this area and their tireless campaigning on behalf of some of the most vulnerable in our society deserves more credit. It's part of my job in the future to ensure their efforts are rewarded.
Tim has recently highlighted the unhappy fact that the gap between the educational attainment of looked-after children and other children is widening and has made the case for urgent action to address educational under-achievement among those in care. Tim has also conducted a review of social work policy, and how it affects vulnerable children, which made a series of concrete suggestions about how we can build more stability into the lives of children who have been at risk and have been taken into care.
I am also, personally, particularly keen to explore every avenue we can to provide children currently in institutional surroundings with the warmth of family life and its an issue I touched on in my maiden speech.
The government is currently bringing forward a Bill to address some of the problems and both Trish and Tim will work hard to amend it to reflect our priorities.
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