Charles Clarke's first-year report

By Mike Baker
BBC education correspondent

What a difference a year makes. Twelve months ago, Estelle Morris resigned as Education Secretary.

The next day, Charles Clarke was appointed to her job. He arrived in the middle of a crisis.

Pressure had been mounting since August. Problems with the screening of new teachers by the Criminal Records Bureau forced schools to send pupils home because new recruits had not been cleared to work with children.

Then came a second whammy - allegations that A and AS-level grades had been deliberately lowered to avoid embarrassingly high pass rates. From the moment the independent schools' head teachers backed this charge, Estelle Morris was in trouble.

Frantic start

An "internal" inquiry by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority failed to take the heat out of the situation. The government was forced to commission a second, independent inquiry.

But oil was thrown on the flames when the chairman of the QCA, Sir William Stubbs, accused Estelle Morris of pre-judging the outcome of that inquiry.

Trust had broken down at the heart of government education policy.

Looking back, a year on, it is hard to remember just how, or why, it had become so frenetic. However, the pressure on Estelle Morris - an extremely conscientious and hard-working politician - proved too much.

In a dramatic half-term week, she shocked everyone with her resignation. For Charles Clarke, until then the Labour Party chairman, it was not an easy time to arrive.

Are happier times around the corner for Mr Clarke?

His in-tray included a lot more than just the A-level crisis and the problems with the Criminal Records Bureau. Key school performance targets were being missed and a major reform announcement for the university system was already overdue.

So how has Mr Clarke coped with these challenges?

He was perhaps fortunate that Ms Morris's resignation had drawn some of the poison from the A-level marking row. This bought him time and, although the subsequent inquiry did find an extraordinary vagueness about A-level grading, the number of students directly affected was found to be relatively small.

So Clarke could devote his attention to the white paper on higher education.

The proposal to make graduates pay more had already been the subject of robust arguments between the Department for Education, Downing Street and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown.

Brown had wanted to shelve the whole reform package, but Downing Street had accepted the view that asking graduates to contribute more towards the costs of higher education was the only way to find enough extra money for universities.

Test ahead

The compromise position between the two was some form of graduate tax, an option Gordon Brown continued to fight for. But Clarke was wary of a graduate tax, and his first battle was to try to take the white paper back to the drawing board.

The battles with the Treasury continued right up until publication of the white paper in January this year. By then, Clarke had seen off the graduate tax idea in favour of the variable, or "top-up" fee approach.

Every detail was fought over, including the level of the maximum fee and the decision (a last-minute concession won by Brown) that there would be no commercial rates of interest charged on student loans.

Now - one year on - Clarke's tuition fees package is about to face its parliamentary test. Can he win over enough rebel Labour backbenchers to ensure his Bill is not defeated?

These reforms have Clarke's personal stamp on them. Their success or otherwise will determine whether he gets an A or an E for his performance.

However, there is a real risk that in trying to run with the university ball, Clarke may have taken his eye off what was happening in schools.

Will Mr Clarke reach the former heights of his beloved Norwich City?

Indeed, the low point of his first year was the funding problem in schools. The annual finance settlement was already well under way by the time he arrived at the department.

With everything else going on, he may not have scrutinised it as closely as perhaps he should. A politician's eye might have spotted the political risks better than the civil servants.

With hindsight, it is now clear that the government tried to achieve too big a change in the funding mechanism in a year when school costs were rising fast. This meant that, despite extra government money, the head-room for manoeuvre was very limited.

Clarke made matters worse by the way he reacted to the first signs of school funding problems. First he appeared to blame the schools and, when that did not wash, he tried to pin the blame on the local councils.

Eventually, and belatedly, Clarke apologised to schools for the funding problems and promised they would not be repeated next year.

Unions

Another controversial decision was Clarke's pronouncement that no minister would speak at last Easter's annual conference of the National Union of Teachers.

This was a deliberate decision to try to isolate the one union which had refused to sign the Workload Agreement, which was central to Clarke's plans for modernising the teaching profession.

This did not go down well with the NUT, although some of its conference delegates probably did not mind too much. However, if it avoided another noisy confrontation with a union, the decision may have been tactically sound from his perspective.

When Clarke arrived in the job he said his "focus" would be on schools, his "opportunity" was to do something about further education, while his "problem" would be universities.

On this basis, the judgement of his first year must be that he did allow a momentary, but key, loss of focus on school funding.

Comfortable

However, other potential problems in schools have been contained. The A-level row ended with more of a whimper than a bang and the big, long-term issues of examination reform have been deftly kicked into the long grass of Mike Tomlinson's independent review.

On further and adult education, Clarke has won friends with a generous funding settlement and development of the payment of Education Maintenance Allowances to young adults continuing with their training.

As for the "problem" of the universities, to fall back on the hackneyed phrase of television reporters, the verdict must be that "only time will tell".

Overall, then, Mr Clarke's performance over the past year can be likened to that of his beloved Norwich City football club. They sit just outside the leading group in Division One, showing solid but not championship form.

Mr Clarke looks safe from relegation, but he is not currently a racing certainty for promotion.

Nevertheless, compared with a year ago, he is looking more comfortable than his predecessor in the final days before her resignation.

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