Education Bill

My Lords, our Amendments 114A and 122ZB would apply the same provisions to FE. Under Clause 39, once a school was deemed ““exempt””, it would never again need a Section 5 inspection. Like other noble Lords who have already spoken, we believe that freeing schools from any future inspection is a very dangerous step to take. Our amendments would therefore require regulations to provide for a range of local bodies to be able to trigger inspections where there are concerns. The most obvious of these would be local authorities and parents, but it is possible to imagine, for example, information from the police or appearing in the press being sufficient for Ofsted to decide that an inspection is justified. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, called it fire-fighting, which may be what are talking about. We are certainly talking about recognisable incidents or failings which have triggered concern and therefore an inspection. As the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, said, echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, there is no obvious purpose behind the clause. It is not clear what the rationale is, where the demand is coming from or how the resulting inspection void will be filled. We have considerable sympathy, therefore, with the movers of Clause 39 stand part. Section 5 inspection reports are not just about a crisis of some kind; they are also extremely useful to parents and pupils, whether the pupils are already at the school or prospective pupils. The reports help parents and local authorities understand the strengths of a school and the areas where improvement is needed. They mean that parents can send their children to a particular school with a high level of knowledge about the quality of the learning experience that their children can expect. They also help local authorities hold schools to account and support them. The benefits for parents and the wider community of exempting schools are therefore unclear. Perhaps the noble Lord can explain that to us. It is also not exactly clear from the legislation what conditions would render a school or college exempt. I understand that it was indicated in the Commons that it would be when a school was judged to be outstanding by Ofsted, but it is not clear that they would be the only circumstances in which a school would be classified as exempt. Perhaps the Minister can clarify that. If they are the only circumstances, can the Minister confirm that it is quite likely that a school, once deemed to be outstanding, may not be subject to an inspection for six years or more? In other words, a whole cohort of children could pass through it without it ever being subject to inspection. Surely, as has been pointed out around the Committee already, there is a risk that once a school has been judged to be outstanding, its standards could subsequently decline. We, and no doubt others, have received comments from bodies such as Barnardo’s, Children England and Save the Children, echoing concerns about making exemptions from inspection. For example, unfairly selective admissions processes, lack of support for pupils with special educational needs or support to improve their behaviour, or dips in attainment of children from disadvantaged backgrounds may not be picked up. In addition, a school’s ongoing performance as a newly converted academy, with all the change and upheaval that it might entail, may not be considered and identified. During the course of the Bill, we have debated the future of a number of education quangos. Thankfully, the Government have recognised the importance of Ofsted and that it needs to continue. They have also recognised that Ofsted inspections are still considered to be the gold standard which teachers respect and parents rely on. If they are going to apply to only a certain proportion of schools, is there not a danger that that whole brand and that authority will diminish over time? One of the great strengths is that it is something that can be compared across the whole spectrum of schools as things stand at the moment. The clause allows exempt schools to request an inspection themselves, and a number of outstanding schools have already indicated that they may be forced to make such a request because they fear that parents will not be interested in reading a report about them that could be five years out of date. The fact that Ofsted will be able to charge for those inspections raises the spectre that there may be another fundraising subtext to these proposals, and I would be grateful if the Minister could debunk that suggestion. As the Bill stands, local authorities cannot trigger an inspection, yet local authorities are the champions of education in their areas and they are very well placed to identify concerns within a school, either through direct experience or through receiving concerns and complaints from the local community. Local authorities and parents are losing out in the way that these increasingly fragmented inspection systems are being introduced. Our amendment would enable parents, the local authority and other interested bodies to trigger an inspection on an otherwise exempt school. I recognise that if this amendment were agreed it would need to be worked upon to identify what the threshold should be for triggering an inspection. For example, would there need to be a number of parents or prospective parents requesting an inspection and how would Ofsted assess the seriousness of the concern raised? We believe that that could be spelled out in regulations. We hope that our amendments go some way towards providing some checks and balances, but we are also extremely sympathetic to the wider issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and other noble Lords in this debate.