The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) intends to redeploy some employed staff and allocate some contracted inspectors to support Government Departments, their agencies, local authorities and the education and care sectors (including schools, further education colleges, nurseries and children’s homes) during the period in which routine inspection has temporarily paused as a consequence of covid-19.
The Government support this approach, and the Secretary of State for Education has assigned an additional function to HM Chief Inspector for this purpose, under section 118(4) of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. A copy of the Secretary of State’s letter to Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector confirming this additional function will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
Ofsted requires an advance to support the redeployment until the 2020-21 ambit is agreed through the passage of the Supply and Appropriation (Main Estimates) Act 2020 in July.
Parliamentary approval for resources of £32,000,000 for this new expenditure will be sought in a main estimate for Ofsted. Pending that approval, urgent expenditure estimated at £32,000,000 will be met by repayable cash advances from the Contingencies Fund.
As Ofsted is a non-ministerial Department, I am making this statement on behalf of its accounting officer, to ensure that Parliament is informed of this advance from the Contingencies Fund in the normal way.
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