Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Sharp of Guildford and Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I want to add my voice to the concern about Clause 39 and particularly to support Amendment 114A. I have a rather more positive view of Ofsted than most noble Lords who have spoken in the debate. It seems to me that on the vast majority of occasions the Ofsted inspection is extremely valuable, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, said earlier. While there are undoubtedly some exceptions to that, an effective and good inspection system is in operation.

I was particularly moved to intervene by the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, that this might be used as a way of, in some way, exempting faith schools from the inspection process. I want to make it quite clear that I at any rate would not want faith schools to be exempted from the inspection process in any way. I hope the Minister will confirm that there is no intention of doing that. The vast majority of faith schools are maintained schools and wish to remain so. Where some of them wish to become academies it is not in any way to avoid being part of an inspection system. Certainly I have never heard in the debates over academies of any school indicating, either overtly or covertly, that one of things it wanted to do was to evade the inspection system.

I believe the inspection system to be extremely important, not simply for local authorities—though certainly for them—but also for diocesan boards of education, both Roman Catholic and Anglican. They too work with schools through the Ofsted process and through that inspection and it is of considerable value in discussing, helping and encouraging the schools. I hope the Minister can assure me that there is no intention of exempting faith schools here and that he will say where academies stand in all of this discussion.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I would just like briefly to say that I have some sympathy with this set of amendments and in particular to draw attention to the fact that Clause 41 applies these provisions to colleges as Clause 39 applies them to schools. We are all very well aware of how important school leaders are and that a head and a college principal can make all the difference. When they move on to take another job or to retire, a school or a college can go downhill extremely quickly. One needs to have some form of trigger for an inspection in these circumstances; something equivalent to Amendment 114 put forward by my noble friend Lady Perry might be appropriate for colleges as well as for schools. Alternatively, if we move on to Clause 42—I think it is that clause, but it may be further on—local authorities are given the responsibility for taking action when schools are causing concern. They might well have the responsibility for triggering an inspection.

We all probably welcome the slightly more light-handed form of inspection outlined in Clause 40, but at the same time there are dangers with total exemption of the outstanding ones. We are aware that what is outstanding one year can fall very quickly.