Education (Exemption from School Inspection) (England) Regulations 2012

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

That this House regrets that the Education (Exemption from School Inspection) (England) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/1293) are both unnecessary and counterproductive as they would undermine the principle of all public services being inspected on a regular basis; undermine the professional oversight that is an essential part of good school governance; and run the risk of damaging children in cases where schools that have not been inspected then go into decline.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, the background to this Motion of Regret is the regulations that determine the framework for inspection of schools in England by Ofsted. Section 5 of the Education Act 2005 sets out the duty of the chief inspector to inspect schools at such intervals as are prescribed in regulations. The 2005 regulations made under Section 5 provide that the maximum interval between school inspections should be five years. However, the Education Act 2011, the passage of which we debated last year, now enables the Government to exempt specific categories of school from the chief inspector’s duty to inspect.

This is the first set of regulations to be made under the new power and has the effect of exempting from any further routine inspection any school that receives the highest Ofsted grading, which, as we know, is currently “outstanding”. Thus, in future, every school that is rated outstanding will not be routinely inspected further by Ofsted unless the school itself requests an inspection, in which case it will have to pay for it. The Government resisted amendments in Committee that would allow parents or local authorities to trigger an inspection.

The Government’s arguments in support of the change appear to be twofold. First, they say that exempting outstanding schools from future inspections will reduce, in the Government’s parlance, the “burdens” on such schools. Secondly, they say that it will enable Ofsted to target resources on less successful schools and so will have a cost benefit. Both arguments have some credence. However, for many years now, under successive Governments, Ofsted has moved towards a risk-based, proportionate approach to determining the frequency and intensity of inspection of particular schools. Successful schools can already expect to be inspected only once every five years. Therefore, risk assessments already enable Ofsted to target its resources effectively. However, to exempt schools from routine inspection entirely, and for schools to know that they henceforth they will be exempt, is not simply an extension of these developments. It is a significant qualitative change of a completely different order. It is wrong in principle and will have all sorts of adverse consequences in practice. I shall touch on both concerns—the principle and the practical implications.

The issue of principle derives from questions about the role of government in the delivery of our major public services. I would argue that the Government of the day have a duty both to the public generally, whose taxes pay for those services, and to the citizens who use the services. Surely the Government should be the guardians of both value for money and the quality of the public services provided. It is largely through regulatory and inspection regimes that the Government discharge their duty to service users and the wider public. That is why we have inspection of hospitals, GPs, police services, children’s homes and care homes. All major public services, whether provided directly by public bodies or indirectly through private, voluntary or independent organisations, are subject to inspection regimes to protect users and taxpayers. I know of no other services in which categories of provider are exempt. I would be grateful if the Minister could identify any for us, because I could not find any.

Because, for these very good reasons, this principle is so deeply embedded in the way we deliver public services; because many of these services are critical to people’s well-being; and because the people using them are often vulnerable in one way or another, it would be unthinkable for, say, excellent hospitals or care homes to be allowed to be completely exempt from future inspections. We can all predict the reaction if this were to be the case, so there are crucial questions that the Minister—with respect—has to answer, because they were not answered in this or the other place during the passage of the Education Act 2011. Why do the Government think exemption is acceptable for schools but not for hospitals, care homes and constabularies? Is this not an abdication of the Government’s duty to the public?

In striking the balance between the demands of inspection and the so-called freedom for schools, which the Government are promoting, have they not fallen too far on the side of the professionals and not sufficiently on the need to protect all pupils? The Minister may well say that the Government believe that they can trust schools to do the best for their pupils. We can for the most part, although not entirely, as experience tells us. However, that does not answer the point that it is wrong in principle for the provider of a service to be the sole arbiter of standards without any independent evaluation.

In addition to this fundamental issue of principle, there are a number of practical consequences to the exemption that I believe may have adverse effects on children and schools. I will mention three—other noble Lords will have other points—that are of particular concern to me. First, an outstanding rating at one inspection is not a guarantee of continuing excellence in standards of achievement. Outstanding schools decline. The 2010-11 Ofsted annual report reveals that 40% of the previously judged outstanding schools had declined at their subsequent inspection and three had plummeted to a rating of inadequate. For this reason, both the current chief inspector, Michael Wilshaw, and the former chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, have publicly expressed concerns about the proposal to exempt, as did the Education Select Committee.

Secondly, it is quite obvious that inspectors need regularly to see the full range of performance during their inspections in order satisfactorily to benchmark individual schools. If excellent schools are progressively excluded from the inspection regime there is a real danger that inspectors’ expectations will drift downwards over time as they lose touch with the very best practice.

Finally, inspections cover much more than the quality of teaching and learning. They have an important, and I would argue vital, role in telling us how well schools are addressing the wider well-being of pupils and preparing them for life challenges. Exam results alone cannot tell us how well, or even if, a school is teaching personal, social and health education, for example; how extensive the extra-curricular activities are; or, most importantly, how effectively a school is implementing good safeguarding policy and practice.

I know that if this exemption goes through—as I am sure it will—Ofsted has said that it will desktop assess outstanding schools regularly. However, that desktop analysis cannot possibly find out what is going on underneath exam results, and clarify and highlight whether there are any areas of concern, particularly in safeguarding and similar aspects of school life. For these reasons, and others that I suspect will be raised this evening, I believe that exempting any schools entirely from the inspection regime is a failure to children and parents. I beg to move the Motion.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness on setting out her concerns. We know that she speaks from a very deep concern for the welfare of children and has a wish to see excellence in education, an aspiration which we all share. I know too that she has real concerns about the possibility of a school degenerating from outstanding to something less.

I want to take both aspects she mentioned, the practical and the principle, and to say a few words on why I believe that this set of regulations exempting some schools in this way is the right move. First, on the practical, I think the noble Baroness rather overemphasised the picture of schools that were never inspected. This is not what is going to happen. They will still be included in national surveys, with subjects and aspects of education, so her concerns that the people in Ofsted will no longer have the opportunity to see excellence is more than answered by the fact that they will still be able to see excellence across specific subject areas and specific aspects of education.

Secondly, the chief inspector’s risk assessment will be annual. It will be regular and look at more than simply exam results. It will look at any concerns raised about the outstanding schools which are exempt and will then, if necessary, trigger an inspection. The noble Baroness shares my concern that there is always a danger of a change in a school’s performance when a new head comes in—either for the better or for the worse. The regulations cover that eventuality. The chief inspector’s risk assessment will be speeded up after there is a change of leadership in the school. There again, any anxieties one might have have been addressed in the regulations.

There is a pathetic faith in the value of inspection. I say that as one who spent 18 years as an inspector. In the 20 years or so that Ofsted has been pursuing its inspections, this country’s young people have moved in their performance from being in the top five, six or seven by comparison with other countries to being down in 25th, 27th and 28th place in different subject areas. Although Ofsted, I am sure, has been pursuing its aims with the best of intentions, and no doubt the Government’s very tight regulations, particularly the previous Government’s regulations, for how Ofsted should go about its business, were all done with the best of intentions, it simply did not work in the way that it was hoped it would. The standards of performance in our schools have degenerated quite disastrously in comparison with the standards of performance of other countries over the period of Ofsted’s work. We need to start inquiring very deeply, rather than have a mantra of “inspection is good”, as to exactly what really does achieve quality in schools and education.

There is plenty of evidence that people perform at their best, whether professionally or in other areas, when they are trusted and feel valued. My very strong experience of talking to teachers and heads over the past decade or so is that they have lost that feeling of trust. They feel they are bound by an overweening inspection regime which has breathed down their necks. They are watching their backs and feel that the Government are permanently on their backs telling them things. That has been part of the Ofsted culture. I am happy to see that that is now being changed under the coalition Government. Ofsted is being changed very radically and made much more professional and much more limited in its inquisitorial role. That is a good thing. Nevertheless, for most teachers and schools, there is still a sense of being watched rather than being trusted. I believe passionately, as well as having seen the research evidence, that trust and value enable professional people and others to perform at their peak.

There must be accountability to balance autonomy. The more freedom that we give to exempt schools, the more it is essential that we decide what their autonomy should be. I would very briefly say that I think that there are three levels of autonomy that we should trust. The first is the professional code, to which teachers themselves rightly aspire. The conscience of the teacher in wanting to give his or her absolute best is the first level of accountability. That is what we must foster, help and encourage by giving them more freedom to do that, because it is the real guarantee of quality. It is only when teachers really feel that they are responsible for their own performance and that they are required to give the best to their pupils that the quality can really be guaranteed. The second level is that the head of the school and other senior people in the school are responsible for the quality of education in that school. We must foster that. Instead of their thinking that somebody is going to come from outside and judge them, they should take responsibility for themselves and be prepared to make those judgments and deal with any underperformance.

Finally, we have forgotten the role of governors here. The last port of call, rightly, is and ought to be the responsibility of the governors over the quality of what goes on in the school. If things start to go wrong, it is the governors who should blow the whistle and start taking action by changing the head or the other staff of the school. It is a matter of absolute principle that we should stop thinking that the Government are always the best judge of things and people. I love the phrase in the department’s Explanatory Memorandum to the regulations where it says:

“The intention is to give the best schools the power to manage their own performance and to be more accountable locally to their communities, rather than to central government”.

That is what I believe should happen.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

First, inspections into faith schools concerning the arrangements that those schools make around their religious education will continue in any case, even for exempt schools. If there are concerns of the kind raised by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, about individual schools, whether by parents, local authorities or others, those would be referred to Ofsted and Ofsted would need to take a view as to whether it needed to act.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and my noble friends and noble Baronesses opposite for their very thoughtful and detailed contributions to what has been a very important debate. It has boiled down to three crucial questions. I will be brief because I am mindful of colleagues who want to carry on with the main business. I will not delay the House but I would like to bring these three items to our attention.

First, is external inspection necessary, even if it is not of itself now sufficient, to assure quality of education for pupils and to reassure the public? Notwithstanding the contribution of the Minister and the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, I do not think we have had an answer to that tonight, even though the Minister said he would address the Motion—and the first part of the Motion is about the undermining of that principle of regular inspection of public services. In every other service, the answer to that question is yes. In some critical services, as we heard from my noble friend Lord Hunt, inspection is not becoming lighter touch; it is becoming tighter. We have not heard the argument for schools uniquely to be exempt from inspection. We have not heard the Government’s answer to that question tonight.

Secondly, do we have the evidence that, contrary to other public services, outstanding schools exceptionally remain outstanding once they have been judged so to be? The answer is no, as we have heard. All the evidence says that many outstanding schools decline in standards; some decline dramatically and quickly, as my noble friend Lady Massey pointed out. If they can fall dramatically in relation to educational standards, they can certainly fall dramatically as well in relation to safeguarding and those other issues particularly germane to vulnerable children that the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was concerned about, and I share his concern.

Thirdly, the Government’s argument comes down to the fact that the safety net, the annual desktop risk assessment, is there as a catch-all. As my noble friend Lady Morris pointed out, not only is this becoming an edifice in itself, but in my view it can never be a substitute for directly observing what is going on and talking to parents and teachers. I am afraid what came to mind when I was listening to the arguments in favour of this as an effective safety net was the Baby P case in Haringey, when I was a Minister, when we learned that Ofsted had very recently completed a desktop assessment of social care in Haringey, which obviously had failed to uncover the very serious problems in policy and practice. It seems to be common sense that a desktop analysis of data is never actually going to reveal what is going on.

I hope that the Minister has at least appreciated the genuine strength of feeling and concern on this side of the House—and I suspect elsewhere. I am not going to press this matter to a vote at this late hour but I hope that the Government will reflect and monitor what happens as a result of this measure. If this measure has some of the negative consequences that we fear in even one school, many children will have their educational years blighted unnecessarily and avoidably, and I think we all agree that that would be a tragedy. I withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.