School Inspections: Funding Debate

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Department: Department for Education
Wednesday 17th April 2024

(8 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
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I thank my noble friend for his remarks. I agree that we have a system in this country with high autonomy in our schools. We trust our school and trust leaders to deliver for our children, but with that autonomy goes high accountability.

Lord Addington Portrait Lord Addington (LD)
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My Lords, there is a principle that what gets inspected gets done. Can the Government say whether, if inspections are not done properly, we might be doing things badly? We have got to ensure that there are enough resources if we have a system of stick and carrot.

Baroness Barran Portrait Baroness Barran (Con)
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I take the noble Lord’s point, but there is not a lot of evidence to suggest overall that inspection is not done well. There is significant quality assurance of inspections, and, during 2022-23, an overall judgment was changed in only 0.6% of state-funded school inspections.