Education (Exemption from School and Further Education Institutions Inspections) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Lord Watson of Invergowrie Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)]

My Lords, Labour supports these regulations, as they reverse the legislation that was incorporated into the Education Act 2011 that we opposed at the time. That we are considering them at all today is down to the persistence of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who then spoke for the Opposition on education. In Committee on the then Bill he said:

“I would have thought that something as important as the exemption of categories of school from Ofsted inspections would, at the least, deserve to be treated as an affirmative order”.


He convinced the Government, who introduced their own amendment to that effect.

My noble friend also said then, in respect of the amendment that was being made to the provisions of the Education Act 2005:

“I have considerable concerns about this. The fact is that not all outstanding schools remain outstanding”.—[Official Report, 20/7/11; col. GC 472-73.]


That point has been echoed by many noble Lords today. Again, my noble friend was right. The National Audit Office found that, as of August 2017, 1,720 schools had not been inspected for six years or more, with 296 not having been inspected for more than a decade. My son’s school proudly proclaims that it is Ofsted-rated outstanding. In my experience it remains outstanding, but that is something of which Ofsted is unaware, because it last inspected it in 2008—three years before my son was born.

According to Ofsted’s most recent annual report, 17% of outstanding schools have not had a full inspection in the last 10 academic years—which would be the equivalent of 765 schools. Tellingly, of the 305 schools that Ofsted has re-inspected, 80% were subsequently downgraded, with 74 rated “requires improvement” and 14 rated inadequate.

These regulations are overdue and it is no surprise that the consultation found 89% in agreement for both schools and colleges. But there are wider issues regarding schools. The four Ofsted grades are not defined in law. The framework for inspection belongs to HMCI and there is no direct accountability about what it contains. HMCI “decided” to delay inspection of free schools from the second to the third year after its establishment some four or five years ago. HMCI could not exempt academies in perpetuity; that could be done only by regulations. However, our main objection to the original legislation still stands—regulations can exempt schools from inspection.

Last year’s Labour manifesto set out our policy to replace Ofsted and transfer responsibility for inspections to a new body designed to drive school improvement. This is not the place for detailed analysis, but we believe that the current grading system is flawed and often counterproductive. For instance, it is not appropriate to attempt to summarise everything about such a complex organisation as a school in a single grade and the current system encourages unhealthy competition between schools, one result being those garish banners that some display—no matter how dated—to advertise their status. Of greater concern, getting a poor grade often makes a school’s task in improving that much harder, as recruiting staff and pupils can become more difficult.

More generally, schools with favoured intakes are far more likely to get good or outstanding grades than schools with challenging intakes. That was a finding of the 2016 Education Policy Institute study of school inspections.

The Explanatory Memorandum accompanying these regulations seems unduly optimistic in stating that routine inspections will recommence in January 2021. It also outlines the mixed-model approach for the resumption of inspections of hitherto exempt schools and colleges, which are not due to be completed until August 2026. That represents an inordinate delay in addressing what the DfE itself has identified as an existential defect in the current system. If that is a staffing issue, it needs to be addressed to allow these inspections to be completed much sooner. The memorandum is silent on the question of costs associated with the introduction of these regulations. Indeed, it states:

“The impact on the public sector is minimal”.


That impact should involve employing additional Ofsted staff, in that case, to ensure that the anomaly of the outdated status of some schools is ended as soon as possible. I invite the Minister to comment on that point in her reply.