Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, how many enforcement actions have been initiated by her Department for contravention of the Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010 section 5 since 2015.

The Education (Independent School Standards) (England) Regulations 2010 were replaced by the Education (Independent School Standards) Regulations 2014, which came into force on 5 January 2015 and set out more demanding standards that independent schools must meet. Standard 5 places requirements on schools on pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.

The Department commissions Ofsted or one of the approved independent inspectorates to inspect independent schools and report on whether or not they are meeting the standards. Where a school fails to meet the standards, the Department issues a statutory notice requiring an action plan to rectify the failings. In nearly all cases the school improves to meet the standards and regulatory action can stop. However, in rare cases where a school fails to make the required improvements the Secretary of State can take enforcement action: to impose a relevant restriction or to remove the school from the register of independent schools. More information on how the Department regulates the independent sector is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/regulating-independent-schools

Since 2015, the Secretary of State has taken enforcement action against two fee-paying independent schools for a failure to meet standard 5. Both schools were also failing to meet a number of the other standards.