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Lord Filkin: Clause 3 re-enacts the current requirement that the chief inspector must make an annual report to the Secretary of State, who must in turn lay that report before Parliament. The purpose of this provision is to ensure the accountability of the chief inspector to Parliament. We touched on this earlier in our discussions.
The requirement to lay annual reports before each House of Parliament ensures appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and the annual report sets out the professional judgements of the chief inspector informed by the evidence of inspection on the health of education and care provision within his remit. However, the affirmative resolution procedure provides that Parliament must expressly approve what is before it. It is a procedure used to approve delegated legislation such as certain regulations or orders.
The implication of tabling an amendment which includes the term "affirmative resolution" is to imply that the report should not stand if Members of the House do not like what it has to say. The implication of that is that the independence of the chief inspector's judgment is subject to whether Parliament approves what the chief inspector says. I am certain that that is not the intent of the amendment but its implication would be in danger of weakening the chief inspector's independence.
If the intention of the amendment is to seek assurance that there is a proper parliamentary scrutiny of the issues raised in the chief inspector's annual report—amen to that. I can categorically offer that assurance.
One of the most well-established routes for this is through the Education and Skills Select Committee, which holds an annual session on the chief inspector's annual report. The chief inspector and his senior management team are called to give evidence and account for the report and its contents. In recent years there has also been a regular parliamentary debate on such matters relating to the end report and the work of Ofsted, including at or soon after the laying of the report. In addition, there is also ministerial accountability to Parliament for the operation of Ofsted. It is right that Parliament has the opportunity to discuss issues raised by the annual report and other matters relating to the quality of education. The current arrangements provide for that. They are within the control of Parliament—they are not in the control of the Executive or the Government in any respect whatever.
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It is up to Members of this House and another place how they seek to engage with the inspector in the future. I hope that the noble Baroness is reassured that the crucial accountability of the chief inspector to Parliament without that independence being compromised will be there strongly in the future, in a form that will be decided by Parliament, not by Ministers from this Dispatch Box.
Baroness Morris of Bolton: I thank the Minister for his reply. We so enjoy our debates on Ofsted that it might be nice to make them an annual event. I will reflect on what the Minister has said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Lucas moved Amendment No. 18:
"( ) must make an annual report, concerning the results of studies funded under section (Evaluation of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Schools for England), to the Secretary of State who must lay a copy of it before each House of Parliament,"
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 18 I shall speak at the same time to Amendment No. 50.
Just as schools will benefit from evaluation by Ofsted, so would Ofsted benefit from outside evaluation. No group of people—however wonderful and worthy—can do everything on their own. It is always helpful to have some outside view of what is going on, some new influx of fresh ideas, some critical thinking—which is a difficult thing to produce from within an organisation—some way of challenging what is going on to enable an institution to improve itself and move forward. Ofsted is becoming such a crucial part of our education structure that we really ought to have that in place for it.
What I have suggested here is a structure where the research into Ofsted's methods and into the results it is producing would be commissioned independently of Ofsted and the DfES and not wedded to any particular research council. It would be carried out by researchers who are in turn subject to their own evaluation and monitoring procedures as part of the higher educational research establishment, so that the monitoring of the monitors is already catered for.
Their results would be reported back to us through the medium of Ofsted, so that it did not appear as something which was criticism out of the blue to be confronted and rebutted by Ofsted, but as part of Ofsted's own self-evaluation. Doubtless it would disagree with some of the criticisms, but others it would take on board. Overall it would be seen as a constructive process. Whatever structure we adopt, it is essential that it should be done. We will all be better off, in particular Ofsted, if we do so. I beg to move.
Baroness Sharp of Guildford: I rise to speak briefly in support of these two amendments. It is important for us to be concerned with Quis custodiat custodies here. We have in Ofsted what is now a very powerful agency which at the moment is not subject to any regular evaluation procedures, although reviews are
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carried out from time to time. It would be quite helpful if such a procedure were written into its remit and therefore I strongly support the amendments.
Lord Filkin: I agree with the central thrust of the amendments tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, without—as he indicated—necessarily agreeing with the detail. Ofsted has to evaluate its work, and it is one of the Government's principles of inspection, published in July 2003 by the Office of Public Service Reform, against which Ofsted and other inspectorates are judged.
It may be helpful to differentiate between the evaluation of two distinct elements. The first involves the evaluation of the impact of Ofsted and its work, while the second relates to the evaluation of the processes involved in inspection. In part, obviously, it is the efficiency between the two that is relevant. The processes should lead to the most effective impact in the most economical way.
The first element might lead to questions about the extent to which Ofsted inspections have contributed to school improvement or accountability, while the second would lead to questions about methods and criteria for reaching judgments, and whether they are accurate and sound.
With regard to the first element—evaluating the impact of inspection—Ofsted has undertaken a comprehensive self-evaluation of its work, seeking independent validation of this through the Institute of Education. The results of that work were made public in a report published in July 2004. I shall write to the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and to other noble Lords on the Front Benches with the appropriate reference. The study draws on extensive survey evidence from service providers and stakeholders, including parents. It analyses, for example, the impact of Ofsted on the improvement of schools and its impact on other sectors such as teacher training institutions and local authorities, as well as its impact on the improvement of inspection itself.
Turning to the second element, the evaluation of processes, Ofsted takes very seriously its responsibilities to ensure the quality of inspections and to keep its methodologies up to date. It has undertaken several international studies, particularly with the Dutch inspectorate, which have shown that the criteria and instruments of each inspectorate are capable of being used consistently by inspectors in both countries and of both nationalities. Ofsted meets regularly with inspectorates across Europe to compare methodologies and to learn from best practice elsewhere.
The methodology of the new inspection arrangements has been tried, evaluated and revised through the pilot phase. Each term, schools and LEAs have worked with inspectors to evaluate the approaches used and to recommend improvements. It is an active process that embraces the involvement of participants in the development of the model of inspection itself. Focus groups of parents and pupils have also been consulted on the approaches used to gather their views.
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Further work is being planned to evaluate the new inspection arrangements as a whole. This will be completed in part through reviews conducted by the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. It will also include all of the evaluations carried out throughout the pilot inspection. This is just the start of a move towards regular and systematic evaluation.
Ofsted also intends to commission an external evaluation of the project to implement the new arrangements proposed in this Bill, as well as they should—this meets the point about external evaluation. It will review the new inspection methodology and the impact of inspections on school effectiveness, which is the acid test. This will take account of the inspections carried out in the first year of the pilot, which demonstrates Ofsted's commitment to ongoing external evaluation of its work.
I agree that both the aspects of evaluation I have mentioned require proper scrutiny and frequent review. I hope that the examples I have given illustrate that Ofsted shares this commitment, which is underpinned by the Government's commitment to their principles of inspection published in 2003. You must have external processes for validating inspection procedures; they cannot be left in the hands of the inspectors themselves.
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