Clause 48 - Inspections
Childcare Bill
Public Bill Committees, 15 December 2005, 2:15 pm
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 56, in page 23, line 39, leave out from beginning until ‘an’.
No. 205, in clause 98, page 49, line 25, at end insert—
‘(af)an order under section 48,’.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
Amendment No. 27 relates to subsection (2)(a), which says that the chief inspector of schools
“must at such intervals as may be prescribed inspect early years provision”.
The amendment suggests that there should be not less than three years between inspections.
It is important that the inspections are frequent, perhaps even more often than every three years, but certainly not less often. There tends to be quite a high turnover of staff in early years provision. As a consequence, the quality of the care provided could change quite a lot and rapidly in those three years.
I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says about that. If she cannot accept the amendment, perhaps she will assure the Committee that the regulations that ultimately emerge will prescribe a period and that it will be of that order.
Amendment No. 205 applies to clause 98, which introduces the affirmative resolution procedures to certain specified order-making clauses. The amendment would apply the affirmative resolution procedure to clause 48, which seems to have four different order-making powers—quite a lot for one clause. Subsection (2)(a) gives the power to prescribe intervals at which inspections should be made, which we have just discussed; subsection (3) relates to regulations to prescribe circumstances in which the chief inspector is not required to inspect early years provision; and subsection (4) deals with regulations that can prescribe the regulatory regime of early years provision at independent schools.
As all those regulation-making powers relate to important issues, Opposition Members believe that they should be made subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. I wait to hear what the Minister has to say.
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
As the hon. Gentleman said, the clause covers the inspection of early years provision. Subsection (2)(a) requires the chief inspector to undertake inspections at prescribed intervals, creating a regular cycle of inspections of all providers. Subsection (2)(b) requires the chief inspector to carry out an inspection at the request of the Secretary of State, and subsection (2)(c) allows the chief inspector to carry out an inspection at other times if he considers it appropriate. That gives him the flexibility that he needs to deal with numerous types of consequences and sets of circumstances that he may face.
I listened carefully to what the hon. Gentleman said about what he thought amendment No. 27 meant. The way in which it is worded means that the minimum interval that could be set between regular inspections is three years. He appeared to suggest—he will intervene and tell me if I have got this wrong—that he quite liked the idea of inspections taking place more regularly than that, but that a regular period should be prescribed. That was his main point. I could not quite discern whether he wants inspections to take place no more regularly than every three years, which would be the effect of the amendment. If so, he would be changing the current legislation from prescribing a maximum period of three years to prescribing a minimum period of three years. That may or may not be what he intended, but it did not seem to be what he was arguing.
If the hon. Gentleman’s concern is that the inspections take place at regular intervals and that that is specified in the regulations, I assure him that that is what we intend to do. One of the impacts of the amendment would be to remove the chief inspector’s flexibility to inspect more regularly if necessary, using the regular cycle of inspections and duties under subsections (2)(b) and (2)(c). I am not convinced from what he said that that was the intention behind his amendment. It is a bit brain twisting if he considers it carefully. [Interruption.] Yes, it is something to do with neurons and synapses. [Interruption.] I have no comment on when or if they are attached.
The clause allows us the flexibility to reorganise inspection cycles without changing primary legislation. For example, it might be sensible to ensure that inspections of child care on school sites form part of the school inspection. It may therefore be sensible to have a minimum of slightly less than three years between those inspections in a particular instance in respect of a particular school. Given that we want to keep the burden of inspections to a minimum commensurate with safety and safeguarding, we would not want to prevent the inspector from being able to use his flexible good sense in a reasonable manner to make that kind of judgment in any individual case. Amendment No. 27 would have that effect, but I do not think that that is what the hon. Gentleman intended.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I have been baffled by the Minister’s comments and I thought that perhaps I had got my double negatives in a twist, but I just noticed that there are two versions of the amendment. There is a version dated 13 December, which says that the intervals are
“not to exceed 3 years”,
which is what I was talking about, and then there is a version dated 15 December, which says that the intervals
“should not be less than 3 years”.
I am baffled about why there are two versions. The earlier one is correct, not the later version.
Tim Loughton (Shadow Minister (Children), Health; East Worthing & Shoreham, Conservative)
Where does that leave us?
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
We will take further advice, but we will have to deal with the amendment as it stands.
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
I am glad to see that the synapses of the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton are clearly in fine working order. [Interruption.] Here I am, doing my best to be kind to him and the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham tries to take all the credit. I suppose that that is the way these things sometimes work. I have no doubt that we will clear it up.
However, given the confusion, and given what the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton set out as his aim, the current wording does the job. There will be consultation on the regulations. There will be plenty of opportunity for him or anybody else who is interested to make representations about what the interval should be. He will have noted that it is three years for schools, and therefore we are probably not too far apart, in practice.
Amendment No. 205 would require that regulations in respect of early years inspections and the treatment of independent schools be approved by both Houses before they come into force. Of course we need to take seriously the need to ensure that there is appropriate parliamentary scrutiny. We had a bit of a debate this morning on whether the negative or affirmative resolution procedure is the right one in various cases. Without repeating too much of what I said, there are provisions for orders to be made under both the affirmative and the negative resolution procedures for different proposed regulations. The way in which we choose which one to use for each power is in line with current practice across the House and across legislation.
The most important regulations—those that are most likely to have the biggest impact on how the early years foundation stage and other parts of the Bill are implemented—are, of course, subject to the affirmative resolution procedure, but the type of regulation to which the hon. Gentleman referred is normally subject to an order under the negative resolution procedure. Such orders are laid on the Table of the House, and it is perfectly open to any Member to pray against the order and bring about a fuller debate.
I hope that I have convinced and reassured the hon. Gentleman that it is not necessary to use the affirmative resolution procedure in this instance.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
It appears that there is a discrepancy in the wording of the amendments. We shall take further advice as the Committee develops to find out exactly how it happened.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
I am grateful to you, Mr. Amess. I suspect that the blame lies somewhere in my court, but I am not sure.
Whatever the explanation is, the intention of the amendment that we should have been debating was that the interval should not exceed three years. I am grateful for the Minister’s response to the substantive point, and that she will take on board representations when the regulations are drafted, as it is important that inspections are regular—certainly not less regular than inspections of schools—given the problems that many child care providers have with staff turnover and, indeed, the importance of the quality of child care. It is important that schools have high-quality teaching and raise standards, but there is a particular sensitivity in respect of young children. We must ensure that they are looked after in a safe environment. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I beg to move amendment No. 273, in page 23, line 19, after ‘applies’, insert
‘using appropriately and qualified staff’.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 285, in page 23, line 25, at end insert—
‘(d)must ensure that such inspections are carried out by inspectors who are qualified and experienced in early years provision.’.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
As I have said all along, quality must run through the whole package—quality in terms of the sufficiency and the early years foundation stage creating a framework for delivery of a quality curriculum, or whatever word we want to use for it. That must be backed up by qualified staff but, equally, the inspection process is important. Several people who work in the sector have expressed concerns about the quality and consistency of inspections of early years facilities. As we move into the new phase, it is important to ensure that the inspection is of the highest possible quality across the board. Although I imagine that the Minister might say that it is inappropriate to put that amount of detail in the Bill, which I accept, I want her to address the problem to ensure that we take forward all aspects of early years provision, including the quality of the inspectorate.
Although I wrote the amendments, I have a briefing that was provided by the Early Childhood Forum. Its experts say:
“It is imperative that OfSTED inspectors have the expertise and understanding of the range of early years philosophies in order to complete the 3 year cycle inspection”.
The briefing continues:
“Inspectors also need robust training on the Disability Discrimination Act and the amended Race Relations Act. It is also vital that those inspecting on the new framework particularly in schools have an in depth knowledge and understanding of children’s development”.
On Second Reading I asked: when there is an inspection in the context of a school, will the inspector be an early years specialist? I asked that without knowing the answer. As we move forward, the answer will be important. The ages of three to five are inspected within the whole framework, but with early years, it becomes even more important to have an early years background among the team of inspectors.
The Early Childhood Forum points out that the early outcomes framework, which was published only in September, has a number of targets and indicators. It is used by inspectors through joint area reviews. The forum says:
“For young children under the outcome of ‘education, training and recreation’, the aim is that the child is ‘ready for school’.”
We might agree that that should be one objective, but it is rather narrow. All members of the forum are concerned about that. The briefing says:
“They”—
the members—
“feel that it is an impoverished outcome for the quality of experiences that children have engaged in since birth, and that using this term as the summation of those experiences is far from ideal.”
My example illustrates that we must get right the inspection process as well as the other processes. Inspection processes are developing in all sorts of service provision and best practice must be emerging.
The amendments pose questions to which I should like some answers. I also want some reassurance that just as with all other aspects of the Bill, there will be a developmental process with regard to inspection.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
To come clean on the disparity about the amendment, the Committee has probably realised that there has been quite a turnover of Clerks. We shall not make a great fuss about what has gone on. It will all come out in the wash.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
It is important that the inspectors are qualified in early years child care and infant care. Child care experts, such as OXPIP, to which we have talked and to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham referred, have raised their concerns about the type of inspectors who will carry out the inspections. They believe that the inspectors need to be experts in infant mental health and to have good skills, including observation skills. They say that a secure attachment, which my hon. Friend mentioned, is vital in the first two years of a child’s life. Therefore, an early years inspector looks for different things than a school inspector.
Early years inspectors need to ensure, for example, that a key worker is attached to each child. They should look at the way in which staff greet parents and children at the start of the day, how they help the child’s transition from parent to nursery, how they deal with the separation issue when the child leaves the parent, and how they manage the children leaving the nursery at the end of the day. The inspectors should consider how the staff handle a child’s favourite toy. Do they simply bundle it away in a cupboard to prevent it from being lost or damaged, or ensure that the child has it safely throughout the session? They must take into account things such as the strength of the key worker role, support for the key worker in the day care provision and staff turnover. How would an inspector judge, for example, child care provision that appeared to countenance a lot of crying? Would they regard crying as an important part of a child’s emotional development or would they judge more highly a setting in which there was no noise at all? Experts say that crying among very young children is an important part of their emotional development: if there was no crying in a centre, that might be a problem rather than a sign of something good.
To assess such matters properly, an inspector must be qualified and experienced, particularly in secure attachment and infant mental health.
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
I understand why the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole tabled the amendments and made the points that she has. I do not disagree with anything that she said about the importance of the provision. She also recognised that the quality of Ofsted’s inspection work must develop continually.
The clause requires the chief inspector to carry out inspections of early years provision at regular intervals and gives him the flexibility to do so at any other time or when the Secretary of State requests. The amendments would place a statutory duty on the chief inspector to ensure that the inspection of early years provision was carried out by inspectors with specific early years qualifications and expertise.
We fully support the intention behind the amendments, which is to ensure high-quality inspections and appropriately qualified staff. There is no doubt that, without a robust and professional inspection system, we will not be able to show that we have met the key objectives. Therefore, the inspection system is an essential part of raising standards in early years settings. It will enable us to demonstrate that we have done so and to see whether we have met the aspirations for outcomes that we debated on clause 1.
I am aware that Ofsted has devoted a good deal of time and effort to ensuring that its inspectors are trained and made aware of latest developments, and the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton referred to it keeping up with theory and development in the field. All members of Ofsted’s staff who carry out early years inspections have now been trained to inspect against the Department’s “Birth to Three Matters” framework, which will be a key element of the early years foundation stage. However, that is not enough: there will have to be further training. Ofsted must ensure that it can meet the high standards required by the amendments. My Department will continue to work with Ofsted between now and 2008, when we expect the Bill to be fully implemented, and beyond, to make sure that its inspectors are sufficiently qualified and trained to do their new job.
The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole rightly expected me to say that the Bill is perhaps not the place to be so specific about the qualifications. We do not wish to curtail the chief inspector’s ability to deploy staff as he sees fit, with his knowledge of their good and bad points. However, we agree with the sentiments and intention behind the amendment. The discussion has been worth while and I hope that she feels reassured.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I thank the Minister for her comments. Yes, I do feel reassured. I cannot overestimate how important this strand is. We are discussing a continuum. As we progress to having a graduate in every children’s centre, it will be right that the inspectors have at least equivalent qualifications, which is not always the case at present. With those words, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.