Clause 48 - Inspections
Childcare Bill
2:30 pm
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.