Clause 49 - Report of inspections
Childcare Bill
Public Bill Committees, 15 December 2005, 2:45 pm
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 58, in page 24, line 9, leave out ‘in connection with’ and insert ‘which directs’.
No. 274, in page 24, line 10, at end insert—
‘(1A)The report written under subsection (1) must not include a grade or mark relating to the provision inspected, either overall or for separate elements.’.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
Amendment No. 57 probes the extent to which child care is also meant to assist parents, and whether that ought to be an aspect of the report. We discussed the importance of child care for working parents, which the report should reflect. Amendment No. 58 makes a semantic point about the focus of leadership and management.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
Amendment No. 274 is another one of the “nots” that I am endeavouring to put into the Bill. The very fact that the Government have two “nots” in clause 41 shows that there is value in not being too prescriptive. Obviously, adding the amendment would be reassuring. As the newspaper articles that I referred to were, in fact, in The Guardian, I was surprised that Labour Members, as well as some Opposition Members, suggested that they were from the tabloids. That was the problem: the quality press made the Bill the main story the day after its launch.
The amendment would ensure that we do not start getting league tables of any sort. That does not mean that Ofsted reports should not be published and made fully accessible, but things develop as part of the desire to drive up standards. That would be incredibly undesirable in this sector.
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)
Amendment No. 57 seeks to ensure that parents’ needs are taken into account and reported on in the report that inspectors produce after they complete an inspection. I agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton that to ensure that a particular setting properly meets the needs of children, and that it is delivering the early years foundation stage and adhering to the principles behind it, providers will have to establish good relationships with parents. As we know, parents are the single most important factor, for better or worse, in determining outcomes for children. Therefore, practitioners will need to work with parents to ensure that children’s needs are met.
The hon. Gentleman repeated some of the comments that I made about practitioners and parents building relationships, how that determines and shapes the experience of the child, how the child should be handed over from one adult to another at the beginning of the day and how the child sees that there is a relationship—all of that is important. However, the early years foundation stage is about ensuring that children’s needs are met and that their well-being is promoted. Although the active involvement of parents is integral to that, the early years foundation stage itself is not about meeting parents’ needs, which is how subsection (1)(c) would be phrased with the amendment. I hope that he will accept that the chief inspector should not be required to report on whether parents’ needs are being met, although he will need to report on the extent to which practitioners involve parents in what is going on in the setting and whether relationships between practitioners and parents are strong and sound.
Amendment No. 58 concerns the extent to which the inspector reports on the quality of leadership and management, which is also important. Such reporting will include a number of factors, including staff deployment, morale, planning, organisation and the culture of the setting. Subsection (1)(d) is so worded to capture the variety of factors that could be considered to contribute to the quality of leadership and management. It also ensures that different models of early years provision can be taken into account. For instance, some settings are part of large national organisations, so we must ensure that inspectors can comment not simply on the leaders of individual settings, but on the extent to which any parent organisation, whether a voluntary organisation or a large private provider, is contributing to the quality of what is delivered.
Amendment No. 274 would prevent Ofsted from including a grade or an indication of grading in an inspection report. I disagree with the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole on that. I am sorry that she linked it—unhelpfully—to the idea of league tables, because it is not about league tables. She acknowledged that there is a well developed inspection practice across many fields, including probation, prisons, education and the health sector, and a considerable body of best practice. In none of those instances do inspectors ascribe a single benchmark—a pass or fail standard—as a result of their inspection.
The provision is predominately about parents and information for parents, so it is essential that in education and child care across the board there is a system whereby parents can understand where the setting in which their children are being cared for sits in the quality spectrum. We want everybody, ultimately, to reach the highest standards, but the process of getting there will involve different settings at different points, albeit above a broadly satisfactory standard. Parents must have that information.
The hon. Lady might know that Ofsted publishes its inspection reports on the website, which is very good. The number of visits to that website—more than 17,000 a day—shows the extent of interest in the performance of early years provision and schools by the parents who use them.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I should perhaps qualify my remarks. I said that it was important for parents to read the Ofsted report. Transparency, openness and access to information are all important. Once we get down to a single mark or grade, people will be concerned that league tables might come into the frame.
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)
We are certainly not talking about a single mark, as I think the hon. Lady knows. However, while parents can read inspection reports, they are not necessarily familiar with and expert in the way in which Ofsted inspectors assess and judge the criteria that enable them to come to a conclusion about a setting. Parents should have a simple yardstick to enable them to interpret the detailed findings in a report.
The hon. Lady knows that the grades are satisfactory, good or outstanding, and that there are two grades for settings that are judged to be inadequate. Both those grades have different implications for the speed and frequency with which Ofsted carries out return visits and requires the instigation of an improvement programme.
That is quite important information for parents to have and I should not like Ofsted to move to a simple grading of satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Our focus should be on parents and not on some misguided attempt to neutralise the impact of inspections by reducing the grading simply to satisfactory or unsatisfactory. Parents want to know more. The grading system is simple; it is not over-complicated. It serves its purpose and, for parents, it is important that we retain it.
David Amess (Southend West, Conservative)
With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 60, in page 24, line 19, leave out ‘he considers appropriate’ and insert
‘which will increase accessibility to the report’.
No. 286, in page 24, line 19, at end insert—
‘(e)may make arrangements for the report to be discussed with the registered person.’.
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Education; Bognor Regis & Littlehampton, Conservative)
The amendment requires Ofsted to publish all its reports, except for the sensitive material, on its website. As the Minister said, that is where the reports are published. The amendment merely seeks to include that requirement in the Bill. We had a debate about ensuring that all parents and prospective parents have the widest possible amount of information. As the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said, the Ofsted report is probably the most useful piece of information when a parent is trying to determine whether they feel comfortable putting their trust in a particular child care provider.
Amendment No. 60 would alter subsection (2)(d), which states that the chief inspector
“may arrange for the report ... to be ... published in any manner he considers appropriate”.
The amendment states that the report should be published in a manner
“which will increase accessibility to the report”.
It is important that as many parents and prospective parents as possible are made aware of the reports and encouraged to look at them before forming a view on which child care provider to take their children to. As we do more to disseminate and publicise the fact that these reports are on the website and available to be seen, we will find that a much wider cross-section of parents use the information, which is all to the good. I await the Minister’s response.
Annette Brooke (Shadow Minister, Education & Skills; Mid Dorset & North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I agree with the sentiments of the Conservative amendments, although I do not know whether they are necessary.
I have to confess to ignorance in case the Minister tells me that what I propose in amendment No. 286 already happens. I do not think that it does, but I am not 100 per cent. sure. The amendment says “may” not “must”, which is a good start. When there is a school inspection, the team of inspectors returns and discusses the report, usually with the governors and senior members of staff. I imagine that it would be impractical always to do that with the many nursery and day care inspections, but I would have thought that face-to-face feedback from the inspector could serve a useful purpose in the same way that it does in a school. This is a probing amendment, because I am not too sure of my ground, but I think that what I am saying is desirable. I wait to hear the response.
Beverley Hughes (Minister of State (Children, Young People and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Stretford & Urmston, Labour)
I hope that I can assure Opposition Members that the amendments are unnecessary because what they try to achieve is already in place.
On amendment No. 29, I said that the inspection reports are on the website and freely available. The number of visits that I cited suggests that parents are well aware of that and take the opportunity to visit the website and read them. Perhaps I should say that there may be some instances when it is not appropriate to publish a particular report on the website. The obvious example is when registered child care is provided in a women’s refuge and the need for the whereabouts of that setting to remain confidential is paramount.
I agree with the sentiments behind amendment No. 60. Parental involvement in the inspection process and their access to information are important. It is the practice of Ofsted to send a copy of the inspection report automatically and without charge to all parents of children attending a child care setting. For parents whose children are already at the setting, they receive a copy of the report; for other parents who seek information, the website is the point of access.
On amendment No. 286, the process will be similar to that which Ofsted adopts at a school. It will inspect a child care setting. When the inspection has finished, it will discuss its general and detailed findings with the providers and staff in the setting, and then write its report. I am sure that the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole accepts that although the discussion is important—not least to track any factual errors—Ofsted needs to reserve the right to write its report and come to the judgment that it thinks fit. If, after the report is received, there are issues about the improvement that is deemed necessary, as there is in some cases, there would be a further exchange between Ofsted and the provider.