Clause 82 - General power to make information available
Childcare Bill
10:00 am
Maria Eagle (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Children and Families), Department for Education and Skills; Liverpool, Garston, Labour)
I beg to move amendment No. 150, in page 44, line 23, at end insert—
‘()Regulations may require the Chief Inspector to provide prescribed information held by him in relation to persons registered under this Part to prescribed persons for either of the purposes mentioned in subsection (1).’.
I hope that the hon. Lady enjoys this. The amendment changes clause 82, which allows the chief inspector to make prescribed information about registered persons available to such persons and in such manner as he deems appropriate for the purpose of assisting parents in choosing a child care provider. The amendment changes the “may” in the clause to “must”. Although it is not the same as her amendment, I hope that she enjoys the fact that such an amendment has been tabled and that we accept the prospect of such a change.
To explain what may be seen as a bit of a volte-face by the Government, I assure the Committee that our reason for tabling the amendment is that Ofsted does not want to have to exercise discretion on whether to provide the information in certain circumstances. It wants a duty to do so, so that it will not get caught up in arguments with providers or be challenged about whether it should hand over information in certain circumstances.
The amendment gives us the power to make a regulation requiring Ofsted to hand over information. The provision relates to the passing of information to bodies such as the police and local authorities, and to parents, in certain circumstances. It is currently dealt with in the Child Minding and Day Care (Disclosure Functions) (England) Regulations 2004, but that needs to be re-enacted because of changes made by the Bill. The measure will contribute to the protection of children while ensuring that Ofsted does not get caught up in arguments about what it does.
Given what I said about “may” and “must” earlier, I hope that the hon. Lady enjoys the fact that she has, in a way, triumphed, even if the context is slightly different from that of her original amendment.