Further written evidence to be reported to the House
Education and Skills Bill
12:00 pm
Christine Ryan: The agreement is itself set up between the inspectorate and the Department. The Department sets the terms of the agreement, because it is the regulator, and we are judged against compliance with that agreement with the Department. If you have a situation where Ofsted is the regulator, Ofsted will set the terms of the agreement; it will also be monitoring our compliance with that agreement. Suddenly you are not dealing in the independent way you were previously. At the moment, Ofsted monitors on behalf of the Department, and publishes a report. Any debate or dispute there might be about Ofsted’s findings on its judgments of ISI will ultimately go to the Department, and the Department will resolve those disputes. There is no obvious proposal on how that will change in the future.