Sir Martyn Oliver, Lee Owston and Yvette Stanley gave evidence.

Will the witnesses from Ofsted please introduce themselves?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

I am Sir Martyn Oliver, His Majesty’s chief inspector at Ofsted.

Yvette Stanley:

My name is Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s national director for early years regulation and social care inspection and regulation.

Lee Owston:

I am Lee Owston, one of His Majesty’s inspectors and Ofsted’s national director for education.

Thank you for coming. I have some short questions that do not need particularly long answers. Have you found evidence that academy schools are not teaching a broad and balanced curriculum? Are you finding lots of academies not doing that?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

No, we do not find that.

Is there a major problem with schools employing teachers without qualified teacher status? Are non-QTS teachers not up to scratch? Would you regard it as a red flag if a school were employing non-QTS teachers? Would it make you think, “We’re probably heading towards a bad result here”?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

We do not actually look at the backgrounds of teachers and check to that level of detail, so I could not give you a quantitative answer. I do know that increasingly, as schools are finding it difficult to recruit and retain staff, they are looking at alternative measures. It is massively important that people be qualified to teach children to the highest possible standard in the specialism in which they are delivering.

Do you recognise that sometimes a school can bring someone in who might be at a later point in their career and be highly specialised—perhaps a great sportsman, an IT person or a scientist—and that if the headteacher takes the view that they would be a good person for teaching, as an alternative to having no teacher, that can be the right decision?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Speaking as a previous headteacher, absolutely. Bringing in external expertise to supplement high-quality qualified teachers is clearly of benefit to children.

The Bill will remove the academy order. How will the intervention regime work in future? At the moment, the Ofsted handbook states thatQ

“if any key judgement is inadequate…we will place the school in a formal category of concern.”

How will that work in future? If a school is in the bottom tier of one of your new categories of assessment, what will happen?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

The legal powers for Ofsted are that I identify to the Secretary of State a school that is in special measures or requires significant improvement. That requirement—from, I think, the Education and Inspections Act 2006—will not change. Ofsted will still be under a duty to pass that on to the Secretary of State. Very imminently, I will consult on a new framework that will strengthen and raise standards further. I am interested to see what the Department for Education will release alongside my consultation to explain those academy orders further.

Are we still waiting to hear what that intervention regime will look like?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Yes, but I think it is very imminent. I am very happy: I feel that we are going to hold the system to account to raise standards better than ever before.

It will help if those Members who wanted to ask a question last time but were not called indicate if they want to ask a question in this session.

Q Is Ofsted pleased to see the measures in this Bill, in the round?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Yes, absolutely. We very much welcome the introduction of the Bill, which will deliver some of the important legislative asks that Ofsted has made for a long time, especially to keep the most vulnerable safe and learning. That includes removing loopholes that enable illegal schools to operate, improving Ofsted’s powers to investigate unregistered schools that we suspect may be operating illegally, enabling Ofsted to fine unregistered children’s homes for operating unsafe and unregulated accommodation for vulnerable children, introducing a register of children not in school—I could go on. We are very happy with large parts of the Bill.

Q You have already set out the impact that the Bill will have on Ofsted’s powers. I imagine that you spend a large proportion of your time worrying about the most vulnerable children in society. What do you think will be the impact of the Bill on those children who are most in need?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Our top priority is the most disadvantaged and vulnerable. The ability to look at illegal or unregistered settings, unregistered children’s homes and illegal schools is hugely important. When they are out of Ofsted’s line of sight, it causes us great concern. I think that this Bill or a future Bill could go further and look at unregistered alternative provision, because all children educated anywhere for the majority of their time should be in sight of the inspectorate or a regulator. I do think that we will see significant issues with addressing the most disadvantaged and vulnerable, especially in part 1, on children’s social care.

Q You talked about the additional powers that you are being given, and you mentioned AP as an area where you would like it to go further. Is there anywhere else where you would like it to go further? Importantly, do you feel that Ofsted has the capacity and capability to deliver on all this? When I talk to local government, I often hear that there are quite a lot of delays with Ofsted.

Sir Martyn Oliver:

We think that there are grey areas where the legislation will help us get it right, but we do think that we can go further. For example, the feasibility and administrative costs of carrying out searches of illegal schools and the requirement of getting a warrant would be very burdensome for Ofsted, and we will need additional resource to manage that. It is massively important. We will always use those powers proportionately and with care. For example, in a commercial setting, the ability to have different powers that allow us to search without a warrant would be far more reasonable. Obviously, in a domestic setting, I would expect safeguarding measures to be in place and to require a warrant, because forcing an entry into somebody’s private home is entirely different from doing so in a commercial premises. There are resources there, but I am assured that my team, particularly my two policy colleagues here, have been working with the Department for quite some time on these asks. We have been building our measures and building that into our future spending review commitment as well.

Yvette Stanley:

To build on what Martyn has just said, from a social care perspective we would like to go further on the standards for care. National minimum standards are not good enough; the standards should apply based on the vulnerability of and risk to children. A disabled child in a residential special school should not be getting a different level of support: the same safeguards should be in place whether they are in a children’s home or in a residential special school.

We would like to go further on corporate parenting. That is something to be addressed. We would also like to look at regional care co-operatives and regional adoption agencies. Those things tend to fall out of our purview as an inspectorate. There is a range of really detailed things, but to echo what Martyn says, we are working actively with our DFE policy colleagues to give our very best advice through the Bill process to strengthen these things wherever possible.

Q I want to pick up on Neil’s question about the automatic intervention by Ofsted where, with a failing school, an academy order is put in place. I am just a bit perplexed by the timing of the Bill. Although I support the provision that it should not always be automatic, given that you are only just about to launch a consultation on your framework, and perhaps the Department around the accountability measures, are we moving too soon in the Bill before we have had the consultation on your new framework?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

The consultation will meet the Government test and will run for 12 weeks imminently. The Bill will obviously pass through the House at that time. I think it will bring it all together in a more joined-up system. The system has been calling for inspection and accountability to be joined up, and we are about to deliver that in, I hope, the next few weeks. Of course, the consultation is not a fait accompli. I will be really interested to receive feedback from everyone, and we will respond to that at the end and see where it takes us. I hope that at the end it will be a better system for vulnerable and disadvantaged children, alongside all children, to keep them safe and well-educated.

Sir Martyn, you mentioned in relation to Neil’s question that staff, not necessarily with qualified teacher status, can be a great supplement. I agree that they can be, but can you just clarify that that “supplement” means a supplement, not the main teacher for the whole academic year, year on year?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Again, it would depend. In the past, I have brought in professional sportspeople to teach alongside PE teachers, and they have run sessions. Because I was in Wakefield, it was rugby league: I had rugby league professionals working with about a quarter of the schools in Wakefield at one point. I had a tremendous amount of help from the local rugby teams, but that was alongside qualified teachers carrying out that work. That was important to me, because those qualified teachers could meet the risk assessment regarding the activity of teaching children rugby league. Having that specialism is key. There is a reason why you train to be a teacher and it is a profession.

Q Just to clarify, that is alongside fully qualified teachers, not instead of?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Ideally alongside. I personally would never have done “instead of” as a first choice. That would have been a deficit decision, based on my ability to recruit and retain staff.

That is an interesting point, Sir Martyn. You had the freedom to hire a teacher when you saw fit. We have just heard that the Government intend this Bill to be predominantly about setting and improving standards in our school system, but it does curtail certain freedoms for schools. Have you any thoughts on the freedoms that are being curtailed in this Bill? Also, in your experience at Ofsted, what are the components that are necessary and common when schools turn around and you see them improve?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Lee and I will answer this one together. The components we see are the ones that we set out in the Ofsted framework, on which I am about to consult. The quality of leadership and governance from those running the organisations is always No. 1. Then, very quickly, it is the quality of the curriculum, the ability of teachers to deliver that curriculum, and the outcomes that children receive. It is then everything else: behaviour, attendance, personal development, wellbeing. All these things form part of our inspection regime. We test and check them all.

Lee Owston:

In my 13 years as one of His Majesty’s inspectors, I have always observed in schools that there is a mix of colleagues who are delivering the curriculum. The absolute beauty and purpose of inspection is to get underneath, on the ground, the difference you are making to the children in front of you, whatever qualification you might have, if any. It means asking questions of the leaders about why they have decided to do what they have done in the context in which they are working. Ultimately we report on whether whatever decision a leader has made ultimately has the intent of making a difference so that, whatever background a child comes from, it is allowing them to succeed.

We heard from the Children’s Commissioner that the number of children who are missing from education and at risk of child sexual exploitation has been getting worse. I am interested in your views as to why.Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

We see quite a number of issues. I spoke recently in my annual review, which I laid before Parliament in December, about home schooling and flexi-schooling. To be clear, many children are very well flexi-schooled and home-schooled, but I am very concerned about those who have been withdrawn from the school’s register for all the wrong reasons. Dame Rachel recently mentioned the very sad case of Sara Sharif.

If a school is recommending that a child be placed in front of the child protection team, it should clearly not be possible for a parent to then withdraw that child from that oversight of the professionals and place them in home education. Not only is having a register of children who are not in education massively important for keeping individuals safe, but it will be of significant benefit to Ofsted. In the Bill, there are sharing powers between the DFE, the local authority and Ofsted that will allow us to investigate for unregistered and illegal schools, so we will be better able to determine where they might be taking place. That will be hugely beneficial for keeping children safer.

Q You were talking about “broad and balanced”. Given the 47% drop in arts subjects at GCSE, do you feel that more needs to be done to ensure that we have an even broader range of subjects that can be enjoyed?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Speaking as a qualified teacher of fine art, absolutely.

I am very pleased to hear it.

Thank you for being with us today, Sir Martyn. When your HMIs find academies or academy trusts significantly deviating from the national curriculum, what are the usual reasons and in what ways do they deviate?Q

Sir Martyn Oliver:

Actually, the education inspection framework that we currently use significantly reduced the deviation of academies because it set out the need to carry out a broad and balanced curriculum. That was interesting, because it was not what was set out in the articles of the individual academies and those freedoms, so Ofsted has been in tension with those articles for quite some time.

The Bill puts everyone on the same footing. I think that there is good in that, but speaking as HMCI, as a previous chief executive of one of the largest trusts, as a headteacher and as a teacher for 30 years, I would always want to give headteachers the flexibility to do what is right for their children, as long as it ultimately delivers the broad and balanced education that you would expect all children to receive.

Q When they do deviate, what do the reasons tend to be?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

The most typical reason is a focus on the core standards of English and mathematics. We often see that, but I am afraid that in some cases it goes beyond improving core standards: there are some that hot-house to the exclusion of being broad and balanced. It is important that a headteacher always retains a broad overview of a child to make sure that children get the core standards for their future, but also a well-rounded education in total.

Q What would be the impact, in the framework and in the inspection outcome, if the school were not following a broad and balanced curriculum?

Lee Owston:

That would currently come under our quality-of-education judgment. It would not be seen as good if we could not, through the evidence we collect, determine a broad and balanced curriculum for all children.

Sir Martyn Oliver:

I am about to consult on a measure that will allow more nuance and better identify that.

Q Finally, on the different subject of elective home education, quite a lot of detail is proposed in the Bill about the way the register of children not in school will work, including some requirements on the registration of providers of education to those individuals, whether that be online education or some other form of tutoring. How much consultation has there has been with Ofsted about the drawing up of those provisions?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

We have been involved in that for quite some time, even with previous Governments, whether it was about online education or all these aspects. I think that all our intelligence, for years, has carried forward into this Bill.

Q I want to talk about unregulated schools and the register of children not in school. I have seen evidence outside the Committee that shows that there are serious concerns about poor education in unregulated settings, as well as abuse and neglect. If you have any comments about what the problem is that the Bill is trying to solve, I and other members of the Committee would like to hear them. How will the new powers relating to unregulated schools allow you to protect children at risk of harm, specifically? Will they be an improvement on the current powers that you have?

Sir Martyn Oliver:

To answer your last question first, absolutely: it is a significant improvement on our powers. Since 2016, we have carried out almost 1,400 criminal investigations into almost 1,300 unique unregistered settings. Not all investigations lead to an on-site inspection. We have carried out almost 900 on-site inspections and issued 200 warnings, meaning that in over one fifth of on-site inspections, we were able to secure sufficient evidence that a crime was being committed, despite our limited powers at that point and under the current legislation. We have worked with the Crown Prosecution Service to successfully prosecute seven cases, including a total of 21 individual convictions.

The new powers will significantly improve our ability to do that, and the speed at which we can do it. It is very difficult to carry out those investigations. It is incredibly resource-reliant and takes significant time—regularly between 12 and 24 months—if we can get it to that position. The changes will help to address those loopholes in the law, but we think that there are some areas for improvement. As I have said, the need to get a warrant in all cases will be incredibly bureaucratic and expensive for Ofsted. Obviously we want to do it with care—we do not want to break into people’s homes and inspect them—but on commercial premises we think that there is a more proportionate response, which will reduce bureaucracy, reduce the cost to Ofsted and allow us to focus on keeping children safe.

On balance, do you welcome the provisions in the Bill to ensure that all schools follow the national curriculumQ ?

Lee Owston:

Obviously there is a review, from Professor Becky Francis, of what the national curriculum will contain, and we are speaking frequently with members of that review. From an inspector’s position, it will always be about how providers are adhering to the legal requirements set by Government and Parliament. Obviously, we look forward to seeing what the Bill produces in how we then interact with it. In terms of a broad legal requirement, and what all children as a minimum should be able to access, I would support that statement.

I am afraid that brings us to the end of this session, and we will move on to the next panel of witnesses.