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Childcare Bill

I thank Members of the Committee for this short but very useful debate. As stated in the letter to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and mentioned in our debate on 19 April, it is agreed that inspections should be carried out by staff with the appropriate skills and experience. A robust and professional inspection system is of course vital to raise standards in early years settings. Members of the Committee may also have seen HMCI’s response of 26 April to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, regarding the points that were raised by many speakers on inspector qualifications and experience. The noble Baroness has set out some of the points that the chief inspector made, but perhaps I can reiterate a couple for Members of the Committee who have not yet had a chance to see the document. I reassure the Committee that Ofsted inspectors receive extensive training on the current national standards and the foundation stage. Inspectors will be fully trained to inspect delivery of the EYFS prior to it coming into operation in 2008. I am aware that Ofsted has devoted a good deal of time and effort to ensure that all its childcare and early years inspectors are trained and made aware of the latest developments in childcare practice. For example, all members of Ofsted staff who carry out early years inspections have now been trained to inspect against the department’s Birth to Three Matters framework. Similarly, as I have said before, they will of course be trained to be able to inspect delivery of the early years foundation stage. Ofsted has stringent recruitment and employment procedures to assure the quality of its inspectors. The childcare inspectors who transferred from local authorities in 2001 to Ofsted came from a variety of backgrounds but all had experience in inspecting childcare. Ofsted built on the experience of the childcare inspectors and the experience they had gained under local authorities by putting in place a rigorous training programme to ensure consistency with those inspectors. Work is going on to improve the skills of its workforce, including a refresher programme for inspectors carrying out regulatory work, and plans for updated child protection training of all Ofsted staff is being drawn up. Further to this, the Education and Inspections Bill currently being considered, very quietly, in the other place, will require the chief inspector to ensure that all inspectors have such qualifications, experience and skills as are necessary to secure that they are able to perform their functions effectively. Of course, that means that inspectors across Ofsted will need to be trained appropriately, depending on the type of provision that they are inspecting. I also assure the Committee that the department will continue to work with Ofsted between now and 2008, and beyond, to make sure that its inspectors are sufficiently qualified and trained to do the new job that we are asking of them. Both noble Baronesses asked in some detail about the training that inspectors will receive. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, also mentioned this. When Ofsted recruits new inspectors, it now insists that they hold a level 4 qualification in subjects related to childcare and/or education, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said. Ofsted has also confirmed that all childcare inspectors who currently undertake combined inspections of registered childcare and nursery education are trained in the foundation stage, and that all inspectors have also received training in the Birth to Three Matters framework. Prior to the introduction of the new school inspection framework early in September, with a focus on small school inspection teams and sharper inspections, Ofsted required that at least one inspector on the primary team had relevant experience inspecting the foundation stage. Under the new inspection arrangements, Ofsted has provided assurances—in response to concerns that inspectors with early years expertise might not be included in a smaller inspection team—that early years provision in schools will be carried out by inspectors with relevant experience. I hope that, with those assurances, the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.