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Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 182: 182: Clause 60, page 33, line 32, after ““State”” insert ““or by at least 50 pupils, students or parents resident in the local authority area”” The noble Baroness said: Clause 60 places a duty on the chief inspector to inspect and report on Connexions services when requested to do so by the Secretary of State. It used to be the case that Ofsted inspected Connexions, but it has not done so since 2004. Amendment No. 182 would ensure that, if local people are concerned about the quality of the Connexions service in their area, they can trigger an inspection by the chief inspector. That would make the process accountable to local people and responsive to the very people who are affected by its performance. In responding to the amendment, will the Minister explain the process that would currently lead the Secretary of State to insist on an inspection under the Bill as drafted and explain why that is preferable to local accountability? Amendment No. 183 specifies that inspection of the Connexions service should include the inspection of facilities and services for young people with special educational needs. It is a sad truth that people with SEN figure largely in the group that this Bill is determined to bring back into learning, and thus employment, because people with such needs clearly do not always do best under the system at the moment. I, and others here, have already spoken at length about the failings of the educational system for those who have special needs and the need to improve provision for them. Surely the Minister will agree with me that a big start to making those improvements would be to identify inspections when they could be made. On the same lines, while Clause 60 allows for an inspection to be made of the provision of services, it says nothing about quality of service or that the inspector should inspect the services in relation to quality. Amendment No. 184 would add the phrase, "““and to the quality of such services””," to place this straightforward requirement in the Bill. I beg to move.