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Education and Skills Bill

Or indeed a Minister, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, so rightly says. These penalties are in extremis and are certainly not intended for anything other than the most extreme cases. In my experience of the work of Ofsted and Her Majesty's inspectors, they lead by example and get willing consent from those whom they inspect. However, as I shall explain later, these measures are consistent with other provisions in other legislation about the statutory powers of inspectors. First, I shall deal with the overall framework. There was a programme of inspections of Connexions services between the autumn of 2002 and the autumn of 2004. Ofsted carried out full inspections of 28 Connexions partnerships. Of these, 89 per cent were rated satisfactory or better and 60 per cent were rated as good or better. There have been no further inspections focused solely on Connexions partnerships. Instead, since September 2005, Ofsted, with other inspectorates, has undertaken holistic, joint area reviews of services for children and young people in a local authority area. JARs replaced the previously separate inspections of local education authorities, local authority social services, Connexions services and the provision for students aged 14 to 19. In future, performance management of local education authorities’ delivery of Connexions services will be outcome-based and will be in accordance with the national agreement between central and local government, under which inspection will be proportionate to risk. Under arrangements to be introduced next year for comprehensive area assessment of local authorities, inspection will be triggered when inspectorates assess risks to be high. Where there is clear evidence of inadequate performance, we will continue to consider whether intervention is necessary, including, as a last resort, through the use of statutory intervention powers. That brings me directly to Amendment No. 182, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, which would require the chief inspector to carry out an inspection on request, "““by at least 50 pupils, students or parents resident in the local authority area””." There may well be a case for an inspection if such a number of parents, students, pupils or other interested parties requested the chief inspector to carry out an inspection, but to put this requirement in primary legislation would be unduly restrictive. Individuals or groups can already freely petition the Secretary of State or Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector to undertake an inspection, and these petitions are taken very seriously by both organisations. Speaking as a Minister who sometimes has to deal with these petitions, my first recourse is immediately to refer them to the chief inspector and ask for advice about whether an inspection should take place. Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector is also under a general duty to encourage services to be user focused, and must have regard to the views of service users, their parents and employers about services being inspected, and their levels of satisfaction with the services. Amendment No. 183 seeks to specify that inspections must make judgments on the degree to which Connexions services facilitate the participation of young people with special needs. Amendment No. 184 seeks specifically to include the quality of services in the scope of inspections. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, that the existing provisions already meet the purposes of both these amendments. Section 118 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 provides that the chief inspector has the general duty to keep the Secretary of State informed about the quality of services within her remit and about improvements in the quality of such services, thereby firmly placing the focus of inspection on the quality of services, including the quality of services for pupils with special educational needs. In respect of Amendment No. 183, I assure the noble Baroness that we take very seriously the provision of appropriate Connexions services for young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. Clause 54 places a duty on local education authorities to make services available to all young people between 13 and 19, and for young people with special needs up to their 25th birthday. This duty is reinforced by the quality standards for information, advice and guidance published in October 2007, which require in Standard 48 that additional and sustained guidance and support is provided to those young people with special needs or learning difficulties and/or disabilities. The standards will be covered by the central statutory guidance under Clause 54(4). In addition, inspections under this clause will be governed by the statutory framework for inspection of children’s services under Section 21 of the Children Act 2004, which gives prominence to inspecting services for children and young people with special educational needs. Five of the 36 key judgments in the framework relate specifically to outcomes for children and young people with special educational needs. Finally, Amendment No. 184A would remove the sanction that wilfully obstructing an inspection in any way is an offence that is liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 4 on the standard scale. Similar sanctions with regard to inspections of local authority children’s functions already exist in other legislation. As an example, inspections of local authorities’ children’s functions under Section 136 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, provided for in Section 140(9) of that Act, provide for a similar regime. Similarly, Section 118 of the Learning and Skills Act, dealing with the inspection of Connexions services, which this clause will replace, also provides for sanctions for wilful obstruction. Inspectors should expect nothing less than full co-operation from those managing services under inspection and others around them. Wilful obstruction of inspections should not be tolerated, not least because to do so is obstructing work that is to be carried out on behalf of Her Majesty. Clause 60(7) is wholly consistent with existing legislation. It safeguards those carrying out inspections and acts as a sanction for those who may obstruct that work. As I said in my opening remarks, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, that only in the most exceptional circumstances should it be necessary to use powers of that kind.