§ 3. Dr. WrightTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what plans she has to review the inspection arrangements for private schools. [14678]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education and Employment (Mr. Robin Squire)The arrangements for the Office for Standards in Education's registration inspection of independent schools are working well, and we have no plans to change them.
§ Dr. WrightHas the Minister had a chance to see the recent report showing the unsatisfactory nature of the inspection arrangements for private schools? Can it be right that there should be such a cosy complicity in the arrangements? Can it be right that a school which would be judged a failing school in the public sector will be given a clean bill of health in the private sector? Can it be right that the inspection reports in the private sector are not even published? Is it not time for the Government to ensure that good public sector practices are brought into the private sector to protect unsuspecting parents from being taken for a very expensive ride?
§ Mr. SquireI hope that in referring to unsuspecting parents the hon. Gentleman was not referring to one of his hon. Friends. There is a small problem in the hon. Gentleman's question: he referred to the Douse report, which was not on Ofsted/Her Majesty's chief inspector of schools inspections, but on the inspections carried out and the arrangements made by the Independent Schools Joint Council. The Ofsted inspections, to which the latter part of the hon. Gentleman's question referred, are just as rigorous for the private sector as for the state sector, and will continue to be so.