Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what recent assessment she has made of the extent of delays to Ofsted inspections of schools caused by the covid-19 pandemic; and what steps her Department is taking to clear the backlog of overdue inspections.

Ofsted’s routine school inspections were paused in March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The suspension of routine school inspections was lifted on 28 April 2021. Whilst some graded inspections took place during the 2021 summer term, Ofsted returned to its full programme of routine school inspections in September 2021.

In November 2021, Ofsted announced its aim to inspect every state funded school by the end of summer 2025, so that every school will have at least one inspection between May 2021 and July 2025. Ofsted is confident it can meet this target