Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what was their response to the letter from Amanda Spielman, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector, about Ofsted's monitoring of inspectorates for independent schools, sent to the Secretary of State for Education on 6 November 2018.

In her letter of 6 November 2018, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector (HMCI) recommended a review of the monitoring arrangements in place at the time and that new ones should be put in their place. Such a review was carried out by departmental officials, working alongside officials in Ofsted and at the Independent Schools Inspectorate (ISI). Following this review, new directions were issued to HMCI on 4 November 2019.

The new arrangements outlined above were aimed at giving greater flexibility to Ofsted and ISI to develop a joint programme of work to exchange and develop their mutual knowledge and understanding of inspecting independent schools.

It is worth noting that the School Inspection Service, which previously undertook inspections of some independent schools, has now closed and that there is now only one independent inspectorate, ISI. As such, and given the new directions issued on 4 November 2019, HMCI should no longer have regard to the matters in the February 2015 directions, which were the subject of the 6 November 2018 letter.