Question to the Department for Education:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government, in the light of the proposed closure of Durham Free School, how they ensure that Ofsted complies strictly with all the provisions of the new Independent School Standards designed to combat extremism and in respect of the application of its equality and diversity provisions to the assessment of Christian and Jewish schools.

Ofsted is an independent body, accountable directly to Parliament. It reports twice a year to the Education Select Committee. It is for Ofsted to decide on how inspections are conducted. The framework for inspection is published by Ofsted reflecting Government policy and statutory requirements and sets out how inspections are to be conducted and what will be inspected. Academies and maintained schools are all inspected against the same framework. Independent schools which do not receive public funding are inspected against a different framework which reflects the different statutory requirement placed upon those schools in the independent school standards.