The curious mess that Ofsted has got itself into over child abuse deaths must have many people puzzled. Surely Ofsted is the new trendy name for the Schools Inspectorate? Why is it writing reports on child abuse anyway? And who is Christine Gilbert, who seems to be at the centre of the row?
Well she is perhaps more recognizable as Mrs McNulty, wife of Tony McNulty, a “Cabinet attendee” who is not a Cabinet minister (formally he is, since October, Minister of State (Employment), and Minister for London). Those who remember Parkinson’s Law about the committees above a certain size being inevitably ineffectual must wonder about the Cabinet.
There are currently 23 “Cabinet Ministers” entitled to attend and speak at any meeting. Then another 6 “Other Cabinet attendees”, who are apparently entitled to attend every meeting, but maybe expected to keep quiet, and finally another 5 ministers who attend “when their Ministerial responsibilities are on the agenda”. Presumably just for that item. Probably at most 1 or 2 attend from the last group for any given item, but that still means 30 ministers crowding into the room.
Tony McNulty is a former Polytechnic lecturer, then local councillor, elected MP for Harrow East in 1997 with a huge swing against the incumbent Tory. After a variety of junior ministerial jobs, he became Minister of State for Rail and London in September 2004, moving to the Home Office in May 2005, where he stayed until the 3 October 2008 reshuffle.
He married Christine Gilbert in September 2002 (after divorcing Gillian Travers). Christine Gilbert was a teacher for 18 years, finishing with 8 years as headmistress of Whitmore High School, a local Harrow comprehensive school with about a thousand pupils, before becoming chief executive of Tower Hamlets.
I have the misfortune to live just inside Tower Hamlets (at the southern end). There was a row last year when it was named by the Taxpayer’s Alliance as the council with the most employees earning over £100k/year by a substantial margin (27 compared to runner-up Wandworth with 17). An earlier row in 2006 after returning officer Patricia Parker (who reports to Christine Parker) barred three candidates in George Galloway’s Respect Party from standing in the May 2006 local elections and was overruled by a High Court judge, came to a head at around the same time as allegations of postal vote malpractice in the Borough were being investigated by police. Tower Hamlets is the main battleground between George Galloway and Labour. He blamed Christine Gilbert for what he alleged was serious malpractice.
Not long afterwards (June 2006) it was announced that Christine Gilbert was leaving Tower Hamlets to take up the post of Chief Inspector of Schools on 1 October 2006. [Her successor, Martin Smith, a long-serving council executive, was appointed on an interim basis a few months later and on a permanent basis in May 2007.]
Ofsted, like the Office of National Statistics (ONS), is a non-ministerial government department. I have never really researched the history of these bodies properly, but it seems clear that Labour does everything possible to give such bodies the pretence of independence rather than the reality. They only become genuinely independent from a mixture of public pressure and leadership from the key individuals. ONS has a fighting chance, but Ofsted’s independence looks set to be a sham for some time to come.
It was formally established in its new guise as Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills by Part 8 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006. The Chief Inspector and all the board members (Schedule 11, para 1) are appointed by the Secretary of State. The board seems to have fairly minimal powers to supervise the Chief Inspector, and it reports to the Secretary of State, not Parliament. There is a formal obligation in S121 to make an annual report. So in practice it would seem to be the creature of Ed Balls and Christine Gilbert, who is fairly indistinguishable from a government minister, except that she is better paid.
It got going in April 2007 when it took over similar inspection responsibilities from the Adult Learning Inspectorate (responsible for non-university post-16 education inspection) and the Commission for Social Care Inspection (responsible for “welfare inspection” of private-sector boarding schools). That was probably a sensible rationalization. Rather less clear was why it took over responsibility for the registration and inspection of social services for children. This seems to have been part of the trendy relabelling and reshuffling of Government departments.
But the main damage seems to have been done 18 months earlier when Ofsted gave up proper inspection of schools and moved over to “self evaluation” coupled with short visits.
Its first annual report (for the year to April 2008) came out last week. On page 69 we had:
Between 1 April 2007 and 31 August 2008, Ofsted received notifications from local authorities of 424 serious incidents, relating to 282 deaths of children, 136 incidents of significant harm or injuries and six incidents of which the outcome is not yet known. Four in 10 incidents involved babies under the age of one.
Coming soon after the Baby P case and with a death rate about five times higher than previous estimates, this attracted a good deal of attention. But the report in today’s Observer suggests that it was completely wrong:
According to government sources, Ofsted has now privately admitted this figure is ‘misleading’ and should have been explained or broken down. The figure of 282 is made up of all children who died while receiving any kind of local authority help – including terminally ill children receiving social care and accidental deaths of nursery age children.
In fact, it is likely that the deaths of fewer than 100 children could be attributed to neglect or abuse.
A spokesman for the Department of Children, Schools and Families said its records would suggest about one child dies through neglect or abuse in England each week, in line with previous estimates.
‘Since 1 April 2007, the department has had a database of the serious case reviews following the death or serious injury of a child, so we can confirm that, as of July 2008, serious case reviews were initiated following the deaths of 81 children who died during 2007,’ the spokesman said.
Given the timing, it looks like incompetence rather than a deliberate attempt to stir things up.
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