Top civil servant attacks Ofsted

The watchdog has criticised the government's performance

There is embarrassment in the government after a senior official criticised the school inspection system.

The government's director general of schools, Peter Housden, attacked the education watchdog Ofsted in a speech, suggesting that regular school inspections were a waste of time and money.

He also said bad head teachers could avoid being found out by moving schools before inspections, which usually happen every four to six years.

The Department for Education and Skills (DfES) has said Mr Housden's remarks do not represent government policy.

'Seriously expensive'

In a speech at the annual conference of the National Grammar Schools Association, Peter Housden said: "I am not persuaded that the current Section 10 inspections (regular school inspections) and the public expenditure on Ofsted really delivers for us.

"It's a seriously expensive activity.

"A clever head teacher can slalom their way through their careers without ever coming across Ofsted.

"If you are a parent you are at risk of having out-of-date information about how students are actually performing."

It appears Mr Housden intended the remarks for a private audience and was not aware journalists had been invited to the conference.

Ofsted's chief executive David Bell has rejected the criticism, saying the watchdog's work is governed by an act of parliament.

"Over 10 years, Ofsted has reported frankly and fearlessly on the performance of schools," he said.

"Inspectors report on what they find in schools and parents rely on that information.

"It would be highly damaging if we did not have that independent voice."

Failing schools

Mr Bell told The World At One on BBC Radio Four the watchdog did valuable work in identifying schools which were failing children and did represent value for money.

"Over the past ten years Ofsted has identified over 1,000 schools that have been failing to provide children with an acceptable standard of education and that does not seem to me to be bad value for money."

Shadow education secretary Damian Green suggested Ofsted had made itself unpopular with the government by criticising it.

He said Peter Housden had "let the cat out of bag".

"Ofsted is prepared to give honest and rigorous comment on government initiatives and sometimes recently it has criticised them," he said.

Mr Green said inspections could be improved if schools were given less notice of them.