It is rare for MPs to reject the government’s nomination for a public appointment, as the education select committee notes in its report opposing Amanda Spielman’s candidacy for the top job at Ofsted. But it is not unprecedented, nor is it unheard of, for the government to overrule a committee, as Nicky Morgan, education secretary, confirmed was her intention today.
The rules do not empower the legislature to block the executive. With the exception of the Treasury committee’s say in the top job at the Office for Budget Responsibility, there is no veto. The system is unlike the US process of “confirmation hearings” – and deliberately so. The separation of powers is not so clean in the UK’s messy constitution. The question of whether it should be is, for now, secondary to the practical reality that the secretary of state is entitled to assert her will.
Her position is bolstered by the strong case she makes in response to the committee’s criticisms of Ms Spielman. Ms Morgan refutes on factual grounds one of the objections – that her preferred candidate was wrong about Ofsted’s responsibility for failures of child protection. Ms Spielman’s observation that ultimate responsibility belongs to “those who are actually directly responsible for the children day to day in social care” is correct.
The chief inspector must view responsibility for children’s services with the utmost gravity, but no one supposes that Ms Spielman would do anything else. The concern that she lacks experience in this area is a more meaningful charge but one that may be intrinsic to the job description. Ofsted has become a vast bureaucracy whose remit, aside from inspecting a labyrinth of different kinds of schools, takes in children’s services, parts of the prison service, and even immigration removal centres.
To expect the chief executive to display encyclopedic command of every aspect of that brief is unrealistic. More important, as Ms Morgan argues, is a strategic understanding of the role and managerial capability, on which point the committee raised no substantial objection. Their criticism of Ms Spielman for lacking “passion” is a flimsy one based on the style of her response to questions, not the substance of her answers. Arguably, her cautious, pragmatic view of the task is a recommendation if the alternative is glib theatricality. Ofsted might benefit from some understated technocratic leadership.
Ms Spielman’s lack of frontline classroom experience is a more salient concern, since she must command some confidence among teachers. But the incumbent, Sir Michael Wilshaw, spent 30 years at the chalkface and still managed to alienate swaths of the profession.
It would be unwise simply to sweep aside MPs’ concerns, not least because doing so undermines the principle of pre-appointment hearings. If the government is determined to confirm Ms Spielman’s candidacy, it is essential that she and her ministerial sponsors respond in more detail to the concerns raised about an experience deficit. But, since the scale of the job makes it improbable that any one candidate will embody every available sphere of expertise, the pertinent question may not be whether Ms Spielman is the perfect candidate, but whether the bloated Ofsted remit might be beyond the scope of any one individual – or one institution.
