Dear Mary and Kevin,

Thank you for your letter on 1 April regarding The case for a fully trust-led system evidence document which was published by the Department for Education (DfE) alongside the White Paper Opportunity for all: strong schools with great teachers for your child. You raised a number of concerns with us regarding the statistics and some of the claims made in the evidence document.

My team has reviewed the document and spoken to statisticians in DfE to understand more about how the statistics were produced.

Today I have written to Neil McIvor setting out the key issues that we identified and asking that DfE ensure users have access to key information to be able to understand the data and limitations and what this means for the conclusions that can be drawn from the data.

Yours sincerely

Ed Humpherson
Director General for Regulation