Sir Hamid Patel, chief executive of Star Academies, has been appointed as interim chair of the Ofsted board until a successor is found for Dame Christine Ryan.
Sir Hamid, who has been an Ofsted board member since 2019, will serve for a period of up to five months until a new substantive chair is appointed.
Dame Christine announced in November that she would be stepping down this year after four and a half years as chair of Ofsted.
Chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said: “On behalf of Ofsted, I’d like to thank Dame Christine for her service during her time as chair. She has successfully led the board through a time of significant challenge and change, culminating in our current consultation on the future approach to education inspections.
“I am very pleased Sir Hamid will be supporting us as interim chair while the government recruits Dame Christine’s successor. I look forward to working more closely with him and, in time, with a new chair.”
Star Academies runs 36 primary and secondary schools in Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, the Midlands and London.
Sir Hamid is also vice chair of the National Institute of Teaching. He chairs both the Cabinet Office’s independent Education Honours Committee and the Confederation of School Trusts and is an honorary professor of education at the University of Birmingham.
In recognition of his services to education, he was appointed CBE in 2015 and a knighthood in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2021.
Last year, Ofsted said that until it appointed a new chair, the board would focus on “scoping governance reforms” in response to a review into Ofsted carried out by Dame Christine Gilbert, a former chief inspector, which was published in September last year.
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