The chairman of a scrutiny committee examining the educational landscape in Bradford has joined the chorus of criticism levied at Ofsted following its report which ranked Bradford’s secondary schools as the second worst in the country.

Councillor Malcolm Sykes, Bradford Council’s children’s services overview and scrutiny committee chairman, said reports he had seen by the school inspector did not “bare any relation to reality”.

Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw published his annual report which ranked local authorities in terms of their number of good and outstanding primary and secondary schools.

Bradford, which has 66 per cent satisfactory secondary schools and five per cent inadequate, was ranked second bottom in the country for secondaries.

But Councillor Sykes, who is chairing a committee looking into how Bradford is “narrowing the gap” between itself and other authorities, said only one of the district’s schools was “in need of help”.

He said: “If you look at the track record of our secondary schools, there’s only one that is actually in need of help.

“They all want to improve but the way that it has been reported by Ofsted, it would seem to indicate that all our secondary schools are rubbish and they are not.”

Coun Sykes said any improvements in the district had not been accounted for in the Ofsted report on Tuesday.

He said: “I don’t think they understand the reality of Bradford and the damage that this does to education in Bradford. The reality on the ground is far different to that suggested by the Ofsted report.”

An Ofsted spokesman said: “The reports stand for themselves. Not good enough schools are not good enough for children and every child has a right to go to a good or better school.”