Christine became Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education, Children‟s Services and Skills in April 2007 with the creation of the new Ofsted. She led the merger of four inspectorates, has introduced new inspections for frontline child protection services and has doubled the time school inspectors spend in the classroom.

Prior to this, she was Chief Executive of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, a local authority in east London. She had joined the council in 1997 as Corporate Director for Education, having been Director of Education in the London Borough of Harrow. Her early career was in teaching, where she spent 18 years in comprehensive schools, eight of them as headteacher of Whitmore High School in Harrow.