Examination of witnesses (Questions 60
- 79)
WEDNESDAY 1 NOVEMBER 2000
MR CHRIS
WOODHEAD, MR
MIKE TOMLINSON,
MR DAVID
TAYLOR and MS
JUDITH PHILLIPS
60. I accept the point you make on that. Nevertheless,
from what you said, you obviously regard this as a serious issue
and I think all this Committee would. However, when the CRE report
was published, which contained some criticism of what was happening
with inspection, the response of OFSTED, and I think this goes
back to what the Chairman was saying previously about style, was
to question the validity of the research methods of the report.
Since the NFER has since looked at those research methods and
found them to be perfectly valid, do you think your response was
helpful?
(Mr Woodhead) The NFER report, that clearly was sent
to you simultaneously as it was sent to us, surprise, surprise,
does not show that the CRE report was valid. It makes a number
of criticisms of the CRE report that, in fact, echo our own; do
you want me to quote them?
61. Can I just quote what they said, before
you do, Mr Woodhead. It said it was internally consistent, it
drew proper conclusions from evidence and was worthy of serious
consideration by OFSTED.
(Mr Woodhead) It was worthy of serious consideration
by OFSTED and OFSTED gave it serious consideration. We, in our
response to the CRE, gave a point-by-point comment. Now, sadly,
Mr Singh is saying that he does not want to discuss our comments;
well I have written to him and said I think that is a pity. But
in terms of the NFER comment, some details of the problems with
the research, that they agree with OFSTED have undermined the
validity of the research, page 4: "It is usual for research
projects to have a steering committee, but it is understood that
a formal steering committee of relevant experts was not in operation
for this project. Thus it is not quite clear how the CRE monitored
the research." I go on. "Similarly, it is customary
for publishers to employ referees to review manuscripts for publication;
it is understood that in this case this practice was not carried
out. The CRE report exemplifies much of current publication practice
in providing a rather thin picture of research methods."
They talk about the LEA sampling, they agree with us that the
number of LEAs sampled, namely three, was a very small sample.
They agree with us that the fact that we do not know why these
LEAs were chosen, we do not know the nature of the ethnic minority
population in the LEAs, is a problem. The school samples, they
agree with us that 30 inspection reports, out of, as I said earlier,
33,500, is a pitifully small number. They agree with us that it
is problematic that we do not know why the initial 60 reports
that they looked at was reduced to 30. And I do not understand
this comment, but I will quote it to you, because it is a further
criticism: "Indeed, the quantitative context, perhaps because
of the relatively small numbers, is treated inconsistently."
Now they go on, they go on about the interviews; and I could go
on, and I could bore you. But for Mr Singh and for you to repeat
what Mr Singh says, that this NFER report is a defence of what
the CRE has done, is patently nonsensical.
62. Perhaps, if I may, I can draw your attention
to something else in the NFER report, where it says: "The
CRE report represents a significant empirical contribution to
existing knowledge of school inspections and race equality because
of the range of complementary, qualitative evidence." Now
you may have criticisms of some of the reports, but are you telling
this Committee that you believe there is nothing that OFSTED can
learn from that report?
(Mr Woodhead) No, I am not. I have just said to you
that we have responded, point by point, to every recommendation
that the CRE put to us. I have also said to you that the CRE has
said that it does not want to discuss our responses. What am I
to do?
63. Let me take you a step further on that.
If you are responding to the report, the report contains criticisms
of OFSTED's practice; have you taken on board any of those criticisms,
and if so what are you doing about them?
(Mr Tomlinson) Might I just answer. First of all,
I think, the context. The report is based upon the previous Framework;
now, if you ask what we have done since then, we have recognised
the issue before the CRE report appeared, in other words we had
revised the Framework as of last autumn, ready for January, and
the CRE, in its report, recognises that the new Framework tackles
this area better than the previous one. None of the reports that
they chose to analyse, to our knowledge, because we do not know
which ones they were, none of the reports analysed were from the
new Framework; none.
(Mr Woodhead) And the NFER acknowledges this, too.
64. If you think this report is so flawed, why
have you not taken up the offer that Mr Singh made to you, that
you undertake new research, using different researchers and a
methodology and specification to be agreed between you?
(Mr Woodhead) Why, when we have had the unfortunate
experience thus far, should we repeat it; why should I, as the
Accounting Officer, devote OFSTED resource to something that I
do not believe is going to add to our knowledge; why, in particular,
when if you ask me any particular question about what we have
done I will answer it, if you give me any suggestions about what
we should do in the future I will give them very serious consideration.
But if, you are saying to me as Accounting Officer that I should
devote yet more OFSTED resource, when we are desperately stretched
by all the demands that are on us at the moment, to working with
the CRE, when the CRE have come up with the report that they have
come up with thus far, I say to you, no, I am not prepared to
do that.
65. I think you put me in a dilemma here, Mr
Woodhead. I am trying to understand where you are coming from.
You say that you do not believe the research is valid, yet when
an offer is made to you to conduct different research, with different
researchers and specifications to be agreed, you say you do not
want to do it. The impression that I think the Committee is getting
from that is that you do not think that this is an important enough
issue to spend OFSTED resources on, and I find that rather bizarre.
(Mr Woodhead) If that is the conclusion that you are
reaching then it is the wrong conclusion, and you need to consider
everything that I have said to you earlier this morning about,
one, all the different reports that OFSTED has already published
on this area, two, all the things that I listed in response to
your first question that we have done, and, thirdly, my offer
to you, you tell us what you think we should do differently and
we will do it.
66. We will ask the questions, if you do not
mind, Mr Woodhead. Can I raise one more point with you, before
I move on to one of my colleagues. I think the way in which this
report has been dealt with perhaps underlines some of the Committee's
concerns about your style of approach; this is a serious issue,
whether you agree or disagree with the report. In the light of
that, when you wrote to Mr Singh at the CRE and you wrote: "Your
self-righteous indignation astonishes me." do you believe
that is an appropriate method of correspondence in dealing with
a serious issue by a senior public servant?
(Mr Woodhead) Yes, given the letter that he wrote
to me: "I am amazed and disappointed that you and your colleagues
simply refuse to consider seriously the issues raised in our report."
That is totally untrue, that we refused to consider the issues
seriously, and his letter goes on to demonstrate that self-righteous
indignation that I referred to. I see nothing problematic in that
at all.
Helen Jones: I think the Committee will draw
its own conclusions about that.
Mr St. Aubyn
67. In fairness to the Commission for Racial
Equality, to whom I also spoke, as did many other members of the
Committee, yes, they do agree that the new Framework is a big
improvement, but they are very concerned that inspectors are not
inspecting to the new Framework. You might want to comment on
that, but my actual question draws on Ms Phillips' statement earlier
that you do have targets set out in the PSA document; do you have
targets relating to race equality issues, do you have targets
relating to your inspectors' adherence to the race equality Framework,
and if so are they meeting them, in terms of the PSA report?
(Ms Phillips) We do not have a target in the PSA about
racial equality issues.
68. Do you think it would be a good idea, therefore,
if such targets were agreed and pursued?
(Mr Woodhead) What would a target be?
(Ms Phillips) You are really picking one aspect of
an inspection; we have targets for the achievement of the whole
of inspections achieving high quality, and I think it would be
very difficult to have a subset of issues within a report with
separate targets.
69. But if a key Framework, like this, was not
being adhered to by inspectors, should that not impact on whether
they are meeting their targets or not?
(Mr Tomlinson) To answer your point, in our monitoring
of inspections and the monitoring of the reports, if we found
either the inspection or the report, or both, not fulfilling all
the requirements of the Framework then, of course, we would be
able to take action against the inspector, the ultimate sanction,
of course, being to deregister them as a registered inspector,
or remove them from the roll of team members, if they were only
a team member. So we do have sanctions, where the requirements
of the Framework are not met in full, whether within the inspection
or in the report; so, yes, we do have such sanctions, yes.
(Mr Woodhead) And in terms of making things better,
the training that we are investing a lot of time and money in
and that we are making mandatory for all inspectors is obviously
a very important way of trying to ensure that they do engage with
the issues.
(Mr Tomlinson) Chairman, might I just come back to
the fundamental point, if I might, please, and it relates to what
Helen Jones said. We do agree with the CRE research on two very
crucial points. We do agree with them that the inspection reports
written to the last Framework did not do full justice to the issues
of ethnicity, and so on, that was why we changed it, so we do
agree with them in that respect. And we did agree with them, and
continue to agree with them, that further guidance and training
is needed for school inspectors; and that is what we have sought
to do, by way of changing the Framework. So I just want to make
clear that we do treat it seriously, we sought to do things through
the revision of the Framework and training that address those
things. It is undoubtedly the case that we will, and we are monitoring
these reports, and if we need to do more by way of training or
guidance we will do it.
Chairman
70. Mr Tomlinson, can I direct my question to
Mr Woodhead. What worries us is not the substance so much as the
style. It is an unseemly row between these two organisations,
it seems to us, it does no-one any good. And if we actually look,
let us look a little more forensically at what happened, the evidence
that we have been given by the CRE was before you questioned the
validity or the quality of the research at all. This research
was conducted by a professor from Leicester, she asked for interviews
with yourself, over a period of research, for four months, and
according to the CRE for the whole of that four months you were
too busy to be interviewed?
(Mr Woodhead) Yes; and what I did was to ensure that
senior colleagues, including Mike Tomlinson, spent as much time
as was necessary, in her view, with her. Now I cannot respond
to every request to see me.
71. Mr Woodhead, let us be honest about this,
this is not someone off the street asking to see you, this is
another statutory body, yes, asking on an important piece of research,
which you accept, and you have given evidence just now to this
Committee, this is a very important issue, before you knew about
the quality of the research, you said, for four months, you were
too busy to meet this research team?
(Mr Woodhead) That is true, and you have got to allow
me the professional judgement as to how best I use my time, and
also who best in my organisation is likely to answer the questions
that are put to them. And, in this case, given that the focus
of the questions from Audrey Osler and her colleague were going
to be on the mechanics and the practicalities of inspection then
the colleagues who were best equipped to deal with those answers
were Mike Tomlinson and Peter Matthews, not me.
72. Mr Woodhead, you have admitted this is an
issue of great concern to you, although I have to say, in passing,
that I have not seen any major article or interview that homes
in on this particular issue. But you have said to this Committee
this is something that is of great interest, and you pointed,
quite rightly, to a body of work that OFSTED, your organisation,
has done, and you are telling me that when a statutory body of
the eminence of the CRE asked to have an interview with you in
the course of this research you did not think it important enough
for you to actually meet any of the research team?
(Mr Woodhead) You are slanting what I have said, Chairman,
with respect. I had said to you that, in my judgement, given the
pressures on me and given, equally importantly, the likelihood
of the questions being asked dealing with the practicalities of
inspection, my decision was that other colleagues were the best
people to answer these questions, and that seems, to me, to be
a wholly proper use of my time and an efficient way of dealing
with the inquiry that the CRE was sponsoring.
73. Well, Mr Woodhead, sitting where you are,
that may be your view; sitting where I am, I think that it is
a flawed judgement not to have met the—
(Mr Woodhead) You are, of course, entitled to your
view.
74. Absolutely; and you are accountable to my
Committee. And I have to say to you, very directly indeed, that
I do not think it was good enough, in terms of the standards of
public life that I am used to in my lifetime, that you refused
to see and you did not give time to this important inquiry. Now
we can talk about the quality of the research, but I have to say,
as Chairman of this Committee, I think you had a flawed judgement
in respect of this particular decision.
(Mr Woodhead) Right; and I hear what you say.
Valerie Davey
75. Can we now assume that, as the NFER concludes
at the end, there is importance in further dialogue with bodies
of professional expertise in race equality and cultural diversity
such as the CRE?
(Mr Woodhead) Can you what? Sorry; what is your question?
76. It is the very last paragraph, I am just
asking for agreement with that paragraph, that it is important
for OFSTED to continue to engage in dialogue?
(Mr Woodhead) My last letter to Mr Singh said that
these are our responses, we should meet to discuss them; he wrote
back and he said he did not see any point in discussing our response
to his recommendations. I cannot remember the exact words but
he said this dialogue ought to take place in a different context.
77. Well perhaps it should; but will you facilitate,
in whatever context, that dialogue, because the expertise which
they have is important, clearly?
(Mr Woodhead) All I can do is to say we wish to meet
and to discuss, which is what you are saying I should do.
78. And what NFER quite clearly concludes.
(Mr Woodhead) I have said that; and I am also saying
to you that the Chairman of the CRE has said that he does not
want to meet to discuss our responses to the recommendations.
79. And are you going to leave it at that?
(Mr Woodhead) No.
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