Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR DAVID
BELL, MRS
MIRIAM ROSEN,
MR ROBERT
GREEN, MR
MAURICE SMITH
AND MR
JONATHAN THOMPSON
3 NOVEMBER 2004
Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome Her Majesty's
Chief Inspector, David Bell, who has become a very familiar figure
in this Committee. Welcome, David. Robert Green is here and of
course we know him, and Maurice Smith. We welcome two new members
of the team, Miriam Rosen who is Director of Education at Ofsted
and Jonathan Thompson who is the new Director of Finance. You
look a formidable team there. As you know, we value these meetings
and we know that you, David, are away next week on an away-day
(I take that is consolidating staff morale and all that). Can
I ask you in our customary fashion to give us three or four minutes'
introduction?
Mr Bell: Thank you very much.
Good morning Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. It is my pleasure
to appear again in front of this Committee. My colleagues and
I always welcome this opportunity to give account of ourselves
for the work of Ofsted. I think today's appearance is timely for
three reasons. Firstly, it comes in a week when we launched our
consultation on the framework for inspecting schools and colleges
under our proposed new arrangements from September 2005. As I
am sure you will appreciate, a significant amount of work—particularly
under Miriam's leadership—is taking place already as we
prepare for this fundamental change. We are of course happy to
answer your questions on that particular issue but we have already
done a lot of work so far including carrying out 70 pilot inspections,
organising new contractual arrangements and re-organising the
work of our own staff. This week has also seen us announce the
outcomes of our consultation on the future of early years inspections.
The Committee will, I hope, be pleased to note how strongly consultees
have welcomed our new approach to early years inspections, particularly
our plan to carry out no notice inspections of day nurseries.
You have always taken a strong interest in our work in early years
and I am sure there are a number of questions that you have for
us today. Certainly, Maurice would be disappointed if you let
him off the hook too easily. The second reason why I am pleased
to be here is that I think we can discuss the many ways in which
we have responded to your last report. Without descending into
the realms of sycophancy it is certainly the case that my senior
colleagues and I do reflect very strongly on the suggestions and
recommendations made and I hope that to some extent illustrates
our commitment to self-evaluation, a subject which you have commented
on in your report and which Robert, I am sure, would be happy
to say more about this morning. I hope that you will have seen
from our response to your report that we have very much acted
on many of the things that you say. A single grading scale for
all of our inspection work in the future, a consistent approach
to inspecting schools and colleges, shorter notice to alleviate
pressure and sharing information on childcare complaints are just
but some examples of recommendations made by this Committee which
we have now acted on. Finally, I think this meeting is timely
because Ofsted stands at the threshold of some very significant
changes which does explain our away day session next week. There
are the changes to our inspection systems that I touched on that
perhaps if it were only that, that would be enough, but along
with other government departments we have to respond to the Government's
efficiency review. In our case that means 20% off our budget by
1 April 2008; in other words, a £40 million reduction. You
cannot make that level of cut without a very significant impact
on staff and in the functions of our organisation and we have
some very tough decisions ahead of us to bring about that kind
of change. I am sure your Committee will want to monitor the impact
on Ofsted at that level of reduction. That is a very good reason
for appointing a director of finance to help us through that.
I have to say, Jon has only been with us for a month but he has
very quickly got on top of his brief, although I hope I have not,
in saying that, declared open season on him this morning. We have
also other changes to manage. We have the children's services
inspection which I know your Committee has already taken an interest
in and will want to talk about. Mr Chairman, the Ofsted management
board, as I suggested, does welcome these opportunities to be
in front of your Committee. We are very clear about the value
of regulation and inspection as a force for good but we are not
complacent; there is always more that can be done to improve the
focus, to sharpen our analysis and to reduce the burden. We are
committed not just to the improvement of others but to the
improvement of Ofsted and we are looking forward to this morning's
meeting contributing to that process.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you very much for
that. We will be asking you some questions on your response to
our report but we did think both in terms of the speed at which
you came back to us—much faster than most government responses,
I have to say—that you gave a pretty full answer to most
of the suggestions that we made. When we look at Ofsted you are
in a very comfortable position in that any time that anything
improves in the standards in our schools it is very easy for you
to say, "Well it was us who did it" and to take all
the glory. I just want to suggest something to you. Is that the
game? We were in Norway only two weeks ago and the permanent secretary
of the education department was saying that he was surprised and
interested in just how well our schools were improving and our
standards were improving. He took the period 1997-2000 in particular
and showed us a graph with a significant shift in achievement.
Is that down to Ofsted? Is that down to you?
Mr Bell: No, it is not. Inspectors
do not raise standards in schools; teachers do. I have been very
clear about that. However, I think Ofsted has contributed to the
improvement process in a number of ways. I think first and foremost
by making information available about the performance of schools
and colleges. We have shone a light on the performance. Through
our inspection reports in every case we have identified key issues
for action which schools can act upon and I think we have encouraged
schools themselves to evaluate their work more critically. I think
over the last 10 or 12 years Ofsted's work has very much helped
schools to raise their game, but we are under no illusions, Mr
Chairman; it is the teachers, head teachers and all those who
work in schools that raise standards. We can contribute to the
process and I think we have contributed to the process. We have
to look forward to the future and therefore one of the underpinning
principles of our changes to inspection is that we can make an
even sharper contribution to improvement: more regular inspection,
very clear focus, reports that really focus on the essentials
of what makes a school or college tick. All of those will help
to up the anti on improvement. I think there is a lot that has
happened in the education system that we can be pleased with collectively
and I think Ofsted has played its part and will continue to play
its part in the future.
Q3 Chairman: If we really have seen a
sharp increase in performance between those particular dates—1997-2000—you
were not Chief Inspector during that period, were you?
Mr Bell: No.
Q4 Chairman: What is the explanation?
Why do you think there is quite a remarkable improvement and will
it continue?
Mr Bell: I think there are a number
of reasons for improvement in the education system. I think from
our evidence that the quality of teaching has improved quite significantly,
not over a three or four year period but actually over a 10 or
12 year period. Our evidence is incontrovertible on improvements
in the quality of teaching. I think successive governments
should take credit for that because I think there has been a focus
on improving the subject knowledge of teachers and their methods
of teaching. We have seen that through national strategies in
primary schools and into secondary education. That has been important.
I think the quality of leadership and management from our evidence
has improved very substantially over that time and I think school
leaders now do recognise that they are not there as administrators,
they are there to lead the education for pupils in the school
or students in the college. I think that has contributed to improvement
as well. Coming back to accountability more generally, I think
that sharper focus on accountability—again over successive
governments—has helped to raise the game. There is no hiding
place now for poor performance. People are held to account for
what goes on in schools, colleges and elsewhere and I think that
has contributed to that improvement you have referred to. I think
it is a trend that we have seen not just over three or four years,
but certainly over the last 10 years in our education system.
Q5 Chairman: Let us put Norway and its
comments to one side. There are certain elements in what I would
call the more conservative section of the educational world who
say there has not been an improvement; you have changed the standards,
you have fiddled the figures, the quality of examinations are
not what they are, or used to be. What credence do you put on
that view that students are not as hard-working as they used to
be, they do not read outside their subject? There is a whole catalogue
to suggest that everywhere you go what you see in this country
is a declining standard of education.
Mr Bell: I am certainly not in
the doom and gloom camp when it comes to standards in education.
I think that we can have an education system that continues to
prize excellence and value excellence but we can also have an
education system that provides more and more opportunities to
more and more young people. I do not subscribe to the view that
more means worse. I actually believe that the evidence over the
past 10 years-perhaps even longer, perhaps over the last 20 or
30 years—suggests that we have, at the same time as maintaining
excellence in our education system, given more young people the
opportunity to benefit from education. People talk about the good
old days; I do not consider it the good old days when 5% or 6%
of young people went into higher education or further education.
I do not consider it the good old days when access to higher education
was confined to a more narrow group of young people. I do not
consider that the good old days. I think in a modern, democratic
society we should offer opportunities to as many young people
as possible and I think our education system has become increasingly
good at that. That is not, as it were, to put a pan glossy view.
There are a lot of issues about our education system that remain
up for question. For example, we do know that many young people
do not benefit as much as they might. I am not just talking about
those young people who are perhaps in the bottom 10% or 20%; there
are lot of youngsters in the middle who I think have often been
neglected in our education system. I think there are opportunities
now, certainly through some of the proposals that Mike Tomlinson
has made, to ensure that we have even better opportunities in
the future. We are a very different education system to the one
we were 40 or 20 years ago, but I think we have offered more opportunities
to more young people and we should be proud of that as a nation
because I do not think any nation now can afford to waste its
talent; it has to exploit its talent to the maximum and I think
we have become increasingly good at that.
Q6 Chairman: You have to remember, Chief
Inspector, that one of your predecessors who consistently came
before this Committee and said that standards were rising rather
changed his tune after he left your particular job, so we are
rather keen to check that you seriously do believe that standards
are rising and that this can be authenticated by the work of your
inspections.
Mr Bell: I hope that you would
agree, Mr Chairman, that when we come in front of your Committee
we base what we say on the evidence that we gather and in many
ways it is Ofsted's strongest suit. We have the evidence of literally
thousands of school inspections. Probably since 1992 we have carried
out about 50,000 separate inspections in our schools so we are
in a very strong position to comment on the evidence base. If
you look at the improvements that we have highlighted over those
10 years, it is based on our rigorous inspection evidence. That
is again, not to be complacent. We know from our inspection evidence
that some schools do not do as well as they might, some groups
of young people do not do as well as they should, but we stand
by the evidence that our inspectors gather and that evidence does
suggest that we are in an improving education system.
Chairman: Thank you for answering those
opening questions. Val Davey, do you want to continue on the theme
of improvement through inspection?
Q7 Valerie Davey: First of all, can I
say that it was a very positive start, which I think every member
of this Committee would agree with. You are there as a force for
good as well. Your statement—it is not a question—your
report was Improvement Through Inspection and it did not
have a question mark at the end of it. The evidence is there for
improvement. What evidence is there that inspection has contributed
to that improvement?
Mr Bell: I think we said in our
report that we published in the summer that it is actually quite
difficult to identify clear cause and effect because I do not
think you can disentangle the impact of a whole set of reforms
in our education system. In fact, Professor Pam Sammons—who
is one of the co-authors of the report—in other work that
she has done talks about the cocktail effect of a whole set of
education reforms through the nineties and beyond. You have had
inspection, you had the National Curriculum, you had local management,
you had greater emphasis on leadership and management; you had
that kind of cocktail effect. However, I think we can point—as
our report did, I think, in a number of ways—to particular
examples of improvement that has come about, for example in schools
in the most difficulties, in areas where nobody has commented
before. One example is may be not one that grabs the headlines,
but we commented on the very poor state of teacher education for
further education teachers. Rapidly—literally the next day—the
then minister brought forward a set of proposals to bring forward
improvements. We can cite a whole range of examples on that. Perhaps
I could bring my colleague Robert Green in on this because I am
sure he might want to comment on our report.
Mr Green: Just two or three points,
I think. I do not think we pretend that this report has said the
last word on the relationship between inspection and improvement.
We hope that others will pick up, in a sense, the challenge that
is in the air and help us to sharpen our views on those links.
Some of the points that the report does highlight are the impact
that Ofsted's frameworks have had in many sectors of education
where they have generally been welcomed as—I think one of
the quotes is—one of the best, if not the best, summaries
of good practice so that inspection, associated with a clear framework,
has been in the perception of some practitioners one of the important
drivers for improvement. I think the evidence suggests interestingly
that probably the impact of inspection has been stronger at the
two ends of the scale in a way with the more effective institutions
who are confident and therefore take external views and respond
to them in a positive way or those who are clearly less effective
and need to take fairly urgent action in order to respond. I think
the report suggests that we have been less successful possibly
in the middle and that is the third point that I would make, that
we are learning the lessons from some of this work in what we
are doing now in terms of the new arrangements for inspection
so that more frequent inspections focus on things that we think
will make a difference. This will enable us to sharpen our view
of whether inspection and the extent to which inspection makes
a difference.
Q8 Valerie Davey: So ultimately are you
value for money? That is the very bottom line. If you are, are
you complaining at the enforced cuts that have been proposed?
Mr Bell: I will take the second
point first, if I may. We are not complaining. It is entirely
legitimate for the Government—any government—to want
to drive forward efficiency and to ensure that money goes to the
front line of public services, so we have no argument about that.
I think also on a philosophical level I do not have an argument
either in the sense that we need to get right that balance between
inspection and regulation. In other words, we need to ensure that
we do not over-inspect or over-regulate and so on. It offers us
a good opportunity and I have no complaints whatsoever. I have
highlighted, I think, in my opening remarks the impact on our
organisation because £40 million is a lot of money to take
out in three years as Jon has discovered in his one month with
Ofsted. I have no complaints about that. On your first point,
value for money, I think we do say in the report that in many
senses it depends on what you value because you can always make
an argument that the money spent on Ofsted could be spent elsewhere.
You could always argue that. We reckon in our calculations that
the cost per pupil in their lifetime in the school system is £20
for inspection. In other words, if you assume that the per pupil
funding in our state schools is somewhere between maybe £3,000
or £4,000 per annum, the cost of inspection is £20 over
the life time per pupil. I have to argue quite strongly that that
is good value for money.
Q9 Chairman: What do you say it costs
per pupil?
Mr Bell: It costs £20 per
pupil as opposed to the average funding on an annual basis that
schools will have for pupils. It seems to me that if it is only
costing £20 per pupil for school inspection, it is worth
it. Then you have to come back to what I said about what you
value. If you value public accountability, if you value finding
out what is working and what is not working, if you value the
opportunity for the state to ask an independent body to comment,
then Ofsted is worth it. If you have a different set of values
then perhaps you might argue that Ofsted is not worth it. We believe
very strongly, as I said earlier, that inspection regulations
are a force for good and therefore we do represent value for money.
Q10 Valerie Davey: But as the amount
of money goes down are we not likely to see a deterioration in
the standards in our schools?
Mr Bell: As Robert suggested in
his answer, we have used this as an opportunity to think about
the future of inspection. To be clear, we were already thinking
about a future structure of inspection ahead of the Government's
efficiency review. In one sense you might say that it has been
a happy coincidence of timing. I actually think that we can continue
to offer an inspection system that is rigorous, is independent
and will focus on public information at the same time as doing
it with less money. I do think we can square that circle. We will
have to keep that under review as you will. I said quite openly
that there are some trade-offs in our new system of inspection.
For example, you will not get in every routine school inspection
report a subject by subject break-down as you do currently. We
believe that after two full cycles—and we are into the third
cycle of inspection—we have that kind of data and schools
have that kind of data now to work on. We will continue to look
at subjects, but we cannot look at all subjects in every school
inspection under the model we are proposing. But—and it
is an important "but"—we believe we can still
give a very sharp analysis of what is working and what is not
working to help schools improve and will continue to be able to
provide an annual report that will enable you to get a handle
on the state of education in England.
Q11 Valerie Davey: You emphasise the
value of your inspections as being rigorous and independent. Do
you not think that perhaps the review of your 10 years should
be more rigorous and more independent? Or are you now sold on
self-evaluation?
Mr Bell: I think we were—and
it is not for me to complain, I am not one to complain by nature—a
bit unfairly criticised because some of the press comments implied
that this was all very self-congratulatory; you have done it yourself
and have not got anyone else in. We actually engaged Professor
Pam Sammons who is recognised to be one of the most distinguished
education researchers in this country. She would have had no interest,
I am sure, in just doing a report that was all about giving Ofsted
a pat on its own back. So we did have an external dimension to
this report. As Robert said, I think there is a challenge there
in my view to carry out self-evaluation but also to find out different
ways of doing it. Another thing I would say about it is, I wonder
how many other organisations have actually done this kind of self-evaluation
and made it as public as Ofsted has done. I think we pride ourselves
on being very open as an organisation and putting all that kind
of information into the public domain, it is worth asking how
many other organisations that perhaps sit in front of this Committee
or other committees would have been so open about an evaluation,
warts and all, and make it available? However, it is not the last
word; there is more we can do in the future.
Q12 Chairman: There are an awful lot
of organisations that are inspected by the Audit Commission.
Mr Bell: I am talking about organisations
that inspect.
Q13 Chairman: Yes, but would you welcome
the Audit Commission trawling over you?
Mr Bell: My view is that you would
have to then decide when you stop inspecting the inspectors. I
believe very strongly—and I said earlier that I do not believe
in sycophancy either—that the best accountability for an
organisation like Ofsted, as a non-ministerial department,
is to Parliament through this Committee. I do make the point when
I am pushed very hard on our accountability, we have to come here
in front of MPs and give account for our work. It seems to me
that that is an important, vital part of the accountability system.
It is for others to determine, Mr Chairman, whether they think
it would be sensible to have other organisations. Do not forget,
of course, that our work does come under the scrutiny—pretty
rigorous scrutiny—of the National Audit Office—and
that is sharp accountability, it is not just accountability about
the numbers. The National Audit Office, as you well know, carries
out value for money studies on education themes and topics and
does comment on the work that Ofsted has done. We are under pretty
sharp accountability. I have had my time in front of the Public
Accounts Committee explaining the work of Ofsted. I do believe
there is already pretty rigourous external accountability for
Ofsted.
Q14 Chairman: We do not want to go through
inspections for the sake of it. When you are looking at schools,
do you apply the same sort of rigour? We are given by the department
the average figure for a student in British education from starting
school to 16, as being between £45,000 and £50,000.
Is that a figure you are familiar with? Do you think that that
is what most people have spent on them or do you think there is
a wide variation in how much is actually spent on pupils in different
schools?
Mr Bell: It is an objective fact
that that is true and I am sure that you, on previous occasions,
have had in front of you chief education officers who have been
concerned about the significant differential in funding across
the country, so that is an objective fact. We are asked to comment
on this and I actually say to chief education officers and head
teachers—particularly head teachers in what are perceived
to be in poorly funded parts of the country—that it is very
difficult for us to comment on that specific issue. We inspect
schools and we look at their use of the money they have, not the
money they might have or the money they wish they had or the money
they would have had if they had been in a next door authority.
We can only really report on schools in relation to the money
they have and how effectively and efficiently they use that money.
It is quite difficult for us to get a handle on that. I acknowledge
that in our inspections of local education authorities the same
principle applies. If we are inspecting an authority that considers
themselves hard done by in financial terms, again we cannot say,
"I wonder what you would be like if you had X-thousand more
per pupil". We have to say, "What use have you made
of the money you have?"
Q15 Chairman: Just to press you one little
bit further, do you think there is value in publishing the range
of spending on local education authorities or in schools? Is a
£30,000 life time investment between four and 16 different
from £50,000? Do you think there is a relationship or do
you take the view that it has been well articulated by a professor
at University College London that there is not the relationship
between how much you spend and how much you get out of the system?
Mr Bell: On your first point,
that information is not just published authority by authority
through budget statements published by local authorities; it is
published school by school. You can, on the public record, look
at how much has been spent at school X as opposed to school Y
within an authority and then compare that across. It is very difficult
to find that absolute relationship between what you spend and
what you get. I do not believe that if you spend more you will
necessarily get better but one would say, I think, that there
has to be some relationship between what you spend and what you
get. For example, if you say that it does not matter at all how
much you spend, what you are really saying is that it would not
matter if there were 50 pupils in the class as opposed to 20 pupils
in the class. I think we do know from some evidence that we have
generated—and others have generated—that smaller class
sizes do make a difference. I do not think you can get that absolute
relationship right and I guess it will still be a matter of political
choice about funding. Of course you then enter the realms of issues
of national funding formula as opposed to local funding formula.
I do not think you will ever get a system where all schools will
be happy with the distribution of funding.
Q16 Chairman: If parents and local communities
knew how much was being spent per head per pupil in their area
or in their school, that might be a good guide to parents, might
it not, to change something on the ground?
Mr Bell: And they do through local
authority budget statements. You do see that school by school.
It is an interesting question, Mr Chairman. Do parents look at
that when they are looking at judgment about whether they should
choose a particular school for a child? I suspect—and this
is a hunch, I have to acknowledge—they do not; they look
at other things. They look at the quality of education, what they
know about the school, perhaps what they read about in an Ofsted
inspection report, what they know from the examination test data.
I suspect parents probably do not know.
Q17 Chairman: Is it not your job, Chief
Inspector, to make this more transparent? I suspect it is not
very transparent to most parents how much is being spent per head
in their school compared to other schools even in their own community.
Mr Bell: To be fair in terms of
transparency, it is as transparent as you can get that information
authority by authority, school by school. I think I am suggesting
to you, Mr Chairman, that parents perhaps do not really use that
as high on their list when it comes to choosing a school. We all
know examples of schools where, for example, the facilities are
not very good, it looks a bit run down, but the school is immensely
popular with parents for a whole variety of other reasons. I think
the information is there; I do not think there is any argument
that the information is there. We have a very transparent education
system now and parents will look at that but I do not think they
do when it comes to choosing a school for their child.
Q18 Chairman: Could I ask you, Chief
Inspector, to come back to us on the transparency of how much
is spent per head on students. I do not believe that is what people
judge on but in terms of how I have always understood local democracy
working it might be very good information for parents and voters
when they make a decision in local elections in terms of how much
is really being spent on their child's education.
Mr Bell: We will certainly come
back to you on that, Mr Chairman.[1]
Q19 Mr Pollard: I was very impressed
with what you have said, David, and I have noted down one or two
things I will be using in my speeches. One thing that got my attention
particularly was when you said "for the many, not the few".
I think that was the implication.
Mr Bell: I am not sure I actually
used those words.
1 Note: See (OFS 16). Back
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