Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-157)
8 MARCH 2004
MR DAVID
BELL, MR
DAVID TAYLOR,
MR ROBERT
GREEN AND
MR MAURICE
SMITH
Q140 Valerie Davey: The headmaster may
have breathed a sigh of relief and felt happy, but the parents
of those young people who had gone through that particular school
in the last two years know that they have not had the quality
of support and education which they all deserve.
Mr Taylor: They will have been
able to watch it get better as a result of the direct action taken
by the head teacher.
Q141 Paul Holmes: We are now turning
to teacher training, development and supply. At a number of points
in the report on this you call for teacher training providers
to make more use of their partners in schools, but the Universities
Council for the Education of Teachers has written to us to say
that they are finding it increasingly difficult to find school
partners. You think it is important to use the school partners;
the people who are supplying it are saying they are having difficulty
in finding them. Why do you think that is?
Mr Bell: Schools have a lot on
their plate at the moment. They sometimes think that contributing
to the education of the next generation of teachers is a burden
too far. I think that is a shame because perhaps in the education
system we do not have the sense of every institution contributing
to the future generation of those that teach. One may argue in
the Health Service that there is a better tradition—teaching
hospitals and so on, one generation contributing to the development
of the next—so I take very seriously what USET says and
it is also commented to me at a more local level when you go and
visit higher education, teacher education providers. I think,
to be fair, that is one of the reasons why we have seen such a
plethora of routes into teaching emerge as a way of trying to
change the traditional relationship between higher education and
skills. There are a lot of examples now of skill-based routes
into teaching and education and I think that is generally a good
thing, except it is not a panacea. We have quoted examples in
the past where school-based routes have not been quite as effective.
I think this will be a mixed economy of provision but it would
be worrying if UCET is projecting into the future that there are
going to be fewer and fewer schools because that would worry us
all about ensuring the next generation of teachers get a good
start in their pre-service training.
Q142 Paul Holmes: You do specifically
pick up further on that point in paragraph 377. You say that the
emphasis on tests and examinations in Years 9 and 11 and also
post-16 as well, these have led to a decline in the willingness
of schools to offer teacher training in those particular year
groups. That obviously compounds the problem.
Mr Bell: I think that is going
to the point I made in response to your question that schools
are busy places. The assessment or the teaching of young people
at those crucial stages means that people are very focussed on
that. Again it goes back to the point of can we find ways of ensuring
that teacher education is not seen as a burden but is seen as
more of the natural rhythm of school life. Again I think to promote
some of those school-based initiatives is good for that reason
because those people are training on the job and maybe there is
not the same kind of disruption. Whether you are school-based
provider or a HE-based provider working with partnership schools,
you have to avoid that kind of disruption anyway. I think we are
being very honest here; we are citing the reasons why some schools
say that it is just too high stakes or it is just too busy for
them to contribute to initial teacher training.
Q143 Paul Holmes: Again, perhaps you
have one government policy about tests and league tables et cetera
which is working against teacher training in schools, just as
earlier we were talking about possibly it would also work against
inclusion in schools.
Mr Bell: There are always those
policy tensions. I would want to move away from a system where
we lost that kind of information about performance, but at the
same time we always have to be alert to effects like these; it
is worrying if it is going to prevent training teachers to get
good opportunities in schools.
Q144 Paul Holmes: At paragraph 407 on
page 82 you say that in January 2003 there were 4,000 more teachers
in post in schools than in the previous equivalent period. Were
all those 4,000 qualified or were a significant proportion unqualified
teachers?
Mr Bell: Those figures represent
qualified teachers but, as I think I go on to say in that paragraph,
if you take the headline figure in one sense it is almost meaningless
because if you then look at where problems arise those 4,000 teachers
are not neatly distributed around the country. Going back to government
initiatives to try to bring teachers in by as many different routes
as possible, that should be commended because there is a recognition
that there are some parts of the country or some types of school
that do have more difficulty recruiting staff than others.
Q145 Paul Holmes: Professor Alan Smithers
from Liverpool University published, in conjunction with the National
Union of Teachers, a staffing survey in 2003 which said that in
actual fact there had been a net loss of teachers to the system
of about 4,500 teachers, although the headline figure was one
of 4,000 extra. How would you reconcile the different figures?
Mr Bell: I do not have them here
but I am certainly happy to look at that evidence. My understanding
has been that the number of teachers coming into training and
therefore those coming out has increased year on year, but the
big issue is not in the sense the total number, but it is where
those teachers are and their subject specialisms because we do
also point out in this Report that we continue to struggle to
get teachers in some of the shortage areas. I am quite happy to
look at that evidence.
Q146 Paul Holmes: As you have already
pointed out, although the figures say there were more teachers
coming into the system and vacancies fell by a quarter, you still
have a third of LEAs saying that they have trouble recruiting
in their areas. That is especially true in the schools who most
need the best new teachers, the ones in deprived areas. The Select
Committee was in California recently looking at schools in Los
Angeles and we were very impressed with one programme there where
one university course was deliberately focussed on this. They
were recruiting the highest quality undergraduates and they were
aiming them exclusively to go to work in the most deprived inner
city areas. They show that that sort of high quality programme
had a much better retention over the next few years with staff
actually staying in schools. Have you looked at any of that sort
of thing? Are there any suggestions for doing that in England?
Mr Bell: There is a kind of dipping
the toe in the water in that in this country with the Teach First
scheme which you may be aware of which is to encourage young people
to consider teaching for a period of time.
Q147 Paul Holmes: I think we took that
to the United States and it was universally disliked in the State
where they looked at it because it was totally different from
this programme. This was being parachuted in for two years with
no commitment to teaching whereas these people wanted to spend
not only a lifetime in teaching, but teaching in the most difficult
areas. They did not like the parachutists who they say were sort
of VSO people.
Mr Bell: Having visited one or
two London secondary schools that are making use of the Teach
First scheme, they are finding it helpful and the young—it
tends to be younger—people I spoke to were finding it very
helpful. In some ways the Teach First scheme is premised on the
assumption that these young people may not stay in teaching and
make a career of teaching. However, I think it is likely for some
that it might be a chance to think about a career they would not
otherwise have thought of. I think there are so many different
ways to tackle this problem. The more we can attract young people—or
other people—in, the more opportunities we make available,
the better. I would just say at paragraph 408 we do say that despite
the figure you cited rightly about the third of LEAs having difficulty,
the LEAs are now giving much more attention to this issue about
how they recruit, incentivise to go into training, work in partnership
between the school and colleges. I think LEAs are now on the ball
on this scheme. However, it is a long standing problem that will
not be solved overnight.
Chairman: That provides a perfect link
into the next section which is local education authorities.
Q148 Mr Turner: Does satisfactory, in
relation to LEAs, mean the same as satisfactory in relation to
schools?
Mr Bell: There is a perennial
debate within Ofsted about grading scales and what different terms
mean. I think the same argument might apply, and that is to say
that where LEAs are achieving a level of competence we may describe
as satisfactory, we also use the perhaps confusing terminology
highly satisfactory as well in relation to LEAs. We know in those
areas where LEAs have most influence, it is good provision that
makes the difference. I would not pretend that we have absolute
consistency in either our grading schemes or our terminology.
It is something we are going to look at under The Future of
Inspections, to try to get the kind of consistency required
so that we do not end up having to feel a bit embarrassed when
we are asked the sort of question you have just asked us.
Q149 Mr Turner: You have a record of
judgment recording statements and inspection of each LEA and number
20 is the effectiveness of its services to services to support
school management. There are seven sub-categories in that. How
can an LEA which gets above four in all but one of those seven
sub-categories, still only achieve a four overall?
Mr Bell: I do not know the answer
and I cannot give you a direct explanation to that, so I will
not even pretend to do so, but I will come back to you on that.
Q150 Mr Turner: In that case, can I just
read some quotations out very briefly? "The council does
not serve vulnerable groups of children well. Overall the performance
of schools unsatisfactory. The proportion of middle schools judged
good or very good is 46% which is much lower than nationally at
75%. Officers, staff and elected members attribute unsatisfactory
performance to a perceived culture of low aspirations. In statutory
obligations in special educational needs this area remains unsatisfactory.
There have been major delays of up to a year in issuing amendments
to statements following annual reviews. Health, safety, welfare
and child protection is unsatisfactory. Measures to combat racism
is poor. The leadership provided by elected members is unsatisfactory."
How can an LEA like that be satisfactory?
Mr Bell: I do not know the particular
LEA you are describing, but I am happy to look at that outside
the meeting. I think there are important questions that you are
alluding to there about what services are crucial to an LEA's
overall success in coming to such a judgment. I accept the general
point, absolutely.
Q151 Mr Turner: My point is that it is
all very well to get a one on catering, but it is not much fun
for the pupils if the overall performance of schools is unsatisfactory.
Mr Bell: One of the issues that
in some ways we have always struggled with in LEA inspection is
the distinction between what the schools achieve and what the
LEA overall achieves. Do not forget that the vast majority of
money and responsibility for school standards now lies with LEAs.
I know we have had this conversation at this Committee before
when we have argued that if you are trying to make a close connection
between the quality of an LEA and its services and the general
performance of the schools, that is not as useful as indicator
as looking at the socio-economic context of the area. What we
have said in previous LEA reports, those functions in which an
LEA has most direct control—for example school admissions,
special education needs, school improvement, working with schools
in special measures—then you can have an impact. We have
always been cautious and our reports have always been very cautious
in saying that actually effectiveness in those specific delineated
functions will necessarily mean that the education and attainment
of the pupils is necessarily satisfactory. We have always been
quite cautious about that.
Q152 Mr Turner: You have mentioned special
educational needs. How do you compare what happened in this inspection
with what was promised at the last inspection?
Mr Bell: In the last inspection—and
for most authorities it would have been their first inspection
under the inspection arrangements—there would have been
quite a long list of recommendations and as with school inspections
we do ask inspectors to look at whether the recommendations have
been dealt with. I would say generally—and I think the report
highlights this—that our evidence from the first round of
inspections would also support this, that early years are generally
weaker in relation to special educational needs functions than
other areas of work. Certainly we would want to comment if there
was a complete failure to address issues that were identified
first time round. I can think of one or two LEA inspections just
published recently where we have done that in other areas, for
example school admissions, and that is quite a negative judgment
about the LEA.
Q153 Mr Turner: What I am worried about
is that there are LEAs that seem to be able to talk, to write
the plans, but they are not able to deliver. In a report you delivered
on this LEA in the year 2000 you said it is working towards a
more coherent strategy: services round transition, actions being
taken to remedy weaknesses. You then said it was unsatisfactory
on special educational needs and now you have said it remains
unsatisfactory on special educational needs. I accept that half
the LEAs that were unsatisfactory three years ago are no longer
unsatisfactory, but do you really feel that you are effective
in waking up the local education authorities where you have a
consistent pattern of failure in a very significant area?
Mr Bell: That is an interesting
question. I think what the LEA inspection programme has done is
drive up standards to an acceptable level in the vast majority
of cases. If you look at the first round of inspections there
is no doubt that those LEAs inspected later in the first round
of inspection did better because they realised that Ofsted meant
business and, frankly, the Government meant business in relation
to intervention powers. What do you do in an LEA inspection if
you find an area of provision which has remained unsatisfactory
or poor and you set that against other areas which are generally
improved in the intervening period, if that is the case? As we
say in school inspections, we ask inspectors to take account of
all the evidence in the round and come to a judgment, but I think
it is a fair question to ask of us, if you have a very significant
area of provision in an LEA and it has not been acted upon, why
do you not make a judgment. The interesting thing is that we do
not have an equivalent judgment to serious weaknesses in the LEA
world which in some ways would enable you to get at that. In other
words, you say that across a number of areas things are going
well, but in this very specific area it has not been tackled.
The only way we do that is through the text on the inspection
report which says that this area still has not been dealt with.
I think you are making a fair point: are there areas that are
so crucial that we cannot judge an authority overall as satisfactory
if that particular area is satisfactory and has been satisfactory
previously. We are moving into a period of change in the LEA programme
of course because we are having to think about how the LEA inspection
work, dovetailed with Every Child Matters. Some of our
thinking in Every Child Matters forces us to look even
more critically at support for children with special needs, vulnerable
children and so on. I actually sense that we will not be able
to duck this if we have ducked it in the past and have not given
judgments as sharp and as clear as we can. I think your observations
are a helpful reminder to us that we really need to look carefully
at how we make judgments for LEA support in this area.
Q154 Mr Turner: I am glad that we have
agreed that something needs to be done. Could I just move on to
one other issue to do with middle schools? I quoted the figures
for middle schools as 75% being good or very good overall nationally.
Have you ever produced a report on the performance of middle schools?
Are you able to make an assessment of why some middle schools
appear to be far less successful as in this report than others?
Mr Bell: I think I will have to
defer to my colleague on the first part of that question.
Mr Taylor: I do remember a report
on middle schools in 1981 but more recently, after an appearance
here when we were asked questions about a comparison between three
tier systems and two tier, we did go away and do a fair bit more
analysis on those comparative data and, as tends to happen when
you do this, the answer is a lemon, basically. In some places
three tier systems are working more effectively than two; in others
it is the other way round. As you might expect, it is not a very
clear cut picture. What we find is that the hotspots are rather
different in three tier systems than they are in two tier. Things
like that are interesting but not enough to hang a whole national
policy on them.
Q155 Mr Turner: Are they enough to hang
a local policy on? What I am really worried about is that people
tend to change the structure as an alternative to changing the
system.
Mr Bell: You cannot use Ofsted
evidence to make a national case in relation to middle schools.
However, it may be that in a local setting people could say, well,
if we look at what has happened with our middle schools or our
first schools or whatever, there does seem to be a pattern of
failure or under achievement. I think you are right to highlight
the danger, and that is to assume that the problem has to be with
the structures when it might have to do with some other things
as well. Therefore just changing say from a three tier to a two
tier would seem to be not an absolute guarantee of future success.
Other things like: are the teachers appropriately trained? Are
the leadership and management capable of leading these new schools?
Are the transition arrangements handled well from one structure?
All of those seem to me to be equally important and we should
not just assume that a three tier system going to two tier will
magically improve standards.
Q156 Chairman: This fashion for sending
a private sector contractor into LEAs, from where you sit has
it been a success by and large?
Mr Bell: There has been less intervention
either from the private sector or from elsewhere in the public
sector in recent times. We have, of course, looked at different
approaches to intervention. We have looked at approaches where
the public sector has assisted the public sector (which was the
case to a large extent in Liverpool) but we have also looked at
other LEAs where the private sector has gone in and been leading
the intervention programme. I think it is hard to say that one
thing works and the other thing does not. Our evidence would seem
to suggest that where intervention of any sort has happened it
has led to the green shoots of recovery. Obviously, if you are
talking about major structural problems in an LEA they are unlikely
to be sorted out in the period between first and second inspections
because we often go back second time rather quickly after the
first time to see if any progress is apparent. I think I can say
we do not have an absolute picture either way. The most important
thing that usually happens in such circumstances is just better
relationships begin to emerge between schools and the provider,
whether that is the local authority or a private sector provider.
We do know there has been at least one high profile case where
that has not happened, so I think we need to be careful about
generalising.
Chairman: Just before we move onto our
last subject, Every Child Matters, we take this area very,
very seriously. We are going to briefly mention it today. We are
doing so because this is so important to the whole structure of
how this Committee holds the Government to account that we will
be having not only a seminar on this area but we will be having
you back just to discuss this. I just thought I would let the
outside world know that this is not the Committee just tacking
on a couple of questions on such an important subject.
Q157 Jonathan Shaw: You are, as we all
are, acutely aware of the Lane Inquiry's findings and how it damned
those authorities responsible for their failure to protect Victoria
Climbié. You are charged with developing an inspection
regime across children's services. It is bound to have interfaces
with other agencies such as the police, which is a huge departure
for yourselves. I think that it is quite difficult to begin to
try to comprehend how you are going to inspect all that. I expect
it has caused you a few sleepless nights over recent months. As
the Chairman said, we are going to look at this in detail, but
perhaps you can give us a flavour as to where you begin to tie
all this together so that we do not have systemic failure in the
way that we have seen before. It is not to say that we will not
see children die; we will, but it is about the systemic failure.
Can we put our hands on our hearts and say that we did all that
we could?
Mr Bell: I wonder if you would
mind if I asked Robert Green to comment on this. He is overseeing
that project.
Mr Green: Given that most of my
responsibilities are around Ofsted's backroom operations and support,
the less the Committee feels it needs to ask questions the better
I am doing my job on the whole. However, this is a project in
which, in the Ofsted context, I am taking a particular interest.
The first thing to say is that we are enormously enthusiastic
about the opportunity that this gives to Ofsted and to all the
inspectorates who are collaborating. Mr Shaw mentioned working
with the police and just to list some of the inspectorates that
we are bringing together: the new Commission for Health Care Audit
and Inspection, Commission for Social Care Inspections (both of
those are, as it were, getting themselves into position at the
moment, which is one of the issues for us; we are working with
inspectorates that are still being built). On the youth justice
side, there is the Inspectorate of Constabulary, the Inspectorate
of Prisons, Probation, the Magistrates' Court, Crown Prosecution
Service. All of those are sitting in on a group that David Bell
chairs once a month, as well as the Adult Learning Inspectorate
and the Audit Commission. There are probably others as well, but
that is enough to be getting on with. One of my colleagues has
the phrase that what we want to be able to do is to come out of
this process and be able to say what it is like to be a young
person in a particular defined area and to have that kind of sense
of safety and safeguards as far as one can reasonably achieve
them. The focus of the integrated inspection—that is what
we are going to be talking about, integrating the inspections
of these various bodies—is how well the services at the
local level work together. It is an age old problem for I am sure
as long as any of us have been involved in this. How well those
services work together to improve the lives of children and young
people and to come back, in a sense, to the very first question
that the Committee was raising about the impact of Ofsted, we
certainly hope that this is an area in which inspection can have
an impact because by saying this is what we expect to see and
this is what we find—not just, are the plans there, but
when we go to talk to parents or young people, do they actually
recognise that the various agencies are working together—that
should be a powerful driver for the sort of improvement that we
are looking at. We are obviously in the relatively early stages
of formulating ideas on what these inspections will look like,
but equally, if we are going to introduce them not much more than
a year from now, we have to get a move on. The focus is going
to be on the outcomes of these inspections; that is something
that all the inspectorates have agreed. It is crucial that they
do take into account the views of children and young people and
their parents. That is one essential premise so the inspections
will have to make judgments about the way in which the different
services contribute to those outcomes and the quality of the provision.
They are going to take account of national criteria. Going back
to a point the Chief Inspector was making earlier, we are in the
business of trying, where we can, to reduce the burden of inspections,
certainly not to increase the burden of inspection so there is
going to have to be an element of proportionality to risk. In
other words, we look harder at those areas where we think the
risks are likely to be greatest. So far as possible, we will tackle
the question of reducing burdens by making use of what we have
already. In other words, do not re-invent things if we have something
which is reasonably adequate, although when you are bringing together
half a dozen or more inspectorates which have been looking at
things from very different perspectives, there is going to have
to be quite a degree of readjustment so that they produce an overall
coherent picture. It is crucial to us that we report openly so
that local people can look and see how things are in whichever
area we are looking at. Also, it is quite clear from the Green
Paper that—again going back to an earlier point—improvement
has to be a central concern for this process. It has to contribute
to the way in which things get better. The approach we are taking
at the moment is to start with Every Child Matters, five
outcomes that matter to children, with the addition the Government
has given us of looking at the ways in which the local services
provide support to parents. So it is the outcomes for children
and the support that is provided to parents. In terms of what
I was saying earlier about the risk, one of the areas that we
will look at in particular is the categories of young people and
children who have particular issues for whatever reasons, so special
needs is one of those groups that we think is necessary to focus
on particularly. Looked after children is another long standing
issue which I know the Committee has been concerned about. Children
in transition between one stage and another, particularly those
moving out of being looked after, and those children who are going
back to the PRUs, those children who are out of mainstream education.
These are some areas where we know we want to focus particularly.
We are thinking about a framework—but it is very early days
on this and I am sure there will be much more opportunity to talk
about this in the separate session that you are thinking of having—and
we will draw together the information that we can from all the
inspectorates involved, the statistics, the findings they have
from their inspections so far. At the core of the process in an
area we are looking at a joint assessment by a multi-disciplinary
team, in other words, bringing together inspectors from different
inspectorates and different disciplines to look at what is actually
happening. Having said that though and recognising the huge scale
of the task, relatively speaking, we think that the field work
needs to be kept to a minimum, in other words not weeks and weeks
and weeks of inspectors on the ground, but as much thorough preparation
as is possible on the basis of the evidence that has already been
gathered from field work, whether it is a school inspection or
any other sort of inspection. One of the things that we do think
we want to put in on the ground is what we are thinking of as
case studies. This could happen in various ways. It could simply
be following the case of an individual child, tracking through
the files: what do the health files, the education files, the
social services files tell us about this child? What evidence
do they give about the way in which the different services have
been talking to each other and cooperating? We are going to look
at, on the ground, particular areas; we are going to talk to young
people in particular areas and ask what their experience is. These
are early ideas at the moment, but overall we want to come out
with a system which evaluates the joint planning of services,
the ways in which services are jointly commissioned, crucially
the way they are delivered in a coherent way, and then the way
in which local authorities and other services review the services.
Broadly speaking that is the framework. We are at the stage of
simply talking to other inspectorates at the moment. We are about
to start talking informally to a much wider audience over the
next few months to begin to test some of these ideas.
Jonathan Shaw: I have no further questions;
I think that sets the scene for when we come back.
Chairman: We have had an excellent session.
I always feel it ruins the momentum of questions when there is
a division as we like to keep you on the griddle, but at least
you get a respite of 15 minutes. However, I hope that concentration
did not lag. I think we asked most of the questions we intended
to ask. Chief Inspector, can I again thank you for your attendance,
also Maurice Smith, Robert Green and David Taylor. We will see
you again soon.
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