Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR DAVID
BELL, MRS
MIRIAM ROSEN,
MR ROBERT
GREEN, MR
MAURICE SMITH
AND MS
9 NOVEMBER 2005
Q1 Chairman: Welcome to you all. It is
some time since we saw you, is it not?
VANESSA HOWLISON
Mr Bell: Indeed it is, Chairman.
Q2 Chairman: Of course, this marks
the change in the date of the publication of your Annual Report.
As we see you in terms of the fixed part of the calendar twice
a year, that will shift things around a little bit. With the inquiry
into the White Paper on special education, we will be seeing Ofsted
as usual on a regular basis. Welcome and we have missed you. It
is not that we have not been following you in the newspapers,
although, on a touchy subject, I am going to bore my colleagues
by repeating how disappointing it is that again this morning there
is no television coverage. This is becoming fairly regular. I
understand the broadcasting authorities are short of money and
are cutting down on parliamentary exposure. This makes us very
vulnerable as a parliamentary committee, especially as, for example,
on Monday when the Learning and Skills Council were presenting,
with a budget of £10.5 billion, we had not one member of
the educational press here. It is nice to see some of them here
today but not one of them was here when we saw an organisation
with a budget of £10.5 billion and all the things that touch
further education and so much else. I really wonder what is happening
with coverage of education and skills, but we will return to that.
I am sorry, Chief Inspector, but I had to say that. Let us get
into the questions. May I open up by asking you to say a few words
to tell us how you have been getting on since we last met?
Mr Bell: Thank you, Chairman,
and good morning. It is always a pleasure to be here in front
of your Committee. I perhaps think it is more of a mixed blessing
that so many members of the press are here today, but never mind.
I would like to mention by way of introduction some of the current
key issues for Ofsted. As you say, we are often in the news and
being reported on. As you have commented, Chairman, this year
marks a departure for the publication of the Annual Report, which
is published in October and reporting on the academic year that
concluded in July. I am sure you will want to ask us some questions
about the detail of the Annual Report. It is also an important
time for us because, since the beginning of September, we have
introduced a new system of school inspection. I would like to
indicate the amount of work that has been carried out with my
colleague Miriam Rosen and her colleagues in bringing this new
system to fruition. By half-term, over 900 schools had already
been inspected under this new system. We have received quite a
lot of positive feedback from head teachers on the new system.
Many welcome the sharper focus of the inspection and the level
of challenge involved, but very few seem to miss the long process
of inspection that characterised the old system. In relation to
our work on early years, we have also made some significant changes,
a number of important and we think helpful changes. We have extended
the maximum time between inspections of early years providers
to three years, which enables the most successful providers to
have a more light touch in relation to inspection, but also allows
us to go back to those recently registered providers and those
where the provision for young children is not as good. You will
remember, Chairman, a couple of years ago that you were very concerned
about the issue of publishing complaints so that parents had access
to information about complaints. As you know, partly through the
pressure that you brought to bear, we have moved to give that
kind of information now routinely to parents when they are considering
choosing a child care provider. I am also pleased to say that
on the back of the Annual Report we were able to report an increase
in the quality of child care provision. I think that is good news.
It is a topical issue. Two of this morning's newspapers have front
page stories in relation to child care, and it may well be that
you want to come back to that later. As well as trying to promote
improvement within education care and services in areas that we
regulate, obviously we are concerned to improve our work as an
organisation. You will know that under the efficiency programme
we have brought about a major change to Ofsted's work. That has
meant a very substantial reduction in our budget, which we are
delivering. It has meant a greater focus on regional delivery
as we move services out of the south of England. It has also meant
a leaner HQ presence in London. I think that is all important,
not just for efficiency reasons, but also for effectiveness reasons
because we hope that it will enable us to develop our use of local
intelligence in relation to schools, colleges, child care providers
and the like. By April 2006, our new regional structure will be
fully operational. We will have reduced the number of offices
that we operate from 12 to 4 and the opening of our new national
business unit in Manchester will combine to save nearly £18
million in our annual running costs. On top of that, the new system
of school inspection has generated a further £15 million
worth of savings. I think we are well on the way to the £42
million savings target that was set for us under the efficiency
review. One final point: the Government has recently been consulting
on proposals to expand Ofsted's remit. We strongly support the
proposal to bring the work over to Ofsted from the Commission
for Social Care Inspection and to incorporate the skills and experience
of the Adult Learning Inspectorate into an enlarged Ofsted as
a single inspectorate for children and learners. It is a challenge
but we believe that we can deliver that, as we have done so successfully
in other aspects of our work as Ofsted's remit has, as you know,
grown over the year. My colleagues and I have always taken very
seriously the comments and suggestions of this Committee because
we believe in self-evaluation. We believe that our work should
be evaluated in the same way that we evaluate the work of others.
We look forward to this morning's session contributing further
to that process.
Q3 Chairman: Chief Inspector, thank
you very much for that. As your remit broadens, perhaps we can
commission you to evaluate the performance of the Committee! I
say that in a light tone but a serious one. We have an increasingly
large remit for Ofsted, do we not, as you have just mentioned?
I am wondering what you think about the way in which your remit
has grown in the sense that we know that the reason you are getting
an increased number of areas to operate in is because the Chancellor
really is determined to reduce the amount of regulation. One of
the ways he thinks that that should be done is to reduce to a
much smaller number the number of inspectorates from 11 to 4.
Consequently, you are getting a large number of other areas to
inspect. Do you think that is the right way to do things or do
you think we should evaluate much more carefully whether your
role is really fit for the purpose of some of these new responsibilities?
Mr Bell: That is not a new question
for Ofsted to address. When the Government proposed to bring over
the inspection and regulation of early years work, precisely that
same question was asked. You know that over the last two or three
years you have subjected my colleague Maurice Smith to a lot of
scrutiny in relation to that work. I think we have delivered and
done what it is that has been expected of us. It is a good question
to ask: does our remit extend to such an extent that we become
incapable of doing what it is that we are asked to do? We do not
believe that to be so. We believe that not just for efficiency
reasons but also for policy reasons it makes sense to expand Ofsted's
remit. Take, for example, the work in children's social services
currently carried out by the Commission for Social Care Inspection:
it seems to me to make eminent good sense as the Government is
trying to generate greater integration of services for children
and young people at the delivery end to ensure that you have an
integrated system of inspection and regulation. I think that seems
sensible. It would be hard, would it not, for Government to argue
that services locally should get their act together, if I can
put it that way, if the inspection and regulation were seen to
be incoherent and to duplicate effort.
Q4 Chairman: You are not getting
all of the children's services, are you?
Mr Bell: We are getting all of
the current work in relation to children's social services carried
out by CSCI. That is the Government's proposal. Obviously it is
the Secretary of State's decision whether that comes about. Adult
learning is another issue that has provoked debate because people
have asked if that is not a stretch too far for Ofsted to do that
kind of work on top of its existing work. I have one or two comments
on that, if I may, Chairman. There is increasingly again in policy
terms greater coherence being pursued not just in the 14-16 or
the 14-19 range but right the way across into the skills for life
and developing of job opportunities. It is very striking: I met
with a group of business leaders at an event on Monday morning
that we hosted. As far as they were concerned, they do not recognise
those artificial distinctions now between 14-16 and 16-19 and
19 and beyond. It is all about ensuring that our economy equips
young people and adults with the sorts of skills that they need
to be good, productive employees. Again, it seems to me the argument
applies. If the direction of policy is moving, then the system
of inspection and regulation needs to go with it. In both the
case of CSCI and ALI, if that work does come to Ofsted, we will
draw very heavily on the expertise that these organisations currently
have. In both cases, we would draw upon many, if not all, of the
inspectors of those organisations to do the business.
Q5 Chairman: The logic of your argument,
Inspector, is that you are going to go on and on increasing your
empire. The logic of what you have just said about meeting with
the business community is that you will eventually be going to
higher education. From cradle to grave, Ofsted will be the inspectorate.
Is that your ambition?
Mr Bell: Ofsted, and certainly
this Chief Inspector, is not acquisitive in the sense that we
just want to grab everything.
Q6 Chairman: You look like the British
Empire at the height of colonial expansion. Every time we meet
you, you have taken on a new territory.
Mr Bell: That may not be the best
of parallels when you think what happened to the empire. It is
a good question to ask. Your premise was the Chancellor's budget
statement.
Q7 Chairman: We are going beyond
that, Chief Inspector. I am saying is that this was not a decision
made that this is good for education and for children's services.
It was actually made by the Chancellor who said it is good to
cut down the regulatory burden, so let us have four tidy inspectorates.
It was not based on the good of the education service, was it?
Mr Bell: The argument that I tried
to advance this morning and the submission that we have put to
the Department in response to the proposals is that there are
good arguments in policy terms, in education terms, in care terms.
I do not think we should underestimate, however, the efficiency
argument. In the end, inspection and regulation is not part of
the front-line delivery of public services. So we have got to
make sure that it is done efficiently and it is done smartly.
If we can do that by reducing the number of inspectorates, that
seems to me to be a sensible way forward. One other comment, if
I might, about this whole area; Ofsted recognises that reducing
the number of inspectorates is not sufficient to modernise regulation.
We have to do what Ofsted has been doing recently, and that is
look at our inspection systems to make them more sharply focused,
to make them more efficient and so on. The new school inspection
system is a much lighter touch on schools. We believe you can
have a lighter touch, smarter regulations and save money but actually
continue to do a good job. I think that is the challenge for Ofsted
if its remit is expanded after this consultation period.
Q8 Chairman: It is interesting that
you did not refute the idea of doing the cradle to the grave service,
Chief Inspector. Let us leave that to one side. The other question
we always ask you, and which I must ask you before we share the
questioning around, because it is a perennial is: how do you know
you are doing any good to the educational system? Unlike many
other countries, we have an enormous system of inspection. Whether
you say it is fit for purpose, it is trim and scaled down and
much more efficient and you save money, there is still a big reliance
on inspections in the hope that this is going to improve what
we get in terms of the education of our children. What evidence
do you have that if you packed up tomorrow, closed down the operation
and walked away, education would not be as good or better?
Mr Bell: Chairman that, as you
rightly say, is an issue that you have pushed us on hard. I think
we have tried to respond, not least through our Annual Report
this year, because there has been a whole section of our Annual
Report looking at the issue of the contribution Ofsted makes to
improvement. I can cite a number of examples, if you wish. Schools
that previously had been failing, where Ofsted inspection had
identified that and diagnosed weaknesses, have been monitored
and helped, through the process of improvement so that they have
come out of special measures and gone on to be successful. 60%
of those schools previously in special measures go on to be good
or better schools in their subsequent inspection. We know from
the child care world where we go back and visit child care providers
who have not been meeting the national standards, for example,
that we see and have seen rapid improvements so that young children
get a better deal. The college inspection programme we know has
highlighted some weaknesses in the college sector. One of the
good news stories in the Annual Report this year is the percentage
of colleges that are now adequate and certainly the number of
colleges that previously had weak curriculum areas that are substantially
improving. In all of this, it is very important to make the point
that Ofsted does not cause improvement. Improvement is brought
about by those who work in schools or colleges or child care providers.
Those are the people responsible for bringing about improvement.
I think a good system of inspection and regulation by highlighting
strengths, diagnosing weaknesses and preparing the ground, as
it were, for improvement makes a difference. I would not sit here
and over-state the contribution that Ofsted makes to improvement.
That would be arrogant in the extreme and it would not properly
recognise the work done by those managing the institutions.
Q9 Chairman: You would admit that
the politicians that set Ofsted up in the first place, various
administrations from this one and this one, surely believe, or
they think they do from talking to successive secretaries of state,
that the reason we invested in Ofsted is because it would improve
schools. That is what the politicians think, is it not? Is there
not a strange problem here that at the heart there is a concern
and a worry that in a sense you have to say things are getting
better because, otherwise, why are you there? This is a world
where the Government sets you up to improve standards to justify
your existence. I do not doubt the professional competence of
you and your team, you know I do not and that is a fact, but is
there not a kind of inbuilt system in which you have to report
improvement because otherwise why on earth are you there?
Mr Bell: I think it is fair to
say that Ofsted has never been a lapdog of successive governments.
We say it as part of our rhetoric that we speak as we find. We
report the evidence as we find it. That is more than just rhetoric.
I think that is very important to the integrity of the inspectorate
that it does so. The reality is that we have reported on improvements
in the education system because there are improvements in the
education system. Equally, we have not pulled our punches, Chairman,
as you well know, when it comes to commenting on aspects of government
policy where we do not think it is going quite as well as it might.
I think Ofsted is important to have in the education system. It
acts as an independent voice on how well things are going. I think
it has been to the credit of successive governments, as you say
of different political persuasion, that they have been prepared
to allow Ofsted the freedom to speak as they find. I think we
would be no use to you, Chairman, in helping to hold the education
system to account if we were just here to say that things are
getting better, irrespective of what the evidence is telling us.
Chairman: We have limbered up. I was
very rude in not welcoming Robert, Miriam and Maurice whom we
all know well and Vanessa; I think this is the first time Vanessa
has been in front of the committee. Now we are going to drill
down a bit.
Q10 Jeff Ennis: Given the reply the
Chief Inspector has just made in terms of the fact that all Ofsted
does is inspect schools, is not Ofsted the wrong acronym and should
it not be "Insted"—the Inspection of Standards
in Education"?
Mr Bell: We said in our submission
about the future of inspectorates that Ofsted is a well-known
brand name. I often make the point that if you go into a school
playground and ask, "Do you know what Ofsted is?" you
are unlikely to get the answer, "It is a non-ministerial
government department whose Chief Inspector is a Crown appointment".
You are likely to hear, "Oh, that is the inspectors, is it
not?" I think we are a well-known brand. It is a good suggestion
but I am very nervous about changing a well-known brand.
Q11 Chairman: Is that the same reason
that every time I ask you to move to Huddersfield you say you
will not?
Mr Bell: Chairman, we do not want
to become the "Consignia" of the education service!
Q12 Tim Farron: This is a question
about standards overall throughout the sector. Do you think that
the DfES list of the 100 most improved schools is a helpful and
true reflection of schools raising their standards?
Mr Bell: It is one measure. I
think an important point to make when we look at school inspections
is that we do not just report on the attainment of pupils. The
statutory basis of inspection of course is to report on the standards
achieved, the quality of education, leadership, management ethos
and the like. You can get a measure of improvement by looking
at value-added data and absolute achievement. For me I think the
more important question to ask is "do schools improve over
time?" rather than "are they most improved just from
one year to the next?" because a single year's measure can
be a bit misleading. Therefore, I think from our point of view
it is better to see what progress a school is making over a number
of years. Head teachers and teachers will often say, "We
had bad year because of the cohort of young people", or whatever.
It is an important measure but it has to be treated with some
caution. I would rather look at the progress a school makes over
a number of years rather than just one year.
Q13 Tim Farron: I would not disagree
with you and you are probably guessing what I am driving at. The
analysis of that league table suggests that the most improved
schools in terms of pupils gaining five A-C grade GCSEs have a
poorer performance in English and maths. As you go down the list
of 100, the better the performance at English and maths becomes.
What do you think that suggests?
Mr Bell: I think it is absolutely
right to give greater priority to the English and maths measures
that the Secretary of State is proposing when you are using those
measures of success. Referring back to the business event this
week, it is interesting that employers do think there are many
aspects of our education system that have prepared young people
better than they have in the past, but they still have a degree
of unease about the basic English and maths that many young people
attain when they leave school. Putting that in a more prominent
position in the measure of school success and school performance
is a thoroughly good idea.
Q14 Tim Farron: That is absolutely
right, I am sure. One thing to be drawn from the league table
is that there is a link between an increase in provision of GNVQs
and a decrease in the provision of science and languages. What
is happening here is that schools are, as many of us believe,
sacrificing standards or being encouraged to sacrifice standards
in order to meet a fairly false target culture.
Mr Bell: You always have to keep
an eye on the accountability measures and whether they start to
distort performance. To some extent I think one could say the
same of Ofsted. If people know they are going to be inspected,
do they start to behave in different ways and do those ways get
further and further away from reality? One of the reasons we moved
to shorter notice of inspection was to try to get away from the
sense that people were only behaving in a certain way because
Ofsted was coming. If you gave them 10 weeks' notice, they were
more likely to behave in that way. I think it is terribly important
to have good, clear, sharp measures of accountability of school
performance. We must not go back to a time when that sort of data
was not available. You have said, Mr Farron, that it is really
important you keep that under review because if you get to a point
where the accountability measure starts substantially to distort
reality, then you ask yourself: in whose interests is this? I
would make one other comment, however. The English and maths issue
is absolutely right. Many young people, however, who follow the
GNVQ route have gone on into education beyond 16 and have picked
up courses that are appropriate to their needs. I would not dismiss
it but we need to keep under review the accountability measures
and any time they start to distort behaviour, that it the time
to have a look at it again.
Q15 Tim Farron: I would not disagree
with that. The motivation behind the offering of the GNVQ by schools
is the concern.
Mr Bell: I would be the last person
to say anything other than that accountability is a high stakes
business in the education world. The success of schools measured
by Ofsted inspection or by performance and tables and so on is
high stakes, and people do look very carefully and hard at how
well they are doing. In many schools across the country the move
to greater accountability has driven real improvement in performance
because people have not just been prepared to sit back and say,
"Oh, well, these children achieve what they achieve. There
is nothing we can do about it". Accountability has driven
expectations, but we need to keep an eye on the accountability
measures which might then get out of step with reality. To be
fair, I think that is what the Government has done in saying,
"Let us now ensure that the English and maths measures are
central to the judgment of performance of schools and individual
youngsters at the age of 16".
Q16 Mr Marsden: Chief Inspector,
I would corroborate from my own experience in Blackpool the beneficial
impact that Ofsted inspections have had. One of my schools which
has been in special measures has just come out of it. Obviously
that is very pleasing. One of the aspects of that school coming
out of special measures I believe is the new leadership that was
provided in that school. I wanted to ask you how you think Ofsted
makes a particular contribution to the improvement of leadership
in schools.
Mr Bell: That is a very good question.
I think we do it at the micro level and we do it at the macro
level. At the micro level, in a sense we do it the way you have
described: the identification of weaknesses in a school, often
of course around leadership and management, leading to a diagnosis
of what needs to be done, frankly, often leading to changes in
the leadership in management, and then that leadership in management
becoming very focused on what has to be done. You will know that
one of the characteristics of the school in special measures is
that members of Her Majesty's Inspectorate, my full-time staff,
will monitor the school's progress during its period in special
measures. Almost universally that is welcomed by schools and is
seen as a very important help to the head teacher in understanding
how well the school is doing and pinpointing what needs to be
done next and so on. At the level of the individual institution,
we provide that kind of support. Even in a sense in the less dramatic
circumstances where a school is not in special measures, we are
providing comment, as part of the statutory basis of inspection,
on leadership in management. At the macro level, one of the things
that inspection frameworks, the mechanisms by which we hold schools
to account, do is to lay out the criteria that helps us to come
to judgments about leadership in management. Over Ofsted's history,
the publication of inspection criteria has been very useful to
schools themselves in looking at what constitutes good managements
and leadership and what constitutes satisfactory leadership management.
I think schools have used that. In a sense, if you publish that
nationally, it drills down. The other things that we do at the
macro level are overview surveys. For example, in the Annual Report
we comment on the state of leadership and management in schools
in England, but we also provide themed reports. For example, we
provided a report on special measures four or five years ago on
leadership in managements for schools in special measures. We
are trying to distil our national evidence and make it more widely
available.
Q17 Mr Marsden: You also said, and
again I would concur with this, that Ofsted of itself has not
got a magic wand and the work is done in schools by the people
in schools. I would accept that. Self-evaluation, self-criticism
if we can use a Maoist phrase, is an important part of that process,
but in the past when you have come before the Committee you have
been a little bit sceptical about that. When you came in March,
you said that you were uncertain about whether schools do have
that capacity. We also have a situation where the NUT and various
other people who have given evidence to us on this still have
some concerns that there is not enough in the structure of Ofsted
that either supports or encourages self-evaluation in schools.
How would you respond to those points?
Mr Bell: We do comment in this
year's Annual Report that whilst self-evaluation has improved,
it is still not universally of a high standard. I suppose I have
to repeat what I said earlier in the year that there is more to
be done. It is interesting, all the same, that the recent changes,
not just the most recent changes to the inspection system but
the changes that really came about in 2003, put greater emphasis
on self-evaluation. What we are seeing are more and more schools
becoming comfortable with the concept of holding their work to
account.
Q18 Mr Marsden: Are your inspectors
comfortable with the concept? In the past, there have been criticisms
that individual inspectors have thought this is all a big airy-fairy
and they have brushed it under the carpet.
Mr Bell: That is a fair observation.
However, I would say I have always found it somewhat ironic when
people have said, "Self-evaluation is terribly airy-fairy,
wishy-washy and it is all about giving yourself a pat on the back".
I think it is the opposite; I think it is tougher. The quality
of self-evaluation is a very interesting insight into the leadership
in management in a school or a college. Far from it being easy;
I think it has given sharpness. In fact I think inspectors recently,
as we have used self-evaluation more and more, have become very
comfortable doing it. You commented on the unions and others saying,
"Are we quite there yet?" No, we are not, and we need
to do more. In fact, Ofsted will be working with the Department
and hopefully drawing upon ideas from the unions to give more
guidance on self-evaluation. The one observation I would make
is that we need to be careful that this does not become an industry.
We want self-evaluation to be done well at school or college level,
but there is just a danger that it all becomes terribly paper-based
and bureaucratic. We have made all of these reductions in school
inspection and we are all very comfortable with that but all we
have done is displace work by making elaborate school-based self-evaluations.
We have been very clear to schools: you do what you think is right
in your circumstances. Ofsted is not there to judge the process;
we are there to judge the outcomes.
Q19 Mr Marsden: I do not think this
Select Committee is in the market for stimulating the activities
of management consultants on self-evaluation. I think we would
agree with you on that. Can I move you on to another part of your
Annual Report? You have talked positively in the Annual Report
about curriculum flexibility and you have made comments in that
respect. You also say, and I refer to paragraph 65 to do with
secondary schools, that in subjects such as geography, history
and art, fieldwork and visits to museums and galleries should
provide opportunities to enrich and have a profound effect on
pupils, but many schools appear to use outside visits and others
are finding it difficult. We have had a submission from the Real
World Learning Partnership that makes precisely that point. Do
you think that the pressures of core subjects and other things
are causing real problems for schools in this respect? Given that
you recognise that out of classroom learning is important, is
that something you could give particular attention to in your
inspection process?
Mr Bell: The comment exactly as
you describe it in paragraph 65 is interesting. What we picked
up, and I think we have had this conversation at the Committee
previously, is that quite a lot of that has to do with the perceived
risks. In fact, the final sentence in that paragraph makes the
point about perceived risks. I have taken quite a bullish attitude
on that. We published a report a year or so ago about outdoor
education and the fantastic value that that brings to young people.
It is so important. I was in a junior school in Merseyside last
week where the year 6 children were talking about the field trip
that they have done just at the beginning of the school year.
That gave them a chance to get out and to get to know the teachers
in a different environment. I do agree, Mr Marsden, that it is
really important to try to encourage schools to do that.
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