Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
MR DAVID
SHERLOCK, MS
NICKY PERRY
AND MR
DENIS MCENHILL
31 OCTOBER 2005
Q1 Chairman: Can I welcome David Sherlock,
Nicky Perry and Denis McEnhill to our proceedings. We all know,
because I was explaining, why it is so important to see you today,
and we are very happy to do so. We are going to have some quick
fire questions because, again, we only have an hour in this double
session so do forgive us if we whizz through. I would ask colleagues
to make short, sharp questions and similarly with the replies.
David, do you want to say anything to open up, as long as it is
not too long, just to give us a little background?
Mr Sherlock: Yes, very quickly.
Thank you very much for inviting us to be witnesses today, Chairman.
Can I make three points: The first one is that ALI is an efficient
organisation. We inspect some of the cutting-edge companies in
the world, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, BMW and companies of that
kind. We need to test our efficiency all the time against them
if we are to make judgments about their training. We do that by
benchmarking our work externally; you have some details in our
submission. The second point is that we are a highly effective
organisation. Again, we apply very rigorous standards to the training
of those companies in order to add value to their activities.
We have a huge range of different kinds of organisations that
we inspect from blue chip companies I have described, to colleges,
UFI learndirect, prisons, the police service, the Armed Services
and so forth. We have, as an example, reduced the inadequacy rate
in work-based learning from 58% when we started in 2001 to around
10% at the current time. The third point is that we are an innovative
organisation. We are absolutely not resistant to change, we have
moved forward the inspection agenda very substantially in a number
of ways which we can enumerate, but we are resistant to this particular
change, which we believe will not save money and, indeed, will
worsen the service to our clients, who include some of the most
disadvantaged learners in this country.
Q2 Chairman: The Chancellor of the
Exchequer wants to get rid of lots and lots of different inspection
regimes and wants three main strands. Now, who are we to stand
in the way of the might of the Treasury?
Mr Sherlock: Chairman, it is an
issue which I have to say engages me somewhat from time to time
and has done throughout this process. We support simplification;
we support deregulation. Nevertheless this particular approach—and
it is only one approach—we believe does not add value to
the people who we serve. I think there is a case in many instances
across the inspectorates where they were very small organisations
which perhaps had some synergy coming together; we do not believe
that is the case with ALI and Ofsted.
Q3 Chairman: Does anybody else want
to come in on that, Denis?
Mr McEnhill: Yes. We have got
a particularly interesting remit; David has enumerated particularly
work-based learning, he has touched also on our role on employment
programmes funded by the Department for Work and Pensions, adult
learning in the prison service, the learndirect provision funded
through UFI, University for Industry. Over five years we have
developed an expertise in how to approach the inspection and the
quality of these various organisations and, in a sense, how to
engage with the very particular types of provider. That expertise
we are very keen is not lost and our major fear with the proposal
as it appears in the consultation document is that we will be
talking about an inspectorate—our own currently has a budget
around £25-£30 million—joining with an organisation
whose budget is in excess of £200 million. We are talking
about the order of 8:1. The particular safeguards or the lack
of safeguards in the consultation would lead us to fear, and I
think fear probably with some justification, that because the
overwhelming business of that large organisation is focused on
schools and on children, inevitably the attention would focus
on schools and children and would be distracted from the focus
of our organisation at present which is focused on workforce development
and improving the skills base in this country, contributing, making
a good contribution to a good new skills base in this country.
It is dilution of impact which is one of our main concerns with
the proposals.
Q4 Chairman: What about the criticism
you are a bunch of softies really? You go and inspect and then,
disgracefully, you then try and help people to get better. That
is not the rigour that we know from Ofsted: Ofsted goes in, makes
their judgment on the standards and then leaves it to the school
to sort out. What are you doing playing around with helping these
people?
Ms Perry: I think it depends what
you believe is the purpose of inspection and our fundamental belief
is it is about helping providers to improve. There seems little
point in just saying that something is poor and walking away from
it and waiting three or four years and going back and saying "It
is still poor". Our view is that it is important to work
with local funding bodies and providers to drive up improvement.
We tell it how it is and we are by no means soft. We give out
low grades and we stare people straight in the eye and tell them
they are not doing well enough every day of the week, but our
job is not finished there. The expertise of the inspectors is
well-regarded by the providers and they want them, not other people,
to help them improve because they value that colleague help, if
you like. It is about expert guidance that they need to help them
improve, and we believe that is the fundamental purpose of inspection.
Mr Sherlock: Can I say, a lot
of the organisations that we serve are not in the public sector.
In many cases, the money that they get from the government is
a very small proportion of their income stream. If we did not
add value to their activities they could walk away and the impoverishment
of the National Skills Strategy which would result from that,
I think, is very significant.
Chairman: Most of you, who know my track
record, know that I have often asked Ofsted to do the job that
you seem to be doing, but nevertheless. Gordon?
Q5 Mr Marsden: We have had you in
the room about five minutes and you have already blown your own
trumpet rather effectively. Of course, the interesting question
about this consultation is that you have a range of people blowing
your trumpet for you from people as diverse as the Institute of
Directors, the Association of Colleges, NIACE and the Open University,
all of whom have said, in various forums, that they value very
much what you are doing. I want to ask you, however, let us just
assume for the sake of argument at the end of the day that you
are merged into a super-Ofsted, or whatever it is going to be,
how do you think the new inspection arrangements will increase
value-added to the education and skills sector as a whole? Are
you saying it is the existing situation or nothing or can you
see circumstances if you were included in that super inspectorate
in which you would not necessarily be content but be happier than
you are under the existing proposals?
Mr Sherlock: I think the proposition
on the table is an enlarged Ofsted and every indication we have
is that the intention would be that the culture, skills set in
terms of back office functions and so forth, the attitudes and
approaches that ALI has developed would be lost in that enlargement
of Ofsted. I think it is perfectly possible to see ways in which
a new inspectorate could be structured, in respect of the different
traditions, the different approaches to serving different groups
of customers that all of the organisations that would come into
this new organisation might bring and might need.
Q6 Mr Marsden: You would envisage
that, if I can use an analogy, less of a takeover and more of
a federation?
Mr Sherlock: Indeed. I think that
is a perfectly possible way forward. I think that is still a possibility,
at least I would hope it is a still possibility but it is a matter
of regret that was not included as one possibility in the consultation
paper.
Q7 Mr Marsden: Would that federation,
rather than a takeover structure, enable you to retain the distinctive
elements of improvement and inspection coming together which,
as I say, organisations as disparate as the IOD—who I think
are not generally regarded as a soft touch in these matters—have
said is particularly valuable?
Mr Sherlock: I would hope, yes.
I think at the moment people have set their faces against that
but I would hope more detailed discussion of these things would
lead people to rather more flexible positions. I think the whole
notion of an inspectorate which also works in quality improvement
has been bedevilled, if you like, with positions which are perhaps
open more to folklore than evidence. I think that it is assumed
that there have to be conflicts of interests in those circumstances,
even if one builds in, as ALI does, very substantial Chinese walls
to prevent one thing leeching over into the other. I do not believe
that is the case, in fact. Indeed, if you look at Ofsted, it has
its schools improvement unit which deals with failing schools
and which one could describe as an improvement function, just
like that of ALI. I think these things can be done. I think that
we could build a new organisation which brought in the best of
all the predecessor organisations and thereby connected the skills
strategy and the 14-19 strategy, but it would need a great deal
more sensitivity and thought than I think has gone into the consultation
paper so far.
Q8 Mr Marsden: Speaking of sensitivity
and thought, can I ask you about money. One of the things, obviously,
which is driving this is efficiency savings, and I understand
you are already in a position to promise efficiency savings for
2005-06 to DfES and DWP. There has been a report which I think
DfES commissioned themselves from PriceWaterhouse which suggested
that any savings from this merger would be in the region of £2.3
million a year but those would be swallowed up by the cost of
bringing the bodies together for between four to nine years afterwards,
and one or two of the other organisations in this sector seemed
to think likewise. Is that your candid assessment of what the
situation would be?
Mr Sherlock: Yes, it is. Subsequent
work has been done by the finance directors of ALI and Ofsted
and I think the agreed figure—and let us say that there
a degree of dispute over these issues—is about £3.3
million a year possible savings. There is a range, plainly, of
the cost of the transition and that affects the payback period.
It depends really on whether one, for example, closes down the
relatively new office, three year old office, of ALI in Coventry
and loses all the staff or whether one seeks to integrate them
into a new organisation. I think that range of possible payback
periods is realistic. It might be a little less, it might be rather
more. It depends really on what we do in order to try to get the
best out of the existing organisations.
Q9 Mr Marsden: Can I take you to
a final overview question about the potential implications of
this merger/takeover, call it what you will. Many organisations
who represent adult students, and particularly adult students
with disabilities, notwithstanding the good work that you do at
the moment, feel that there is not enough profile given to the
needs of learners with disabilities, and there are a range of
adult learning disabilities. In fact still the National Bureau
for Students with Disabilities have just sent a briefing to the
Committee with various aspects of this raised. How do you think
the needs of adult learners with disabilities would be met in
this new proposed structure?
Mr Sherlock: Let me say to start
with—and I will pass it over to my colleagues then—we
are the only organisation that grades equality of opportunity.
Certainly, we regard the equality of opportunity and diversity
as absolutely at the heart of adult learning. We think that grading
affects behaviour and we believe that we have seen some improvements
but it has to be said that this is the weakest area of all of
those that we are dealing with. For example, the grades at specialist
colleges for people with disabilities and learning difficulties;
40% of them are still inadequate over a four year period, and
that is a very poor record which has to be improved.
Mr McEnhill: In my first response
I mentioned the particular specialist nature of some of our work
and it lies in this area. To take an example, Workstep provision,
which is funded through Jobcentre Plus, DWP, is a particularly
difficult issue where we have really had to work extremely hard
to understand what the provision is. At the risk of telling you
what you know already, Workstep provision is provision which is
intended to help people get into work, essentially disabled people
into mainstream employment, not protected employment or sheltered
employment. That has been a tremendous problem; the inadequacy
rate in that area is still very high, it is still 40%. We are
working very, very closely with the DWP, with Jobcentre Plus to
address some of the incredibly complex issues that exist in that
provision. That sort of approach, I think, would be lost without
the sort of safeguards that David talked about.
Q10 Mr Marsden: You are saying about
those safeguards, in fact disabled learners would get a bad deal
under this merger?
Mr McEnhill: I go back to what
I said earlier, I fear very much for the loss of that expertise
and the loss of that style of working.
Chairman: I am sure we are going to get
more of that in a moment.
Q11 Tim Farron: I wonder how you
think the style and quality of inspection would differ compared
to ALI and a newly merged inspection service?
Ms Perry: I think one of the differences,
because we are a small structure and we have a flexible attitude,
if you like, we can bespoke inspection to the needs of a particular
subgroup of provider. For example, with disability, we do inspect
it very particularly, rather than as just some other construct.
I think that is a real fundamental difference about the way we
work from a lot of what you perceive as the way Ofsted works.
We can get those experts and that specificity down to a fairly
tight set of definitions with different kinds of provision which
is for the benefit of those kinds of providers.
Mr Sherlock: Can I link your comment,
Mr Farron, with Mr Marsden's point. Our understanding is that
the initial thrust of this change came from Treasury considerations.
There was a desire to reduce the cost of regulation and it was
felt that the way to do that was to reduce the number of regulators
and to narrow the scope of those regulators, in other words to
cut off the useful but not absolutely core duties, if you like.
Our understanding is that the quality improvement side of ALI,
all the frilly bits, if I can put it that way, would be lost in
a new organisation. That is our understanding from the consultation
paper and discussions with colleagues. I think that the bespoke
nature of inspection, which Nicky has talked about, we understand
will be lost. If I can use Workstep as an example: Workstep involves
some of the most respectable organisations in the country. Providers
tend to be people like the Royal British Legion, the Enham Trust
and so on; very experienced, very caring organisations but a new
programme comes along which demands that instead of just caring
for people they start to move them into mainstream work. They
were unprepared for that and they failed at it. Simply inspecting
them time and time again and saying "You are doing badly"
drives down morale, it drives down standards. You have to find
a different way of intervening in circumstances like that. We
have come across those circumstances very regularly and what we
seek to do, therefore, is to have many different services, some
of them about improvement, some of them about support, some of
them about rigorous quality assessment which used in an intelligent
way can move each individual provider upwards.
Q12 Tim Farron: You are talking about
expertise I guess there. I spent all my working life, until I
got to this place, in higher education, and there were a whole
variety of inspection regimes over my time working in HE, most
recently, the QAA. The most obvious thing is that institutions
are different, very different, particularly those at the more
vocational end compared with those at the blue chip end of the
market. Having worked at almost both ends of the spectrum you
see very often that the inspectors that come into the second variety
institution will be perhaps not so worried about what those institutions
do. Do you fear for your own services, do you fear for the level
of expertise and specialist experience that inspectors might have
in terms of the adult and vocational context?
Mr Sherlock: I think the word
Denis used was "dilution" and I think that is exactly
right. We could not get away with sending non-engineers into an
engineering company like Rolls-Royce, for example. It is absolutely
necessary to maintain people who are specialists and to point
them at provision which is appropriate to them, not to have generalist
inspectors.
Mr McEnhill: I think a problem
in time would be our inspectors are specialists, yes they are
experts, yes they are engineers that have come from the world
of work, many of them, or from an appropriate world anyway—
Q13 Chairman: Some of us would think
the vocational end was the blue chip end.
Mr McEnhill: —but what they
also are is inspectors. They have got all the generic skills in
inspection. They can do the job, they can go in and look at stuff,
dissect it and give a simple message and say "This is what
is good, this is what is not so good". An organisation which
was focusing on the massive childcare and school agenda for this
funding basis would, I believe, want to make use of that general
expertise if a body of people moved into it without safeguards,
the protection of the ALI.
Q14 Tim Farron: My final point is
you are getting it but really I think it is not just the expertise
of the inspectors, it is the expertise of the regime. You can
send inspectors in with lots of expertise to any outfit you want
to inspect, working on the basis of a remit designed by generalists.
Mr McEnhill: It is having an intelligent
debate with specialists on the provider side.
Mr Sherlock: This is a culture
focused on welfare for work, workforce development and community
renewal and nothing else.
Q15 Dr Blackman-Woods: I would like
you to expand on some of the comments you made earlier about the
possible downside of the new single inspectorate. Why are you
convinced that adult learning and business-focused activity will
be pushed to the sidelines in the new single inspectorate for
children and learners?
Mr Sherlock: In terms of the particular
proposals on the table at the moment, the background work that
has followed those has been based on the notion that ALI will
be absorbed and will disappear, essentially, in favour of an enlarged
Ofsted. In other words, the organisational structure of Ofsted,
as it is at the moment, is the organisational structure and culture
which will go forward. That has been made very clear. We do not
believe that is the right way forward; we believe that it is an
enormous waste of human and financial investments that have been
made over the last four or five years, and we would seek ways
of realising those investments which have already been made and,
indeed, producing an organisation, if there is to be a single
organisation, which is better than any of the predecessor organisations.
It ought to be better, different and more effective than anything
we have done before, if this is to be worth doing.
Ms Perry: It is a simple proportionality
issue. The quantity, the size of the adult sector compared with
all the child protection, all the schools, all the nurseries,
everything else to do with children, it is out of all possibility
to presume that it would retain its specialism within that body.
Q16 Dr Blackman-Woods: Do you think
the model then should be thrown out completely or is it possible
to put adequate safeguards in place that will ensure the adult
learning and business skills are kept?
Mr McEnhill: I think it is possible
to allay some of our fears through the governance arrangements;
through the composition of the governing body; through the extent
to which the chief inspector of the new outfit is held to account
for the discharge of his or her duties through that board; to
specify, perhaps to even go further, the type of person on that
board. Also, in statute one could specify the duties of the inspectorate
so that adult learning is not left as an implicit part of this
job but it is explicitly required that this inspectorate reports
on quality, standards and priorities to the secretaries of state
of both the Department of Education and Skills and the Department
for Work and Pensions. It can be done and it is relatively straightforward
to draft but there needs to be a will and what that, of course,
will do is alter the culture of this organisation. We believe
it would make it a better organisation, it would be better than
its predecessors.
Q17 Dr Blackman-Woods: You are presumably
putting some written evidence together to demonstrate that is
the case?
Mr McEnhill: We have written evidence.
Q18 Dr Blackman-Woods: You are continuing
to, because I think what we are hearing is the system could be
improved. To follow up Tim's point, do you think that in the new
inspectorate there will be enough people with the right sorts
of skills and if that is not the case how are you going to push
to get people with vocational skills to fulfil the remit?
Mr Sherlock: I think it is unlikely
to be us, if I may put it bluntly. If the proposal, as it goes
through at the moment, prevails, I think the chances that the
people who have developed the ALI culture would be wanted on the
voyage is very small. As I say, the proposal on the table is that
that culture should be subsumed in the current Ofsted. Let me
make this absolutely clear. This is not a quarrel between ALI
and Ofsted, absolutely not. Ofsted has a set of duties, which
it discharges effectively, it is very well-known for doing so
in their field but that field is not our field. What we would
seek to do I think is to recognise the point that NIACE made in
its submission "every child matters but every adult does
too". At the moment, the interests of adults are being rather
lost in the concern with children and young people. If I use an
example of the kind of work that we are doing, we published in
March a paper called Safer Training, which was about
training for the Armed Service and welfare of recruits for the
Armed Services; that is a long term programme. What has come out
of that is a recognition in the Armed Services of a need to completely
change the culture of training for young people entering the Armed
Services. That will take us at least through to 2007, and ideally
a great deal beyond. The question, therefore, in our mind is whether,
in fact, that kind of work, that kind of focus, that kind of recognition
of expertise can be carried forward in an inspectorate which is
largely focused on the interests of children alone.
Q19 Dr Blackman-Woods: Would it be
your view that the new inspectorate could work providing the needs
of adult learners?
Mr Sherlock: I think a new inspectorate
could work if it was specially tailored to do the job. I think
that needs a good deal more thought and consideration.
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