Examination of Witnesses (Questions 120
- 129)
WEDNESDAY 13 DECEMBER 2006
MS CHRISTINE
GILBERT CBE, MR
DORIAN BRADLEY,
MR ROBERT
GREEN, MS
VANESSA HOWLISON
AND MS
MIRIAM ROSEN
Q120 Fiona Mactaggart: Will you be
able to look at alternative ways of dealing with these young people's
needs? Things like Kids Company and other voluntary settings who
are providing for their needs, educationally and otherwise?
Ms Gilbert: I guess our focus
would be on what is happening with these young people within the
school setting and so on, to see if some of the things that you
have just identified are making a difference. The look would be
that way round, rather than looking at the organisation and doing
it that way.
Q121 Mr Pelling: How important have
the Joint Area Review and Annual Performance Assessment been to
the Every Child Matters agenda?
Ms Gilbert: I think that it has
been very important to that agenda. The Area Focus has been important
too, because it is a local community, in effect, being responsible
for the children in its area. It is changing and evolving, and
the process that we are adopting is shifting slightly; but the
focus on more vulnerable groups, low-attaining groups and so on,
is really key to what we are doing. So I think that it has been
very important.
Q122 Mr Pelling: You are obviously
satisfied with the way things are working so far. Do you support
the end to this practice of these Joint Area Reviews and the Annual
Performance Assessments over the next couple of years?
Ms Gilbert: The Joint Area Reviews
only ever had what was described as a three-year life or programme;
they would then need some sort of review. We have begun to review
that, particularly in the context of the White Paper and the focus
down on the narrower focus in some ways, but I think also a very
constructive focus in some ways. So I think that they are changing
and we are talking now about how they are changing. However, they
are really key to developing the agenda more broadly. I would
not see them disappearing completely, therefore, but they may
look different from how they look now.
Q123 Mr Pelling: Moving ahead to
the new arrangements that will be put in place, do you think that
they will adequately deal with the inspection and concern of children's
services?
Ms Gilbert: I think that one of
the great benefits of bringing the organisations together is that
it would allow us to look more holistically. Part of the evaluation
we did with local authorities told us that our inspectors, the
CSCI inspectors and the Ofsted inspectors, were not joined up,
they did not seem one; whereas they were joining them up locally—and
that was a lesson for us. Post-April, we will be one organisation
and so we have to be joined up. I think that will be positive,
therefore. I am sorry, I have lost the thread of the question.
Was that—
Mr Pelling: That is fine. Thank you very
much.
Q124 Chairman: Chief Inspector, we
are coming to the end of this session, but could I ask you one
or two final questions? We are very conscious as a Committee about
our responsibility for scrutinising the Every Child Matters programme
right across a number of departments. We are the lead committee.
I do not know if we really think that we do it well enough. Of
course, you share that with us. You have a very large, new responsibility,
and so we have that in common. Do you not agree that, in terms
of many of the outcomes, they are wonderful and they are motherhood
and apple pie? There is nothing attached to it that says, "In
order to achieve this, there must be this kind of progress or
this kind of agenda". Do you think that there is a danger
in having these rather nice, fuzzy outcomes?
Ms Gilbert: I think that the outcomes
capture the whole child and the holistic importance of the child's
development in the round, if you like. Some are supported by a
number of indicators possibly better than others, and we need
to do some work on that. It is therefore easier to make judgments
in some areas than it is in others. I think that we are finding
our way with this, as our particular areas. It is why I think
that the schools' judgments about their performance in each of
these is so key. We will learn from that as we are inspecting,
either the schools themselves or through the Joint Area Reviews.
Q125 Chairman: In the early years'
sector, are you aware—I am sure that you must be aware—that
a lot of the research is pointing to the fact that, if we are
to tackle underperformance of students, we have increasingly to
focus our attention on the three to fives, and perhaps the five
to sevens? It is increasingly apparent that, whether we do it
in much more structured, creative play or whatever, that is the
way. A lot of the research has shown that is the way we tackle
those kinds of challenges. How are you equipped to evaluate that
sort of practice?
Ms Gilbert: When I spoke to the
outstanding providers last week, I used this as an example of
the key thing that joined them all together. In the room there
were people who were child-minding three children and who had
received an outstanding provider award; there was a principal
from a college with 4,000 students. What the Every Child Matters
themes do, it seems to me, is to capture the whole person—whatever
words we use. I like them because you remember them easily and
you are not reeling off two phrases for each. They are catchy
enough, but they capture the whole child and the focus on that,
and how important it is to get all of those things working to
generate the sort of development and improvement we want. What
Ofsted did some while ago was to use the Every Child Matters themes
for the framework of the inspections that go on. I do not know
if there is time for Dorian to say anything about that, but that
has already gone on within Ofsted.
Q126 Chairman: We are minded to have
a Committee sitting just on Every Child Matters with you at some
stage, so Dorian will get a chance to come back to us. But if
three to five is crucial, does not the quality of training and
pay of those very people who are intimately involved in the development
of our young children of that age worry you? It is a pretty appalling
lack of qualification and poor pay generally still, is it not?
Ms Gilbert: You do not mean inspectors;
you mean the people providing—
Q127 Chairman: Not the inspectors;
the people actually providing. You might know something about
the inspectors that I do not know. You know what I mean. It is
poor qualification, very few qualified teachers, and not much
above minimum wage in many areas.
Ms Gilbert: What I have looked
at is the evidence of progress over the last few years. I have
been really struck by the improvement in provision in the early
year's sector in childcare as demonstrated through the Annual
Reports and other reports. Some of the main ones are captured
in the findings. There has been improvement there. I agree with
you about the importance of that age group; it really is fundamental.
However, it seems to me that there has been some really impressive
progress there over recent years.
Q128 Chairman: We will have that
conversation again. Lastly, we always ask this—well, I certainly
always ask this—of the Chief Inspector. This whole notion
of an inspection is a very special one from the inspectorate to
the school. What we sometimes feel very frustrated about, both
as members of this Committee but also as members of Parliament,
is that when you pick up—and you must pick up—a kind
of systematic failure in an area, in a town, in a part of the
city or whatever, you do seem unable to respond to that, to draw
the threads together, and to say something about systemic failure
rather than just individual evaluations of a school. Do you still
think that is a weakness of Ofsted?
Ms Gilbert: I thought that was
what we were trying to do in the Annual Report.
Q129 Chairman: All your predecessors
have said, "That is not our job".
Ms Gilbert: In the commentary
in the Annual Report I am addressing system failure in some parts
of the country. The points that I am making about inadequate schools—that
is a failure of the system to address those schools, and we all
have some responsibility. We have a responsibility in identifying
it and, as I said earlier, making people feel uncomfortable about
this. Other people have their part to play in generating improvement
around those. So I do see that we have a role in highlighting.
That is why, presumably, the Chief Inspector is asked to report
annually on the state of education and care in the country.
Chairman: Chief Inspector, it has been
a very good first meeting with you. May I thank Robert Green,
Miriam Rosen, Dorian Bradley and Vanessa Howlison too? All of
you did get a chance to say something. Chief Inspector, it has
been a pleasure to meet you for the first time. We look forward
to a long relationship.
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