Examinatin of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
MS CHRISTINE
GILBERT CBE, MS
ZENNA ATKINS,
MS MIRIAM
ROSEN, MR
DORIAN BRADLEY
AND MS
VANESSA HOWLISON
9 MAY 2007
Q160 Jeff Ennis: When you get an
expansion within an organisation like that, you are bound to have
a number of teething problems. You have already touched on the
fact that, when you brought in the early years inspectorate a
few years ago, they were used to working in teams under social
services and they were then asked to work in isolation. The computer
system the inspectors were using was not very good for the first
two or three years. I know that this is a very difficult question,
but what teething problems do you anticipate in the most recent
expansion?
Ms Gilbert: One of the things
that shows that the old Ofsted certainly did learn some lessons
from that time is that everybody I see who came over CSCI has
told me how good the kit is, how good the computer setup is at
home, and are really very positive about it: far better than anything
they had anticipated. We have learnt some lessons from that, therefore.
A lot of work went on before 1 April, with people working across
the four different organisations. I think that was really helpful.
The investment of time in producing the Strategic Plan—over
2,000 people from across the four organisations met in a number
of conferences, and either I or one of the directors went and
spoke, some of the Board members were there, and so on—was
really important in shaping up a common vision and getting some
common priorities in the organisation. It also helped every single
person in the organisation understand that that was their plan;
that was their vision, and everything they did every single day
contributed to the achievement of that. The thing that we are
doing now is to listen hard and to respond quickly, so that it
does not build up to be a big, enormous problem. The fact that
I am sitting here, with nobody having to complain to me massively
about anything, is an indication. I know that there have been
some teething problems, but they have not reached me; they have
been resolved far more easily. It is still early days and we are
just beginning to start some of the inspections. There was a lot
of training and investment before this happened.
Q161 Jeff Ennis: In your press release
announcing the new inspectorate you said, "The new Ofsted
will ensure that provision is inspected in totality, so that there
is less chance of issues slipping through the boundaries between
inspectorates". Can you give the Committee any clear, practical
examples of issues that you have addressed so far, to ensure that
it is an inspection in totality?
Ms Gilbert: The directors might
be able to give better examples, but we have been very keen to
make sure that the focus is on, for instance, a different user
group. So that looked-after children would no longer be dealt
with by just one directorate; there would be a holistic look across.
I can give you an example. The planning and thinking that we are
doing for the development of the area inspections is an initiative
across all directorates. Though the leadership is in education,
led by Miriam, it is an initiative for us all. We have had a seminar,
for instance, involving people outside Ofsted to shape up and
help us in our thinking and progress, to move forward. There is
therefore that sort of thinking going on, at probably a more strategic
level. There is also some frontline activity going on about particular
user groups, such as looked-after children, and so on. In terms
of providers, they should already be feeling the benefit of having
some greater consistency and coherence in the inspectors arriving
at their door. It is no longer Ofsted coming on Monday and Tuesday
and CSCI coming to the same boarding school on Thursday and Friday,
with no connection between the two, and that school having to
prepare twice for two separate inspections.
Q162 Chairman: Does Dorian want to
comment on this issue?
Mr Bradley: I could give another
example: of the Adult Learning Inspectorate which, in its day,
used to look at adult learning, and the area of developing the
childcare workforce. They used to visit nurseries to look at the
training of nursery nurses on site, for example, and then, as
Christine has said, a day or two later an Ofsted inspector could
turn up—an old Ofsted inspector could turn up—to look
at the quality of childcare. We have opportunities to bring those
two events together, so that through the ordinary inspection programme
we could get information about the childcare workforce development,
which I know is of great interest to the Government at the moment.
There are a couple of other examples along those lines.
Ms Rosen: In the past, boarding
schools had two separate inspections. The inspectors will now
visit together. That will be a single event, to look at both care
and education. Another area on which we are doing a great deal
of work, although there is more to be done, is 14 to 19, because
we now have the two inspectorates together that used to look at
this. We really will try to maximise potential there, both through
survey work and how we tackle it through the new joint area review
process; and in looking at difficult issues, such as how we are
looking at sixth forms in schools and the same age group in colleges.
We are not there yet, but we have a lot of potential for bringing
that together in a better way.
Q163 Jeff Ennis: A final question
from me. What efforts have you been making, Chief Inspector, to
engage better with employers? Have you had any sort of feedback
from them in terms of your taking over the role from the Adult
Learning Inspectorate and how that has been received by employers,
et cetera?
Ms Gilbert: I have been very conscious
that employers were suspicious, I suppose, or waiting to be convinced
that the new organisation would hear anything beyond the voice
of schools. We have therefore been very concerned about that.
It is one of the reasons why, at this particular stage, we have
set up a separate directorate within Ofsted with a new director,
to give confidence there. The previous chairman of the Adult Learning
Inspectorate was part of the recruitment process to recruit to
the new director post. A number of various bits of information,
booklets and so on, have been produced for employers, providers
and so on, and a number of conferences and meetings held. That
is up until now, and we are inviting and engaging responses on
the Strategic Plan. This evening I am going to a dinner of 22
employers, talking about our work and so on. We have therefore
taken every opportunity to do this. I see us now moving into a
new gear, with the appointment of the new director—she is
joining us next month—and that being a major focus for her
work, certainly over the next six months, so that she is seen
and known, and builds up confidence in the new Ofsted. It is certainly
less stark than it was when the new organisation was being created,
but I think that people are waiting to see. They are giving us
the benefit of the doubt, but they will want us to be engaging
with them very constructively over the next year.
Chairman: Thank you for those answers,
all of you. I want to move now to the Strategic Plan.
Q164 Mr Chaytor: Chief Inspector,
the Strategic Plan is really a draft strategic plan, because you
are putting it out to consultation. However, very shortly you
will be publishing the annual departmental report, I imagine.
Is this due out later this month?
Ms Gilbert: It is.
Q165 Mr Chaytor: Is there likely
to be any conflict or any great difference between the key planks
of the draft strategic plan and the projections in the annual
report, because the annual report looks forward as well as looking
back, does it not?
Ms Gilbert: The departmental report
is a report just on old Ofsted, not on the other three organisations.
They will each have had their different process for reporting.
Nevertheless, it is due out later this month, and it has picked
up the key priorities and themes of that Strategic Plan. The focus
for producing that plan, the major investment at the start, came
from the engagement of the Board. Then, as I said, we talked to
as many staff as we could engage in the process—well over
2,000 staff—and produced that document. It was fairly late
in the day that we decided that it would be completely inappropriate
just to say, "This is the new Ofsted's Strategic Plan".
We did feel that we had to engage with people in what we were
saying. That said, the plan did not come from nowhere. It did
look at the work of the four inspectorates, because it is "business
as usual", as well as creating a new organisation. We therefore
did look at the major priorities of each of the four areas, the
achievements and the areas for development; but tried to bring
them together and give them a holistic grip, if you like, and
to try, by bringing the four organisations together, to do something
better than existed before. My impression, therefore, is that
there will be very little change in the major priorities. The
debate that I have been engaged with so far, with external partners
and stakeholders, is about what we are saying in the targets,
whether the targets are challenging enough, can we really deliver
this bit, and so on. That seems to me to be the major debate.
If we have got parts of it wrong, we will hear that too. Essentially,
however, we are facing in the right direction. It will be points
of detail amended, rather than the overall thrust.
Q166 Mr Chaytor: In the Strategic
Plan, there seem to be quite minimal targets. In fact, in some
areas you say, "We're going to have a specified high percentage".
What you are saying is not, "Here are our targets. What do
you think about it?" but, "What do you think our target
should be?". Is that realistic: that you expect the various
stakeholder bodies to come back to you and say, "The specific
high percentage should be 85 or 95"? Is this a reasonable
criticism, that you are very thin on targets and very strong on
generalities in the Strategic Plan?
Ms Gilbert: We are asking whether
the target areas are the right areas. Are we focusing the right
way? People can say anything about the plan, but essentially that
was one of the key things we were asking about. In producing the
plan, I looked at the plans of a number of organisations. Very,
very few of them—I will not name them here, but national
organisations—have what I would call smart targets, measurable
targets, in their plan. We were determined at Ofsted that we did
set ourselves measurable targets that we could be held to account
for; but they had to have a sensible base. In many instances we
do not know; so it is fine saying, "We're going to make 20%
improvement" but we do not know whether that is really easy
or whether that is stretching in some areas. We are doing quite
a bit of work on those. Not all of them but many of them will
be there by September/October time, when we hope to come forward
with them.
Mr Chaytor: You say you considered the
plans of other organisations. In your plan you have six strategic
priorities: better outcomes; better inspection regulation; better
communication; better consultation; better value; better ways
of working. My question is this. Is there anything distinctive
about the Ofsted Strategic Plan, or is this not just an off-the-shelf
plan that any organisation would be likely to adopt? Is there
anything here that other organisations would not subscribe to?
Chairman: I think David is saying that
it is a bit anodyne. Is that right, David?
Mr Chaytor: That is your word, Chairman.
Q167 Chairman: Chief Inspector? It
is very glossy.
Ms Gilbert: The distinctive contribution
that we make that nobody else does is regulation and inspection;
so it is all of those, related to regulation and inspection.
Q168 Mr Chaytor: It would be surprising
if you did not say that the key plank of the plan should be better
inspection and regulation, surely? What else could you have in
your Strategic Plan?
Ms Gilbert: It does not make it
any less important that you would have predicted that we might
say it. It is still very important for us to be better at what
we are doing, expect ourselves to be better, and not to sit here
complacently and say, "We're doing terribly well. Everybody
thinks we're great". We want to do better than we are doing
at the moment, which is what we are setting out in that plan in
a number of areas. It did not feel—and perhaps the chairman
might add to this—as though we were pulling something off
the shelf. There were quite heated discussions about different
aspects of it; about our contribution to national performance,
for instance. I think that we do have a major contribution to
make and, if we are not making an impact, we do need to consider
our role.
Q169 Mr Chaytor: Where do you think
the greatest leap forward has to be made in this next three-year
operational period?
Ms Gilbert: I think that we have
to show added benefit from bringing the organisations together,
which means that individual users are getting something more out
of it and they are therefore making more progress in education,
the quality of their care is better, and so on. That is the bottom
line in many ways. One of the major differences in the way that
the organisation is going to work will be the involvement of users—this
dreadful word "users"—but that is what the Act
says. We have been quite good at engaging providers, though interestingly
the providers' reaction to that plan is that it is not saying
enough about them and about their engagement with us. We will
therefore need to be looking at ways of doing that slightly differently.
Over the next three years, however, I think that we will listen
to our users in ways that we are not even thinking of at the moment;
and we will engage them in different aspects of our work, to help
us do our core job of inspection and regulation more effectively
than we have done it until now.
Q170 Mr Chaytor: Could I ask the
Chairman of the Board how you will be monitoring the successful
implementation of this plan over the next three years?
Ms Atkins: Is it an anodyne report?
Does it just say what any other strategic plan could say? I suppose,
in all honesty, as the Chairman of the Board I do not mind if
it is doing that. What I mind about is that it shows a palpable
difference on the ground, year on year, and that it is not a static
document that we just take away, shove in a cupboard and do no
more about. What is interesting about the development of the Strategic
Plan is that it was very much led by the Board, and it is one
of the roles of the Board to ensure that that document becomes
living and breathing. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector has alluded
to the level of debate we have already had about it, and we are
absolutely pushing that there are smart targets in that document.
Where we do not have baselines, instead of guessing them, which
is quite easy to do—and we did have a go at guessing them
and pulled them all out because, to be honest, a five or 10% increase
here or there is stuff that perhaps we should have been doing
in our sleep. In some areas we should have been looking at a 60%,
and in some areas a 5% was a ridiculously too-far stretch. So
there was some work needed, to really bottom what they are, and
we are doing that; because, as a Board, we need to be able to
show that they are being achieved. For us, as a Board, part of
that is getting those targets right. Part of it is listening to
our stakeholders and our staff. Staff are very important. Probably
one of the longest debates the staff had about the Strategic Plan
was about the values section of that document. Never more apposite,
often, is the word "anodyne" to values. [sic]
I could pick those values up and apply them to any organisation
anywhere in the country that had a soul. But if you had heard
the debate amongst the staff in developing that—about what
those meant, "How will I live them? How will I breathe them?
How will my behaviour reflect those?"—for me, as Chairman
of the Board, it was very encouraging to see a sense of ownership;
that this is something that is more than a document. The feedback
that we have had has been very welcoming from the four organisations
coming together; that they have had an input in developing it.
So while it may not look or sound wildly different, what it is
is an owned document and what it is striving towards is to set
clear targets that we can then measure ourselves against—as
a Board, as an organisation—to be able to come and report
to you where we have hit what we have said we would do and where
we would not. Finally, to your question, the Board is very much
there to monitor that we actually deliver this. Where we have
not—and it is one of the commitments that I strongly make,
that I do not think if we set really stretched targets we should
be surprised if we do not make some of them—what we need
to do is not change them, but to be honest about that. My experience
has been that where you do not necessarily have shareholders—the
Chairman has alluded to my experience in the private sector—where
you have people who are constantly saying, "Hang on a minute,
you said this but you've actually done this, and you've just changed
the target", the Board will be doing that and will be honestly
publicising. Instead of saying, "We've changed the target"—"No,
we didn't meet this and these are the reasons why". I think
that is what people want. I would finally echo what Her Majesty's
Chief Inspector has said with regard to the users. Getting children,
parents, carers, employers, providers of services involved in
understanding what that Strategic Plan means, and telling us about
the quality of what they think we are doing, as well as the quality
of what they think the service is that we inspect and regulate,
will be vital. I absolutely echo the sentiment that we do not
yet entirely know how we are going to do that. We know that we
are going to do it, and I think that the creativity and the vibrancy
that we can bring as a Board to doing that will be something which
this Select Committee will be interested to probe us on over time.
But, yes, I think we can monitor it.
Q171 Chairman: Does the Chief Inspector
want to come in on this?
Ms Gilbert: I want to say this,
because you asked at the beginning, Chairman, about the role of
this Committee in relation to the new Ofsted. This seems to me
a really good example because, at this time next year, the departmental
report will be a review of that Strategic Plan. To stop us becoming
too cosy, too self-congratulatory, I would imagine that this Committee
would have questions to ask about the performance over the year,
and whether or not we have achieved, why we have not, and so on.
I think that is a very good example of the value of the scrutiny
from both groups.
Q172 Mr Chaytor: Will the Board be
evaluating the successful implementation of the plan in terms
of the improvements within the organisation and the successful
amalgamation of the predecessor bodies, or in terms of improvements
in the services that are being inspected? I suppose my question
is do you see the purpose of the plan simply to refine the organisation,
or to ensure the organisation has impact?
Ms Atkins: To answer your question
succinctly, the Board will be directly monitoring and evaluating
the impact the plan has on bringing those four organisations together,
and effectively delivering something that is significantly greater
than the sum of its parts. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector is very
specifically charged with ensuring that the inspection and regulation
frameworks that we deliver result in real improvement on the ground.
The Board will be holding Her Majesty's Chief Inspector to account
for doing that. Although we would not be specifically monitoring
that bit of the plan, we monitor the Chief Inspector in undertaking
that, because, by statute—as the Chairman started off by
saying—she is accountable for doing that. We will be monitoring
it, therefore, in monitoring that performance. So, yes, we do
both, but we do both by a different route.
Ms Gilbert: I think that we will
do both through the monitoring of the plan, because there is a
very detailed process for the Board to be monitoring the plan.
If you look at priority six, which is "Better ways of working—delivering
results through people and partnerships", that is where there
will be headlines about progress on Investors in People, progress
of the organisation, and so on. So it will be at a headline level,
but the Board will have oversight and will see progress or problems
in those areas as they monitor the overall direction of the organisation.
Q173 Mr Chaytor: Do you think it
follows, Chief Inspector, that, if the organisation is firing
on all cylinders and well regarded by its users, it inevitably
impacts positively on the services that it is inspecting? Do you
think that there is a direct correlation between the quality of
the organisation as an organisation and improvement in the performance
of the services that are being inspected?
Ms Gilbert: There is a direct
correlation with how we behave as an organisation—we are
a better organisation, people are engaged and positive, and so
on—and I would need to be checking all of the time that
the things that we were doing were the right things to be doing
to generate improvement. If 100% of the people were saying that
we are great and wonderful, I would start to worry very much about
what we were doing. We are not going to please all of the people
all of the time, and I think that we need to be really straight
about that. We will be testing out the way we work—whether
this framework or that process, and so on, is working effectively—as
we go.
Q174 Mr Chaytor: Finally, could I
ask about the "Better communication" aspect of the plan?
You seem still to have some difficulties with some sections of
the teaching profession but, in terms of the further education
sector, the Association of Colleges is very complimentary about
Ofsted inspections and shows an increasing number of colleges
agreeing with the inspectors' judgments. Why should there be this
striking difference between the view of some teachers and the
general view of the representatives of colleges?
Ms Gilbert: I think that there
is a difference coming through with Section 5s—and they
are no longer new, because they were introduced in September 2005—but
if you look at the results of the impact report and at the reviews
that we do of school inspections, there is a very positive feel
about the new inspection process, which people generally feel
is less burdensome and are generally positive about it. Through
time, over the next 18 months, I think that we will see the percentages
of those growing together. I think that some of the teacher unions
have probably not caught up completely with that; others have.
Q175 Mr Chaytor: You are not intending
to do anything to improve your communication with those more recalcitrant
sections of the teaching unions. They will just come round to
your point of view inevitably.
Ms Gilbert: As part of our work
on the Strategic Plan over the coming months—and the board
was looking at this in its first official meeting this week—we
are looking at the way we engage stakeholders and talk to stakeholders
and so on. We will have to see whether the processes we have are
right. They probably will need to be enhanced in some way. I have
talked a lot, since my appointment in October, and I know the
other directors have too, at stakeholder meetings. That would
not necessarily be with the teacher unions, though it might be.
I spoke at the ACSL conference and so on. Up and down the country,
at regional meetings, authority meetings, diocese meetings and
so on, we pick up some of these issues and we do not just let
them fester; we do come back and talk about them and see if there
are ways of building in improvements. For instance, one of the
things that has been debated quite a lot in the last few months
has been the use of contextual value added. We have heard what
people are saying and we remain very committed to it. We do need
it as part of the new approach we take to inspection, but we think
we need to do far more to clarify our approach, just to explain
to people what we are doing. We will be producing a book of some
sort, explaining what it is we are doing, why it is we use it,
and it is one part of the things that help an inspector make a
judgment when he or she is on an inspection.
Q176 Chairman: In passing, you say
there would be a tendency without this non executive board to
get cosy and comfortable. You are not suggesting the scrutiny
that Ofsted has been held up to in the past has allowed it to
become cosy and comfortable, are you?
Ms Gilbert: Quite the reverse.
I was saying that in-house, as it were, with your own board, you
could get quite a closed view of things. I do not think we will
do that.
Q177 Chairman: We do not intend to
let you become cosy and comfortable at any time.
Ms Gilbert: No, I meant quite
the reverse: that you would keep your eye on us and the eye of
scrutiny on us.
Q178 Chairman: Would it worry you
if you saw that NUT and other surveys showed a growing approval
rate of Ofsted? Should you be trying to drive down the approval
rate of Ofsted amongst the teaching profession?
Ms Gilbert: We have talked about
this, which is why I do not think we should ever be saying in
that document that we want 100% of people to be really positive
about us, so there is a discussion about that. That said, if you
read what the NUT has been saying about us over the last few months,
it has been quite positive. It has not been positive from some
of the other unions. In fact, the NUT, in the different meetings
we have had with them, has been asking us to do different inspections.
They wanted us to look into the role of SIPs, for instance, and
that is not in our current programme. So they have enough faith
in us to ask us to be looking at different aspects of work.
Q179 Chairman: We have not seen the
unions for a while. We will ask them in to see if they are going
soft. We are going to turn now to inspections. Before I do, I
should have said to Zenna Atkins earlier, as I know you come from
Portsmouth, that I personally love Portsmouth. I have a strong
family connection with Portsmouth and I believe it is a wonderful
town. I visit it regularly. That is just to make you feel more
comfortable.
Ms Atkins: Thank you. It is a
wonderful place and I love it.
Chairman: I am sure you will know why
I am saying that. We will now move on to inspections and Stephen
you are going to lead us.
Stephen Williams: Is it as good as Huddersfield?
Chairman: It is on a par.
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