Examination of Witnesses (Questions 40-59)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE, MICHAEL HART,
MELANIE HUNT,
VANESSA HOWLISON
AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
12 DECEMBER 2007
Q40 Annette Brooke: Thank you. In
the process of the consultation, presumably you picked up a few
grouses from stakeholders, and I assume that local authorities
are major stakeholders. Will you comment on local authorities'
unrest, which was reported in this week's edition of Children
and Young People Now? Clearly, there is unrest about the basis
on which inspections of local authority children's services have
been carried out in terms of data consistency. Did anything arise
in the earlier consultation, and was that unrest a surprise to
you?
Christine Gilbert: I do not recall
anything from the earlier consultation. What I remember from the
earlier consultation with directors of children's services is
some anxiety about whether the new organisation would give sufficient
prominence to social care. That was a concern, but I am well aware
of the recent unrest from letters and telephone calls. It stems
from the judgments we made under the annual performance assessment,
which contributes to the overall judgment of a local authority.
We are coming up to the final year of that. We have one more year,
and then it will transform into the comprehensive area assessment
that I mentioned earlier. This year, we have been much more stringent
in moderating judgments across the piece. We had some concern
about the high number of authorities being judged good or outstanding,
and we wanted to be absolutely sure that those judgments were
right. In the early years of the assessments, a lot of faith was
placed in process. You might have the processes in place to reduce
smoking or obesity, but you cannot generally see outcomes in one
or two years. We are now beginning to look at the outcomes of
that in the assessments that we are making of children's services.
The early promise that the processes would bring about change
has not always been realised, so we have been tougher on grades
in some areas than in previous years. It is still a high number—about
70% of authorities are coming out as good or outstanding—but
that is what generated the unrest. It is lower than last year,
because we have been tougher in how we are grading local authorities.
Q41 Chairman: Are you being consistent
though, Chief Inspector? An article in Children and Young People
Now published yesterday states that you are not comparing
like with like, that you are using one year's statistics in one
case and another year's in another. Apparently there is a great
deal of grumbling from local authorities about the consistency
of inspection. Is that a real problem?
Christine Gilbert: The grumbling
has been a real problem that I have had to deal with. I am secure
about—
Q42 Chairman: I thought that, as
a regulator, you liked grumbling. You know what is going on if
people grumble.
Christine Gilbert: I absolutely
like to hear the grumbles—absolutely right. I have engaged
with them in listening to their grumbles and debated them with
them. However, I am absolutely secure about our processes. I was
reassured at every stage, and I myself spent certainly nine or
10 hours involved in the final moderation process for some local
authorities. We examined in great detail issues on which an authority
was on the cusp between different grades, and I feel secure in
the judgments that we have made. Miriam was involved personally
too—actually more than I was at a number of stages—and
we feel very secure about the judgments that we have made. We
are currently doing an evaluation with the local authorities,
and we shall be able to tell you about that in more detail next
time. I understand why there is great sensitivity about the matter,
because directors of children's services often see their jobs
on the line if the grade goes down or does not go up soon enough.
However, we feel that the test is outcomes. Sometimes there might
be very good processes, but if the outcomes are not coming through
quickly enough—we are now at a stage where we should be
seeing better outcomes in the reduction of teenage pregnancy and
so on—we have scored down, or not as highly as some authorities
would have wanted.
Q43 Annette Brooke: We will watch
the progress of that one through the press, I guess. On the Strategic
Plan, may I ask about your targets for looked-after children?
I think that you have set a target of a 10% increase in the number
of looked-after children who tell you that their most recent change
of home or school was in their best interests. Why did you include
a percentage figure rather than an absolute figure, and is it
stretching enough, given the ambitions in the Children and Young
Persons Bill, which is currently being examined in the House of
Lords? It seems to me that the reaction to the proposals from
the voluntary sector has suggested that the Bill is going so far
that there is a worry that children with disabilities, for example,
will not get the best possible placement. That suggests that the
Bill is intended to really minimise the number of placements.
A 10% increase seems very modest.
Chairman: Perhaps we can bring Michael
Hart in on that. I hate to see people not given an opportunity
to speak to the Committee or answer questions, Michael. But, Chief
Inspector, you first?
Christine Gilbert: I will just
say two things. I have been concerned that ambitious targets for
achievement be set for looked-after children, and the press had
me commenting on the Government's proposals on that a few months
ago. We should be setting ambitious targets for them in line with
those for other children and ensuring that they are achieved.
I cannot remember the details of that particular target—Michael
may be able to—but we lent heavily on the advice of the
children's rights director and the children that he works with
to come up with an indicator that was meaningful in terms of what
we do and what Ofsted does. As you said, this is the first time
that Ofsted has set numerical targets and we are not 100% certain
of all of them. We are monitoring them closely and if at the end
of one year they do not look sufficiently ambitious we will make
them more ambitious for the following year.
Q44 Annette Brooke: My question is
whether this is ambitious enough in relation to the White Paper
and the Bill.
Chairman: Is it, Michael?
Michael Hart: My answer is exactly
the one that the Chief Inspector gave. But we do need to review
that in the light of the Bill, to see whether we need to be more
ambitious. You have made a fair point.
Q45 Chairman: It is a fair point
when we are only just starting to have another look at looked-after
children. What has happened to looked-after children in this country
is an absolute disgrace. We have just alluded to local authorities—it
is the local authorities that seem to be at the bottom of the
performance league in carrying through that responsibility. The
private sector and the third sector have done better—the
worst performer is this part of the public sector. It is a disgrace
that only 1% of looked-after children ends up in higher education.
Here we are, all in a sort of conspiracy in the education sector,
all with the ability to do something about it, but we have not,
have we?
Michael Hart: We completely agree
on the issue of trying to raise the standards of education for
children who are looked after, and we also recognise that a number
of other factors are involved, such as the quality of provision
made in the sort of setting in which they live. For example, in
the Annual Report we have highlighted our initial findings of
inspections of children's homes. We are particularly concerned
about the number of children's homes that have come out as inadequate
during the first period that Ofsted has been doing the inspections.
In that section of the Annual Report we refer to 16% of children's
homes as being inadequate during that first period. I am pleased
to say that the more recent figure is more encouraging—over
the first six months, something like 11% of children's homes were
seen as inadequate. But that clearly is not good enough and that
is one particular indicator that we will need to watch carefully.
All of that impacts on educational outcomes because everything
is clearly joined up—the setting, the stability of children,
and so on. I visited a children's home last week where the provision
was particularly good and you could see the immediate impact on
the children, their interest in what they were doing in school
and their outcomes. The two are therefore very much related.
Annette Brooke: I would like to come
back later on nursery education if there is time, but I am happy
to move on now.
Q46 Chairman: Of course. Before we
move off the Annual Report and the Strategic Plan, I combed through
it looking for anything about faith schools, but I could not find
a word about them. I shall be appearing on a television programme
later with Richard Dawkins talking about faith schools, so I suppose
it is in my mind. When I go up and down the country visiting schools
and talking to local authorities and local people they mention
faith schools. Is this a no-go area: are you terrified to inspect
them, report on them, or put them in your Annual Report or Strategic
Plan? What is going on? Is it a conspiracy of silence, Chief Inspector?
Christine Gilbert: I cannot remember
whether there is anything in the report about them—it is
a while now since I have trawled through it, although I did go
through it numerous times—but I can say that in previous
years faith schools have appeared in a separate section. This
year we were very keen to focus on the three themes and we therefore
had to cut a lot out of the report. Faith schools are not a no-go
area by any means. We have done various reports on faith schools
and have looked at different aspects of them over the years.
Q47 Chairman: But should it not be
a higher priority? I am getting reports from people in local government
who find it difficult to inspect and to know what is going on
in some faith schools—particularly Muslim faith schools—to
get access and to learn about whatever practices are going on.
There is real concern in local government about its ability to
find out how well an important part of our community is being
served by its education provision. If that is coming to me, as
the Chairman of this Committee, it must be coming to you. Rather
than repeating what happened with looked-after children, when
we suddenly realised the neglect that this most vulnerable group
of children had suffered over many years, will we find out in
a short time that young people in certain kinds of faith school,
and particularly young women, are not getting the provision of
education that they deserve?
Christine Gilbert: But we inspect
faith schools under the section 5 framework and we publish reports
on them, as we do on other schools, Mr Sheerman. In terms of local
authorities' concerns, I regularly meet the directors of children's
services, and I have twice met chief executives this past year,
and this has not once been raised with me as an issue of concern.
Q48 Chairman: I am very surprised
about that. I will put you in touch with the local authority leadership
who have been bringing their concerns to me—I will act as
the intermediary, if you like. But you have no concerns about
faith schools at all.
Christine Gilbert: I did not say
that. I am saying that we inspect and report on them. Something
that is of relevance here is the new duty on Ofsted to inspect
community cohesion, and we will start to do that in September
2008. That will require each and every school to have a broad
view of community cohesion and what it means for them.
Q49 Chairman: So your inspectors
have no difficulty getting into any kind of faith school and getting
any information they need from them?
Christine Gilbert: I am talking
about maintained faith schools under the section 5 process. Are
you thinking of independent schools?
Chairman: No, I am talking about both
actually.
Christine Gilbert: Maintained
schools are part of the ordinary programme and we inspect them
in exactly the same way we inspect other schools. We report what
we see fairly and honestly in our reports about them. As far as
I am aware, there is no difficulty in getting into them.
Miriam Rosen: I have not heard
of any problems with getting access to maintained faith schools.
The results that we got from the maintained sector were not enormously
different this year for faith schools and non-faith schools, which
is another reason why the issue does not feature prominently in
the Annual Report.
Q50 Chairman: How far do you inspect
faith schools that hope to become part of the maintained sector?
Do you do an evaluation that informs the Government before they
are accepted as part of the maintained sector, Chief Inspector?
Christine Gilbert: We do. The
Department currently registers independent schools, and it asks
us to make an assessment of them. I think that Miriam will be
able to give you a bit more detail, although I do know that we
are involved in the process.
Q51 Chairman: Miriam, do you do a
thorough inspection of a faith school applying to come into the
maintained sector?
Miriam Rosen: I am not sure exactly
what the process is at the moment for a faith school applying
to get into the maintained sector.
Q52 Chairman: But the Government
have great ambitions to increase the number, do they not?
Miriam Rosen: We will inspect
them under the independent school framework, so they will all
be subject to inspection under that framework. As for what then
happens to allow them to get into the maintained sector, I am
not quite sure. When a new maintained school opens, we have a
protocol for when we inspect it: we would normally inspect it
after one year, but before two years have elapsed.
Q53 Chairman: Are you saying that
your inspection regime for schools in the independent sector is
not very good? It is such a light inspection that no one knows
about it?
Miriam Rosen: No, we do know about
the schools while they are in the independent sector. We publish
all our reports on schools in the independent sector.
Q54 Chairman: I must repeat this
question, because the Chief Inspector said that with maintained
schools there is no difficulty of access. Do you have any difficulty
of access to evaluate the quality of education in some faith schools
before they come into the maintained sector? That is a much larger
number, is it not?
Miriam Rosen: I think that the
problem is that we are talking about two different things. We
do not have a problem with getting in to inspect schools in the
independent sector; nor do we have a problem with getting in to
inspect schools in the maintained sector. If a school sets up
and enters the maintained sector, we do not inspect it at once.
Normally, we inspect it after it has been formed for a year. We
then go in when it has been between a year and two years in the
maintained sector.
Q55 Chairman: It is, Chief Inspector,
something that concerns me, as Chairman of the Committee, because
of other information—obviously not information from Ofsted.
Before we move off the Annual Report, there is not much about
students, is there? We heard about the Children's Plan yesterday
and we have parent councils, but although there is a duty on schools
to encourage student councils, there is no real pressure for students
to be more involved in the running of the school. When we looked
at citizenship, we saw very good examples of real empowerment
of students in the running of the school. Is that something that
interests Ofsted, or are students not much of an interest of yours?
Christine Gilbert: It is of interest
to Ofsted, and, in fact, in the guidance that we provide for schools
on completing their self-evaluation form, we ask them about the
engagement of students in the school. It is clear from what inspectors
see in schools day in, day out, that the engagement of pupils
in school is a really important factor in making the school successful.
That might be in terms of behaviour and engagement with the behaviour
policy and practices of the school. A recent food report, which
was a very small survey, showed that the areas where take-up was
good were those where students were involved in choice of menus,
how the dining facilities should be set out, and so on. We think
that is very important, and we ask schools to consider it in completing
their self-assessment.
Q56 Chairman: Why is Ofsted not doing
the job that we have done? During our citizenship inquiry, we
found exemplars like the Blue School in Wells, whose work so impressed
members of the Committee that we helped it to secure funding to
roll out the programme of the training of the students, so that
its learning to lead programme could be brought to the attention
of other schools. Surely Ofsted should be having that sort of
impact on our system, picking up fantastic experience? Heads told
us, "The school almost runs itself now, so energised and
involved are the young people in this institution." Should
that not be part of Ofsted's job—picking up good practice
and spreading it, like that?
Christine Gilbert: We think that
it is part of our work to identify good practice. The points that
I made earlier to the Committee about more effective ways of disseminating
that good practice are absolutely key. I give you as an example
the speech I made to the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust
a few weeks ago. The first half, or maybe two thirds, was identifying
five or six schools by name and describing the outstanding practice
in some of those schools, including student engagement. However,
I then went on to highlight three or four concerns I had about
specialist schools, and that is what got reported. We need to
find better ways of sharing that across the system.
Chairman: But I did not see much about
students in the report.
Q57 Mr Heppell: One thing I want
to say before we move on from the strategic report is that I was
fascinated to find that the percentage targets seem to be open
to review. I was not quite sure how you established what the percentage
was. One target is "making sure that 80% of service providers
will report that inspections have had a positive impact."
How useful is that sort of target? Anecdotal evidence suggests
to me that schools do not see Ofsted in the way that they did
in the past and that they much prefer the light touch. I am slightly
worried that one of your targets is that people you inspect should,
if you like, assess you. It might be that you get higher than
80% because your touch is too light and because you are not actually
doing anything. You were talking about bullying; it might be that
you are not stretching anybody or putting pressure on them to
aspire to something better. Do you not see the difficulty there?
Christine Gilbert: That was part
of our debate on establishing the targets in the first place.
It was a real concern for us. We could at a stroke reduce the
number of schools in special measures just by making it easier
for them not to be in that category. However, we do not want that
and I do not think that you would want us to either. We looked
at that target and it was one of the few for which we had evidence
that we could call on. We think that there will always be a percentage
who will not think that we have taken a positive approach. However,
even institutions that have not been keen on Ofsted do reflect
and think about whether it had an impact on improvement in the
organisation. We thought, therefore, that that one was fairly
secure. I would stress, however, that the review of the targets
will only be one way. If we set them as we might have done with
the previous question, and if it is too easy, we will set them
higher. We will not do it the other way around. If we are not
achieving the targets, we will not just drop them. The plan is
focused on performance over three years. We will revise it at
the end of the first year and, around May, we will say what we
have achieved, in what is traditionally called a departmental
report, but which will encompass our review of the Strategic Plan.
It will be different from the Chief Inspector's Annual Report
on the quality of education, care and skills in the country. However,
at that stage, we will look at whether we need to toughen up any
of the targets.
Chairman: We have rightly spent a lot
of time on the Annual Report and the strategic review, but I want
to move on. We have four sections to get through, so we want some
rapid-fire questions and answers. We shall start with Stephen,
who wants to ask you about resources, Vanessa. Stand by your post,
though, Melanie, because we will be coming to you. I do not want
anybody to sulk because they are not asked questions.
Q58 Stephen Williams: In 2003-04,
Ofsted was set a target to reduce its annual budget from £266
million to £186 million. A reduction of £80 million
is quite sharp—it is roughly a third of the base budget.
This year, with one year to go before that target needs to be
met, your budget is £236 million. You have gone down by £30
million, but you have another £50 million to go to meet that
target. Does that imply that there is slash and burn on the horizon?
Vanessa Howlison: It is a very
challenging target. As you say, we have reduced our budget significantly
already. About £9 million of transitional costs, relating
to the merger, have been included in our budget this year, so
in fact our journey for 2008-09 is less than it might appear.
However, we have gone through a rigorous process to identify areas
where we can save money and still deliver our strategic priorities.
A lot of those savings proposals will come into play during 2008-09,
and some of them are around the timing of the introduction of
the new frameworks. You are quite right to say that there is a
time imperative, but our planning for the 2008-09 budget has reduced
the costs of a lot of our back office and support functions. Another
one of our strategic priorities is to ensure that we direct more
of our resources to the front line. However, as you say, there
is a large reduction to be made in 2008-09, and we are gearing
ourselves up to deliver that.
Q59 Stephen Williams: Even allowing
for the £9 million transitional cost that is not apparent
in the base figures that we have been given, that still leaves
£41 million with one year to go. Is that right?
Vanessa Howlison: Yes, that is
right.
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