Examination of Witnesses (Questions 180-199)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE, MICHAEL HART,
VANESSA HOWLISON,
MELANIE HUNT
AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
14 MAY 2008
Q180 Mr Stuart: Some 23% leave
education at the age of 16—although that will change when
the Bill becomes law, after which all of them will be forced to
stay on.
Christine Gilbert: Melanie might
want to pick that one up. The notion of extended participation
age is good, but it is what you do with the pupils that matters.
The issue of literacy continues post-16. Across our remit, literacy
is a major strand.
Melanie Hunt: The important thing
to say about the numbers and figures of so-called NEETs is that,
between the ages of 16 and 19, 10% of young people do not engage
in any of those forms of learning, training or employment. It
is not the 23%—I think that that might be a bit misleading.
Mr Stuart: Some 23% are not currently
involved. The law passed through Parliament last night will change
what those 23% will have to do.
Q181 Chairman: Let us get this
straight please Chief Inspector. You are using 10% and Graham
is using 23%. Melanie, can you explain the difference between
the 23% that Graham is using and the 10% that you are using?
Melanie Hunt: I suspect that the
difference in the figures may be because of the extra "E",
which is about employment—young people in employment. Young
people who are in employment are very often in employment with
training. One of the key areas—
Q182 Mr Stuart: Not the formal
training, which is now going to be insisted on by the Bill.
Melanie Hunt: Yes, training that
leads towards a recognised qualification. In fact, I met with
a group of national employers who are very committed to the delivery
of apprenticeships and to training for their work force. They
really welcome the opportunity to have ownership of the sorts
of learning programmes and training that young people, and indeed
adults, will undergo under their care. They say that they have
a business imperative to make sure that it is high quality, that
it is appropriate, that people stay the course and that people
succeed. I think that there really are some positive aspects to
this, and it should not all be seen at the compulsion end; it
is actually about having the right sets of initiatives.
Q183 Mr Stuart: There is compulsion
in the new initiatives to attract young people. Everyone would
agree with that. What role will you play in forcing young people
into attending?
Melanie Hunt: Ofsted does not
play an enforcement role with young people. We would look at the
provision and the ways in which the providers that we are asked
to inspect, which includes some employers, interrelate with the
people learning with them. We would comment on their strategies
for encouraging attendance, improving participation and encouraging
enjoyment and achievement, or entertainment—I quite like
that.
Q184 Mr Stuart: You will inspect.
Basically, you will inspect and check that the law is enforced
and that those young people, whether they want to or not, are
forced to attend mandatory education in skills or learning—whatever
you want to call it—until the age of 18.
Melanie Hunt: That discussion
about Ofsted enforcing or checking that attendance has not been
had, because, of course, Ofsted can only inspect those institutions
that are offering training and education and those employers who
are offering it. So there will be young people who are outwith
the institutions that we inspect. My understanding is that it
is the local authorities' intended responsibility to ensure that
100% of young people in that age group are gainfully engaged.
Q185 Mr Stuart: What evidence
do you have of the disruption and damage caused to the education
of others by those who are forced to stay in classes when they
would prefer not to be there?
Melanie Hunt: We do not have evidence
that that is a problem because in the post-compulsory sector that
we inspect, in my directorate—
Q186 Mr Stuart: I was thinking
about the pre-compulsory sector, and the evidence that you have
about the disruption. We have a large truancy problem, which has
increased rather than decreased, so I suppose that those children
absent themselves quite often. I am concerned to learn from your
evidence what potential impact the cohort—the 23% of young
people who do not continue to study for formal qualifications
after 16—could have on the education of those who wish to
learn?
Melanie Hunt: I am sure that Miriam
will wish to comment on what happens in schools and its impact.
I would just say that the 14-16 reforms and the sort of programmes
that we have been inspecting over the past four or five years
for young apprenticeships and for increased flexibility programmes—collaborative
programmes—really do capture the interest of many young
people who have not hitherto engaged with the school curriculum.
The opportunity to learn in a different way and to learn in different
environments is beginning to address the difficulties that those
young people, and possibly their peers, have been experiencing.
Q187 Mr Stuart: Do you think that
it would be better to develop Diplomas and other new initiatives,
which we would all welcome to engage young people who are otherwise
disengaged, and get those initiatives in place and functioning
properly, before we made it mandatory for people to attend? May
I move on to another issue? The General Teaching Council (GTC)
has suggested that too many teachers are not up to standard and
that insufficient action is taken against them. How many teachers
do you think are not up to the required level?
Christine Gilbert: We do not have
the evidence to give an answer to that. We comment on teaching
rather than teachers. In the section 5 inspections, we talk about
the quality of teaching in the school, so we are not able to give
an answer to that question.
Q188 Chairman: One of your predecessors
spent a lot of time talking about ineffective teaching.
Christine Gilbert: Different inspection
framework, Mr. Chairman.
Q189 Chairman: But with 20% of
young people not being ready at age 11, is it not fairly important?
Parents out there hope that Ofsted would be absolutely involved,
in its inspection process, in identifying teachers who are not
up to standard and taking action. Keith Bartley said that there
were 17,000 substandard teachers—that outraged some of the
unions, I know—and that it was unacceptable that only 46
teachers from a work force of about half a million had been officially
assessed as incompetent. If it is not your job, whose job is it?
Christine Gilbert: I am not taking
issue with what he is saying—
Q190 Chairman: Do you think that
he was right, then?
Christine Gilbert: I see—and
heads tell me—that the process for getting rid of teachers
who cannot teach well takes too long. They are reluctant to embark
on it. When they do, they find that the teacher has moved school
before the end. There is an issue there, but you asked me a question
about teachers, and I am not able to give you an answer to it.
When we inspect, we talk about everything that we see with the
senior management of the team in school and the head of the school,
so the school is very clear about what we are seeing and how near
our judgment is about the teaching—and, in that context,
the teacher—to their judgment of that particular teacher.
Q191 Mr Stuart: What more do you
think we can do? I remember, when I was chairman of the governors
of a failing school that we were trying to turn around, we basically
split the teaching staff into three. There were those who were
teaching up to the required standard and those who were not, who
were then split into those whom we thought could be brought up
to standard and those whom we thought never could. The reality
in many schools is that the further away the teacher is going,
the more likely they are to be given a generous reference. Very
often, teachers are just moved out of one school into another
and not given the support, encouragement and perhaps re-training
that they need. What can Ofsted do to help with that?
Christine Gilbert: We are clear
in what we say to the senior management team. We work with other
organisations, such as the GTC. I will be seeing him to talk about
this particular issue.
Q192 Fiona Mactaggart: You will
recall that when you last appeared before the Committee, I pressed
you about the issue of black and minority ethnic inspectors and
the criticism by the Commission for Racial Equality that Ofsted
was, in its opinion, the worst performing regulatory authority.
That exchange led you to provide me with further information,
for which I am grateful, and it led the chairman of the Equality
and Human Rights Commission to claim that he had been maligned
here. Nevertheless, the issue is still important. A large proportion
of children in our schools are black and minority ethnic, yet
a small proportion of the inspectorate reflect that ethnicity.
Has there been any improvement?
Christine Gilbert: There has been
some improvement in Her Majesty's Inspectors and so on, but there
has been a dip in the inspectors whom we employ through the regional
inspection providers, or the contracted-out part. The HMI figure
has gone up, and I think that the children's figure has, too.
The number of those employed directly by Ofsted has increased.
We have looked hard at that. There has been a shift in part of
a set of inspectors whom we employ called additional inspectors,
and when we picked at that, we discovered that it was likely to
be because a number of additional inspectors came in from the
ALI (Adult Learning Inspectorate), and the profile therefore changed.
There is only a limited amount we can do through the contract
process at the moment, but we are building provisions into the
new contract for 2009. Current contracts are subject to an equalities
dimension, but a tougher stance will be taken in the new contracts
in 2009 in respect of the work force I am talking about.
Q193 Fiona Mactaggart: Are you
saying that the new contract will place a requirement on bodies
that contract with you to provide additional inspectors to have
a particular proportion of black and minority ethnic inspectors
or, as suggested in evidence to us from the London School of Islamics,
to provide bilingual inspectors to inspect such settings?
Christine Gilbert: I do not know
about the second point, but I think that Miriam will deal with
that. On the first point, the answer is yes.
Q194 Fiona Mactaggart: What will
the proportion be?
Christine Gilbert: I do not know.
We are just embarking on the contract discussions, so we are far
from establishing anything like that at the moment. We are embarking
on a competitive dialogue to work out different elements of the
contract. That will be part of the debate over the next few months
before the contract is signed at the end of the year.
Q195 Fiona Mactaggart: Is Ofsted
ready to inspect the duty of schools to promote community cohesion,
which will be put in place in September?
Christine Gilbert: We think we
are. The trials have gone extremely well, and schools have responded
positively. We are making some shifts and changes because of those
trials, but, all in all, things have gone very well. Inspectors
have been, and are being trained, to carry out those inspections.
The relationship with the Equality and Human Rights Commission
is much stronger.
Q196 Fiona Mactaggart: It could
not be less strong than it was when we last spoke, but nevertheless.
Christine Gilbert: I have met
with their Chief Executive Officer, officers in Ofsted have met
the EHRC's representatives, and they were very positive in agreeing
our new schemes.
Q197 Chairman: Chief Inspector,
you are always very convincing when you come before the Committee,
but a little voice out there sometimes says, "What on earth
is going on in Ofsted?" You are facing an imminent strike
by your employees. There was unhappiness about the degree of bullying
in Ofsted. What is the explanation for that? Perhaps we can bring
Vanessa in on this. Is it because you have been tightening the
screws financially following Gershon? Why does Ofsted not seem
to be a very happy ship? Is it because you have been cutting budgets?
Is it because you have been following Gershon? What is going on?
There is a strike on the one side and allegations of bullying
on the other. Why do we not get a warmer picture of what is going
on in Ofsted?
Vanessa Howlison: Clearly, we
are making savings, and we have more savings yet to make. However,
the pay award that Ofsted has negotiated with the Treasury is
above the average that has been awarded this year. We are using
some of that money to ensure that there is true equity among our
staff so that people who are doing the same role will in future
be paid the same amount. Moving to that equity position will probably
mean that some people will go through a transition for a short
period, and that could be a factor. However, the pay award that
Ofsted has negotiated with the Treasury is above average for this
year, so this is certainly not a straight money issue.
Q198 Chairman: Is it your style
of management? Last time, when we had the chair of the Ofsted
board here, we were told that things would improve. Has the Ofsted
board improved, or is your management style still lacking, given
that you have this unhappy group of people working for you?
Christine Gilbert: I should say
that the survey about bullying happened just before I arrived,
Mr. Chairman. It also related to the former Ofsted. That said,
we have become one organisation from four, and two of those former
organisations did not want to join the new organisation. We have
achieved a lot in a year, and I could give you all sorts of details
about what we have done to engage staff. We had an assessment
by Investors in People a fortnight ago. We will not know the formal
result for another week, but generally, the feedback about what
had been put in place was very positive. The assessor said that
he did not think that the organisation could do much more than
it was doing to treat its employees fairly and engage them in
the developments ahead.
Q199 Chairman: You have said in
previous remarks to the Committee that you are well on the way
with joint area reviews, Chief Inspector. What are you picking
up about the overall success of the replacement of separate social
services departments and education departments with one children's
department? Some of us pick up a degree of unhappiness about that
arrangement. For instance, at a very taxing time for a local authority
that is preparing for Building Schools for the Future, it finds
itself led by a head of children's services who has no experience
in secondary education—indeed, it may even have someone
in charge of its schools sector who has no background in secondary
education. Is that a problem you are picking up?
Christine Gilbert: We finish the
round of joint area reviews at the end of this year. Miriam, who
knows about this in more detail, may want to contradict me, but
it is not a problem I have seen identified in the reports I have
read. I think people have moved on from the argument, and generally
we are seeing real benefits for the individual in bringing education
and social care much closer together and focusing on the issues
raised in discussion this morning, looking at the needs of the
most vulnerable children and young people in particular.
Chairman: That is a pretty rosy picture
of what is going on in joint area reviews.
Christine Gilbert: I think directors
of children's services are fairly realistic. This has happened—there
is no turning back—and they have to make a success of what
they have. We are seeing improved processes as a result of joint
area reviews and better multi-agency working. It is also true
to say that we are not yet seeing enough improvement in outcomes
across the whole range.
Miriam Rosen: That is absolutely
what we are finding: improvements generally and in joint working,
but we need to see more impact on outcomes, particularly for vulnerable
groups.
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