Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480-489)
MR VERNON
COAKER AND
JON COLES
8 JULY 2009
Q480 Mr Chaytor: How many types
will the Department list?
Jon Coles: I suppose the main
categories will be community school, foundation school, voluntary
controlled school, voluntary aided school and academy.
Q481 Mr Chaytor: But here it is
defined by its admissions policy, rather than by its legal status.
Jon Coles: I am sorry, but I do
not have the details because the Minister has taken the copy of
the card I had in front on me, so I will check how that looks
on the card. [Interruption.] Thank you for giving me your
copy, Graham.
Chairman: What a gentleman.
Jon Coles: This is simply the
data that would be produced in the tables as they are now, so
it would be just as we now identify selective schools, comprehensive
schools and other schools.
Q482 Mr Chaytor: So it will be
exactly as it is on the card?
Jon Coles: This is just the same
as in the achievement and attainment tables.
Q483 Mr Chaytor: So a school that
selects 10 % by aptitude in languages, music or maths and science
will still be described as comprehensive?
Jon Coles: As in the tables at
the moment.
Chairman: You get the last question,
Graham, for being such a sterling fellow and giving that information
to Jon.
Mr Stuart: Teacher's pet. I shall have
to send a note of congratulations to the Chairman more often during
meetings, because it is obviously a fruitful course to follow.
Jon Coles: I wonder if that would
work for me.
Q484 Mr Stuart: As too often with
my questions, this will probably sound more like a statement than
a question. Going back to the Chairman's remarks earlier, Ofsted
is supposed to be an independent inspector, and the report card
is, arguably, a useful tool for accountability—there is
some evidence to suggest that—so why couldn't the Department
just let it alone? Why couldn't the Department say, "Dear
independent inspector, whom we will try not to meet too often
because the very act of meeting you will affect you too much and
stop your independence happening. Here's an idea. Have you thought
of looking at it? Love, respectfully and from far away, the Department"?
Instead, you are forcing its logo on here and on the draft document.
It utterly looks as though you are trampling all over the central,
core function of Ofsted. It says on page 5, "our intention
is that the indicators that underpin the school report card will
form the core of the process of risk assessment that Ofsted will
use to select schools for inspection". Who wrote that?
Jon Coles: That is Ofsted. This
is not us forcing Ofsted's logo on to the document; this is genuinely
a joint document.
Q485 Mr Stuart: But there is no
choice, because you are trampling all over the area of its core
competence. What if it did not get on board? When we had Christine
Gilbert here, she sounded very distant from it, and I have got
a letter back from the Secretary of State protesting again and
again how closely we are now working with Ofsted; I thought, "I
bet you are." It does not feel very independent.
Jon Coles: I think it is quite
important for schools in the system—talking about the impact
on schools—to see a single, unified accountability system
and that, as far as possible, they are not subject to two totally
different accountability processes. Therefore, in looking at how
we will move on and get beyond our current achievements and attainment
tables, and produce something that is a more effective way of
holding people to account using all that data, there seemed, I
think, to both us and Ofsted, a benefit in having that as an integrated
system where this could work for Ofsted. If at any stage Ofsted
takes the view that this report card will not work as the core
of its risk assessment process, it will decide not to use it.
That is the nature of its independence.
Q486 Mr Stuart: But the Government
can trample on anyone's independence if they want to. The only
way independence works is if Government resist and recognise the
territory that they must not occupy. You have invaded that territory.
You say that Ofsted can say, "We are not going to participate,"
but there you are with your report card which you are driving
through—it will look foolish if it does not work with the
card, so it has no choice. A body like Ofsted is not going to
come here and shout from the rooftops that the Government's doing
things to it—it never, ever does; it just suffers in silence
while its independence is eroded. That is not because the people
there are bad; it's because you are careless of their independence.
Jon Coles: I think we take great
care of that independence and do, in the way that we work with
Ofsted, seek to make sure always that we respect its independence.
Actually, the chief inspector does have the option of saying in
public that this is not the right thing to do, or that, although
it might be fine for the Department to do it, Ofsted does not
wish to take part in it. That is entirely within the gift of the
chief inspector, and she does have that level of independence.
In working together to design this, we have been seeking to make
it the best quality product to hold schools to account in the
best quality way.[3]
Q487 Mr Stuart: Why couldn't Ofsted
do it by itself? To go back to my original question—I am
sorry I have taken so long—why couldn't you just have said,
"Ofsted, it's for you to do, and we're staying out of it"?
Couldn't Ofsted have done all this without having worked jointly
and closely together to develop the school report, and so fulfil
its role?
Jon Coles: The current position
is, of course, that we produce the achievement and attainment
tables. We do that because the data are our data, rather than
Ofsted's. Those data are at the heart of the school report card,
so if one party was to do it independently, it would probably
have to be us, simply producing the school report card. It seemed
to us, and it seemed to Ofsted as well, that there would be advantage
in making this work for different purposes if possible. That is
the basis on which we have done it. I completely recognise that
it is absolutely vital that it doesn't look like we are compromising
Ofsted's independence.
Q488 Chairman: Jon, if you were
sitting doing a report card on the various quangos that exist
around the education sector, where would you put, out of 10, the
independence of Ofsted?
Jon Coles: Sorry?
Chairman: How independent is Ofsted?
Jon Coles: Completely independent—10
out of 10 independent.
Q489 Chairman: How independent
was or is the QCA?
Jon Coles: Significantly less
than that. Ofqual is being established to be as independent as
Ofsted is, and the QCDA will be much more a delivery agency of
government. That is a distinction that has been very specifically
made.
Chairman: Thank you for your attendance,
Jon. You were all on your own at the end, but we have very much
valued your attendance.
3 See Ev 214 Back
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