Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
386-437)
Christine Gilbert CBE, Lorna Fitzjohn, , John Goldup
and Patrick Leeson
12 January 2011
Q386 Chair: Good morning. Thank
you for joining us today, further to consider the role and performance
of Ofsted. Chief Inspector, we are now in the final few months
of your period as Chief Inspector. I have always enjoyed and benefited
from your experience and knowledge when you have previously come
before the Committee, and I look forward to benefiting further
before you leave your post. In terms of the new Government, can
you tell us what changes they have made that impact on the work
of Ofsted? If you are able to say so, what do you think might
be the most positive and the most difficult issues around any
changes made by the Government?
Christine Gilbert: The changes
so far have been minimal, but they will gather steam as this year
and next year move forward. The focus has been on education. We
saw some immediate changes, with the Academies Act 2010 and so
forth, but the sorts of things set out in the recent White Paper
will truly influence the approach in terms of schools—there
will be some radical change over the coming year. Certainly, in
terms of the White Paper, I welcome the focus, particularly on
teaching and learning, and reading. I welcome, too, the pace of
change, because it is really important that children in schools
get the best deal that they can get. Overall, we are very positive
about it. We have been working with the DfE to look at what the
core indicators might be—what the key areas are and so on—and
we will continue to work with it over the next few months. A lot
of the White Paper builds on the work we had already set in train
with the inspection framework that you heard about just a few
minutes ago, which was introduced in September 2009. That was
really a focus more on teaching and learning in the classroom
than previously—greater proportionality in terms of a wider
time span for inspection of good and outstanding schools. This
Government have decided that outstanding schools shouldn't be
inspected at all, as you've just heard. We had them inspected
within a five-year time frame in the current framework. So, there
will be a number of changes in schools. There will also be changes
in the area of children's social care, with the Munro review over
the next few months, and in the early years area, with the Tickell
review. We have engaged in all of that, so work has been—frenetic
is a bit strong—busy over the past few months. It will be
busier still, because what we need to do now, for instance in
the schools area which is moving ahead of the others in time scale—within
a matter of weeks probably or certainly within about six weeks—is
to issue a consultation document on the proposed changes to the
school inspection framework. We will consult on that and then
we will pilot some of the elements before introducing it next
year.
Q387 Chair: Thank you. In the
light of the last session, can you tell us how you monitor, appraise
and, perhaps, engage in continuous improvement of your partners
in delivering inspection—Serco, CfBT and Tribal?
Christine Gilbert: We have a very
close relationship with them—I agreed with probably 90%
of what they said earlier. I do think that we have a duty to encourage
improvement wherever we are inspecting, but I do not believe that
we should be an active participant in delivering that improvement
agenda once the inspection is over, other than at the minimal
but important level of monitoring schools in special measures
and so on. However, we work with them very closely indeed. We
have a national director of delivery and three regional directors
who work in great detail with them—there are monthly monitoring
meetings, looking at a range of performance indicators and so
on.
Q388 Chair: Which of the three
does the best job?
Christine Gilbert: They all do—
Chair: They are all entirely equal? This
is a Select Committee, Chief Inspector.
Christine Gilbert: They all do
the job in different ways. Certainly that wouldn't have been the
case a year ago, when it was introduced, but actually they all
do a good job. If they are not doing so, we are very open about
the sort of penalties that we impose on performance and so on.
Q389 Chair: Which one have you
imposed the greatest number of penalties on?
Christine Gilbert: I am not absolutely
sure, but I think in the beginning we had contract measures for
Serco, but Serco is now a very good performer. It was the first
time that Serco had taken on school inspection—the other
two providers had been involved previously. But your question
was about improvement, wasn't it?
Q390 Chair: It was not about improvement
of schools—we will come to that—but more about the
improvement of those three contractors in their performance.
Christine Gilbert: We pick out—it
is part of the contract planning, which is very detailed—a
number of what we see as key performance measures, and we monitor
those very closely indeed. The contractors are, seriously, all
performing well at the moment, but there would be differences.
Q391 Chair: Are the key performance
measures commercially sensitive or can they be shared with the
Committee? Can we monitor them ourselves and follow your performance
assessment of the three measures?
Christine Gilbert: I will need
to check, but we shall give you what we can. I am sure that we
can give you something on the performance of the three providers—and
on the performance over the past year, which is really important.
We place great store by the satisfaction reports from schools
after the inspection, so they have a target in respect of getting
back sufficient responses. There are various things at that level
of detail, such as complaints and so forth. I should mention that
the core of the work is our frameworks, our policy and our guidance,
as well as the training that the providers all must have. We
do not train them directly, but we make sure that their trainers
are trained by us. We then have a very intensive quality assurance
process that we follow through with them, which you might want
to pick up on later—or I can send you a copy of it separately.
Chair: Thank you.
Q392 Neil Carmichael: This might
seem a slightly unnerving question, but here goes. If you look
at Finland, you will see that it has the best system in the world,
but you will not find an inspection system. Why do we need one?
Christine Gilbert: If you look
at Finland, you will see a very strong system of accountability,
and this country has chosen inspection as part of the key focus
of its accountability system. Accountability is the key. There
are other ways that it might be done, but this country has so
far chosen inspection and, in many ways, regulation and inspection
is an instrument of the Government who apply it in different ways.
In fact, different Secretaries of State place slightly different
emphasis on what they want to see inspected and so on. The key
thing is accountability in both systems, and a good system of
accountability. Going in to inspect as we do, rigorously and
thoroughly, we hope, and reporting in a very clear and open way
tells us about the performance in the school and communicates
more broadly about what is happening in the school.
Q393 Neil Carmichael: That answer
suggests that you do not think that our system of accountability
is good enough, rigorous enough or comprehensive enough. Will
you highlight key features of the system in Finland so that we
can see how we might apply them to our system?
Christine Gilbert: I certainly
did not mean to suggest that this country's system is weak in
any way nor did I want to sound as if countries can exist only
if they have an inspectorate. I think that it is easier to have
accountability, but I would think that, wouldn't I? I have come
up in the system and to the position that I am in because I have
been inspected and am inspecting. Before I was in my job or even
thought of being in this job, I have always thought, as a head,
a director of education in two different authorities and a chief
executive in a local authority, that inspection was a very powerful
tool to support and encourage improvement. If we are going to
do that, we need a strong system of accountability. I could not
pretend to tell you what Finland's system is in any detail or
depth, but there is someone at Ofsted who can, so I shall get
you a note on it after the meeting.
Q394 Neil Carmichael: That would
be really helpful because some of us are going to Finland in a
month or two's time.
Christine Gilbert: We sent two
inspectors there to look at what was going on in maths. We produced
a maths report a few months ago. We picked up various things
and we can send you a note on them. We worked with the Institute
of Education to make sure that we had the system correct in our
heads before we went out there. We will send you what we have
got.
Q395 Neil Carmichael: That would
be great because I am certainly very interested in governance
and accountability. I have made that clear to the Committee already,
so I will find such details useful. Moving on and accepting that
Ofsted has a role to play, why is there a difference between your
assessment of your performance and functions as opposed to, say,
school leaders and their union representatives, and so forth?
Christine Gilbert: We are probably
looking at different things. To be really honest, if I look at
my correspondence every week or every month over the past six
months, I get a very different impression of what is happening
at Ofsted than I do if I look at evidence from a wider and broader
range of data. Most people who write to me do so to complain,
or because they are unhappy about something. There are honourable
exceptions, but generally, more people write complaining than
not. I don't think you should ever ignore those because sometimes,
something in the wind of those, or in an anecdote, leads you to
look at the broader picture. So, I wouldn't be complacent and
just look at figures and think they are over 90%, and so on. We
have a number of things. We now have surveys for every area, every
setting and every service that we inspect. We look at those regularly
and they are very important to us. The responses there generally
run to nine out of 10 that are very positive—I'm talking
about thousands of responses here. If you look at schools inspection,
for instance, given that this was the first year of a new, more
demanding framework, I thought that the responses from schools
would be down on previous years. However, well over nine out of
10 still think their inspection was good, fair, and helped improvement,
helped their teaching and learning, and so on. The lowest figure
is still eight out of 10, where we ask, "Do the benefits
of inspection outweigh the disadvantages?" Over 80%—it
is 81%, I think—or eight out of 10, tell us that the advantages
outweigh the disadvantages. So, we have that, but I take the point
that you made earlier, which was that they would say that, wouldn't
they? There's an element of that, I think, but it's not very high,
because we have used—over the past few years—NFER
to assess the impact of new frameworks. We are now using BMG Research,
and their findings are equally as positive—they may be slightly
lower, perhaps 88% rather than 92%, or that sort of thing, but
they are still very positive. What might be different, too, is
that our evidence comes from those people who have most recently
had an inspection. I think—and I learnt the lesson on this
very strongly last year—that people who worry most are those
who have not had the inspection. The myths, and so on, that get
around the system cause a great deal of anxiety and distress.
I imagine the unions, for instance, are polling generally, and
so, one tale leads to another tale. By the time that gets to the
fifth tale—we found that with safeguarding, and we didn't
respond quickly enough to some of the scare stories coming out.
In the broadsheets, there was a completely inaccurate story about
why a school was in special measures; it was because the fence
was too low, or whatever it was. When we chased that back, that
particular school had failed on eight different things. By then,
the story had gone around three broadsheets and was out there
for ever. So, there may well be an issue relating to those who
have had an inspection and those who haven't yet and fear whatever
is coming up. I also think that what I have said about tales is
important—the stories, myths and so on that get passed through
the system. We need to act more quickly on those than we did in
this past year.
Q396 Neil Carmichael: Presumably,
you don't get a huge number of complaints from schools that have
been judged outstanding.
Christine Gilbert: Interestingly,
you are correct; there is a link to how positive they are. They
are more positive if they have had a good or outstanding inspection.
With responses from schools, those that are judged inadequate
are the most critical of inspection. However, if you go back six
or nine months down the line, they have changed completely. The
responses from schools that have been in special measures and
come out of them are, again, really positive, and we can send
you this evidence if we're not going to weigh you down with it.
Monitoring visits are talked about as being the most positive,
most transformational experience the schools have had for years,
in terms of their teaching and learning. So, there are differences
which you unpick in that particular way.
Q397 Neil Carmichael:
Do you think we are right, as a Government, to be thinking in
terms of inspecting the very best schools on fewer occasions?
Christine Gilbert: We moved to
fewer occasions with our five years, in the last one. I have some
anxiety about not inspecting those schools routinely. At the same
time, I accept—resources being what they are now—that
there is logic in what is going on now. We will inspect outstanding
schools as part of our surveys. Our surveys are thematic reports.
Yesterday we published one on modern languages, so we look at
national curriculum subjects. We publish a number of those ever
year. We look at different aspects of things. We produced one
called "Reading by six" a few months ago, too. Between
now and the end of July, I think we are due to produce about 20
of those. The surveys will involve outstanding schools—that's
the first thing. But the other thing related to that is that we
will do a data analysis—a risk analysis, if you like—of
all outstanding schools. It will, essentially, be desktop, but,
if we have had formal complaints, they will feed in, and if there
has been a particular issue, that will feed in. If there has been
a survey report, that will feed in. But essentially it will be
a desktop analysis of all outstanding schools, as we have done
this year. If the pattern is giving rise to a number of questions
and it looks as though there has been a deterioration of performance,
we will go in and inspect.
Q398 Neil Carmichael: Next, I
want to probe the question of improvement versus inspection. You
have written that you don't want to replicate the role of the
school improvement partner—SIP—and elsewhere we have
seen that Ofsted doesn't think it is possible to measure how improvement
is effectively influenced by inspection. Do you think there is
a role for Ofsted to improve schools, or is it simply about signalling
where the school is at that point in time?
Christine Gilbert: It is really
incumbent on us—in fact, it is set out in the Education
and Inspections Act 2006, which was a key driver in establishing
the new Ofsted in 2007—and it is a real duty on us to encourage
improvement in those settings and services that we inspect. We
do that in a number of ways—spelling out in the framework,
the guidance and so on. We have had a very positive response,
through the evaluations we have been doing with schools, about
the detail we have given on what a grade means, the descriptors
for a grade and so on. That in itself sets out what "good"
looks like. But, going into the school, I would want that to be
as positive an experience as possible. HMI have used the old phrase
"Doing good as you go" for many years, and I think that
it is still, in essence, very important. So the process itself
should aid improvement. One of the things that we have built into
the new school inspection framework, which we introduced just
over a year ago, was far greater dialogue with senior staff, and
heads have said how much they value that as part of the process.
They would hear how a decision is being made about attendance,
for instance—should it be this grade or that grade, and
what leads the inspectors to arrive at that particular view. There
are joint observations about what is seen and so on. So that in
itself is part of the agenda for encouraging improvement. Then
there is the report itself, which should be really clear and accessible.
What we did, and what we do now, is set out in detail a list of
recommendations much fuller than you would have seen in the previous
frameworks. We don't just say now, "Improve teaching";
we say, "Improve teaching by", and give some examples
of that. The recommendations we give, while still not perfect,
are much fuller and much clearer than before. So we would want
that to be not exactly the agenda for improvement, but to feed
into the school's agenda for improvement and to feed into their
improvement journey. I would think that it wasn't a good inspection
if it wasn't influencing the school's agenda for improvement or
the school's development plans and improvement plans. But we don't
do the improvement. We encourage and promote and so on. It's the
school and those involved at the school who are really doing the
hard job of translating improvement into change on the ground.
Q399 Neil Carmichael: Do you think
there's any mileage in the same team going back again to check,
in a relatively short period, how progress is being made in terms
of implementing your recommendations for improvement?
Christine Gilbert: It depends.
With outstanding and good schools, I wouldn't see a need for that,
but, generally, they would be charged with doing that, the governors
would be picking it up in their governing body meetings and so
on. You touched on this in the earlier session. One of the things
that we have been concerned about over the years is that a number
of schools stay fixed as satisfactory, and I think—I can't
remember exactly—42 moved up, 46 stayed the same, and 12
went down.[1] It was something
like that in the last annual report, and that picture replicates
the one that we had seen previously. What we did in this framework
was try to look at satisfactory schools and to actually be there
for a day to inspect, but not to do a formal inspection, to look
at the areas that we'd been concerned about 12-15 months previously
to see if there had been any improvement and to give some clearer
recommendations about progress and so on. If there hadn't been
progress, it might have made us look again at the school to see
whether we needed to bring forward an inspection, but that's been
a deliberate tactic in the new framework and the way that we work.
They were previously called G3 schools, but that means satisfactory
schools where there are areas of concern that we wanted to go
back to, and the idea there was to accelerate progress.
Q400 Tessa Munt: Bearing in mind
that that is pretty planned and that people know that that is
going to happen, because once you have done it once or twice everyone
will know that that is going to happen, then that is a good time
to engage parents, is it not? With plenty of notice, that's a
good time. Especially if you have the same people in, that is
the time that parents absolutely can be given weeks of notice
to say that you're going to be there. Am I right?
Christine Gilbert: We don't tell
them, even then, that we are coming in in three months' time or
anything like that. We give relatively—I can't remember
exactly—short notice in some cases, and in most cases I
think it is unannounced, but I need to check that. I do think
that the involvement of parents is key, and we haven't cracked
it sufficiently.
Q401 Tessa Munt: I thought that
I had.
Christine Gilbert: There are things
that we are trying to do in relation to engaging parents more.
We will definitely be doing some of them before I leave. I don't
know if I actually said it at a meeting, but when I was talking
about the new framework, before it was introduced, we'd really
seen parents as key in telling us how the school was progressing.
Over the years, I have seen many examples of parents telling you,
anecdotally, about what was going wrong with the school, and it
not necessarily coming through in the surveys that the school
itself was doing. Sometimes, what the parents are saying shows
in the exam results two or three years later, so I take what parents
are saying very seriously indeed. I don't think that it automatically
means that there is a problem. You could get a new head making
a number of changes, and it could take two years for it to settle
down. We do have to do more than we are doing about engaging parents
and about what they are telling us about the schools, particularly
if we are not inspecting them as regularly as we were. For instance,
if we could get the views of the parents of outstanding schools,
and there was a dip in the satisfaction rating there, it might
tell you something about whether you need to go back and inspect.
We really want to see that as part of our risk assessment process.
We thought that we'd cracked it two and a half years ago, when
we'd been going to use commercial providers to do surveys. There
were all sorts of legal and logistical reasons why we couldn't
do that, but a lot of it always comes down to the web, and I accept
the points that were being made earlier, too. The parental issue
is a matter of real concern to us, but we do engage, I think,
more than was being said earlier.
Q402 Neil Carmichael: I have one
more question. In the interests of joined-up thinking, I want
to know from everyone whether a single inspectorate has actually
produced joined-up services and helped to produce a better understanding
of joined-up services. Who wants to go first?
John Goldup: I will respond to
that from my particular focus of social care. I think it's very
important that there is an integrated and joined-up inspectorate,
and we work all the time to make it more integrated and more joined-up.
That reflects, as well as helps to shape, joined-up services on
the ground, so there is a consistency in the different levels
of the system. I think the coming together in our safeguarding
inspections of local authorities, for example, actually brings
together social care professionals, education professionals and
health professionals from the inspection side through the Care
Quality Commission. That has increased the focus and, to a certain
extent, the pressure on some local authorities to raise their
game in terms of joined-up working on the ground. That's been
very positive; but it's not a direct cause and effect relationship.
We are concerned to identify and share the characteristics of
those authorities and partnerships that, in the face of the similar
pressures faced by all local partnerships, still manage to deliver
good or outstanding services. We are as concerned to share our
knowledge about what is making the difference for them as we are
to highlight those areas where services are not managing to do
that. One of the key characteristics of those authorities and
partnerships that are managing those pressures effectively is
the strength of their partnership and joined-up working in practical
and concrete ways. That is true at all levels, from the strategic
level to the operational level of how people are working together
on the ground. Yes, it is making a significant contribution.
Lorna Fitzjohn: I've worked as
an inspector for the adult learning inspectorate—an inspectorate
that looked just at adults—and similarly for Ofsted. Perhaps
I can highlight what the similarities and differences were within
that. When the organisations merged, there was obviously some
concern from the sector about Ofsted perhaps being seen as a schools
inspectorate. That hasn't come to fruition at all. We have a bespoke
inspection, particularly for learning and skills, that tunes in
clearly to the sector. We use inspectors who are credible and
have experience at senior management within that sector. Our evaluation
of inspection, and our feedback from inspection, has remained
much the same. There are clear similarities in how we, as a large
organisation, can tune in to the particular needs of a different
sector. The differences, I think, perhaps relate clearly to your
question. There have been clear examples of work that we can do
across Ofsted far more easily by working with each other. We've
looked at careers advice and guidance in schools, and at how that
has influenced apprenticeship decisions. We've looked at welfare
provision within residential specialist colleges for those over
18, and worked with social care colleagues on that. There are
clear similarities, but also differences, which have made our
work not only easier but have refined it considerably.
Patrick Leeson: I would say that
first, children's services from nought to 19 are integrated; they
are joined up and there are common themes and issues. The perception
among practitioners on the ground in local areas in schools and
so on is that there are links between different areas of activity
for children in and out of school and across social and health
services and so on. It is important for Ofsted to reflect that
in its framework so that there is that joining-up and there are
common themes and issues. For example, it is not possible to look
at services for looked-after children and provision in children's
services without looking at educational provision and so on. Having
been with Ofsted for a relatively short period of time, it has
been very illuminating and helpful for me to see the joins and
the connections that exist between Ofsted's different remits.
Q403 Neil Carmichael: May I ask
the Chief Inspector about the post-16 situation, where there are
two departments with different funding streams and regimes? Do
you find that easy to cope with? Is it something that Ofsted manages
easily?
Christine Gilbert: It appears
to work well. Through Lorna—essentially, through the director—discussions
are held with both departments and so on. That has not really
presented as an issue or been an area that we have worried about
in the joining-up. Can I answer, or is there not time?
Neil Carmichael: Yes, by all means.
Christine Gilbert: There has
been more joining-up, but not enough, and it's really important
that there is joining-up. The experience of looked-after children
in this country is still woeful. The potential that inspection
offers for looking at the holistic experience of looked-after
children, for instance, is crucial in terms of improving the services
they receive. One of the early things that we discovered in a
piece of work that we did was that it didn't matter how good the
school was; for a looked-after child really to succeed, they had
to have good education, good health support, good home support
and so on. So I really do see the potential of the organisation
for supporting more fruitfully what we call users. We're not there
yet, but we are better than we were three years ago at looking
at that. I would also mention the experience for providers—schools,
for instance. They don't now have to experience a whole series
of people coming in to do the inspection. We try to join it up
for them as much as possible. Those two things are key. Let me
explain the second thing I wanted to stress; I don't think we
stressed it enough. In our attempt to join up and to talk about
the importance of joining-up, we didn't stress enough how important
specialisms are. We were absolutely shocked when we went into
local authorities to do children's social care safeguarding, for
instance, as part of the inspection that John referred to, and
they were expecting school inspectors to come in to do it. At
that very basic level, we need to stress that the people we have
doing the jobs in the different areas are specialists. To judge
us, you really need to look at the 32,000 reports that we produced
last year—the quality of those reports. We think the quality
was better last year than the year before, and so on. There's
still more to do, but look at the quality of the reports. Are
they fair? Are they objective? Are they doing what they're supposed
to be doing? The last thing I will say is that we're £80
million cheaper than we were when there were four separate inspectorates.
A third of the cost has been cut over the years.
Q404 Pat Glass: Good morning.
I want to ask about the mechanics of inspection and how that impacts
on the soundness of judgments and the confidence of the public.
Some quite serious evidence has been presented to the Committee
in relation to the quality and consistency of inspections and
inspectors. We've seen evidence of teachers who are working under
a General Teaching Council reprimand for unacceptable teaching
being employed by Ofsted, and of inspectors turning up for inspection
without identification. But the most serious evidence appears
to be in the areas of nurseries and nannies—cases of nannies
working on false documents, one case of Ofsted employing a nanny
who was working illegally in this country, and Ofsted issuing
confirmation documents without expiry dates, which allows people
who no longer work for Ofsted to present those documents to parents
or to schools as though they were still working for it. Clearly,
these are sloppy practices and potentially quite dangerous. How
can the public, schools and parents have confidence in Ofsted's
judgments when these basic administrative procedures are, in some
cases, quite seriously flawed?
Christine Gilbert: First of all,
I would want to know about each and every one of those cases;
I just don't recognise those. We were looking at some information
last week. We had one reported incident in the whole of last year—with
almost 32,000 inspections—of inspectors turning up without
a badge, and we dealt with that in a particular way. I absolutely
don't want to be defensive about this, which is why I say everywhere
I go, at every talk I give, "Tell us. Please complain. Write
to me, complain, and tell us, because unless we know, we can't
improve whatever it is we're doing wrong." Sometimes one
story goes round the system that doesn't have a basis in fact.
That isn't to say we don't make mistakes. We do, with that number
of inspections, but generally, the figures that I was giving earlier
are absolutely there, right across every element of our remit.
I think the figure for the early years sector is actually the
highest. It's something like 98% there; 98% of people—providers—say
the inspection is fair, consistent, objective and all those things.
So it's really hard to deal with the generalised points unless
we go into the individual cases.
Q405 Pat Glass: I think we would
be very happy for our people to pass on the evidence that we received.
But doesn't that suggest something about Ofsted, if people are
prepared to give this evidence to us but aren't giving it directly
to you?
Christine Gilbert: There are all
sorts of whistleblowing lines, for instance, for local authorities.
There are all sorts of things that might be done. But when I looked
through previous evidence to the Committee, a lot of it was, "Somebody
told me that this had happened," rather than "This happened
when I was inspected."
Q406 Pat Glass: One of those who
told the Committee about that was a leading employment confederation.
This isn't hearsay.
Christine Gilbert: What was that
one?
Pat Glass: It said that "Ofsted's
process for registering nannies lacks rigour and enables anyone
to register without sufficient checking."
Christine Gilbert: Registering
nannies is a particular issue. The voluntary child care register
is something that very much concerns me, because I think it gives
false reassurance to parents. It is really clear on our website
that we do absolutely minimal checks for the voluntary child care
register. Nannies don't have to register on there at all. All
that we do—Patrick might correct me—is make sure that
there is a CRB check. Is there also a health check on this?
Patrick Leeson: There is a health
check.
Christine Gilbert: And there is
a third thing.
Patrick Leeson: The nannies who
register on the child care register are doing that on a voluntary
basis. They are doing it in order to, if you like, have an Ofsted
badge—to say that they're registered with Ofsted. Ofsted
is merely required to check, as Christine was saying, the CRB
check; to make sure that nannies have a first aid certificate,
so they know how to deal with any emergency with children; and
to make sure that they are committed to a certain amount of training.
That's it. We don't inspect, come back or do anything else. Nannies
are self-certifying themselves, if you like, to be a part of the
voluntary register.
Q407 Pat Glass: Does that worry
you? They are getting this registration—this letter—which
others who may not be knowledgeable about the system will think
means that people have the Ofsted badge of approval.
Christine Gilbert: I can speak
on behalf of Ofsted. It worries me, and it has worried me for
some time, that it gives false assurance if people read it as
"Ofsted-approved." We do minimal checks. It is really
clear on our website, but not everybody goes to our website. I
don't know if you were going to ask me about this, but I don't
agree that our website is as good as was said earlier. It is quite
difficult to navigate your way around it at the moment. There
will be improvements soon, but at the moment it is quite difficult
to make your way around it. If you want to become registered,
you go the website, but that isn't how the person in the street,
if you like, picks up their feeling. So I think that's a really
important area.
Q408 Pat Glass: So it's something
that the Government need to look at?
Christine Gilbert: Yes, I would
say it is.
Q409 Chair: Can we just establish
why you are doing it? What is it that obliges you to do what you're
doing now? Why would you have such worries?
Christine Gilbert: We are obliged
to do it in terms of legislation. That is referring back to what
I said earlier. Our independence is related to inspection itself.
Nobody can interfere with our judgments about inspection; once
they start to do that, you might as well not have an inspectorate,
in my view. But actually, regulation and inspection is an instrument
of Government, and Government can change and amend legislation.
Patrick Leeson: Can I just clarify,
Christine? The voluntary part of the child care register was created
by the previous Government in order for nannies to register. That
would enable families to claim child tax credit. So it was a mechanism
for families to evidence the fact that they were in that position
and could claim some tax credit.
Q410 Pat Glass: It is something
that we might want to look at. We've also heard quite a lot of
evidence about the quality and consistency of inspections. I'm
not aware of very many head teachers who would think that it was
appropriate for someone without any skills or experience in, say,
teaching deaf children to teach in a deaf unit, or for someone
to teach children with behavioural difficulties if they do not
have the skills, experience or background. Yet it seems that too
frequently we have inspectors going into these areas of specialist
provision—early years was a particular one that was mentioned—without
any skills, experience or background in it. Do you think that's
appropriate, and would it not be appropriate for Ofsted to publish
exactly what skills and experience it would require from people
going in to inspect these highly specialist areas?
Christine Gilbert: I am not sure
that we don't say now what's required, but every time we would
advertise a post we'd say what was required in a particular area,
and knowledge and experience are really significant parts of that.
So you would want your inspectors to be knowledgeable. You want
them to have some experience of the sector. As for the queries
made earlier, generally you'd have expected somebody to have been
a teacher, but you do get inspectors with a background in educational
psychology, for instance, who are good inspectors and very highly
thought of. There are very few now, apparently—about 20—who
weren't teachers. It's really important that our inspectors are
credible in the field that they are inspecting; I agree with you
on that. But, again, in the thousands of responses we get, we
are told that that's how our inspectors are generally coming over.
Nine out of 10 people tell us that the inspectors are very professional,
know their stuff and do a good job. We are absolutely not complacent.
If there are issues, I really would like to hear about them
Q411 Pat Glass: It is an area
in which I have spent a great deal of time. This is anecdotal,
but it is something that exists within the sector: in highly specialist
areas, people are coming in who don't have the skills and background.
I therefore think that, if we are inspecting provision for children
who are deaf, we should publish that the basic requirement is
that at least one of the inspectors will have some skills, experience
and background in teaching deaf children. I think that would help
enormously.
Christine Gilbert: We really do
try to focus particularly on the issue of the experience of hearing-impaired
or deaf children and young people. We really—I think it
was about a year ago now—tried to focus on that to make
sure that we schedule inspections with somebody in the team with
that experience. If we've not done that, there will have been
a particular reason for it, or it might have been a mistake, but
generally we would try to do that. The schedulers really try hard.
Q412 Chair: What does "generally"
mean, Chief Inspector—say, for a deaf school, to pick on
a particular case?
Christine Gilbert: I would hope,
if I went back and looked at the inspections of the past year,
they would have all had an expert or somebody with knowledge and
experience on the team. Where it might not have happened, because
we wouldn't have been aware of it—we are not always aware
of it; we are sometimes—is if you went to a mainstream school,
which, for instance, had a unit for deaf and hearing-impaired
children. That might mean that we hadn't picked it up early enough,
because our information about schools, federations and so on is
not always right.
Q413 Chair: Could we ask that
you look into it? If you could write a brief note to us on the
subject, it would be interesting to follow up.
Christine Gilbert: Certainly.
Q414 Lisa Nandy: May I press you
on this point about deaf children? I am sure other colleagues
have also seen some quite compelling evidence that parents rely
to a very significant extent on Ofsted judgments, so the skills
and expertise of those inspectors is really crucial to them. They
need to understand what skills and expertise the specialist inspectors
have in order to be reassured and able to rely on those judgments.
The point that the National Deaf Children's Society makes is that
it is interested in the route that inspectors take to the job,
but it is also interested in the end point—the standard,
if you like—that people are expected to reach. So what it
is calling for—I think it sounds sensible—is for the
person specification for those jobs to be published as well. Would
it be possible to do that?
Christine Gilbert: The person
specification form?
Lisa Nandy: For those specialist inspector
posts that you have in relation to deaf children.
Christine Gilbert: No, we would
not advertise unless there had been a particular gap, and certainly
there hasn't been in the time that I've been there. There would
be an advert for HMI, and then we would make the appointment.
We get very high numbers of people applying for HMI, and that
might well be one of the issues affecting who we appointed. We
can look at the inspections—if that is what the Chairman
was suggesting—for the past year in this area and tell you
about the people who were on the inspections and about their background
and experience.
Q415 Lisa Nandy: What it would
like to know, so that it can disseminate this to parents, is what
skills those inspectors are required to have. It doesn't just
want to know what route the people you eventually appoint took;
it wants to know what the standard is and what skills those specialist
inspectors are required to possess, so that parents can assess
whether the people making such judgments are qualified to do so.
Christine Gilbert: But the skills
should come from the knowledge and experience, and should come
through in the quality of the report.
Q416 Lisa Nandy: My question is:
what are those skills?
Christine Gilbert: I will write
to you with what they are.
Q417 Pat Glass: We have heard
a lot of evidence on the Committee—I am sure that you have
seen some of it—about the level of stress that is caused
to teachers by inspection. I have to say that I am a great believer
in the idea that we are never as swift as when chased, and therefore
we need to have a degree of healthy stress in the system, but
do you think that we have got the model right? The purpose of
inspection in the long term is to improve schools and outcomes
for children. Have we got that kind of balance right?
Christine Gilbert: We hoped that
the new school inspection framework that we introduced and the
couple of days' notice were helpful in reducing stress. Certainly
that previous inspection framework—the section 5—we
were generally told had reduced anxiety and stress. So, people
weren't waiting for six months for their inspection, although
someone did once say to me, "We're waiting a year or 18 months
until we have had the inspection", but generally the responses
were extremely positive about less notice leading to less stress.
I do think that there will always be an edge, if you like. We
were inspected a few months ago for IIP silver, and that hasn't
got any of those connotations. None of you would have known if
we hadn't got it, and I wouldn't be mentioning it this morning
if we hadn't got it—so it hasn't got any of the weight to
it that a school inspection has. Inspection is very high profile,
and very important to schools, colleges, institutions and different
settings, so it's high stakes. The inspectors are aware that they
see the school as it is. They want to engage as much as they can
with those whom they are inspecting, so that they would do that
as much as possible—we have a code of conduct for inspectors,
which they work to, with courtesy and so on, to put people at
their ease and to engage with them. The feedback that we have
had has been positive about that. I don't think it will ever be
stress-free, but to really see the school and the staff in action,
I think it is important that it is a positive and constructive
experience.
Q418 Pat Glass: How much do you
think that Ofsted needs to do to support schools in supporting
their teachers with stress? How much do think is the job of head
teachers? I have someone quite close to me whose attitude is,
"I do my job to the best of my ability. I do it for the kids
and the teachers in my schools. Ofsted does its job, and I don't
care what it thinks." He absorbs the stress in a sense, and
doesn't allow it to go down to the staff. How much do you think
is Ofsted's job and how much do you think head teachers should
be doing more to make sure that their staff are not stressed?
Christine Gilbert: I think it
is a key part of the head's job to lead and manage the staff,
and to lead and manage the staff in the inspection process. When
an inspection starts—the school inspections that I have
been on, for instance—the lead inspectors have spoken to
the staff at the beginning of the inspection and so on. In the
colleges, there is a nominee from the staff as part of the team
and so on. So, we have some responsibility for making that go
well. I think that we can do more, particularly with the new framework,
to make sure that people are aware of the different elements of
the framework. That was the real learning for me from introducing
the new framework last year. It had gone very well in consultation.
The pilots had gone tremendously well. We were lulled into a false
sense of this much better framework that was going to be introduced
and, of course, people were terribly worried about it. Having
come fairly recently from local authorities and schools, I really
should have known better about the fear in the system about changes
and so on. It is unfortunate that we have to change this framework
so quickly, but actually the new framework builds on what we have
now, and we will come out of it. So in some ways we see it as
a revision of the current framework, but we will do more to inform
and advise people about what they will experience than we did
when we introduced the current one. We are also making sure—some
schools are doing this—that there is a questionnaire for
staff about how they feel about the school, and so on, and using
the findings from that as part of the inspection trail.
Q419 Neil Carmichael: The Committee
has heard from the charity Daycare Trust that "awareness
that Ofsted inspects and regulates child care is very low".
What are your thoughts about that comment? How might it be addressed?
Christine Gilbert: That is something
that we've wrestled with since the creation of Ofsted in 2007.
I understand that there was debate on the name of the new organisation,
but Ofsted was seen to have such high recognition that the name
was kept. The name was essentially associated with schools. Even
though early years and child care had come into the former Ofsted
in 2001 and 2002, nevertheless the perception has been that it
is a schools inspectorate. Initially, we tried to change that
and to make it more generic, but it is an inspectorate for schools,
and for early years and child care, too. The focus really needs
to be on the quality of the work that we do in that area. We do
as much as we can to publicise things, but we could do a lot more
with our website. The website gets a phenomenal number of hits
every day—I think that it's some 22,000 new users, not just
people who are stuck trying it again and again. That is 7 million
to 8 million hits a month. It has proved really difficult to create
a new and better website that is more accessible, more user-friendly
and more intuitive. If you are interested in early years, you
could, through the website, have a closer dialogue with us on
that area of work. We had hoped to be able to launch it at the
end of January. We are still hoping, but it is a fairly fond hope
at the moment. It is likely to be a couple of months later, but
it is in the foreseeable future. Probably before I am back here
again, there will be a new website.
Q420 Neil Carmichael: So joined-up
thinking, but not necessarily joined-up communications?
Christine Gilbert: Yes, but we
now don't mind so much if they talk about the children's watchdog
or the young people's watchdog in the press. It is still a schools
inspectorate, but it is also child care, early years and so on.
We produce the most reports each year on that area.
Q421 Neil Carmichael: What about
improving relations with central Government and local government
in terms of the various inspected bodies and inspections? Would
you agree that that could be better?
Christine Gilbert: About?
Neil Carmichael: I am talking about the
role that you play in local authorities and how your relationship
with local authorities could be improved.
Christine Gilbert: As a new inspectorate,
we have introduced inspections that weren't there before. Previously,
with local authorities there was more of a focus on data and we
very much used inspection as a force in what we were doing. In
schools, a year ago there was a great deal of anxiety about the
systems that we were introducing in local authorities. That has
eased over the year, and John and Patrick may want to say something
about that. Looking at last year's responses from local authorities,
they were really positive about the unannounced inspections of
contact, referral and assessment arrangements. They were also
positive—with comments to make, which we have taken into
account—about inspections of safeguarding and looked-after
children, and we have made a number of changes as a result of
reviewing that. So we regularly meet local authorities—John
and Patrick meet them more often than I do—and we think
that we now have a positive relationship, which I wouldn't have
been able to say had I been sitting here a year ago. Part of that
is the new system, and part of it is listening and responding
to the comments that they are making about the system. So, for
instance, with the unannounced, we don't think we need to be doing
an unannounced inspection everywhere, every year. We would look
to be changing that in the course of the coming couple of years.
Q422 Chair: Why was there no dialogue
with local officials in Plymouth around the inspection of Little
Ted's nursery?
Christine Gilbert: That was about
a particular case. Patrick was involved in that. Do you want to
say something about the information? There was a gap. They seemed
to think, I think, that they shouldn't be passing on information
to us. Most authorities would pass on information to us.
Patrick Leeson: When the serious
case review was published for the Little Ted's nursery in Plymouth,
which was the Vanessa George case, as we all know, there was a
suggestion that it had been difficult for the local authority
to pass on information to Ofsted. We were very clear in rebutting
that suggestion. It is absolutely never the case that local authorities
can't alert us to a concern about an early years setting. In fact,
local authorities do and when they do we always investigate, and
that investigation can lead to an inspection. We have done more
recently to alert local authorities to the fact that they always
should and can raise a concern with Ofsted about the quality of
an early years setting if they have that kind of concern.
Q423 Chair: Had there been contact?
That suggests an issue of contact from the local authority to
yourselves, but around the inspections of Little Ted's was there
an issue there with Ofsted not contacting the local authority?
Patrick Leeson: No, not at all.
Little Ted's nursery was inspected two or three years previously
to the publication of the serious case review. The finding of
the inspection was that Little Ted's was judged to be good, actually.
Those inspection reports are always sent to the local authority,
as well as to the proprietors or owners of the setting. So there
should have been no question at all about the local authority
being in receipt of the inspection report.
Q424 Nic Dakin: Just picking up
on areas that perhaps we have picked on a little bit, witnesses
from worlds as diverse as foster care and schools have told us
that some inspectors have no experience at all of working in the
settings that they visit. Is that true? Are you comfortable with
that if it is true?
Christine Gilbert: I am told that
there was a team that looked at fostering in CSCI and essentially
many of that team came over. We have kept the notion of the team
in place. We've added to that team and we would have given training
and so on. Nobody should be inspecting an area where they don't
feel absolutely comfortable. I don't know, I would need to check
whether every single person on an inspection has actually worked
in that area. I don't know if you know, John.
John Goldup: Yes, I think I can
answer that. I don't think it will be the case. Our social care
inspectors are all qualified and experienced social care professionals
in a whole range of settings and are used to looking at what services
need to do to safeguard and promote children's welfare in a whole
range of settings in common ways. It is the case. It is a sub-set
of that group who inspect fostering services. They are all, without
exception, trained and very experienced in the inspection of fostering
services and they have all, without exception, been inspecting
fostering services for at least the last four years, because they
all came over from CSCI where they had been doing that. It is
true, because of the breadth of interest that they have, that
they will not all have had direct practice experience of being
a fostering officer, or a fostering manager. Many of them will—quite
a number of them have actually been foster carers themselves.
We have recently, very successfully, recruited a new intake of
social care inspectors. We have recruited a number of people with
direct fostering experience, so we will be adding to that team,
but the answer to the question, "Has every single one actually
worked in a fostering service?" is no they haven't. I don't
think that that weakens the consistency or the expertise of the
inspection, and I don't think the evidence suggests that it does.
Q425 Nic Dakin:
At the heart of everything is how you can be confident, we can
be confident and the public out there can be confident that the
Ofsted judgment is sound, and how we achieve that soundness of
judgment and consistency across the piece. We seem to have had
evidence that there are some excellent Ofsted inspectors in various
posts, but that there are also some Ofsted inspectors about whom
people have concerns. Usually they are people who do fewer inspections—that
is how it comes through to us. Are you confident of the soundness
of judgment? If you are, what evidence have you got to back up
that we should all be confident about this soundness of judgment
and consistency across the patch against the sort of evidence
base we've had, which you've heard a bit this morning?
Christine Gilbert: To add
to what John says, we would look at the outcomes of what people
are saying about the inspection to see if that had alerted us
to any issue. I also agree with the points that were made earlier;
people don't always want to tell Ofsted that they are not liking
x, y or z. I would take what you're saying seriously and go back
and talk to the organisation to see if there are particular issues
that we're not picking up in the normal way. Certainly, we have
quality assurance checks both of the reports and of the inspections
themselves. One of the things that we have done over the years
with schools and the school unions, which I meet three or four
times a year, is that if things are being picked up informally
on the ground it's often useful to know about them and for us
to look at them before they become a problem. We need to establish
the same sort of relationship with that organisation—you've
just mentioned one or two inspectors that it is concerned about—so
that we are absolutely looking at those things. We have systems
in place and we think that the inspections are okay, but if they're
not we need to address it.
Q426 Nic Dakin: What is your view
of a view that seems to have come through to us fairly strongly
in terms of school and college inspections—I suppose other
inspections as well to some extent—that there would be a
greater confidence in the system around consistency and soundness
of judgment always being arrived at if all of those inspections
were led by an HMI?
Christine Gilbert: I thought,
looking at the evidence that you've received, that the additional
inspectors have got really a poor hearing. I think that they do
a better job than appears. I will say this, even though I might
be lynched on return to Ofsted: we get more complaints about HMI-led
inspections of schools than we do additional inspector-led ones.
There are all sorts of reasons for that, because HMI do the more
complex and so on, but you haven't heard about the positive side
of the responses that we get about most of the inspections. They
lead 85% of those schools causing concern; they lead all the colleges—
Lorna Fitzjohn: They do.
Christine Gilbert: They lead 75%
of secondary schools and about 10% of primary schools. But they
are used really intensively in quality assurance. So, there isn't
a single school report that goes out without having been read
by an HMI as part of the quality assurance. It is very useful
to be able to use HMI for quality assurance. In this agenda—the
resource picture that we have before us—it's really hard
to see how we would be able to afford more HMI we reckon about
150 additional HMI if they were leading inspections. The issue
is the quality of the inspections and making sure that they're
as good as possible. At the moment we see no evidence at all to
suggest that additional inspectors are generally doing a less
good job than HMI. Even anecdotally, every week I read every special
measure report before a school is placed in special measures.
I can't tell, if I haven't looked at the front, whether the person
who has written it is an HMI or an additional inspector. In terms
of quality, it's not that the HMI report is always better. Now,
sometimes I look at the front and I think that the person is an
HMI, when in fact they left a year or two ago and they are now
working as an additional inspector. I think the additional inspector
route is a very good way for head teachers, deputy heads, college
principals, vice principals or deputy principals to get engaged
in what we are doing, which is why we are trying to increase the
numbers. We run a secondment scheme into Ofsted, where head teachers
or deputies come in for a year. They say it's a really good professional
development experience; they learn a lot from it themselves and
they go back out into their schools. A lot of areas use the experience
they've had in that year for professional development of one sort
or another. So using active professionals is part of this.
Q427 Nic Dakin: May I just ask
Lorna about post-16 benchmarks? Obviously, different providers
operate in post-16, and a range of benchmarks is used for different
providers. Can that be confusing to inspectors, providers and,
most importantly, to localities, which might see providers who
actually have higher success rates getting lower Ofsted judgment
outcomes than others?
Lorna Fitzjohn: Yes, I think you're
probably referring to the different judgments between sixth forms
in schools, sixth-form colleges and GFE. Those data are collected
in different ways by two different Departments. You will know
there is a commitment from DfE to work on that, which was articulated
in the White Paper. Of course, data are important, and that includes
success rates and pass rates, which is where the differences are.
One involves retention, which we use in GFE and sixth-form colleges,
and pass rates, which we use in schools, because retention is
often less of an issue—those are the two differences. Inspectors
tune into the particular settings they're working in. They tune
into the two different sets of benchmarked national averages in
relation to working, along with working with value added. But
it's important to remember that, increasingly, our inspections
are about observing teaching and learning, looking at what's actually
happening, looking at learners' and students' work and using a
wide range of evidence, not just the data, to come to a conclusion.
We would welcome—and it would be much easier for parents
and learners to deal with—a level playing field in relation
to data, but, no, inspectors tune into the particular setting
and use the data along with a wider range of evidence.
Q428 Chair: Do we have HMI in
social care?
John Goldup: Yes.
Christine Gilbert: We do now.
We didn't have.
Q429 Chair: Since when?
Christine Gilbert: 2007.
John Goldup: The role didn't exist
in the Commission for Social Care Inspection, but it was created
in Ofsted when they came over.
Q430 Tessa Munt: I was doing a
quick list of the things you do. It's child minders, child care,
nannies, child protection services, children's homes, adoption,
fostering, CAFCASS, state schools, many independent schools, pupil
referral units, special schools, further education, teaching training,
adult skills, prison learning and probation services—as
far as I could see. I don't think I've missed anything major out.
When you look at the directors on your board, two of the non-exec
directors have experience in education, two have experience in
health and care and two have business experience. The NSPCC noted
that until very recently—I think it was 2009—no senior
manager was a social care expert. The board needs to represent,
I imagine, the whole of Ofsted's remit. Nick has already raised
some questions at the operational level, but what do you feel
Ofsted needs to do to balance your senior leadership?
Christine Gilbert: There are two
boards that you've mentioned. The executive board, half of which
is sitting in front of you, now has a balance. When the NSPCC
made that comment, John, for instance, wouldn't have been part
of the board. We now have people with social care there are about
32 in the senior civil service, and three of them are now social
care experts. On the operational side, things are very different
from when that comment was made. The other board is the Ofsted
board of non-executive directors. They have experience of the
private sector and the public sector, from health, education and
so on, but they don't speak with that particular voice. They bring
a wealth of experience to critique and scrutinise what we are
doing, and they work and function very well as a board. They are
charged with holding me to account for what I do in making sure
that there is an effective strategy for Ofsted and so on. They
are not responsible in any way—this is different in this
inspectorate compared with others—for inspection judgments.
That rests with the Chief Inspector. So there are two different
boards. One has people from outside the organisation who, as it
functions at the moment, really help our work and have helped
us develop as an organisation. Internally now, though, it is much
better balanced than it was when that comment was made.
Q431 Tessa Munt: Would you want
to do more? That is a vast range of activities and I want to be
comfortable that the top end of the organisation has all the expertise—people
who will keep an absolute and clear idea about what is going on
in those various sectors. The variety is massive. We want to be
absolutely sure that there are those people who are completely
tuned into the sector as it operates in its own isolated silo,
and that that is feeding through. There are movements, changes
and modernisation. We have already discussed the fact that there
may be a case in which some of your inspectors have 10 or perhaps
20 years out of the classroom. How do you lock modern development
into your whole process of management?
Christine Gilbert: We made some
changes to the structure when the organisation was set up in 2007,
but a couple of years ago we made absolutely significant changes
to the organisation for September 2009. In front of you, you have
the development directors, who aren't actually responsible for
operational delivery. They cover social care, education and care—the
early years and child care and so on—and learning and skills.
They are directors because it is important to have a director
outside Ofsted speaking as a leading voice on that remit and so
on. They look to make sure that the frameworks we are using are
doing what they should be doing. They are picking up evidence
and so on. There are teams of people working with them on each
of those areas. The bulk of the work is still in delivery. A national
director for inspection delivery is responsible for all of those
areas and has three regional directors. The change allowed us
to make sure that we were on top of the emerging issues—the
details and so on—and that we were also delivering efficiently
as an organisation.
Q432 Tessa Munt: I have one other
question. What is your savings target over the next four years,
and where do you intend to make whatever savings you are being
asked to make?
Christine Gilbert: We have a savings
target of 30%, but it is not all for next year; it is to be achieved
over the next four years.
Tessa Munt: So it is 30% over four years.
Christine Gilbert: Yes. I wrote
the figures down. It is £186 million this year and, in 2014-15,
we go down to £143 million. Because we were compliant and
dutiful and made a 30% saving required by the Better Regulation
Executive in creating the new organisation, we made a lot of reductions.
There will be—we have made plans for this already—over
a third reduction in back office support services. We will have
to do inspection differently to get within that target. We haven't
worked out the detail of all of that because of the changes that
are currently under way. We are seeing the changes with schools.
Yes, there is a saving by not inspecting every outstanding school,
but we will be looking at other things—we will be looking
at behaviour slightly differently and we will be looking at reading—so
I can't see a third saving coming from the changes in schools.
Over the next few years we have to look at what it is we are inspecting.
Do we have to inspect everything? Do we have to inspect everything
in the way that we are doing it currently? Could we be doing more
sampling? Could we be doing it in a more proportionate way?
Q433 Tessa Munt: But as I understand
it, only a quarter of your spend on inspection is on schools.
Christine Gilbert: Yes, but I
only started with schools, because that is the only framework
that we have been revising at the moment. Over the next few years,
we will be revising others. There will have to be changes in the
inspection framework, but if it is, for instance, a duty on Ofsted,
through me, to inspect a particular area, we will have to ask
whether we should be inspecting that area. There will be significant
changes over the next few years on the areas that we are inspecting.
Q434 Chair: Will any of the changes
require primary legislation?
Christine Gilbert: For instance,
a couple of weeks ago there was an announcement about the assessment
of children's services. There is an annual assessment at the moment.
The Minister wrote that he was minded to stop that. That will
take at least one year, probably two—that is what we think.
Some of the things will require primary legislation, some will
not.
Q435 Craig Whittaker: We have
heard this morning about things such as Ofsted's voluntary child
care register, which seems to be a bit of a nonsense, but it is
there because of legislation. It has been said on this evidence
panel that Ofsted has been a Government lap dog, rather than an
education watchdog. True or false?
Christine Gilbert: Well, you wouldn't
expect me to say "True." I make the point that I made
earlier. It is up to the Government. The Secretary of State can
ask me to inspect almost anything, to look within my areas and
so on. We would have to do that unless there was a really good
reason for not doing it. The Secretary of State cannot interfere
in the inspection process at all. Once interference begins in
the process of inspection or the reporting from inspection, there
would be a speedy demise of the inspectorate that allowed that
to happen to itself. We prize our independence hard. We think
that if you are to value what we are saying, it is important that
we report objectively, fairly and with integrity about what we
are seeing. We strive to do that at all times.
Q436 Craig Whittaker:
It appears that there has a been a positive response to most things
in the new Government's White Paper. What challenges do you think
that that new White Paper poses for Ofsted?
Christine Gilbert: The challenges
really relate to the speed of change. I am focusing on schools,
because the most work has gone on that so far—work will
go on in other areas as the year goes on. Next year sounds a long
way away, but to introduce a new school inspection framework by
next year will take some doing, if we are to consult, engage,
pilot and train, and if people are to know what is coming. We
see it as a revision to the current framework, but nevertheless,
there are a lot of changes in there and a lot of things mentioned
almost in passing in the White Paper that we will have to address.
For instance, there is a passing reference to value added and
looking at a new value added system. It was mentioned this morning—it
is in the White Paper—about different forms of league tables
and what the core targets will be. All those things will influence
how we look at schools and how we carry out the process of inspection.
You heard earlier that the school evaluation form has stopped.
While I was perfectly happy for it to stop, many inspectors were
not, because it makes their job harder, because in one document
it captured a picture of the school. The fundamental thing is
that the school is doing the self-evaluation properly, but having
the self-evaluation document before going into the school allowed
us, in our pre-inspection briefing, to suggest to the school where
the inspector would go with the evidence in front of us, to ask
for counter-evidence and so on. There are a number of challenges
in pulling together a new, revised framework that is really rigorous
and does the sorts of things that we want it to. We do not want
to be changing it at the end of the first year because we got
something wrong.
Q437 Craig Whittaker: Finally,
may I ask each of you, looking at different inspection regimes
around the world, if there is one system in any country that you
would wish to emulate, which country would it be?
Lorna Fitzjohn: That is quite
a difficult question for me to answer, particularly on post-16
inspections, which are a lot more variable. I would like to come
back to you on that, if I may?
Patrick Leeson: My impression
is that England, with Ofsted, has the most comprehensive, wide-ranging
and deepest-diving inspection service that there is.
John Goldup: I do not claim to
have the depth of expertise in international inspections systems
to necessarily be able to answer that question. In the area of
social care, as in areas that Christine has already mentioned,
Ofsted certainly has a great deal to contribute to learning in
the rest of the world and I am sure that the rest of the world
has a great deal to contribute to our learning, because the learning
is the important thing. Certainly in relation to some aspects
of social care, for example residential child care, there is a
very high level of interest in some developments in Scandinavian
countries, particularly in Denmark. But they are as associated
with a different status, social approach and degree of professionalisation
in the delivery of that care as they are associated with inspections,
so you have to look at the total picture.
Christine Gilbert: There is not
another inspectorate like us, because of the breadth that we have.
In terms of the education focus, the one I find helpful in pushing
my thinking is the Netherlands. We had a 24-hour away day about
a year ago with inspectors there. Their English puts us to shame
in terms of our languages—they are very good at English.
It was a very good, productive 24 hours. They do things slightly
differently, but there is enough in common for us to learn and
develop what we have here, so we still continue to work with them.
For instance, inspectors are working with them on different aspects
of special needs, where their approach is different from ours.
Chair: Thank you for giving evidence
to us this morning.
1 These figures are percentages,
and are set out in HMCI's Annual Report 2009/10. Amongst the key
findings about maintained schools was that 'overall 42% of the
schools judged satisfactory at their previous inspection improved,
46% stayed the same and 12% declined' (p. 31).
Back
|
