Does Ofsted have a serious recruitment and retention problem?

The answer must almost certainly be “yes”, given the chief inspector’s admission that “We live in a world where our experienced inspectors get hired away from us at an amazing rate.”

There are three further questions to consider:

• What is the extent of the problem?
• Does it matter?
• What can or should Ofsted do about the issue?
   

We don’t know the answer to the first question, though the data is there if only we could access it. How has the difficulty of recruitment changed over the past 10 years or so? Are more or fewer applicants coming forward? We don’t know. What are the figures for the turnover of HMI during the past 10 years? What is the latest - i.e., 2016-7 - turnover? We don’t know. Ofsted needs to provide answers that can be discussed in the public domain.

Does it matter? Emphatically yes. HMI are called upon to make very serious judgements which affect the viability of individual schools, the careers of individual teachers, the life chances of pupils and the confidence of parents. It is crucial that they should have as wide experience as possible in order to make those judgements - and getting that breadth of experience takes time, as well as money. Inspectors need experience of widely differing geographical and educational contexts in which to situate their judgements of individual schools. In particular, they need to have experience of the widest range of contexts - from those schools considered “outstanding” to those judged “inadequate”. But have they all got that range of experience, especially given that so-called “outstanding” schools have not been subject to routine inspection? The answer is probably not, though, presumably, Ofsted could provide the data if required.

What level of experience do inspectors have?

The turnover of inspectors also matters since the length of experience is partly related to the credibility of individual inspectors and the reports they produce. Of course, some degree of turnover is to be expected and welcomed. No school wants to be inspected by a team out of direct experience of schools for 20 years or more. But nor do they want an inspection team with an average of, say, two or three years in the job. The latter’s credibility would then be in question. Ofsted must have data on average length of service: what is it? The chief inspector’s admission implies there is a problem. What is its scale and why isn’t being made public?

Reading between the lines of the chief inspector’s admission, I infer that Ofsted is facing a serious, possible existential, threat to its credibility. It needs inspectors with the credibility born of successful school experience but also the wide-ranging experience of inspection. It appears to be finding this increasingly difficult.

Assuming that there is a major problem, as hinted at the chief inspector’s comments, what can Ofsted do about this haemorrhaging? The chief inspector has hinted at an answer. Ofsted needs to make the job more attractive. It needs to lessen HMIs preoccupation with the day-to-day treadmill of routine inspection or monitoring of routine inspection. It needs to give them a much wider experience, for example of commissioning surveys, contributing to national and regional CPD, visiting and reporting on “interesting practice” nationally and internationally, participating in a well-managed research programme, critiquing research and contributing “think pieces” about contemporary educational issues.

It has to be acknowledged that though Ofsted has many questions to answer about its methodology, it has been increasingly willing to air problems and address its critics. Its proposed inspection framework for introduction in autumn 2019 is eagerly awaited. But however good the framework, it will need skilled and experienced personnel to implement it. Will they be there in sufficient numbers? The jury is out.

Professor Colin Richards was formerly staff inspector for the curriculum and editor of the Curriculum Matters series