Struggling colleges and other FE and skills providers are to face a tougher inspection regime, Ofsted announced today.

From now on, institutions who are rated as “requires improvement” will be subjected to a single follow-up visit by inspectors, which will result in a published report being made publicly available.

The change in policy is the result of a consultation held late last year in which Ofsted proposed: “Instead of carrying out support and challenge visits that result in unpublished letters, we conduct a single monitoring visit with a published report that has progress judgements.”

Re-inspections 

The visit will take place between seven to 13 months after the inspection at which the provider was judged to require improvement. The re-inspection of requires improvement providers will still normally occur 12 to 24 months after the previous inspection.

Sixty-five per cent of respondents supported the proposal, which will now be implemented. In its report on the consultation’s outcome, released today, Ofsted states that the change will “provide a clearer sense of direction and help providers improve”. It will also “be more transparent” and “ensure that our constrained resources are directed to where they will have the most impact”.

Support to improve

The change “will support ‘requires improvement’ providers to improve and be more transparent about the work being done,” according to the report.

It adds: “Monitoring visit reports will be clear about what the provider has achieved since the previous inspection and what improvement they still need to make”.

David Corke, director of policy at the Association of Colleges, said: “We support the fact that greater transparency will help other stakeholders and providers if these reports are published but this will require the reports to be more detailed on what needs to happen in terms of quality improvement.”

Mark Dawe, chief executive, Association of Employment and Learning Providers (AELP), said: “We’re supportive of Ofsted’s approach to monitoring and are happy with this change providing the date of the visit allows sufficient time for the provider to make the improvements requested.”

The new approach will apply to any provider found to require improvement since the proposals were announced on 10 November 2017 and Ofsted is to write to those providers directly affected, informing them of the changes.

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