Ofsted needs to come up with a plan to stop it from shedding staff and ensure it has enough people to carry out school inspections, the public spending watchdog has said.
The National Audit Office has warned that Ofsted has found it challenging to retain its HMI and had 15 per cent fewer people than it had budgeted for by March this year.
An NAO report published today indicates that workload is one of the main reasons why inspectors leave.
However, it also highlighted that inspectors are quitting to take up better paid jobs in multi-academy trusts (MATs) – a problem raised by Amanda Spielman last month.
In 2016-17, workload was cited by nine of the 12 HMI with two years’ or less service who completed exit interviews or questionnaires.
The report said that inspectors leaving for more lucrative jobs in MATs was a problem highlighted by staff in three of the Ofsted regions.
The NAO recommends that Ofsted produce a recruitment and retention plan that shows what it is aiming to achieve and by when, the interventions it will use, how much it expects them to cost, and how it will measure progress.
Matthew Coffey, Ofsted’s chief operating officer, said the growth of MATs has meant there are more well-paid jobs in the school system.
“I have heard the figure of £100,000 talked about when people leave,” he said.
Responding to today’s NAO report, Mr Coffey said that, before MATs, the types of roles that HMI might have left for in the past were directors of children’s services roles at local councils.
However, he said there were now more senior positions within academy trusts where people can be responsible for groups of schools.
The NAO report said that a third of HMI cited dissatisfaction with the role as a reason for leaving.
It said: “For example, some felt that the role was too narrow, with a lack of improvement work. Ofsted reduced the extent of improvement work in light of the reductions in its budget.
“Ofsted told us that the introduction of short inspections had also made inspectors’ jobs more about checking compliance and less about improvement and follow-up work. As a result, HM inspectors’ work had become less varied and less satisfying for some inspectors.”
The NAO said Ofsted’s salaries have been subject to public sector pay restraint since 2010, although pay for HMI rose by 8 per cent in 2015-16 when the new inspection framework was introduced.
In the 2017 civil service people survey, 37 per cent of inspectors said that their pay was reasonable compared with people doing a similar job in other organisations but 48 per cent said it was not.
The NAO report said Ofsted is now considering how it can make the inspector role more attractive to help retention including giving HMI the opportunity to get involved in Ofsted’s wider research.
Mr Coffey said that Ofsted was also encouraging senior teachers to see working as an inspector as a mid-career role, rather than something for the end of their career.
