The departure of Sir Michael Wilshaw as Ofsted chief inspector last year was greeted with a sigh of relief by most of us in the FE sector. Whatever Sir Michael’s other admirable qualities, he had a very jaundiced view of FE colleges, famously describing them as “impersonal amorphous institutions”. His successor, Amanda Spielman, has struck a much more positive tone.

Unfortunately, she’s inherited an FE inspection framework that is seriously defective in several respects.

For a start, is it right to have an inspection system where no general FE college can hope to be rated “outstanding”? Take East Kent College, whose recent report was bursting with praise; it was rated “outstanding” in most categories. The “vast majority” of its students, we were told, do well in their courses and progress successfully. But it only received a judgement of “good” overall. Why? Because “a small minority” of students don’t make progress and - wait for it - English and maths results are too low.

With 40 per cent of young people leaving school without good English and maths results, FE is tasked with repairing the damage. And because - surprise, surprise - we can’t make good in one or two years what’s gone wrong over 10, our overall results are skewed. The higher the proportion of students with poor basic skills a college takes in, the more likely its Ofsted grade sinks. One college has been “outstanding” since the new framework came in.

If that wasn’t galling enough, Ofsted has abandoned subject inspections. So if you are an excellent engineering department in a college where the other departments are struggling, you’ll have nothing to show for your efforts but the poor overall inspection grades the college receives.

This means that a student who wants to do engineering - or parent or employer - has little or no public information about how well the subject is taught.

Worse still, a bad overall grade can effectively disqualify good departments from offering apprenticeships and other vital training.

Finally, the Ofsted system insists on inspecting even the largest colleges as a single unit. Whereas multi-academy trust schools are inspected separately, each FE college is lumped into one pot. So NCG, which operates several colleges hundreds of miles apart, gets one single Ofsted report.

So what does Ofsted need to do to improve? Well, for a start, it must go back to inspecting subject teaching in colleges, please. Next, introduce a simple system of agreeing with each FE corporation whether it would make more sense to inspect it as one unit or as several separate colleges.

And please stop using English and maths exam outcomes as a measure of how well colleges are doing. Judge us on how well we’re supporting students to make progress in the English and maths they need to achieve career success in their chosen specialism. If you don’t like “impersonal amorphous” FE colleges, stop inspecting us as if that’s what we are.

Andy Forbes is principal and CEO of the College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London