Meeting MPs’ calls for “deeper and richer” inspections could cost an extra £8.5 million a year, Ofsted has warned.
The inspectorate has released its response today to the Commons Education Select Committee’s inquiry report into school inspection, which urged Ofsted to produce more detailed analysis in its school inspection reports and to work with the government to replace single-word judgements.
MPs also called for the Department for Education and Ofsted to make the case for more inspection funding to the Treasury and said this should not come at the expense of school funding.
In response, Ofsted said it welcomed the committee’s support in recommending additional funding for more in-depth inspections. It said one way in which this could be achieved would be to ensure every inspection was led by an HMI and had an additional inspector on the team. The watchdog said this would cost an extra £8.5 million.
Ofsted broadly welcomed the MPs’ findings but added that the recommendations for change need to be considered within the context of Ofsted’s funding constraints.
“We have continually been asked to do more with less,” Ofsted wrote in its response to the committee.
Ofsted chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver said that he was “committed to running an open and transparent organisation” and added that Ofsted has “already made several positive changes over the last year”.
However, the former multi-academy trust leader warned that “we have to accept that anything we do has to be within the budget constraints we have”.
“We have continually been asked to do more with less,” Ofsted wrote in its response to the committee.
“Our remits have expanded significantly since 2005, while our spending has fallen considerably,” Ofsted wrote to MPs, adding that the inspectorate’s funding is “29 per cent lower in real terms compared with 2009-10”.
The watchdog’s response comes after Sir Martyn announced the Big Listen consultation at the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) annual conference on Friday.
School leaders, teachers and parents have been invited to provide views on the inspection system, including exploring safeguarding as a standalone judgement.
‘Single-word judgements have detrimental impact’
In addition to the consultation, Ofsted also announced plans to make changes to its website to show the full range of school inspection judgements at a glance rather than just overall effectiveness grades, in line with another of the committee’s recommendations.
Ofsted has said it will engage with the DfE on inspection grades, in response to the committee’s recommendation for single-word judgements being replaced.
The NEU teaching union has criticised Ofsted for not saying more about the future of single-word inspection grades.
The union’s general secretary, Daniel Kebede, said: “There will be real disappointment and consternation that Ofsted hasn’t addressed single-word judgements, despite the cross-party select committee having asked Ofsted to develop an alternative to these blunt verdicts.
“The single-word judgements have a deeply detrimental impact, including too much pressure on individual leaders.”
Inspector expertise improves ‘credibility’
Ofsted also acknowledged the committee’s recommendation that Ofsted must ensure that they are “matching inspectors’ expertise with the appropriate phase and subject”.
The inspectorate said that it recognises that the credibility of inspection is “improved” when inspectors have the “authority of experience in the phase of the school being inspected”.
Polling by the NAHT school leaders’ union has previously found that a large majority of leaders disagree that inspectors have “sufficient experience to reliably inspect schools of different phases, types and sizes”.
Ofsted struggling to match sector salaries
However, Ofsted disagreed with MPs’ call for an independent assessment of the factors affecting retention of experienced HMIs. The watchdog said this would not be a “good use of public money”.
The watchdog put its retention issues down to higher salaries in other parts of the sector, such as multi-academy trusts.
“Salaries in many parts of the sector exceed the salaries we are currently able to afford,” Ofsted wrote in its response.
“Between November 2021 and November 2023, excluding HMI who retired from their roles, 42 per cent of our schools HMI left to join multi-academy trusts,” the inspectorate said in its response.
Ofsted added that ways of working and workloads are often “significant contributing factors” to HMI turnover, which is “further exacerbated by ever-tightening budgets”.
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