Ofsted needs better information, says National Audit Office report

The National Audit Office has published it's report into Ofsted and the effectiveness of services, and whether its approach to inspecting schools is providing value for money. It concludes:

"Until Ofsted has better information it will be unable to demonstrate that its inspection of schools represents value for money."

In 2017-18, Ofsted spent £151 million. Approximately 21,500 state‑funded schools in England are subject to inspection by Ofsted. They educate a total of some eight million pupils. Ofsted spent an estimated £44 million on inspecting state-funded schools in 2017-18. This is equivalent to 0.11% of the total funding for state‑funded schools in the same year.

The report finds:

"The Department for Education affects Ofsted’s funding, how it uses its resources and what it can inspect. The current inspection model, with some schools exempt from re-inspection, others subject to light-touch inspection and the average time between inspections rising, raises questions about whether there is enough independent assurance about schools’ effectiveness to meet the needs of parents, taxpayers and the Department itself. Although government has protected the overall schools budget, it has reduced Ofsted’s budget every year for over a decade while asking it to do more. We think that government needs to be clearer about how it sees Ofsted’s present and future inspection role in the school system as a whole, and resource it accordingly."

"Ofsted provides valuable independent assurance about schools’ effectiveness and as such is a vital part of the school system. It has faced significant challenges in recent years, as its budget has reduced and it has struggled to retain staff and deploy enough contracted inspectors. The ultimate measure of the value for money of Ofsted’s inspection of schools is the impact it has on the quality of education, relative to the cost. Ofsted’s spending on school inspection has fallen significantly but it does not have reliable information on efficiency. It also has limited information on impact.

"Until Ofsted has better information it will be unable to demonstrate that its inspection of schools represents value for money."

Responding to the report, Ofsted Chief Amanda Spielman said:

"Like much of the public sector, we are operating in a difficult financial climate. As the report acknowledges, the envelope provided by the Department for Education for school inspection is 52% less, in real terms, than it was in 2000. This means that we have had to make tough decisions about how we prioritise resources. I am confident that Ofsted gets the balance right. For example, by focusing more resource on inspection of schools that are less than good. An increase in either the number of inspections or time spent on inspection will quite simply require greater funding.

"Ofsted is only one lever in the school system, which is why it has proven difficult for the NAO to judge our impact and value for money. As we have made clear to the NAO, judging ourselves against school outcomes would inevitably create perverse incentives. We exist to provide an objective account of the quality of the nation’s schools.

"The NAO’s conclusion that we cannot prove the value for money we represent is explicitly not the same as demonstrating that we do not provide value, particularly considering that the costs of our school inspection work represents just 0.1% of the overall school budget. We are confident we compare well against other school inspectorates internationally, something the NAO did not look at.

"We recognise that in 2015, a year in which we were also required to hand back £6m of our agreed budget, our decision to raise workforce standards resulted in reduced numbers of inspectors and therefore created short term challenges around deployment and the volumes of inspections achieved. These issues have now been resolved and our workforce quality is better than ever.

"All of the NAO’s further recommendations are ones we were already in the process of addressing."

In the media
TES - Ofsted fails on statutory targets for inspections

Daily Mirror - Hundreds of 'outstanding' schools haven't been inspected for a decade