Inside view from Christine Gilbert, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector
The first year of the new Ofsted is complete. In our first 12 months we delivered inspections of: 8,100 schools, 41,000 childcare providers, 3,650 social care providers, 140 colleges, 200 work-based learning providers, 85 judicial service providers, 41 local authorities, and the East Midlands Cafcass region. And we have this month published our Departmental Report 2007-08 to prove it.
And what a year it has been. Certainly one of the most challenging of my career, but also one of which I’m proud. We began by developing our Strategic Plan 2007-10, which set out our priorities and goals for the next three years following consultation with stakeholders from across our remit. This built on the requirements placed on Ofsted at its creation: to improve, be user focused, and be even more efficient and effective, whilst at the same time promoting these three things in the services we inspect and regulate.
Whilst a major focus in our first year has been on ensuring we delivered the inspection programmes we inherited from our four predecessor inspectorates, we have also been working to improve the way we work and in doing so building on the best aspects of the inspection and regulatory approaches taken by the Adult Learning Inspectorate, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Court Administration and the former Ofsted, the Office for Standards in Education.
At the forefront of our thinking has been how inspection and regulation can become even more proportionate, really focused where it can make most difference. By making the best use of the information available to us, by better engaging with the people using services and who know how they are performing day to day, we think we can more accurately target the services not performing as well as they should. This is strongly reflected in our plans for school inspections from 2009. The very best schools are likely to see less of us in the future and this signals the direction of travel across for all our work. You can find all the details of these plans, and how to have your say on them, in the schools focus section.
As well as maximising efficiency, we’ve promised to become more user focused. Our User and Stakeholder Engagement Strategy, newly published on our internet site, sets out how we will encourage and promote user engagement as a driver for improvement. It also sets out how we will listen to our users and stakeholders in all that we do. One way of doing this is to consult much more openly and update you on subjects we intend to seek public views on in the future. You have probably already noticed the consultations area which was added to our website earlier this year. Last month we added a calendar setting out the major initiatives we intend to seek your views on in the coming months. And as you will see, these include plans to consult about the way we inspect children’s social care, and work based learning, among other topics.
As well as publishing its Departmental Report this month, Ofsted also appeared before the House of Commons Select Committee for Children, Schools and Families for one of its two annual sessions to account for our work to Parliament. The Committee’s interest ranged from the future of schools inspections, to the development of the new early years foundation stage, from the introduction of the new diplomas to the future for work-based learning. The committee members also paid particular attention to how the outcomes for looked after children could be improved. It is at times like these that I am keenly aware of the breadth of Ofsted’s remit: and the very real benefits which can come from joining up evidence and information from across care, education and skills.
