Last December Ray Van Spall, owner of Lilliput Lodge nursery in Hull,wrote to Ofsted to complain about the way an inspection had been carriedout.
Ofsted said that in a sample of 9,757 reports, only six were declarednull and void.
An Ofsted spokesperson said, 'In most cases we are able to support thejudgements inspectors make by referring to the evidence they collect oninspection. In some instances, we make changes to the wording ininspection reports.
'On very rare occasions, we find that an inspection was not completed toour usual high standards. This may be because the evidence collected wasinsufficient to support the inspection judgements, or for some otherreason, such as an inspector becoming ill between carrying out theinspection and writing the report. In these circumstances, where wecannot assure the quality of the inspection, we will declare it null andvoid.'
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day NurseriesAssociation, said most nurseries did not report any disputes overinspections and it was rare that reports were retracted.
She said, 'It is important that nurseries understand and use therelevant channels to make a complaint if they have any concerns orissues, either about the behaviour of an Ofsted inspector or about thereport itself.'
FURTHER INFORMATION:
Pilot scheme for two-year-old children - evaluation of outreachapproaches is at www.dcsf.gov.uk/research.