A report by the Education Select Committee said that the inspectorate had grown too large to function properly and that education and children’s care should be split into two new inspectorates.
MPs also said that there was an urgent need to reform the Voluntary Childcare Register.
The report called for a new Inspectorate for Education, having responsibility for nurseries, schools, colleges, adult education, teacher training and local authority commissioning of schools. An Inspectorate of Children’s Care should be created to focus entirely on children’s services and care, including children’s homes, adoption services, childminders and CAFCASS.
The report said the two inspectorates should share administrative functions and work closely together, particularly on joint inspections of children’s centres and nurseries.
However, it said they should ‘retain different elements of expertise and separate chief inspectors’.
It added that the Children’s Care Inspectorate should more actively support improvement and quality, particularly because childminders and adoptions agencies, for example, may not have access to the partnership-based improvement model that schools do.
‘The Children’s Care Inspectorate should ensure that its workforce has experienced practitioners who command the respect of social workers and childcare professionals, and who can promote and support improvement as well as regulating for statutory purposes,’ the report said.
'A more proportionate approach'
Graham Stuart MP, the committee’s chair, said, ‘Ofsted’s reach is vast and it has grown substantially since its inception, but this has come at the expense of providing a more specialised service.
'We need a radical shift in how inspection operates in this country, with a more proportionate, specialist and focussed approach.’
Responding to the findings, Ofsted’s chief inspector Christine Gilbert said, ‘Any proposal for further reorganisation needs to be very carefully considered and is ultimately a matter for Government. There are issues about additional costs and a risk of distraction from the core business – namely, continuing to deliver high quality, rigorous inspection which helps to drive up standards for children and learners.’
However, she added there were many constructive suggestions that Ofsted would consider.
‘We accept, for example, the concerns about the Voluntary Childcare Register and would welcome any changes to the legislation under which that operates,’ she said.
Purnima Tanuku, chief executive of the National Day Nurseries Association, said, ‘The proposal to split Ofsted into two parts is an interesting one, but NDNA believes that more detailed discussions would be required and careful consideration of the impact and benefits of such a move thoroughly considered. Nurseries in particular have a strong role to play in delivering early education and NDNA would want to ensure that any changes in approach to inspection would support both service improvement and the delivery of high-quality early education.'
She added, ‘Although on the whole nurseries find inspections a helpful experience, NDNA continues to hear reports from settings who find that the inspector does not have the right skills and experience to make an informed judgement and there are concerns around consistency of inspection. Measures such as secondments, training and increased preparation time as outlined in this report will help the inspection process be consistent, and ultimately deliver improved outcomes for children.’
Philip Parkin, general secretary of Voice, the union for education professionals, said Ofsted had become ‘broad and unwieldy’.
He said it was ‘outrageous’ that Ofsted had no legal power to compel a nanny who had been struck off from the Voluntary Childcare Register to return her registration certificate.
‘This means that, in England, an unscrupulous nanny who has been disqualified from working with children could show parents who are prospective employers her Ofsted certificate of registration and they would not know that the nanny had been found unsuitable to work with children.
‘A single UK national register for all working with children and young people would be much simpler and more effective than the current complicated, confusing plethora of compulsory and voluntary registers. The Laming report called for a single system to end confusion. Compulsory registration would also protect and raise the status of professional trained nannies.’
Commenting on the fact that Ofsted does not inspect outstanding schools, he said, ‘Exempting outstanding schools from inspection is like giving a car that’s passed its MOT exemption from all further tests unless someone reports it for going through a red light. As time passes and the head, staff and pupils change, so will the school. There’s no guarantee that it will remain outstanding.’
A DfE spokesperson said, ‘We thank the Select Committee for this detailed and considered report. The Government will respond to the recommendations in due course.’