Ofsted takes school and FE inspections in house, but not early years

Early years inspections will remain with the existing contractors overseen by Tribal and Prospects.

Stories had surfaced that early years inspections would also move under Ofsted’s sole remit.

The current contracts with CFBT, Serco and Tribal for school and FE inspections have run since September 2009 and were due to expire in August 2015.

Ofsted’s director of corporate services, Nick Jackson, said, ‘The time was right to look again at how Ofsted can best deliver a service that is both efficient and flexible.’

Ofsted said that it intends for existing contractual arrangements for the delivery of early years inspections to continue.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, said, ‘We are extremely disappointed that Ofsted has disregarded sector feedback and chosen not to bring early years inspections back in-house. It’s clear that there has been a steady decline in the quality of inspections since the outsourcing of this service in 2010; we have heard far too many reports of providers being visited by inspectors who possess little understanding of early years provision – and in some cases being unfairly graded as a result.