"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.
