Ofsted has today published its annual report and accounts,
covering the period from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026.
The report sets out Ofsted's performance, finances and key
developments across the year.
Read Ofsted's annual report and
accounts 2025 to 2026.
Here are some of the key findings across education and children's
social care:
A new approach to education inspection
September 2025 saw us set out our renewed education inspection
framework. We have replaced single-word summary grades with
new-style report cards, providing more nuanced assessments to
help parents, carers and professionals understand the quality of
education provision. Before the framework launched in November
2025, we completed 45 test visits and pilot inspections. Since
then, we have inspected 1,420 state-funded schools, 1,380 of
which were full inspections.
Strengthening regulation of early years
providers
This year, we risk-assessed around 14,800 notifications from
around 9,440 early years providers a 24% increase from last year.
We completed 970 inspections after hearing concerns, 55% of which
were unannounced. Since April 2026, we have moved to more
frequent inspections visiting settings at least every 4 years
rather than every 6 years and inspecting newly registered
settings within 18 months of registration.
Unprecedented growth in children's homes
Rapid growth in the number of children's homes applying to
register with Ofsted has created significant pressure on the
system, meaning it has taken longer than usual to process
applications. Around 350 applications were withdrawn, refused or
closed this year. Despite seeing the highest number of
applications to register children's homes in our history, there
are still not enough of the right homes in the right places to
meet children's needs. The uneven distribution means that some
regions are saturated, while others have gaps in the type and
number of homes available. We recently updated the sector on the
prioritisation criteria and expected timeframes for
processing children's home registrations and explained the
reasons for these delays.
Tackling unregistered and illegal provision
This year, our unregistered schools team opened 260
investigations and carried out 130 inspections of suspected
unregistered schools, issuing 23 warning notices to 20 settings.
Going forward, the Children's Wellbeing and Schools Act 2026 will
address a long-standing gap in our enforcement toolkit and
strengthen our ability to investigate and close these places
down.
We remain deeply concerned that significant numbers of children
in care including those with the most complex needs continue to
be placed in unregistered homes with no regulatory oversight.
This year, our investigators identified 710 unregistered
children's homes, and most were issued with warning letters. Five
criminal investigations were carried out, leading to prosecutions
in 2 cases. New powers under the Children's Wellbeing and Schools
Act will soon allow us to impose fines on those operating illegal
provision, and a larger investigation team is being established
to build on these powers. We have also recently launched a consultation on
improving the way we inspect children's social care, which
includes a proposal to make the use of unregistered children's
homes a limiting criterion in our inspections of local authority
children's services.
A growing and more settled workforce
We welcomed 215 new inspectors during the year and have seen a
significant increase in applications for inspection roles. Staff
turnover fell from 10.6% to 8.6%, and the Civil Service People
Survey engagement score rose to 66% above the Civil Service
benchmark of 65%, and up 2 percentage points on the previous
year.
