Inspectors under fire

In The Guardian today, Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) has come under fire from its former Chief Inspector, Sir Mike Tomlinson,

"Inspection systems that rely too heavily on data and tick-box systems is not what we need. I worry we are heading that way."

It was Ofsted who was accused of giving Haringey a top rating before the Baby P incident in its initial report then downgrading it after the case came to light. One tragic case does not make a bad system but then a good review from Ofsted doesn't seem to reliably indicate good system either.

In another incident it was also Ofsted who said that two police officers may not look after each others' children while the other was on duty. This was an entirely reasonable arrangement of two women supporting each other to work and get child care from a trusted friend. Ofsted judged that it constituted "receiving a reward".

If inspection reports cannot be relied on to give a reasonable indication of the state of the organisation being inspected there is a serious failing in either the inspectors, or the whole methodology and assumptions behind the method of assessment and review.

Ofsted was originally only inspecting education and childcare but was given Child Services to inspect two years ago. But a position paper (Nov 2009) from the Association of Directors of Children's Services, which starts by praising some aspects of Ofsted's inspection regime goes on to say,

"But, all too often a reductionist approach is taken to the inspection, moderation and judgements of services, particularly local safeguarding services where risk-averse approaches on the part of inspectors are leading to perverse judgements and unintended consequences. The perceived punitive effects and the impact of judgements on services in terms of the local media and political response are in danger of creating a climate whereby the inspected manage for inspection rather than managing for quality and outcomes for children and young people."

This was Systems Thinkers have been saying for years. Dr. W. Edwards Deming had as point 3 of his famous 14 points: "Cease dependence on inspection." Deming knew that inspection has many unwanted consequences:

• People focus on passing inspections rather than doing what is right
• Time, money and effort that could be spent on the work is spent on preparing for inspection
• The fear of failing an inspection causes stress and worry which in turn reduces performance
• The banality of tick-box inspection regimes makes people demoralised and they question why they are doing the job if this is how they are judged

However, Ofsted is not to blame. The problem comes from the widely held belief that quality can be inspected into an organisation. Quality does not come from outside, it is grown from within. That is not to say that outside expertise is not needed to bring new thinking or that some form of audit or inspection is not required, but that audit should be restricted to checking for probity in regards to money and resources, i.e. that no-one is perpetrating any fraud, and inspectors should throw away all the forms with the tick-boxes on them and ask one question,

"What are you doing to understand and improve the work?"

Then if managers are struggling to get understanding or to find or implement a method of improvement, the inspector can pull in assistance. Importantly this would be help and support, not punishment.

Ofsted and its ilk (The Audit Commission etc.) all need to reoriented to focus on helping organisations to improve rather than inspecting them to ensure that they comply with centrally mandated criteria of success. The removal of the current inspection regime would firstly free organisations to do the work without distraction and then the implementation of supportive improvement mechanisms would enable them to far exceed the dreams of any narrow inspection system.

Best,

Rob