Friday 30th May, 2014

Ofsted has announced today that it's to stop using outsourced contractors to carry out school inspections.

The inspectorate’s six year deals with CfBT, Serco and Tribal expire in September 2015 and it has decided that it will bring management of inspections in-house after that.

The ‘additional inspectors’ currently working for the contractors form a large proportion of Ofsted inspectors. It's expected that they will be retained, but will be working directly for the watchdog.

Ofsted said this would give it “more direct control over their selection, training and quality assurance”.

The inspectorate has been coming under growing fire for alleged inconsistencies in its inspections in recent years and it's likely that today's announced change is in response to that.

Brian Lightman, general secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, said: “This is a big step forward. We believe that by having all of the inspections implemented by Ofsted it will enable them to ensure to address the real problem of variability of practice.”

Russell Hobby, general secretary of heads' union the NAHT agreed, but added: “Ofsted needs to be sure that its own internal quality assurance is up to spec. It is inspecting too many things too frequently for us to be entirely confident about quality.” 

Ofsted plans to continue its existing contractual arrangements with Tribal and Prospects Services for early years' inspections.