Ofsted to recruit etc their own inspectors

[narnia]

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-to-directly-manage-early-years-inspections

[Rea]

Hooray for common sense!

[Cait]

Well you've got to ask why they let them out in the first place!

[catma]

It will make no difference - same inspection framework and systems. The people won't be any different. Ofsted re-recruited inspectors for schools when they took over the schools inspection framework!

 

Cx

[sunnyday]

It will make no difference - same inspection framework and systems. The people won't be any different. Ofsted re-recruited inspectors for schools when they took over the schools inspection framework!

 

Cx

That was my thought too!

[finleysmaid]

It will make no difference - same inspection framework and systems. The people won't be any different. Ofsted re-recruited inspectors for schools when they took over the schools inspection framework!

 

Cx

you never know it might make them more consistent? well can but hope !

[catma]

you never know it might make them more consistent? well can but hope !

well schools are still complaining about consistency a year after Ofsted took inspection back in house so I wouldn't hold your breath!!

[BroadOaks]

Less money for the private sector.. but where are all these public sector inspectors coming from? Will they require training? Are they all moving from the private companies and being employed by Ofsted?

 

Companies like Tribal, Prospects and Serco, for examples, offer services via contracts, these contracts are worth a lot of money to these companies and of course many managerial, secretarial, administration staff are also required to organise these services. These also needed paying of course!

 

 

The Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) supported Ofsted having “more direct control over the selection, training and quality assurance of inspectors and inspection teams”.

 

So the main questions are:

Is this going to save us the tax payer money?

Will we get the same level of service?

Why did the government need to use these private companies in the first place?

Edited March 15, 2016 by BroadOaks

[BroadOaks]

Sorry to double post, i don't like to keep editing and also this is a slightly different topic to what i said above. I like to understand things and to know exactly why things happen, and i like to try to explain what i think is happening.

 

So we know that over the last few years Ofsted decided to outsource services to private companies. This meant that a few private companies all gave Ofsted (A Government department) quotes in the form of bids. This happened regionally with different private companies winning bids in different areas of the UK. Presumably due to infrastructure set up in different areas of the UK it allowed cheaper quotes per area to be chosen by Ofsted? This makes financial sense, if it was the case, although it makes the services used per area even more inconsistent. This is due to, i presume again, communication, different training programs and overall standards per company.

 

I take it that overall at that time, rather than Ofsted needing to train and manage Ofsted inspectors, it was cheaper to outsource. This would make sense right?

 

These companies like Tribal for example, who originally won the bid for an area of the UK and secured a contract with Ofsted for millions of pounds, then had a great deal of spending power, from i presume borrowed money, or investors. ie Crowd Funding. Can you imagine the risk involved to an investor and are they made aware?! Also more infrastructure would have been either rented or bought, built to house the staff required, ie admin staff etc..

 

So now Tribal have lost their main contract and have possibly lost a lot of investment or investors money during this process. What Tribal do have however are hundreds or possibly thousands of trained Ofsted inspectors and these inspectors have already been trained at the Investors expense. Now Ofsted could simply employ them (depending on contracts) without the cost of training.. good for the taxpayer i guess.

 

 

OK i have looked into Tribal and looking at the 5 years share prices LINK it looks like a lot of shares where purchased when Tribal announced taking the contract, and a lot have now been sold since the news regarding losing the contract. I guess most investors did well out of it after all? Also Tribal seem to do a lot of charity work and invest in countries like Africa, so this Ofsted contract has served a great purpose i guess.

Edited March 15, 2016 by BroadOaks

[catma]

So now Tribal have lost their main contract and have possibly lost a lot of investment or investors money during this process. What Tribal do have however are hundreds or possibly thousands of trained Ofsted inspectors and these inspectors have already been trained at the Investors expense. Now Ofsted could simply employ them (depending on contracts) without the cost of training.. good for the taxpayer i guess.

However Tribal have charged for all their training, even the mandatory training which they demand you do as an inspector.

 

Cx

[BroadOaks]

Hmm that's interesting, thank you for that information. I wonder what will happen to all these inspectors?

[Pimms o'clock?]

Hmm that's interesting, thank you for that information. I wonder what will happen to all these inspectors?

Me too (wonder what will happen to inspectors), having had to pay for my training as a freelance. Only recent change has been that Ofsted HMI have been facilitating training themselves but we still have to pay for it.