Consultation on post-inspection arrangements and complaints handling

Ofsted has launched a consultation on proposed changes to our post-inspection arrangements and complaints handling, closing on Friday 15 September 2023. Host Shreena Kotecha, Head of Strategy, speaks to our Principal Officer for Inspection Quality and Complaints Administration, Paul Trusselle, about the consultation and proposed changes. 

To respond to the consultation, please visit: https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/changes-to-ofsteds-post-inspection-arrangements-and-complaints-handling-proposals-2023.

 

 

Shreena: Hello and welcome to the first of our more regular bite sized episodes of Ofsted Talks. I'm Shreena Kotecha, Head of Strategy here at Ofsted. These new episodes as the title sort of gives away will give shorter updates on what's happening here at Ofsted, but don't worry if you're one of our keen listeners we’ll still be running the longer deep dive episodes every month. So, if you want to keep up to date with everything we do here Ofsted please don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. So, in June, we announced several changes to our inspections and we launched a formal consultation on proposed changes to our post- inspection arrangements and complaints handling. With me today is Paul Trusselle, who is our Principal Officer for Inspection Quality and Complaints Administration, and he's here to talk us through the consultation and the proposed changes. So Paul, could you start by just telling us why the current consultation is happening?

Paul: Hi, Shreena. Yes, no problem at all. As you know, we keep all of our processes under review to make inspections as collaborative and transparent as possible. We last changed our post inspection arrangements and how we handle complaints about our work in 2020. And since then, we've carried out over 50,000 inspections across all of our remits. As such, and building on lots of experience from our current arrangements, we've been reviewing what we do, developing some new possible approaches and piloting some of these on inspections over recent months. These approaches were then formalised into a consultation that was launched in June with us seeking feedback on four key proposals. As these proposals are applicable across all of our inspection work, we're really keen and seeking views from all providers that Ofsted inspects and regulates across early years, schools, further education skills and also social care.

Shreena: Brilliant, Paul. You mentioned that the consultation has got four proposals. Can you tell us what those are?

Paul: Yeah, sure. It's important for us to have a right first time approach to inspection where we can consider and resolve any issues during the inspection process wherever possible. We also want providers to be able to seek a review of the inspection findings and for them to feel confident that any challenge will be considered fairly and thoroughly, including a chance for them to contribute to the process. Importantly, any process must also be deliverable within the resource and scope of Ofsted. But broadly, we've got four proposals, two of which link more closely to the inspection process and two link to how we handle complaints about any activities that we do.

Shreena: Would you mind starting with the two proposals that relate to the inspection process?

Paul: Yeah, our first new proposal is about enhancing professional dialogue during inspections, as we know that effective communication is key to successful inspections. Our inspection handbooks set out how inspectors will engage positively and professionally with providers and inspectors already routinely check with providers during an inspection whether they have any issues. But we propose to formalise this approach by asking inspectors to check with providers at a few specific stages of the visit and make a record of this. We'd need to tailor this accordingly to the type of inspection that we do. However, the principle of trying to address any issues before the end of the inspection visit is applicable about our work. We've been piloting this approach in some of our early years, schools and social care inspections in recent months and feedback from providers on this has been really positive, with providers commenting that they valued this further focus on professional dialogue throughout the inspection visit. Our second proposal seeks to introduce a new opportunity for providers to contact Ofsted the day after an inspection visit if they've any unresolved concerns. We know that providers will reflect afterwards and might think of important points they want to raise. This might be to clarify what happens next and when they will receive their inspection report, to query an aspect of the inspection process and what was found, or perhaps to highlight something that they feel was not fully considered during the visit. As such, instead of the provider having to wait until they get their draft report to submit any comments to us, we propose to introduce a new opportunity for providers to call Ofsted the day after the end of the visit to discuss any unresolved concerns. Calls will be directed to inspectors separate to the inspection in question who will discuss any issues with the provider so they can be resolved at the earliest opportunity. Again, we've been piloting this in some of our early years, schools and social care inspections in recent months. The number of calls to Ofsted has been quite low, helpfully demonstrating that inspectors do deal with most queries during the inspection itself. However, providers who have contacted Ofsted the day after an inspection have reported that they found this really helpful, welcoming the chance to speak to an inspector to discuss the queries that they've had. We've also had some feedback from providers that didn't call us but liked knowing that they could have done so if they needed to.

Shreena: Brilliant. Could you talk about the third and fourth proposals for after the inspections?

Paul: Sure. The third proposal is linked to our processes for finalising inspection reports and considering any formal complaint or challenge before the report is finalised and published on our website. As we show in our published annual report and accounts document, the vast majority of our inspections do not lead to a formal complaint from providers and these reports are published promptly. We often receive requests from providers for the report to be published as soon as possible, so they can celebrate and share the positive outcomes of their inspection. However, we know that in some cases providers want to formally challenge the inspection findings, and we'll continue to consider these complaints thoroughly before we finalise and publish their report. We're proposing two new routes that providers can follow when they get their draft report. First, if a provider wants to highlight minor points of clarity or factual accuracy, we will consider these promptly and finalise the inspection report. We expect the vast majority of providers to follow this route, allowing reports to be published quickly for the benefit of providers, parents and other service users. However, if providers choose this route, they’ll not normally have an opportunity later to raise a formal complaint or challenge. Alternatively, if a provider wants to seek a review of their inspection findings and judgments, they can submit a formal complaint. As now, if a complaint is submitted, it'd be investigated by a member of Ofsted staff independent of the inspection. We also propose that this investigation in future includes a telephone call to the provider to explore their concerns fully and resolve issues quickly. An investigation could result in no changes to the report, changes to the report text or perhaps the grades awarded, or the inspection being deemed to be incomplete and confirmation that there'll be a further visit to gather additional evidence. We also intend to revise complaints outcome letters to be clearer for providers about the reasons for the decisions we've made. Taken together, we feel that these proposals - the two on inspection and the one about the post inspection approaches - if agreed, will help us achieve that right first time approach to inspections that we want and will strengthen current arrangements on handling complaints about our work. Our fourth proposal is to remove the current internal review step in our complaints process. This step is a review, by Ofsted, on how we handled the original complaint and is not a reinvestigation of the issues raised. Also under our current process, this step must be completed before a complainant can contact the independent adjudicator, known as ICASO, to ask for an independent review of how their complaint was handled. To help reduce the burden on providers, we propose that if complainants are concerned that we have not followed our complaints handling process correctly, they can raise it directly with ICASO. Instead of the current escalated levels of review, Ofsted will therefore consider any formal complaint only once and thoroughly. We also propose to introduce period reviews of how we handle complaints about inspection and to do this, we'll take a sample of closed cases and submit them to a panel of external reviewers, including representatives from the sectors that we inspect. The panel can provide challenge and transparency on how we've handled complaints about our work that will then feed into future improvements. So those are the four proposals.

Shreena: How can people respond to this consultation and when is the deadline?

Paul: All the details of the consultation are available on the Ofsted website, including the link to the online form. We’ve already had more responses than we did when we last consulted on post-inspection arrangements in 2020. Also, responses so far across all inspection remits have provided broad support for all of the proposals. We’re really keen to receive as many responses as possible. And it's for that reason that the consultation period is much much longer than in 2020. We started in mid-June, well before the summer break, and mindful of summer closures for some providers, the consultation is remaining open until Friday the 15th of September, a few weeks into the new academic year. So, plenty of time for people to submit a response if they'd like to do so.

Shreena: Thanks, Paul. It's really good news that we've had so many responses so far. Do you know when we will respond to the consultation and when you’ll have reviewed all the responses?

Paul: With the consultation closing on the 15th of September, we'll be reviewing all of the responses received well into the autumn, including all of the free text comments that are submitted through to us. This feedback will help form our decisions on the new processes and how we handle complaints about our work going forward. In due course, as we did in 2020, we will publish a report on our website with the outcome of the consultation, including setting out next steps that we’ll be taking as a result.

Shreena: Brilliant. Thank you so much, Paul. So just to remind our listeners the closing date for the consultation is Friday the 15th of September. We will put a link to the consultation in the summary of this podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss the next one, please subscribe and leave us a rating wherever you get your podcasts.

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