Alison O’Sullivan,
President of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), hit
the nail on the head in her speech to the ADCS annual conference in Manchester
when she roundly criticised Ofsted’s current single inspection framework as
“broken and discredited”. She is absolutely right to argue that the framework
has become “burdensome” and that it consumes disproportionate resources.
You can read full
details of her speech in Children andYoung People Now.
What fascinates me is that Ofsted never quantifies the costs and benefits of
its inspections. Of course it is not just the work that inspectors do that
costs, but also all the work that the inspected authority has to do to
accommodate the inspection. Then there are the downstream costs, if the
inspection finds an authority inadequate or requiring improvement, such as the
costs of staff losses and recruitment problems and restructurings and
consultants – and re-inspections! In the case of some authorities all these
costs are incurred without much evidence of subsequent improvement.
In a world of
austerity in public finances, money spent on improving quality has to be
monitored just as much as money spent on other things. I believe money would be
better spent trying to design quality into services before failings occur,
rather than devoting lots of resources to chronicling shortfalls and failings when
these have already occurred.
It's always cheaper and less painful to get it right first time.
