Ofsted to publish school inspection reports – including those giving ‘inadequate’ rating – during purdah

Ofsted has announced that it will publish inspection reports for local authority schools including those assessed to be ‘inadequate’ in the run up to the local elections in England.

However, the watchdog said in its latest guidance that it reserves the right to withhold publication of any individual report on a “discretionary basis” during the period of ‘pre-election silence’, also known as ‘purdah’. 

It said: “This may be necessary where a particular inspection has been the focus of significant local political campaigning.”

At previous elections, Ofsted withheld inspection reports for local authority schools judged ‘inadequate’.

For general and local authority elections, Ofsted will continue to pause the publication of reports that make local authority-wide judgements.

In its new guidance, published last week (26 March), the watchdog said it will not publish:

• inspections of LA services under the inspection of local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework, including monitoring and focused visits
• inspections of local area services for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND)
• joint targeted area inspections (JTAI) – these are inspections with Ofsted, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) and HM Inspectorate of Probation
• management information, transparency data and other data sets with a local area breakdown

However, it will continue to publish:

• state-funded schools and early years (EY) provision 
• reports of all Ofsted inspected/regulated social care providers 
• multi-academy trust summary evaluations 
• childminder agency inspection reports 
• childcare register compliance inspection outcome letters 
• outcome summaries following regulatory action of childcare provision 
• independent schools, including aligned inspection reports 
• reports under the online education accreditation scheme (OEAS) 
• teacher training providers (including initial teacher education (ITE) and early career framework (ECF) and national professional qualification (NPQ)) 
• full and short inspections and monitoring visits of further education and skills (FES) providers.

Ofsted said that for local authority elections, its pre-election silence period would be set at four weeks before an election. For general elections, it will follow Cabinet Office guidelines.

“After any election, Ofsted will operate a short delay in publication so reports are published after the following weekend. This is to allow for recounts, where administrations take time to form and to avoid the short window where LAs are dealing with election administration,” the watchdog added.

Lottie Winson