by Ofsted inspectors have been forced to “make up” evidence as the computer system they use to record inspections sometimes crashes, wiping all the data, and Observer An investigation has been found.
Since 2018, inspectors have taken live notes on laptops or tablets while interviewing staff and observing lessons after Ofsted invested in a digital electronic evidence gathering (EEG) platform. However, our investigation found that the technology had serious problems from the start, sometimes crashing unexpectedly and losing all notes from interviews, or even entire days of evidence, so that inspectors have to replace from memory without telling the school.
The IS Observer A number of current or recent inspectors spoke on condition of anonymity who said such problems had been “common” for years, and that senior leaders within Ofsted were aware of this, but “there has been a lot of cover-up”.
After this story was first published a spokesperson for Ofsted told The Observer that chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver is “initiating a rapid review to satisfy himself that the EEG and the guidance for inspectors are robust”. The spokesman added that if schools or inspectors have concerns “we would like to hear from them directly, so we can respond appropriately”.
Daniel Kebede, secretary general of the National Education Union, said: “This has echoes of the Post Office scandal. He hates the idea of inspectors missing evidence, or remembering what they can. It’s not how schools are allowed to behave.” He argued that if such a practice was common, “essentially all inspections carried out over the past five years should be ignored”.
An Ofsted spokesman said: “We are serious about the processes we use to reach an inspection judgement.” They emphasized that “all judgments are supported by sufficient evidence” from the inspection team and that senior Ofsted staff also have quality assurance.
The spokesman described the EEG tool as “a simple platform that is only used to record written evidence” and said: “All inspectors have been issued with clear guidance on what to do if they are unable to access on the system.”
One current inspector told the Observer: “In the middle of a meeting with a school, you might suddenly lose all your evidence. The advice is not to pretend and keep an indestructible face.”
He recalled sitting in a hotel trying to submit evidence a day after the system was closed and losing everything: “You are exhausted because the day of the inspection is long and endless and you have documents to read for the next day.”
When colleagues at headquarters wanted to do a “rigorous check” for an “Excellent” grade he had just given a school. “They were looking for evidence but it wasn’t there,” he said. “A lot is covered up.”
A former inspector described how he sat and watched as evidence from a long interview “just disappeared off the screen, like a self-destructing Banksy artwork”. He said: “It’s very hard to avoid body language cues when that’s going on.” And he added: “The instruction there was just to make it up.”
He added: “I know there are senior leaders in Ofsted who are aware of these problems.”
Ofsted investigated EEG last year, which inspectors say confirmed serious issues, but no one was aware of any significant changes being made in response.
Education providers were not fully aware of any of these problems. However, the Observer has he seen Ofsted’s written response to a complaint from a school about missing evidence. You say: “You say that during the last meeting the chief inspector declared: ‘It’s all gone’, referring to the evidence on his computer.”
The response also notes that the draft report included a school motto that “wasn’t really your school motto”, and that the school had “little confidence in the evidence base”.
Ofsted rejected this, saying that the chief inspector had recorded that the recording of the final meeting had disappeared but that all other evidence was recorded and “subject to enhanced quality assurance”. The IS Observer who understands that evidence of this was never shown to the school.
A third former Ofsted inspector said: “I lost everything in the middle of a meeting with a co-ordinator at the start of a deep dive. [into the teaching of a specific subject]. The chief inspector lost everything when she returned to the hotel that night, as did the new inspector on the team.”
Three inspectors reported that they or colleagues started making notes in Word because they did not trust the system, but Ofsted threatened disciplinary action if they did not use EEG.
Julie Price Grimshaw, a former inspector who now advises schools, said that while serving in the pen and paper era, “lots of inspectors” told her about times when the system collapsed and they lost evidence.
She said: “It is clear that a substantial chunk, and perhaps an entire body of evidence, is disappearing into the ether and never to be seen again.”
Ofsted said that if the EEG system did not work, inspectors were advised to record their evidence in “another reasonable way” and “transfer it to the system as soon as possible”. An Ofsted spokesman added: “If during the quality assurance process there was insufficient evidence on the system to support the judgement, inspectors would be instructed to return to the school to collect and record further evidence.”
