During the last two weeks some election leaflets contained a statement about Ofsted reports on Stockport’s Continuing Education service that were inaccurate, and we wish to withdraw the statement made in the leaflets. We would like to make clear that Ofsted did not and do not make party political judgements. These were not quotations from the 2018 Ofsted report.
For the sake of accuracy, the report did categorise the service as Good and showed successful changes from the previous May 2016 Report when Stockport was given a grading of “Requires Improvement”.
There was no intention to involve Ofsted in this political argument as it is an independent well-respected organisation. We offer our apologies for this matter.
[An explanatory holding statement was originally published here on 26 April and updated on Tuesday 30 April on receipt of guidance from the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit]
BACKGROUND
In May 2016, Ofsted said the Stockport Continuing Education service “requires improvement” in all areas. The 2016 Ofsted report concluded:
“Council leaders and senior managers do not challenge the service’s senior managers sufficiently to bring about secure improvements” and ”Managers have not developed effective plans to recruit learners from priority groups across all the provision, and consequently too few unemployed learners or learners on low pay benefit from the courses.” (Ofsted, May 2016).
The report also found a mismatch between the formal qualifications offered and learners’ aspirations, which left “learners [are] not prepared sufficiently well for employment”. (Ofsted, May 2016).
The March 2018 Ofsted report indicates improvements across a number of areas, with all areas achieving the status of ‘good’. The report notes:
“Governors, senior leaders and managers have successfully rectified all the weaknesses identified at the previous inspection and have maintained the aspects that were good” and “learners make good progress on their courses, developing relevant knowledge and skills, and achieving qualifications that help them to fulfil their personal goals and aspirations.” (Ofsted, March 2018)