Nursery World - Exclusive: Ofsted

An investigation by the Pre-school Learning Alliance has revealed
that data on more than 400 early years inspections was omitted from
quarterly statistics published by Ofsted last year due to delays in the
publication of inspection reports, Nursery World can exclusively
reveal.

The statistical discrepancies were revealed when the alliance compared quarterly figures released last year with Ofsted's report published in March, for inspections from 1 September 2012 to 31 October 2013.

The analysis shows that data on 425 full early years inspections is missing from the quarterly statistics covering early years inspection outcomes from April to June 2013, published last September.

Once these 'missing' inspections were added to the quarterly statistics, 9 per cent of providers were graded inadequate during this period, rather than the 7 per cent as stated in the quarterly figures. Moreover, in the previous quarter only 26 reports were missing.

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