Consultation outcome

Experimental measures on the quality of provision

Updated 24 June 2021

Applies to England

We are proposing to introduce 4 new measures to the further education and skills inspections and outcomes official statistics from June 2021. These measures will analyse the quality of provision across England for:

• education programmes for young people in further education
• adult learning programmes
• apprenticeships
• provision for learners with high needs

These experimental statistics relate to proposal 3 in the consultation.

Methodology

We include providers in the analysis for a provision type if they have had a full inspection and are recorded in Ofsted’s systems on the day we do the data cut, as either being:

• directly and publicly funded to deliver that provision
• recorded as currently delivering that provision

We take the inspection grade used to represent the quality of provision from a provider’s latest full inspection. This will either be the provision sub-judgement or, if the provision was not graded at the point of inspection, the provider’s overall effectiveness grade.

The underlying data for each provision measure is broken down by a provider’s latest type of inspection: short inspection or full inspection.

Providers judged good at their previous inspection will normally have a short inspection. A short inspection will determine primarily whether the quality of education/training that learners receive is good. However, a short inspection has no graded judgements and does not change the provider’s overall effectiveness grade. For provider’s whose latest inspection is a short inspection, we have included the judgements from their most recent full inspection.

Progress judgements made on new provider monitoring visits are not included and we will continue to report on these separately.

You can find further information on how we determine providers to be funded and/or delivering provision in the further education and skills inspections and outcomes methodology and quality report, published alongside the official statistics.

New measures

Each of the new measures has been presented below. This includes a chart showing the proportion of outstanding, good, requires improvement or inadequate providers based on the methodology described above. Underneath each chart, we have provided a table showing the breakdown of the inspection outcomes that make up the measure.

We have published a separate dataset alongside this document to show which providers are included in each provision type aggregation.

Figure 1: Quality of education programmes for young people in further education, as at 31 August 2020

^{Number of providers in brackets.
Download a zip file with the underlying data in csv format.}

Table 1: Quality of education programmes for young people, as at 31 August 2020

Latest inspection type	Grade taken from latest full inspection	Total number of providers	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
Short inspection	Sub-judgement	0	0	0	0	0
Short inspection	Overall effectiveness	197	0	197	0	0
Full inspection	Sub-judgement	60	7	33	20	0
Full inspection	Overall effectiveness	450	102	256	80	12
Total	-	707	109	486	100	12

^{Number of providers.}

The ‘education programmes for young people’ provision judgement was introduced as part of the education inspection framework on 1 September 2019. This means that, currently, nearly all (92%) of the grades that make up this quality measure come from a provider’s overall effectiveness judgement. Overall, out of the 707 providers funded and/or delivering education programmes to young people on 31 August 2020, 84% were good or outstanding.

Figure 2: Quality of adult learning programmes, as at 31 August 2020

^{Number of providers in brackets.
Download a zip file with the underlying data in csv format.}

Table 2: Quality of adult learning programmes, as at 31 August 2020

Latest inspection type	Grade taken from latest full inspection	Total number of providers	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
Short inspection	Sub-judgement	132	1	129	2	0
Short inspection	Overall effectiveness	116	0	116	0	0
Full inspection	Sub-judgement	327	42	231	49	5
Full inspection	Overall effectiveness	234	50	137	39	8
Total	-	809	93	613	90	13

^{Number of providers.}

The ‘adult learning programmes’ provision judgement was introduced as part of the second common inspection framework on 1 September 2015. Just over half (57%) of the grades that make up this quality measure come from the adult learning programmes sub-judgement. Overall, out of the 809 providers funded and/or delivering adult learning programmes on 31 August 2020, 87% were good or outstanding.

Figure 3: Quality of apprenticeship provision, as at 31 August 2020

^{Number of providers in brackets.
Download a zip file with the underlying data in csv format.}

Table 3: Quality of apprenticeship provision, as at 31 August 2020

Latest inspection type	Grade taken from latest full inspection	Total number of providers	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
Short inspection	Sub-judgement	123	4	116	3	0
Short inspection	Overall effectiveness	95	0	95	0	0
Full inspection	Sub-judgement	449	41	269	116	23
Full inspection	Overall effectiveness	73	32	30	9	2
Total	-	740	77	510	128	25

^{Number of providers.}

The ‘apprenticeship’ provision judgement was introduced as part of the first common inspection framework on 1 September 2012. Around three quarters (77%) of the grades that make up this quality measure come from the apprenticeship sub-judgement. Overall, out of the 740 providers funded and/or delivering apprenticeships on 31 August 2020, 79% were good or outstanding.

Figure 4: Quality of provision for learners with high needs, as at 31 August 2020

^{Number of providers in brackets.
Download a zip file with the underlying data in csv format.}

Table 4: Quality of provision for learners with high needs, as at 31 August 2020

Latest inspection type	Grade taken from latest full inspection	Total number of providers	Outstanding	Good	Requires improvement	Inadequate
Short inspection	Sub-judgement	2	1	1	0	0
Short inspection	Overall effectiveness	101	0	101	0	0
Full inspection	Sub-judgement	188	21	124	38	5
Full inspection	Overall effectiveness	118	44	61	13	0
Total	-	409	66	287	51	5

^{Number of providers.}

The ‘provision for learners with high needs’ judgement was introduced as part of the second common inspection framework on 1 September 2015. Just under half (46%) of the grades that make up this quality measure come from the provision for learners with high needs sub-judgement. Overall, out of the 409 providers funded and/or delivering provision for learners with high needs as at 31 August 2020, 86% were good or outstanding.

Inclusion in future statistics

We are proposing to include the above quality measures in our bi-annual further education and skills inspections and outcomes official statistics. We are not proposing to include the measures within our published management information.

Within the main findings, we would include:

• a commentary on the comparison between provision types in the first year
• expanded to include a commentary on changes over time from the second year onwards

Within the data, tables and charts file, we would include:

• the chart with its underlying table in the first year
• the chart showing a trend over time from the second year onwards
• an identifier in the provider-level data, on the most recent data tab, to indicate which providers appear in which measures