Time For Leaders To Ask The Right Questions

Earlier this month, The Times carried a revealing interview with Sir Martyn Oliver, who had just started as head of Ofsted, the body that since 1992 has been charged with inspecting the U.K.’s schools. In normal times, a feature on such a bureaucrat would probably be of interest only to those with a close interest in education and/or the workings of government. But these are not normal times for all sorts of reasons, but especially for schools. Things were not great before, but ever since the pandemic there has been concern about the disproportionate effects of the lockdowns on children in terms of not just their learning but also their social development, while there are constant reports of rising rates of truancy and violence in schools. On top of all this, an inquest late last year found that an Ofsted inspection that led to a school’s rating being downgraded had “contributed more than minimally” to the head teacher’s mental health deterioration and death, with the coroner warning that if Ofsted failed to learn from this there would be “more tragedies like this.” So it is worth examining what this man has to say.

Sir Martyn, a former head himself who became leader of a trust running 41 schools, mainly in deprived areas, is clearly not one to duck a challenge. In that role he attracted headlines and criticism for strict discipline, but is defiant. Pointing out that he has been able to change the culture of organizations before, he says that he is keen to change Ofsted’s “defensive” culture. “Everything starts with leadership, with vision and efficacy,” he says. “I’m ensuring all staff are open and transparent and not defensive.”

Looked at from the outside, it seems the problem with Ofsted lies in its beginnings. Then prime minister John Major set it up as a replacement for the old Her Majesty’s Inspectors to be more rigorous in driving up standards. And so it is easy to see how those carrying out the inspections and running the body could feel they were on some kind of mission on behalf of the vulnerable. There are echoes of this attitude elsewhere, notably in the recent Post Office computer scandal, where investigators appeared to have been over-zealous and their superiors either lacking in curiosity about how so many accounting issues could suddenly be occurring at small post offices or so convinced that there was widespread fraud that they did not question the computer’s findings. As Camilla Cavendish, former director of policy for David Cameron when he was prime minister, recently wrote, the U.K. is littered with organizations that are “fundamentally unaccountable.” The Post Office, state-owned but independent, is a prime example. But so, too, are universities that pay top management as if they were businesses but are not run as such and privatized water monopolies that have spent years illegally dumping sewage into rivers and the sea, with little punishment.

In Cavendish’s view, the Post Office saga shows the importance of keeping an open mind. Context is also important. At Ofsted, which as well as checking on schools also inspects children’s homes, childminders, nurseries, colleges and secure training centres, the new chief reportedly plans to introduce “area insights,” which will focus on geographical areas to look at problems in the round. “The point of being a system leader is to look across all of those pieces and think, ‘Why is it happening?’,” says Sir Martyn.

Quite. It is tempting to think this is a problem exclusive to the public sector and the hybrid bodies allied to it. Certainly, there is plenty of evidence for Cavendish’s view that there is an “apparatchik class” whose members move from job to job within the system despite sometimes terrible failings. But there seem to be many private sector executives who — far from asking the right questions — fail to challenge the received wisdom with often less-than-brilliant results and, except when something catastrophic like the Financial Crisis happens, are just as able to bounce from one lucrative position to another.