Ofsted 'Guide to Ofsted’s house style' and requirements of Inspectors to comply with statutory guidance.

Dear Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills,

This Freedom of Information Request (FOIR) follows on from previous FOIR as follows:

(1) Original FOIR requesting evidence notes of an inspection undertaken at the City of Norwich School, an Ormiston Academy (CNS) in December 2021 (link as follows):

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

(2) A follow up FOIR requesting clarification of acronyms and abbreviations used in the response (link as follows):

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

Within your response to FOIR (2) above you state as follows:

"Further to our email advising that the regional team will be responding to your queries about the 2021 inspection of the above school, as this is being responded to outside the FOI Act"

The reason for my FOIR (2) above was that the evidence notes supplied in response to my FOIR (1) above was very difficult to read, partly because all formatting had been removed from the document leaving things such as line and paragraph breaks removed (you can view the actual document at the following link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

Interpreting the information was also difficult because the inspectors involved failed to abide by acceptable practice of providing clear explanations of acronyms and abbreviations used.

One of the Ofsted requirements for inspectors is to comply with a guide labelled 'Guide to Ofsted’s house style'. This guide is published online at the following .gov.uk link:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...

Within the guide which seems to support an academic style of writing it states as follows:

"As Ofsted staff, you must use this guide when writing inspection reports"

With 'must' being an operative word it indicates inspectors, when making reports must fully explain, within the evidence report itself, the meaning of any acronyms and abbreviations used in evidence reports.

The evidence report supplied by Ofsted response to my FOIR (1) above does not explain the meanings of any acronyms or abbreviations used within the report, hence the purpose of my FOIR (2) above to determine the meanings of acronyms and abbreviations used within the report.

Your initial response to my FOIR(2) above was that the Ofsted supplied partial information to my request regarding evidence files for a 2016 inspection of the CNS but then went on to state as follows:

"Further to our email advising that the regional team will be responding to your queries about the 2021 inspection of the above school, as this is being responded to outside the FOI Act "

This statement refers to other elements of my FOIR (2) requesting the clarifications missing from the evidence notes supplied in response to FOIR(1) above.

I complied with Ofsted's request to provide my personal email address for the outstanding responses and an email was recieved from a senior HMI requesting further personal information such as my phone number, following provide that a phone call was arranged with the senior HMI who would provide 'offline' the clarifications requested. The senior HMI re-iterated that the response in the phone all was outside the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The Ofsted style guide also confirms that there is an internal document containing a glossary of the terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

Therefore I would like to make the following follow up FOIR to my previous FOIR(1) an (2) above.

FOIR-1 Please could you provide a copy of the glossary of terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

FOIR-2 Please can you confirm that the requirements of the 'Ofsted Style Guide' remain in effect or if now no longer in effect when it was discarded or replaced.

FOIR-3 Clearly the inspectors failed to follow the style guide by omitting the required explanations/clarifications required by the style guide, hence the reason of my FOIR(2) above. however the information I requested should have been held in the report itself but may be held within the glossary of terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

Within your initial response to my FOIR(2) you stated the reason for requesting my personal email address was because of Ofsted concerns 'due to the potential security risks of sending information through WhatDoTheyKnow [WDTK]'.

FOIR-4 Please can you identify the potential security risks identified by Ofsted of sending information through WDTK as opposed to sending to my personal email address? (e.g. the WDTK website is the security risk or using a WDTK email address is a security risk etc?)

After I supplied my personal email address to Ofsted I received an email from a senior HMI requesting my personal telephone number so they could call me.

FOIR-5 The ICO has stated that the WDTK email address is an acceptable form of communications and only requires requestors to identify themselves by their real name. There is no indication in ICO guidelines that public authorities can go outside of those requirements and request personal information such as personal email address and personal phone numbers in order to receive a response. Given my FOIR(2) did not seek to elicit any personal or sensitive third party personal information please can the Ofsted explain why I have to provide such various personal information in order to receive responses?

Thank you for your time in responding to my FOIR and if you require any clarifications or corrections please do not hesitate to ask.

Yours Sincerely

Gary Symonds

Dear Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills's handling of my FOI request 'Ofsted 'Guide to Ofsted’s house style' and requirements of Inspectors to comply with statutory guidance.'.

I would like to submit a Request for Internal Review (RfIR) of the Ofsted refusal of my Freedom of Information Request (FOIR) submitted on the 29th April 2024.

The complete history of my FOIR can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

The Ofsted has, on the 22nd May 2024, refused the request based on Section 14(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA or 'the Act').

The Ofsted refusal notice provides comprehensive detail of the reasons why they view my request as vexatious and states they waiver the rights of Internal Review requests. Before fully going into my response and RfIR I would like to point out the following:

(1) The refusal notice states "We are content to waive the internal review stage of the FOI appeals process in
favour of you directly approaching the ICO if you are dissatisfied with this response."

However, that statement of the Ofsted wavering my rights to submit a Request for Internal Review (RfIR) is something I believe the Ofsted does not have the authority to do under the Act. I believe it might need the intervention of the Cabinet Office, the ICO or an Ombudsman to further clarify this. I believe any decisions will be based on presentation of all the evidence not just the Ofsted's view.

(2) I would like to refer the Ofsted FOI Team to the following WhatDoTheyKnow.com (WDTK) request where the Cabinet Office confirm "Under section 47(1)(b) of the FOI Act the Information Commissioner has a duty to promote the following of good practice by public authorities and, in particular, the observance of the provisions under section 45 as set out by the Minister for the Cabinet Office."

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

(3) The Cabinet Office provides a "Freedom of Information Code of Practice" at the following URL:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...

(4) The introduction to the Code of Practice states "This Code of Practice provides guidance for public authorities on best practice in meeting
their responsibilities under Part I of the Act. It sets the standard for all public authorities when considering how to respond to Freedom of Information requests."

(5) Under Section 5 of the Code of Practice the Cabinet Office states:

"5.1 It is best practice for each public authority to have a procedure in place for dealing with
disputes about its handling of requests for information. These disputes will usually be dealt
with as a request for an “internal review” of the original decision."

"5.2 Public authorities are obliged, under section 17(7) of the Act, when responding to a
request for information, to notify applicants of whether they have an internal review process
and, if they do, to set out the details of their review procedures, including details of how
applicants request an internal review"

It is my view the Ofsted have unhelpfully defied the Cabinet Office Code of Practice by advising me they waiver my rights to submit an RfIR under the conditions of the Act given (1) to (5) above.

*This view is further reinforced by correspondence I have received from the ICO regarding ICO Case Reference IC-311994-X7N4 where I had submitted a complaint regarding WDTK FOIR at the following link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

The correspondence shows that I had submitted a complaint directly to the ICO based on the Ofsted advice that my rights to submit an RfIR were waived by the Ofsted and the response from the ICO is as follows:

"We will not be investigating the handling of an information request until a [request for internal] review has been conducted."

This is evidenced at the following URL:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/ICO-Case-...

Therefor it seems to me that the Ofsted FOIR Team has unhelpfully misguided me on my FOI rights, and that they have failed to follow their own best practice obligations under the FOIA by ignoring the Cabinet Office guidance procedures they would be expected to follow under the FOIA. I believe it is important I ensure the ICO (and the Cabinet Office) are made aware of this. The Ofsted do invite this in the refusal notice by stating "If you choose to escalate your requests to the ICO, we ask that you share a copy of this letter with them."

However before I can share that information with the ICO and Cabinet Office I must, according to the Cabinet Office Code of Practice and the ICO advice of the 19th June 2024, submit a RfIR and the Ofsted must respond - either with a full review of my original FOIR, as required by guidance, or a refusal to process the RfIR giving their reasons for the refusal. Either way I believe it is important to demonstrate that I have followed the rules accordingly.

Next I wish to raise a concern that I feel that the refusal notice is far too detailed to have been submitted via WDTK. I believe it reveals too much personal as well as confidential & sensitive information that would have best been left to present as a response directly to the ICO, outside of the WDTK, during the complaints process. The Ofsted has demonstrated an awareness that the WDTK web site does not have filters to prevent the publication of personal, confidential or sensitive information.

The allegations supporting the Ofsted view that my request is vexatious do go into lengthy detail, sometimes quoting from FOIR I had made outside of WDTK due to the sensitivity of that FOIR, or quoting previous ICO decision notices that the ICO have removed personal, confidential or sensitive information in such a way that the aggregate information provided side by side in the refusal letter now makes it clear what information has been redacted. However, as the Ofsted have now published that information I feel it invites a response that has no choice but to provide sensitive detail that would have better been dealt with under the confidentiality of evidence that the ICO guarantees instead of via WDTK. I will cover this further in my RfIR response but as the Ofsted has openly detailed their reasons for a refusal via WDTK I also have the right to respond with my counter arguments in an RfIR via WDTK; although I will endeavour to do my best to ensure I do not follow the Ofsted lead of providing too much personal or confidential detail.

In the refusal notice the Ofsted provide a sequential history of some of my FOIR in date order. I will respond to these in the order given in the refusal notice, but first I will detail the reasons behind my FOIR that the request this RfIR applies to as follows:

For convenience the original request submitted the following FOIR -

FOIR-1 Please could you provide a copy of the glossary of terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

FOIR-2 Please can you confirm that the requirements of the 'Ofsted Style Guide' remain in effect or if now no longer in effect when it was discarded or replaced.

FOIR-3 Clearly the inspectors, when authoring the evidence files failed to follow the style guide by omitting the required explanations/clarifications required by the style guide, hence the reason of my FOIR(2) above. however the information I requested should have been held in the report itself but may be held within the glossary of terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

*For clarity the style guide states that:

"Abbreviations

2. Avoid using abbreviations, especially in documents for an external audience. If
an abbreviation occurs only a few times, it is best to write it out in full each
time. Exceptions are GCSE, A level, BTEC National Diploma, UK and MP, which
never need to be written in full. The glossary includes phrases that you should
never abbreviate, such as ‘female genital mutilation’ and ‘child sexual
exploitation’.

3. If you do use an abbreviation, spell out the words in full the first time you use
the expression and put the abbreviation in brackets after it: for example ‘the
Department for Education (DfE)’. Only do this if the abbreviation is used
afterwards. The glossary includes details of particular abbreviations."

FOIR-4 Please can you identify the potential security risks identified by Ofsted of sending information through WDTK as opposed to sending to my personal email address? (e.g. the WDTK website is the security risk or using a WDTK email address is a security risk etc?)

FOIR-5 The ICO has stated that the WDTK email address is an acceptable form of communications and only requires requestors to identify themselves by their real name. There is no indication in ICO guidelines that public authorities can go outside of those requirements and request personal information such as personal email address and personal phone numbers in order to receive a response. Given my FOIR(2) did not seek to elicit any personal or sensitive third party personal information please can the Ofsted explain why I have to provide such various personal information in order to receive responses?

For FOIR-1, this remains outstanding and is refused as a vexatious request.

For FOIR-2, this remains outstanding and is refused as a vexatious request.

For FOIR-3, on reviewing this element of my requests I believe it could be ambiguous and is not a valid information request under the FOIA so I withdraw it.

For FOIR-4, the Ofsted has responded with a detail of the information they hold on why they consider the WDTK email address is a security risk.

For clarity I repeat the reasons given in the response to my FOIR-4:

"The WDTK platform does not provide an effective filter to prevent the publication of
personal data or other sensitive information included in correspondence around FOI
requests. For example, I note that when dealing with your earlier complaint, the ICO
had to redact details of the requests you had published on WDTK, in its own
published decision notice."

From the above the Ofsted claims the WDTK email address is a security risk because they have concerns of revealing personal information via the WDTK email address as the "WDTK platform does not provide an effective filter to prevent publication of personal or sensitive information" - this however is not a platform security risk but would be the result of incorrect redaction by Ofsted before responding to an FOIR via the platform and not the use of the WDTK email address. I believe any FOIR response, once it has been released into the the public domain, regardless of the platform or email address as the recipient or requestor, then has every right to further disseminate the information anyway (even via further WDTK FOIR). Therefor I believe the effective filter should be prior to the point of leaving Ofsted before sending any responses, and not the responsibility of any platform used for the FOIR. I believe the ICO have previously determined that other platforms such as Facebook or X (formally Twitter) are also valid addresses to submit FOIR and they also will not have the effective filters for prevention of information leaks.

For FOIR-5, the Ofsted has explained that, as they considered my follow up enquiry was not a valid FOI request (FOIR-1 & FOIR-2) they felt it best processed via an informal phone call. However the request for the 'glossary of terms' as documented in the Ofsted Style Guide is information Ofsted holds by virtue it is already mentioned, and is documented, in the Ofsted style guide and if the Ofsted Style Guide remains in effect will be information the Ofsted would or should hold in accordance with HMG official guidance on public information requirements.

"Ofsted explained to you that many of your follow up enquiries were not valid FOI
requests, as they required an explanation in response, rather than recorded
information. It passed your enquiries to the relevant regional team to address
outside of the Act, to assist you. The regional team suggested that they could better
assist you via phone, as it would also enable them to deal with any additional follow
up queries you may have. As such, the request for a contact telephone number was
separate to the handling of your FOI requests."

It was during the telephone call with Daniel Lambert in April 24 that I discovered the existence of the Ofsted Style Guide and mentioned it within a follow up email after the phone call. In response Daniel Lambert acknowledged that although they do have the information it is not held for the purpose of recording inspection evidence:

"Just for clarity, the house style guide is for reports which are externally published … We would not expect inspection teams to write in house style when recording evidence"

This can be viewed, alongside all other correspondence conducted outside of the WDTK, at the following URL:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/Audit-Tra...

However it has already been the subject of ICO decision that inspectors evidence is information held by Ofsted and can be requested under the FOIA and as such I believe is information that is externally published even though not as a general publication. I recall there was some debate with the HMI that as inspectors are not required to follow the Style Guide that although the information is held it is not held for that purpose. I believe an ICO decision is the best authority to decide if the Ofsted does hold the information as defined under the FOIA.

A previous ICO Decision Notice regarding the public release of inspection evidence confirmed that Ofsted agreed a follows:

"Public interest in favour of disclosure

21. Ofsted recognises that there is a general public interest in disclosure of
inspection evidence, and associated material, as this can establish the
thoroughness of the inspection process. The public interest also
supports ensuring that schools are effectively appraised through
inspection and that the published results of this activity are
authoritative and accurate."

This decision Notice can be viewed at the following URL:

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

Regarding the other evidence supplied in the refusal letter regarding the history of my requests, this by virtue of the length and number of topics covered in the refusal letter requires a lengthy response but must be covered in this RfIR:

History of your requests to Ofsted regarding City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy [CNS].

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(1) Ofsted challenges - December 2021:

"You asked for all of the individual responses to the Parent View survey for the school, for the academic years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022. Ofsted refused this as the individual responses are personal data. It upheld that position in an internal review, and provided a link to the published, aggregated, data."

My response - my request, made via WDTK can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

I did make the request which I considered at the time to be in the public interest but since then that view is further reinforced due to the receipt of a response to later request for evidence notes for the inspection, in 2021, of the City of Norwich School, an Ormiston Academy. This request, which I will cover later in my RfIR, can be viewed at the following URL and is an important component as to the overall public interest in my FOIR's to Ofsted and other public authorities:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

My request for the individual responses to a Parent View survey for the CNS was prompted by discovering a potential weakness in the Ofsted Parent View systems. I am aware from analysing WDTK that requests for individual responses to surveys via WDTK regularly appear. Generally Ofsted refuses them on the basis of potential of revealing personal information but I have seen at least one response that the Ofsted did provide a response to. I believe it's correct not to publish the link here.

The reason I believe the potential weakness exists is that the individual responses are available online anyway. To demonstrate this requires a lengthy explanation but is important because the Ofsted states my request contributes to 'vexatious by drift'. I believe that when using that term 'vexatious by drift' the Ofsted quotes from [Dransfield -v- Information Commissioner] which can be viewed at the following URL:

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk...

"The Upper Tribunal in Dransfield used the term “vexatiousness by drift” to describe situations where, in the process of making a series of requests, the subject of those requests shifts. This means that the latest request has little relevance to the original subject matter."

My argument is that the Parent View information is used in Ofsted inspections at the evidence stage and the final report stage and both refer to how records in Parent View form part of the inspection process hence my request does not drift from my core concerns of the overall inspection of the CNS in 2021 for the following detail:

Although the FOIA is applicant blind, for clarity I expand the motivation and reasoning behind my requests as follows:

(1) It is possible to view each submission to Parent View in real time and download them automatically as they are submitted. In view of the responses from Ofsted to my FOIR that they consider releasing the list of individual submissions as a potential breach of personal data I believe the Ofsted may be unaware of this.

(2) To prove this I provide a small sample of copies taken from real time analysis of Parent View submissions for the CNS for the 2021/2022 year:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/parent-vi...
https://myarchived.link/ofsted/parent-vi...
https://myarchived.link/ofsted/parent-vi...
https://myarchived.link/ofsted/parent-vi...

Although the time the record is created is not in the displayed record itself I have chosen, for the security reasons the Ofsted states in their refusal, not to detail how it is determined via WDTK but I can say with verifiable assurance the records above relate to a submissions made at 20:37, 20:38, 21:22 and 21:26 Hrs respectively on the 06-12-21.

You will see they are ordered by date/time of submission and show the submissions by percentage and the record number they apply to (the record number is just a sequential number assigned at creation of the record and consists of it's sequential number of entry):

e.g. the entry for the submission 20:27 on the 6th December 2021 shows that record for Question 1 (My child is happy at this school) is as follows:

The record for 20:37 shows responses for Question 1 of the survey = 53% 32% 6% 9% 0% (record number 47 is 47th submission of 2021/2022)

The record for 20:38 shows responses for Question 1 of the survey = 54% 31% 6% 8% 0% (record number 48 is 48th submission of 2021/2022)

From here it is now simple algebra to determine what the parent of the submission for Q.1 at 20:38 06-12-21 consisted of as follows:

Formula to convert percentage responses to number of responses = (Number of entries) * (percentage of votes) / (100) = number of votes.

e.g -

47*0.53 = 25 47*0.32 = 15 47*0.06 = 3 47*0.08 = 4

48*0.54 = 26 48*0.32 = 15 48*0.06 = 3 48*0.08 = 4

Therefor % responses converted to number of responses =

Strongly agree | Agree | Disagree | Strongly disagree | Don't know
| ! | |
25 | 15 | 3 | 4 | 0 (47th record submitted at 20:37 Hrs 06-12-21)
26 | 15 | 3 | 4 | 0 (48th record submitted at 20:38 Hrs 06-12-21)

Therefor the 48th entry for question 1 made at 20:38 06-12-21 =

Strongly agree = yes

Whilst laborious to explain, once the formula and all the downloaded results are fed into a simple spreadsheet the information is available online to anyone.

At the time I viewed this as something the Ofsted may wish to investigate given I could extract the information requested using aggregate information obtained online anyway and I thought it would be helpful to the Ofsted to inform them of this.

Just to clarify how much information is available, below is a complete list of the times the records for the Parent View submissions for the CNS 06-12-24. I do have a list of times for the entire 2021/22 year but for the reasons of security choose not to display them here:

06-12-21 - 55 responses (18:10 to 23:28)

Times = 18:10 18:12 18:15 18:15 18:19 18:20 18:22 18:23 18:28 18:32 18:32 18:32 18:36 18:42 18:47 18:50 18:51 18:52
18:52 18:55 18:56 18:56 18:57 19:04 19:08 19:13 19:14 19:16 19:34 19:39 19:44 19:51 19:53 20:02 20:09 20:13
20:19 20:22 20:22 20:27 20:34 20:35 20:37 20:38 21:22 21:26 21:28 21:30 22:01 22:05 22:12 22:13 22:17 22:36
23:28

If the Ofsted still retains the information for individual entries they may wish to compare the accuracy of the times above. Although the times above are in HH:MM format the full detail available from Ofsted parent View systems is in HH:MM:SS format - that is required because for example it can be seen that at 18:15 on the 6th December there were two records created and at 18:32 there were three records created so the full time (HH:MM:SS) is needed to ensure sequential identification of individual records when that happens although I have truncated the displayed times by removing the seconds.

If the Ofsted wish to challenge my findings as above I will choose not to submit the full detail via WDTK but will submit in confidence to the ICO as part of my complaint to them should they request so.

Therefore as part of my RfIR I repeat that I believe the above FOIR was in the public interest given Ofsted states the information requested was a security concern but, as it is available in aggregate and the use of simple mathematics anyway. I believe my findings demonstrate a weakness in Ofsted systems if the information exists online anyway.

It's important to note here that in the refusal notice for the FOIR above the Ofsted clearly confirms that they were aware that form submissions consisted of dates 6th December to 8th December 2021:

"For those who completed the survey between 6 and (the morning of) 8 December
2021, there was also an option to include a free text comment to feed into the
inspection of the school."

Moving along to the how my additional FOIR quoted above links to the increased relevance & public interest of that Parent View FOIR - first to repeat the link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

This request was for the evidence notes.

The Ofsted responded to that FOIR with a PDF document at the following link:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

For some reason all formatting including line breaks, paragraph breaks and bullet point listings was removed so it is very difficult to read.

However on page 2 of the PDF it states as follows:

"Parent View review (current year): insufficient number of responses from 2017 - 2021 Details 2016/2017 - 138 responses from 1684 COR. Responses were up to 12/03/2017, so 127 responses were considered by inspectors as the most recent inspection.

1684 COR (Children on roll)."

It's my view the above statement enhances the public interest and validity of my FOIR's in general.

This is because the statement says there were insufficient responses from 2017 to 2021 and it appears to state that for 2016/17 there were 138 responses for a 1684 COR.

This now becomes a contradiction on (a) what the final Parent View report for 2021/22 states. This final report can be viewed at the following URL:

https://web.archive.org/web/202312031836...

It can be seen that the final report states 135 submissions for 2021/22, 9 from 2017 - 2021 & no data held prior to 2017 so its unclear why the evidence information states "2016/17 - 138 responses".

The final Ofsted Inspection report for 2021 states:

Inspectors reviewed 102 responses to Ofsted Parent View.

URL for report:

https://files.ofsted.gov.uk/v1/file/5017...

Finally for this part, the Ofsted publishes quarterly reports on Parent View Management Information and an example which covers the year 2021/22 can be viewed at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistica...

Parent View management information: as at 3 January 2022

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view...

141269 City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy Norfolk East of England Secondary 134 [entries]

Parent View management information: as at 4 April 2022

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view...

141269 City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy Norfolk East of England Secondary 133 [entries]

Parent View management information: as at 5 September 2022

https://view.officeapps.live.com/op/view...

141269 City of Norwich School, An Ormiston Academy Norfolk East of England Secondary 135 [entries]

So now there are five anomalies:

(1) The evidence report states that there were no entries for 2021/22 but Parent View online evidence proves there were 135.
(2) The evidence notes states 138 responses for 2017/21 but online evidence proves there were only 9.
(3) The final report states 102 responses to Ofsted Parent View but online evidence proves there were total 9 + 135 = 144 from 2017 to 2021/22.
(4) The refusal notice for one FOIR confirms that responses for 6th to 8th December 2021 were used in the inspection but evidence notes stated there wo no entries for 2021/22.
(5) The online Parent View Management Information Service states there were - 1st 134 entries as at 03-01-21, then 2nd went down to 133 as at 04-04-21, then 3rd went back up to 135 entries as at 05-09-22 for year 2021/22 (possible manual transfer errors not machine transfer errors).

I believe the identified amount of anomalies in the inspection process does further enhance the public interest of the totalities of my FOIRs and shows a valid reason for the FOIR and the value and serious purpose which although originally intended to inform the Ofsted of potential privacy leaks from their systems then became a matter of evidence to support concern of subsequent anomalies in an inspection starting from the evidence gathering phase right through to the final report.

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Moving to the next Ofsted statement:

(2) Ofsted challenges - February 2022

"In relation to (at the time) recent inspections of the school and other schools
within the trust, you asked about Ofsted’s consideration of, and findings in
relation to, concerns you had raised about the school. You also asked whether
Ofsted had received similar concerns to yours.

Ofsted provided a link to the inspection reports for all of the schools in the
trust, and explained it could neither confirm nor deny to the public whether it
held information in relation to the rest of your request.
Both Ofsted and the ICO1 upheld that position following reviews
.
1 https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...

In its internal review, Ofsted also explained the scope of the FOI Act to you,
and the limitations of its powers to consider complaints about schools.
In November 2022, Ofsted wrote to you outside of the Act, explaining how
your complaint information had been used, and explaining again the limit of
Ofsted’s powers in relation to school complaints."

My response -

I did ask if Ofsted considered and made findings in relation to concerns I had raised about the school and this can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/s...

At that time I was still learning about the various legislation concerning Education, Safeguarding, Information Rights Acts, usage of the WDTK website and the Ofsted inspection framework.

You will see that the WDTK moderators had altered my FOIR to remove information they considered to be personal and/or sensitive and I took note of their advice on this matter for future learning when submitting further requests.

Ofsted confirms that they responded outside of WDTK and the FOIA accordingly - which I accepted.

However the Ofsted, in the refusal notice brings it back into the public interest by including the full detailing in my original request. And that is I had raised concerns (with documentary evidence) of the alteration of reports relating to child safeguarding concerns. I had brought those concerns (with even more sensitive documentary evidence) to the attention of Ofsted because I couldn't understand how a school, in view of the evidence I had presented to Ofsted, could subsequently pass an inspection as 'Good' under those circumstances. Later FOIR confirm to me that safeguarding is an in important part of the inspection process and conversation with a Senior His Majesties Inspector (SHMI) responding to a later FOIR did confirm to me that the overall safeguarding process is taken into account during an inspection - I will cover this later in this RfIR.

From the point of view of my RfIR via WDTK I believe it is correct not to go into too much detail as it could identify individual(s) involved - including the identity of a child. Hence I will leave the full detail for my complaint to the ICO who already have records of a number of FOIR complaints (some which remain ongoing) regarding a number of public authorities that I have linked together with my concerns. When submitting complaints to the ICO they require full disclosure with evidence documents that do not contain redacted information.

Suffice to say I had notified Ofsted very long before the inspection in December 2021 of safeguarding concerns and that I had received acknowledgements from Ofsted that they would be taken into account at the next inspection (which would be December 2021). Hence the reason of that FOIR as I believe the evidence shows my concerns could not have been taken into account. That belief is enhanced by evidence from the inspection notes as well as later conversations with the SHMI and some clarifications of acronyms I had requested. The Ofsted CAS team did confirm receipt of my concerns supported by evidence and advised I contact the local authority with my concerns which I continue to do so. However the Ofsted did also later confirm my concerns were considered during the inspection process.

Response from Ofsted CAS Team (CAS-424544 26th May 2021 - 7 months prior to the inspection):

"In relation to any safeguarding concerns these should be raised directly with your local authority, who are the relevant statutory agency responsible for dealing with these. Kind regards Ann-Marie CAS Team"

This response can be viewed at the following URL:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/email-fro...

In addition although I believe the Ofsted had a duty of care to report my concerns to the appropriate authorities*, as well as my lack of understanding how the grading result did not reflect the evidence. For that reason, and as a result of my continued and increasing understanding of Education, Safeguarding, Legislation and Information Rights Acts continues to improve I have been researching Ofsted inspections of other schools/academies and am preparing a report for submission to the Secretary of State for Education as well as a number of other Ministers and MP's as I believe the evidence of my experience is ultimately in the public interest. Particularly with regard to the publicity surrounding Ofsted inspections in recent times.

*To support my belief that Ofsted had a duty of care to report my concerns to the appropriate authorities I am guided by the following Safeguarding Guidance for Ofsted Inspectors which can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...

It can be seen the guidance clearly states:

"Referring safeguarding concerns

You should, however, satisfy yourself that concerns about a child’s safety are referred on, as appropriate, to the children’s services department of the relevant local authority. This will usually be the local authority for the area where the child or young person lives. If the concern raised is about a member of staff at the setting, then the referral should be made to the local authority designated officer for the area where the setting is located."

Although the concern was raised prior to the inspection the evidence shows that Ofsted were notified of the concerns (CAS-424544 26th May 2021).

Additionally I am guided by information from the following URL:

https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/...

Where it states as follows:

"Before the inspection

We contact schools the day before their inspection to set out the documents and information we’ll want to see when we are on site. We also have a longer conversation with the headteacher to talk about the school and plan the inspection.

In terms of safeguarding, we ask schools to start by providing some specific information before the inspection – this is outlined in paragraph 107 of the handbook:

the single central record (SCR)

a list of referrals made to the local authority

any referrals made to the local authority designated officer regarding staff or other adults

a list of all open cases with children’s services or social care and all pupils who have a multi-agency plan

We specifically ask schools to provide us with ‘brief details’ about the resolution of any referrals to the local authority. To clarify, these ‘brief details’ can just be drawn from local records – for example, what support was provided and by whom, or whether the case is ongoing or the situation is now being monitored."

The records that schools draw from should have enough detail for the inspector to be able to understand the overall concerns that have been identified and the support and help that is in place for children. The exact level of detail required is explained further in paragraph 68 of KCSIE …"

I believe the above quotes from (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...) & (https://educationinspection.blog.gov.uk/...) support my view that the Ofsted had a duty of care to investigate and report my concerns to the appropriate authorities and I feel that the guidance from Ann-Marie of the Ofsted CAS Team who advised me that it is up to myself to process any safeguarding concerns by raising directly with my local authority, who are the relevant statutory agency responsible for dealing with these, was incorrect, although I have been following the processes as I learn them to ensure the evidence of my concerns is recorded.

I feel that the regulatory agencies (DfE, Ofsted and other authorities) are failing to undertake their statutory duties and diverting me to independently progress my concerns. I have had to learn to navigate the various educational and safeguarding legislation as well as information rights legislation when the relevant agencies are already provided support from HMG to do that on behalf of child safeguarding.

I believe at this point for now I will await any further Ofsted challenge to that FOIR before submitting a complaint to the ICO in confidential detail. This is because I believe that the Ofsted has unwittingly revealed personal information about myself as well as identifying confidential and sensitive information about others into the public domain via WDTK and is something that the ICO had specifically requested them not to do. I will refer back to that later in this RfIR.

Therefor I believe the value and serious purpose of my request was to understand how the Ofsted, during an inspection, appeared to not include the safeguarding concerns I had raised with them or if they did what was the result as I wish to include a comparison of the inspection and result with the inspection and result of another academy in my report to the Secretary of State for Education. I believe the reason that my concerns were dismissed or not considered is something best left to the process of providing evidence, including that obtained by the use of previous ICO decisions & other documents provided by various public authorities, using the confidentiality of an ICO complaints process rather than an RfIR via WDTK.

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(3) Ofsted challenges - May 2022

"You requested the evidence notes completed during the inspection of the
school which took place in December 2021.

In response, Ofsted disclosed to you all of the evidence it was able to, with
personal data removed.

Between July and October 2022, you sent a number of follow up queries
about the evidence and terms used in it. We passed your enquiry to
inspection staff to respond, to assist you beyond the requirements of the FOI
Act. Ofsted responded to your original queries by email in September and
October 2022.

You raised further queries about this evidence in March 2024 and Dan
Lambert, Senior HMI, spoke to you on 26 April this year to address those."

My response - The FOIR that Ofsted refers to can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

One of the advantages of using WDTK is that it can be learned from other FOIR (often made by more experienced requestors) what can be requested, what kind of response could be expected and even how to word requests. This is invaluable information.

I had noted that requesting inspection evidence reports is a valid request and due to my interest in the particular inspection of the CNS and my interest in the Grading I thought it would be beneficial to see what information could be obtained from the inspection evidence.

Although the response was very difficult to read due to all the formatting such as line breaks, paragraph, and bullet point breaks had been removed there ware additional difficulties in understanding the copious use of acronyms and abbreviations. To someone unfamiliar with educational acronyms it would be reasonable to have expected some indications or key to the abbreviations and acronyms but one was not supplied at the time.

The Ofsted evidence file can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

You state, but don't identify in detail, that between July and October 2022 I sent a number of follow up queries about the evidence and terms used in it.

I believe Ofsted refers to the following two follow up queries:

(1) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/c...
(2) https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

I believe they would be reasonable enquiries to make because anyone reading the evidence file could, as I was, be unfamiliar with the terms used so by making follow up requests so the value and serious purpose was to enhance the reading of the evidence files for everyone not just myself. I believe the ICO would expect public authorities to provide clear responses to FOIRs and where there is encoding (such as unfamiliar abbreviations or acronyms) they should be explained. Hence I believe those FOIR were valid and in the public interest.

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(4) Ofsted challenges - February 2024

"You wrote to Ofsted in January 2024, copying us into concerns about the local
authority in relation to the school’s actions. In response to Ofsted’s
acknowledgement explaining that it does not have any powers to regulate
local authorities and cannot investigate any individual complaints in relation to
them, you sent a further email including three queries which you framed as
FOI requests. You asked whether Ofsted ‘approved’ of circumstances you
described, and asked for a yes or no answer.

As these were not requests for recorded information, they were not valid FOI
requests and Ofsted did not respond. It did, however, inform you that your
correspondence had been noted."

My response - The above challenge is slightly confusing to me as the header states 'February 2024 but refers to correspondence in January 2024 where I copied the Ofsted into 'concerns about the local authority in relation to the school's actions'.

I can confirm that between January and February 2024 I did copy the Ofsted into a number of concerns about the local authority in relation to the schools actions. These correspondence were made outside of WDTK due to (a) the nature of my concerns that related to safeguarding concerns including evidence of the alteration of reports made by the Norfolk County Council Children's Services during safeguarding and child abuse investigation and evidence of alteration of of 'Keeping Children safe in Education' (KCSIE) definition of harm requirements for a temporary period during the above. (b) the recipients included (as I recall) Ofsted, The Local Authority, The Local Children's Safeguarding Partnership, The Secretary of State for Education, The Under Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Schools, The Information Commissioner's Office (for advice and assistance on Information Rights Acts), the Academy Trust as well as a number of MPs.

I believe the content of those emails to be too sensitive to respond to via WDTK, suffice to say the matters are ongoing and involve further FOIR to a number of public authorities some of which remain outstanding. In your response to my RfIR I would appreciate (without identifying confidential or sensitive information if you could clarify exactly which correspondence (i.e. exact date of the correspondence and list of recipients) so I can properly identify which one(s) you mean.

I believe as I learn more about the FOIA and their use I can sometimes mistake a complaint, or a concern as an information Rights request but that is all part of my learning curve as I navigate my child protection concerns without assistance from any authority. In fact, if I recall correctly, within the correspondence referred to above had included a copy of a letter from one authority (dated 10th May 2023) that details wishes to involve the police on this matter but so far no authority has not yet done so.

I can provide a copy of that letter if required as a copy has also been sent to the ICO for a case investigation (ICO - Case Reference IC-310030-J9P7).

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(5) Ofsted challenges - March 2024

"You requested the evidence from the October 2016 inspection of the school.
Ofsted responded that it no longer held the evidence, but it held, and
disclosed to you, summary evidence forms."

My response - I can confirm that I submitted, via WDTK, an FOIR for the October 2016 inspection forms for the CNS. The Ofsted did provide a response that I accepted. The reason for that FOIR is that some evidence from a response from another public authority gave me concerns, or doubts, as to how the school could have passed the 2016 inspection based on the content of that evidence. Again this is too sensitive and confidential to respond to by WDTK but suffice to say I believe I have evidence of what I consider to be shortcomings in compliance with the requirements of the Secretary of State for Education and the corresponding Academies Acts and supporting legislation etc. However I can only express my unqualified view and seek to obtain qualified decisions which is the point of all my FOIR to the various authorities and inclusion of the ICO when I felt appropriate. Suffice to say I can detail at least one FOIR that I made to the Norfolk Child Protection Authorities via WDTK and can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/r...

It can be seen I identified an anomaly in the Norfolk implementation of the KCSIE requirements when allegations of harm are made about a person who works with children.

I presented URLs where that anomaly can be viewed - for convenience I reproduce a sample of them here:

(1) Prior to 17th October 2018 the local authority implemented procedures exactly in compliance with KCSIE 2018 - that is the scope of the definition of harm requirements:

https://web.archive.org/web/201708080553...

(2) During the timescale of a particular allegation of harm investigation the scope of the definition of harm was altered to a 'Norfolk Interpretation' - removing some types of harm that should be considered. This can be viewed at the following URL:

https://web.archive.org/web/201812291900...

(3) This 'Norfolk Interpretation of the scope of the definition of harm remained extant until the end of the allegations of harm investigation and was subsequently returned back to full KCSIE compliance (i.e. the removal of the scope to a 'Norfolk Interpretation' so that some types of harm that should be investigated did not appear anymore - putting the scope back into full compliance with the legislation introduced by the Secretary of State for Education).

All the evidence to support this is fully documented. This was one of the reasons for including the Secretary of State for Education as a recipient in previously mentioned response to the Ofsted challenge (4) above to because I felt if they (The Secretary of State for Education) introduces statutory legislation at a national level there cannot be a 'Local Interpretation' of types of harm that can't be investigated - it's my view that the statutory requirements encompass a scope any type of harm as long as medical records prove (as they did) the extent of the harm to a child.

As part of my ongoing FOIR on this matter the Ofsted, will by now have received, as a copied recipient, further FOIR made to the local child protection authorities (submitted on the 13th July 2024) regarding I am still trying to identify who made this temporary change and why. The Ofsted will be able to see that although the response from to my WDTK request above regarding the reasoning of the changes of scope of harm was as follows:

"There is no recorded information held which addresses your specific
question, and current officers are not aware of the rationale which may
have been applied during that particular time period."

I have since discovered evidence that there is an NSCP officer who was aware of the rationale at the time of the alteration in 2018 and that they remain a current officer and as a result of that I have submitted further FOIR to determine the anomaly of the above statement so I believe it is in the public interest to continue.

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(6) Ofsted challenges - Your email of 3 May 2024:

“FOIR-1 - Just to clarify, during the 2021 inspection of the City of Norwich
School, an Ormiston Academy did the inspectors determine whether there had
been any safeguarding incidents or allegations since the last inspection in
2016. Please only answer yes or no .”

“FOIR-2 - If the inspectors did determine whether there there had been any
safeguarding incidents or allegations since the last inspection in 2016 did the
inspectors identify whether the school had taken appropriate action in each
incident? Please only answer yes or no?”

“FOIR-3 -If the answer to FOIR-1 above is yes please can you provide (a) the
number of safeguarding incidents or allegations identified broken down by
school year since the last inspection (2016) and (b) the number of the
incidents or allegations identified that were considered to have appropriate
action taken and the number of incidents or allegations that were not
considered to have had appropriate action taken also broken down by school
year since 2016”.

As well as framing some of these questions as FOI requests, you have
misunderstood Ofsted’s role in regards to its inspection of safeguarding. Inspection
evidence is not intended to systematically document each school’s safeguarding
history. As a result, we do not record the detail required to enable us to fully answer
all of these questions. However, I can confirm that the inspection included discussion
of any significant issues arising since the last inspection, in the context of inspecting
safeguarding, and the inspection report confirms that inspectors found the
arrangements for safeguarding at the school to be ‘effective

My response - This request was made via private email due to the very sensitive and confidential nature of the requests. I believe it would be inappropriate to response to this in too much detail via WDTK hence I will leave the detail to my complaint to the ICO should it be necessary to submit a complaint. However I believe it is appropriate to address the evidence base for the FOIR.

For FOIR-1 - (1) I am aware of one allegation of harm since the 2016 inspection resulting in a request for a safeguarding referral.(b) I am aware of one Children's Advice and Duty Service (CADS) referral during the same period.

For FOIR-2 - I am aware of the actions taken during boths referral and I can confirm I that believe they did not comply with KCSIE requirements. Currently I am awaiting responses to a number of related FOIR to a number of public authorities involved in this to either confirm or deny my beliefs and the Ofsted has been copied in on related correspondence sent on the 13th July 2024, so this remains ongoing.

For FOIR-3 - as above I am aware of safeguarding referral since 2016, including how s was handled, and am awaiting responses to recently made FOIR on that matter.

I believe although Ofsted believes the FOIR are 'framed as questions' they seek to determine if the Ofsted holds information that answers the questions. The evidence notes for the 2021 inspection prove that the inspectors interviewed staff including the DSL involved in the referral and the 2021 inspection (clarification on the DSL involved in the inspection was part of my FOIR of the 27th March 2024 and there is a good reason for the need of the clarification that I believe is not appropriate to expand on via WDTK). Although it would be appropriate to state that the Ofsted will see from my email of the 13th July 2024 where they were copied as a recipient some very detailed evidence supports the validity of all my FOIR.

Sometimes the motive for requests may not be obvious, and the FOIR is applicant blind but, due to the number and nature of FOIR I have had to refer to the ICO they already have copious evidence of my motives and I believe my response to the Ofsted challenge of my 3rd May 2024 FOIR is best left to await the outcomes of the ICO as well as other regulatory authorities that act on behalf of the Secretary of State for Education. Once those processes are complete I believe the outcomes, whatever they may be, will be of public interest as they will be well supported by an evidence based approach.

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(7) Ofsted challenges - Recent contact

"Since the start of April, we have received four emails from you, with in excess of
3,200 words in total, containing 13 elements of requests. These questions were
following up on previous correspondence.

We believe that your correspondence has now moved to a position in which it can be
considered “vexatious”. We will explain this further, below, along with some
clarification which we feel will be helpful to you."

My response - I can't properly respond to this via WDTK due to confidentiality and sensitivity however I am currently preparing my complaint to the ICO with the evidence to support the background to all my contact with all the authorities involved should the Ofsted continue to issue a refusal and claim vexatious requests. In the meantime I would like to ask the Ofsted to provide proper detail of the four emails they refer to - i.e. dates, and the formal reasons they believe they consider the individual elements of content to be vexatious other than a word count and a generalised statement. That way I can respond more accurately. I believe the ICO, when considering evidence, also expects to see documentary evidence to support any claims that are made.

This is the longest section of the refusal notice. It does quote FOIA legislation and ICO guidance.

It demonstrates that the Ofsted FOIR Team are aware of the requirements of the FOIA and ICO, as well as Cabinet Office guidance. Hence I am concerned that contrary to ICO and Cabinet Office guidance that the FOIR Team have misguided me into believing the rights to Requests for an Internal Review of a Refusal can be waived - when that guidance says it is a right under the FOIA and corresponding guidance.

It was unhelpful for the Ofsted FOI Team to tell me they were waiving rights to Requests for Internal Review. It resulted on one occasion to lead me into making a complaint directly to the ICO without following the proper RfIR process and wasted ICO time because they created a case but on investigation realised I had not submitted an RfIR and subsequently wrote to me cancelling the case and asked me to submit an RfIR before submmitting a fresh complaint.

Had I followed the misguiding advice to not make an RfIR on the other two FOIR refused on the same basis but to contact the ICO directly then it is likely, as ICO cases can sometimes take months to process, they would have again told me they will not process a complaint without evidence of an RfIR first. That could have meant a time period of 40 working days excess before I returned to the Ofsted and made an RfIR which, as the Ofsted would or should know, could result in a refusal to process due to the RfIR being presented outside of the time limits prescribed by the Cabinet Office and ICO guidelines.

I'm also concerned that the Ofsted released personal information about myself, linking me to a particular ICO decision notice IC-193728-C9H7 when the ICO had specifically asked the public authority not to do so. This is evidenced in the email at URL where it states:

The Commissioner will publish this decision on the ICO website, but will remove all names and addresses of complainants. If the public authority also chooses to reproduce this decision notice, then the Commissioner expects similar steps to be taken.

This is evidenced at the following URL:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/ICO-Decis...

Hence I don't understand why the Ofsted FOIR Team have deliberately linked my identity to the notice to the world via WDTK

I'm also concerned that in the same decision notice the ICO went to lengths to redact the names of the school, the academy Trust and the local authority mentioned in the complaint yet the Ofsted FOIR Team went on, in the refusal notice, to identify them all as The City of Norwich School, The Ormiston Academies Trust and the Norfolk County Council. For clarity the decision notice was distributed as follows:

4. The complainant asked Ofsted the following questions on 16 February
2022, which were framed as requests being made under FOIA:
“… I am aware that just before the New Year the Ofsted conducted an
inspection of the [school redacted] as well as a couple of other
Academies belonging to the Trust. My Freedom of Information (FOI)
requests are as follows:

1 – When undertaking the inspections did the Ofsted take into account
the evidence I presented to support my safeguarding concerns
regarding the practice the above alteration of Child Safeguarding
reports authored by [organisation redacted] created as a result of a
child safeguarding investigation?

2 – More specifically, during the Ofsted inspection of the [school
redacted] in December 2021, did the inspectors take into consideration
the evidence I provided to the Ofsted that the Trust acknowledged
altering Child Safeguarding reports held by the [school redacted] for a
specific identifiable case? Did the inspection investigate my concerns
which included screenshots of records held on the Trusts Child
Protection Online Management System (CPOMS) related to the [school
redacted] that I felt an audit of all records regarding that case should
be undertaken?

3 – Please could the Ofsted advice where I may view the reports of the
inspections of the the Trust's academies conducted prior to the New
Year and any since?

4 – In view of the evidence supplied in my complaint to the Ofsted, did
the Ofsted require the Trust to take any remedial action concerning the
above alteration of Child Safeguarding reports?

5 - Has the Ofsted received any other similar concerns?

As can be seen quoted aggregate information from the refusal letter shows as follows:

"FOIR-1 - Just to clarify, during the 2021 inspection of the City of Norwich
School, an Ormiston Academy did the inspectors determine whether there had
been any safeguarding incidents or allegations since the last inspection in
2016. Please only answer yes or no"

The linking of that FOIR by repeating it in full in the context of referring to it as contributing as vexatious including a direct link to the decision notice now identifies the school (City of Norwich School). The academy Trust (Ormiston Academies Trust). The local authority (Norfolk County Council) because the CNS is in the city of Norwich Norfolk. I believe there was no need to provide a link to the decision notice in a way that rendered the ICO redactions of no further purpose and to ensure my identity is linked to being the complainant when the ICO specifically asks not too, however I provide a copy of the covering email at the following URL:

https://myarchived.link/ofsted/ICO-Decis...

As can be seen from the above ICO-Decision-Notice-IC-193728-C9H7, the ICO as a matter of routine, removes all names and addresses of complainants from decision notices and expects public authorities to do the same. I'm uncertain why the ICO took the time to go on to additionally redact the identities of the authorities in this decision notice as it is something I have never come across before but I might presume it was to ensure aggregate information couldn't be used to identify an individual entitled to life long anonymity.

I feel it was unhelpful to the ICO's remit to maintain privacy and confidentiality I their decision notices and to cause to waste their time redacting the identity of public authorities in decision notices only for the Ofsted to re-publish them to the world with all the redacted information of the authorities involved now made available side by side to the world - (elsewhere in the refusal notice the Ofsted FOIR Team have acknowledge awareness that the WDTK is a public forum).

Finally, if being a member of the public who has provided evidence to regulatory authorities of the alteration of child safeguarding investigation reports to remove evidence of actions and behaviours of those in positions of trust the and alteration of child harm investigation procedures by public authorities in order to remove types of harm that should be investigated, is considered vexatious, then I believe that in itself could be a matter of public interest because it is my belief there is an overarching duty of care to ensure the safeguarding of children in schools and academies, and when documents and processes are altered, as has been proven in at least one individual case, concerns are rejected as vexatious, and investigations that should follow an independent LADO process but were diverted to unofficial processes, and there is a lack of transparency of the whole process, then there could be other examples, if the matter is not investigated properly. There is also the matter in case of any historic allegations then that will be hard to defend when the public authorities have already admitted to the alteration of documents but only when provided with the forensic evidence (ICO decision notice - IC-48751-Q4D7) - is in the public interest:

https://myarchived.link/ICO-CASE-48751-Q...

The information at the above link was obtained using Information Rights Acts and thus is in the public domain although I have chosen to heavily redact parts that I feel would be best left to processes outside of WDTK.

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(8) The Ofsted challenges -

"As you have made comments on a public forum linked to these requests, which may
have the effect of misreprepresenting Ofsted’s position, we do think it is appropriate
to conclude by clarifying misunderstandings in your recent correspondence.

In your email of 29 April 2024, you asked:

“FOIR-1 Please could you provide a copy of the glossary of terms most
commonly used in writing for Ofsted.

FOIR-2 Please can you confirm that the requirements of the 'Ofsted Style
Guide' remain in effect or if now no longer in effect when it was discarded or
replaced.

FOIR-3 Clearly the inspectors failed to follow the style guide by omitting the
required explanations/clarifications required by the style guide, hence the
reason of my FOIR(2) above. however the information I requested should
have been held in the report itself but may be held within the glossary of
terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted.”

You have misrepresented the purpose of the documents you have referred to, and
the nature of inspection evidence.

Within your correspondence, you provided a link to a copy of the ‘Guide to Ofsted’s
house style’. You will have seen from the introduction to that document that it is
intended for use in: ‘inspection reports, official communications (for example letters
and research emails), research reports and any other publications that will be
published […] on GOV.UK’. This also applies to the associated glossary.

The Ofsted style guide does not apply to inspectors' evidence, nor has it ever. The
information you requested, and which Ofsted disclosed to you, was evidence, which
consists of the inspectors’ notes, written during the inspection. The notes are for
internal use, to support the production of the inspection report. It is the inspection
report, as a published output of the inspection, which is subject to the style guide.

Although, as in this case, inspection evidence may be disclosed to the public in
response to a FOI request, it is not written for publication. The style guide is not
intended to apply to it and it would be misleading to state otherwise.

The glossary referred to is not a ‘key’ to terms used in inspection evidence."

My response - I do not believe I misrepresented the purpose of the style guide or the glossary it refers to. I stated facts that it exists as well as that a a glossary of terms, referenced by the guide exists, and stated I that I believed it should apply throughout the inspection process (i.e. should include compliance in evidence notes) that's because in my view an audit process starts from the evidence gathering through to the final report and if the meanings of abbreviations are allowed to change at various stages through this process then there is potential for ambiguity of final reports.

In an online presentation on the Ofsted YouTube channel Daniel Lambert, Senior HMI states, at the introduction of the presentation as follows:

"The best kind of evidence is first hand evidence, gathered when inspectors are on site. Through discussions, people work, and document scrutiny and seeing interactions between staff and pupils".

This presentation can be viewed at the following URL:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UEFLSfT...

The above still reinforces to me that the House Style Guide should apply from the outset of the documentation of an inspection however, My FOIR was to obtain the glossary of terms referred to in the guide. The title of the document is "glossary of the terms most commonly used in writing for Ofsted" the title has no reference that it is limited only for use in conjunction with the Ofsted House Style Guide.

(1) The ICO have already made decisions on evidence reports and that they can be requested under the FOIA. Although the reports may not be written for an intended publication in general they can be requested under the FOIA and the Ofsted have acknowledged that by supplying me in my FOIR made via WDTK.

URLs :

https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-tak...
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/f...

(2) The Ofsted states that as inspectors are not expected to comply with the Ofsted House Style the glossary of terms mention in it are not held for the purpose of providing a 'key' to terms used in evidence notes.

However the Ofsted acknowledges the information is held but wishes to block or deny access to it based on the premise of (1) and (2) above. However as it is information the Ofsted acknowledges is held under the FOIA, for whatever reason, I would like to repeat the request for a copy under the FOIA.

(3) The Ofsted have confirmed that inspection evidence is not intended for publication.

(4) The ICO have made a decision that inspection evidence falls under the FOIA despite the Ofsted intention not to publish.

(5) The glossary of terms is information that the Ofsted holds regardless of intended purpose.

I believe it will be appropriate to seek an ICO decision on if my FOIR for the glossary of terms falls under the scope of the FOIA or not.

It will not be my complaint to ask the ICO to make a decision on whether the glossary should apply to the inspection evidence or not but (a) whether the Ofsted holds the information for whatever reason and (b) if it is held under the FOIA and can be requested.

I believe it's an Ofsted internal matter regarding whether the glossary should be applied throughout an inspection or not.

As the Ofsted also sent the refusal letter to my private email address I will also respond to that email with this RfIR with the exact wording as responded via WDTK.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/o...

Yours faithfully,

Gary Symonds