Corporate Plan 2008 • 2011
1
WHO ARE WE AND WHAT
DO WE DO?
As an executive agency of the Scottish
Government, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate
of Education (HMIE) works independently
and impartially whilst remaining directly
accountable to Scottish Ministers for the
standards of its work. This status safeguards
the independence of inspection, review
and reporting within the overall context of
Scottish Ministers’ strategic objectives for
the Scottish education system. The work of
HMIE is central to Ministers’ ability to realise
key policy objectives and to meet their
statutory obligation to endeavour to secure
improvement in education.
The supporting briefing to a ‘Statement
on Scrutiny Improvement’ to the Scottish
Parliament on 6 November 2008 provided the
following description of the work we do:
“HMIE’s vital role in maintaining the
quality of Scottish education will continue.
They will maintain their focus on raising
educational standards, stimulating
improvement and promoting
self-evaluation to support the delivery of
national and local outcomes. They will
continue to work closely with the health
and social services bodies to support the
development and wellbeing of all children
in Scotland.”
By achieving these broad purposes, we will
contribute to the success of the Scottish
Government’s overarching purpose and to the
achievement of the Scottish Government’s
strategic priorities, its related national
outcomes and indicators, and its commitments
including support for Skills for Scotland and
the adoption of Curriculum for Excellence.
Our work supports the delivery of national
outcomes in relation to:
people in Scotland being educated, skilled
and successful;
young people becoming successful
learners, confident individuals, effective
contributors and responsible citizens;
children having better opportunities to
succeed in life; and
Scotland having successful local
communities and high quality continually
improving public services which are efficient
and responsive to local people’s needs.
The HMIE directorate with responsibility for
services for children has been providing strong
support to:
improve the life chances of young people
and families at risk.
3
Through inspections, reviews and professional
engagement we provide independent
assurance to service users, Scottish Ministers,
service managers and to wider society about
standards and quality in education and other
services for children.
Our work is about much more than bringing
weak establishments and services up to an
acceptable standard, vital though that is.
We help to improve the education system in
a number of ways. We constantly seek out
good practice. We work closely with a wide
range of partner organisations to disseminate
that good practice through our inspection
reports, publications and website, and
through mounting our own events and making
contributions to those of other key bodies
both nationally and locally. We build capacity
to ensure that all users have the highest
quality education and services for children.
We provide independent, professional advice
drawn directly from first‑hand evaluation
evidence and knowledge of the education
system as a whole. We actively develop
and manage HMIE as a self-evaluative,
flexible and innovative organisation which is
committed to its own improvement.
HMIE works in partnership with others to
support the achievement of national outcomes,
including close working with Learning and
Teaching Scotland, The Scottish Qualifications
Authority, Skills Development Scotland and
4
The Scottish Further and Higher Education
Funding Council (SFC). HMIE will continue to
work with health and social services bodies to
support the development and wellbeing of all
children in Scotland.
HMIE has a broad staffing structure. This
breadth, encompassing permanent, temporary
and associated staff, reflects expertise from
across Scottish education and is an important
strength of the organisation. Staff in HMIE
include:
• HM Inspectors of Education
• inspectors of services for children
• health and nutrition inspectors
• assistant inspectors
• associate assessors drawn from schools,
colleges, local authorities and other sectors
• corporate services staff
• lay members
• student review team members
• secondees from partner organisations
Our framework document sets out our roles
and relationships in more detail.
WHAT ARE OUR
CORE VALUES?
We always
• have the best interests of learners
as our prime focus
• carry out our work with integrity,
objectivity and equality
• make sure that our activities are
independent, fair, transparent, open
and inclusive
• behave with understanding and in
a professional manner, respecting
personal dignity
• actively seek accountability
for our work
We plan and organise our work under HMIE’s
strategic priorities, set out as follows.
1.
2.
3.
4.
Giving assurance and bringing about
improvement in standards and quality
through inspection and review.
Building capacity for improvement.
Giving professional, evidence-based
advice.
Securing our own continuous
improvement.
The table in the Annex explains how the main
ongoing elements of our work from 2008 to
2011 relate to the national outcomes referred
to above. Through these outcomes, we will
contribute to the Government’s overall purpose
of creating a more successful country through
sustainable economic growth. In all cases,
the contribution to achieving national
outcomes is expressed in our annual business
plans as developed through our business
planning software and conveyed within our
annual reports.
5
WHAT IS THE CONTEXT
FOR OUR WORK?
Ministers have outlined their overarching
purpose and strategic priorities for Scotland.
By giving emphasis to these priorities, and in
particular the priorities for a smarter Scotland
and a safer and stronger Scotland in our
inspections and reviews, we will promote best
practice and support improvement.
More generally, the Scottish Government
introduced its national performance framework
as the basis for monitoring the outcomes
of public service delivery in Scotland. This
monitoring takes place in a new environment
where the expectation of every public service
to work towards national outcomes is coupled
with greater flexibility at local level and a
reduction in the ring-fencing of funding and
monitoring of expenditure. This environment
places increased demands on the role of HMIE
as a scrutiny body in providing information
about on service delivery and progress related
to the outcomes.
The national performance framework and the
related Scotland Performs website accord a
specific and formal role to HMIE evaluations
in that three1 national indicators derive directly
from our inspections of schools, pre-school
centres and child protection in local areas.
The HMIE-derived national indicators cover the proportion
of schools, pre-school centres and child protection in
local areas where inspection reports are positive in terms
of evaluations for a set of three or four reference quality
indicators from the relevant HMIE quality framework.
1
6
Technological developments, particularly in
communications, have changed how we work
and how we relate to each other as individuals.
Economic change and the movement of people
are making new demands on Scotland as part
of the United Kingdom, the European Union,
and the world. Through a range of policies and
initiatives, including The Early Years Framework,
Getting it Right for Every Child, Skills for
Scotland, More Choices, More Chances and its
international strategy the Scottish Government
has outlined how Scotland will respond to these
challenges. In particular, progress with the
adoption of Curriculum for Excellence will take
place over the period of this plan. HMIE has a
key role to play in ensuring that these reforms
achieve their intended outcomes.
The Government has developed a far-reaching
programme for the improvement of scrutiny in
the public services. HMIE contributes fully to
that programme, which seeks to strengthen
self‑evaluation and minimise the opportunity
costs associated with scrutiny, while continuing to
ensure that it plays its full part in giving assurance
and securing improvement. We are committed to
working in partnership with others to contribute to
achievement of national outcomes by developing
and delivering a number of key inspection and
review programmes. We are committed to
minimising the intrusion that scrutiny can bring.
WHAT IS THE
PURPOSE OF THIS
CORPORATE PLAN?
Such collaborative working is informed by our
successful work in developing joint inspections
of children’s services, beginning with services
to protect children and young people. We
currently work in partnership with the Care
Commission to carry out integrated inspections
of pre-school and residential provision. We
continue to work with Audit Scotland to
undertake the joint inspection of education
functions of local authorities.
We have a memorandum of understanding
with the SFC and agree annual service level
agreements under which we carry out a range
of quality assurance and quality enhancement
activity on behalf of the Council. SFC has
reviewed approaches to ensuring quality in
colleges and higher education institutions.
We have developed and are implementing
revised arrangements to take account of the
outcomes of this review.
This is our third corporate plan, covering the
years 2008 to 2011. It has been drawn up
following a series of internal discussions,
consultation with a range of stakeholders,
and discussed with and approved by Scottish
Ministers. It sets out in broad terms the work
which we plan to undertake over the next three
years in order to achieve our aims.
Our Annual Report for 2007 to 2008
www.hmie.gov.uk/documents/publication/
hmiearaa0708.pdf provides details of
the success we have had in meeting
the challenging targets identified in
our annual business plan and in our
last corporate plan.
Over the next three years, we will work with
Scottish Ministers and others, to ensure that
Scotland’s education system is creative and
dynamic, provides a seamless continuum of
provision and achieves high standards and
appropriate outcomes. We will continue to
contribute to ensuring the development and
wellbeing of all children in Scotland.
7
HOW DO WE PLAN
TO ACHIEVE OUR
PRIORITIES OVER THE
NEXT THREE YEARS?
We will:
carry out inspection, review and other
evaluative activities that are
intelligence-led and proportionate to the
purposes of scrutiny for the sectors, and
the establishments or services concerned;
build capacity for self-evaluation in
the system, raise expectations of its
effectiveness, and take increasing account
in our inspection and review activities
of the self-evaluation carried out by
establishments and services;
use inspections and reviews to contribute to
achieving national outcomes through raising
standards, improving learners achievement
and promoting constructive innovation
through:
• professional engagement with
teaching and other staff
• reporting on areas for improvement
and following through on steps taken
to address them
• seeking out and disseminating
promising practice in Scotland
and abroad
• identifying good practice for
disseminating and encouraging
its wider adoption;
8
work in partnership with key organisations
and stakeholders to achieve all of the above
aims;
participate actively in the coordination
work being led by the Accounts Commission
to ensure that we complement other
scrutiny activities;
implement the Government’s decisions
on restructuring scrutiny bodies and its
response to the recommendations of the
action groups set up to advise on next steps
following the review of scrutiny of public
services in Scotland; and
further develop the planning of our work
to relate it to the achievement of national
outcomes and to reporting on the extent to
which they are being achieved.
OUR WORK IN DETAIL
In order to achieve our aims over the next
three years, we will undertake a number
of programmes of work and tasks, both
continuing and new. They will be designed and
selected to take account of national outcomes,
and organised under the four strategic
priorities below. We will set specific targets
relating to each heading, and report on our
progress towards meeting these targets.
1. Giving assurance and bringing about
improvement in standards and quality
through inspection and review.
Using self-evaluation as a starting point,
through our inspections and reviews of
establishments and services, aspects of
education and educational initiatives, we will
provide independent assurance to Ministers,
service users, service providers and to
wider society about standards and quality in
education and other services for children.
Inspection will also serve to bring about
improvement, partly through direct
professional engagement with front-line
staff in each inspection and review, and also
through our follow‑through work with those
establishments and services giving the most
cause for concern.
Inspections and reviews of establishments
and services
We will consolidate and further improve
new approaches to inspection and
review to make sure that they focus on
outcomes while having maximum impact
with minimum intrusion. We will continue
to take account of internal and external
evaluations of the effectiveness of our
practice in evaluating and reporting, the
Government’s requirements under the
national performance framework and the
views of our stakeholders. We will match
the timing and scope of our activities to
what is necessary in the context of the
requirements of scrutiny in the relevant
sector and the establishment or service
being evaluated. We will seek in our
evaluative work to complement the related
activities of other bodies, in particular
education authorities and educational
development bodies. We will adjust our
practice to further increase the impact
of inspections and reviews in securing
improvement.
We will provide assurance to parents and
others and, as part of our requirements
within the national performance framework,
continue our current commitment to
report on secondary schools over a
six‑year period and primary and special
schools over a seven-year period, and
9
formalise a seven‑year period for
pre-school inspections. Over the period
covered by this plan we will investigate
the scope to develop more customised
inspection programmes with each local
authority. We will continue to provide
clear user-friendly inspection reports.
We will agree with Ministers the nature
of further inspections of services to
protect children.
We will continue to provide establishments
and services with further evaluative support
leading to improvement in their outcomes.
We will do this through our follow-through
to inspections, either directly or through
agreements with responsible authorities.
We will engage with each education
authority to establish the best ways to bring
about improvement.
Using the inspection process, we will
promote culture change through professional
engagement to enable schools to innovate
and improve their curriculum. In all school
and pre-school inspections, we will evaluate
the quality of the curriculum. The evaluation
will be related to the extent to which the
curriculum supports the national outcome
for young people to become successful
learners, confident individuals, effective
contributors and responsible citizens.
10
We will provide assurance and contribute
to the improvement of community learning
and development in local areas through
evaluation and reporting associated with the
inspections of secondary schools. This will
contribute to the national outcome to have
strong, resilient and supportive communities
where people take responsibility for their
own actions and how they affect others.
We will continue to work with key
stakeholders to develop an approach to
inspecting services for children which will
support the national outcome for children to
have the best start in life to enable them to
succeed. We will contribute to this approach
as agreed with other bodies within the new
arrangements for scrutiny of local authorities
at the strategic level.
We will take forward the conclusions of a
recent review by the SFC through its Joint
Quality Review Group. This review covered
approaches to quality in colleges. We will
implement the revised arrangements that
we published in September 2008. We will
continue to operate under the terms of our
memorandum of understanding with SFC
and deliver all the activity and outcomes
specified under annual service level
agreements with the Council.
Inspection and review of aspects of
education and services for children and
educational initiatives
We will identify and communicate strengths
and weaknesses in provision in aspects
of education and services for children
and make recommendations leading to
improvement.
We will monitor and report on the
impact of change programmes in order
to contribute to an assessment of the
public value that they create. We will make
recommendations to maximise the impact of
later phases of the programmes.
We will publish a report on Improving
Scottish Education covering the period
2005-2008.
2. Building capacity for improvement.
Nationally and internationally, we will seek
out good practice. We will work closely with
a wide range of organisations to disseminate
that good practice and build the capacity of
establishments and authorities to provide
education and services for children and adult
learners of the highest quality for all users.
We will ensure that better-embedded and
better managed self-evaluation is the key
strategy in aiming for excellence and in
empowering establishments and services
to take responsibility for delivering
appropriate outcomes. We will use our
self‑evaluation frameworks, for example
How good is our school? to promote
better self‑evaluation in establishments
and services.
We will continue to strengthen our work with
services and establishments across all
sectors, with the aims of gathering wider
intelligence to complement our evaluations,
sharing good practice, supporting others to
self-evaluate and building capacity.
We will work with partner organisations
to disseminate good and innovative
practice and to foster its adoption,
leading to improvement in the experience
and outcomes of those who use the relevant
services. We will continue to use The
Journey to Excellence online resource to
disseminate and promote best practice, and
the continuous professional development of
teachers and others.
We will strengthen our work with
partner organisations in activities aimed
at improving the outcomes of Scottish
education and services for children.
We will continue to work with education
authorities and other bodies to help to build
capacity in the system to make better use of
our associate assessors.
11
3. Giving professional, evidence-based advice.
4. Securing our own continuous
improvement.
We will support informed policy development
by providing independent, professional advice
drawn directly from first-hand evaluation
evidence and knowledge of the education
system as a whole.
We will actively develop and manage HMIE
as a self-evaluative, flexible and innovative
organisation which is committed to its own
improvement. This will support the national
outcome to have public services which are
high quality, continually improving, efficient
and responsive to local people’s needs.
We will continue to provide high-quality
professional advice to Scottish Ministers
and officials, with the aim of supporting
evidence-based decision and policy making.
We will provide advice to other
organisations responsible for the quality of
education and services for children.
We will continue to contribute to
national developments in education
and services for children by drawing
on our comprehensive knowledge and
understanding of provision and outcomes
across the system.
We will continue to analyse the findings of
educational research, inspection findings on
current practice, developments in ICT and
future trends to inform our professional
advice. We will draw generally on our
engagement with innovative and leading
practice and also upon intelligence gathered
in our international contacts, in particular
contacts with countries and regions for
benchmarking purposes.
12
We will continue and extend our
approaches to self-evaluation of our
own work. As an integral part of these
approaches, we will continuously gather
feedback on our work, and focus on best
value, the agenda of efficient government
and shared services.
We will complement our self-evaluation
by commissioning independent external
evaluations of our work, in particular a
three-year evaluation of the implementation
and impact of new inspection models.
We will seek out opportunities for external
review of the overall impact of our work,
drawing on the views of stakeholders and
researchers, and Charter Mark standards
and external accreditation. We will analyse
feedback from all sources to identify where
improvements can be made.
HOW WE WILL REPORT
OUR PERFORMANCE
We will implement a range of new and
revised policies and strategies, including
the equalities strategy. In this way we will
address legislative requirements, adopt
best practice, and address issues we have
identified internally, for example, issues
relating to workload, and of maximising the
impact of our work across the system.
We will enhance and formalise the planning
of our work in relation to the outcomes that
it supports.
We will continue to ensure that all
staff receive high quality induction
programmes and continuing
professional development, to enable
them to carry out their roles effectively.
We will develop and improve our
approaches to accessing, organising
and using information both internally
and externally, including effective use
of modern technology, to ensure our
products and services achieve the
maximum impact possible.
We use a range of ways to report our
performance, including a series of three-year
corporate plans and annual targets. Over the
next three years, this corporate plan will be
supplemented by annual business plans which
will provide more detail about the work we will
do. Annual business plans will contain targets
and performance measures against which
we will measure our success. In June of each
year, we will publish our annual report which
will explain the progress we have made and
our success in meeting our targets. We will
seek stakeholders’ views on the effectiveness
of these reports in explaining our performance
and on how we can improve them.
Our Annual Report for 2010 to 2011 will give
an account of the overall progress made with
the priorities identified in this corporate plan.
More information can be found
about us and our work on our website
www.hmie.gov.uk
13
ANNEX: ALIGNMENT OF
HMIE ACTIVITY WITH
NATIONAL OUTCOMES
National Outcome
Ongoing HMIE activity
Basis of ongoing
activity focused on
achieving outcome
We are better educated, more
skilled and more successful,
renowned for our research
and innovation.
Inspection programmes in all
educational sectors, including
college review activity under
contracted arrangements with
the SFC.
Inspection and review findings
provide the foundation for
HMIE advice in evidence-based
policy making for education and
training.
Specific studies of aspects
of education to provide
comprehensive and independent
advice which supports improved
practice and policy development.
As well as providing assurance,
inspections will also identify
good practice and positive
innovation in all aspects of
provision in both Scotland and
abroad. We can disseminate and
promote this practice, leading
to its adoption and improved
educational outcomes.
The starting point for inspections
and reviews is self-evaluation
by the establishment or service.
HMIE will focus on the extent to
which self-evaluation leads to
improvement. This approach will
build capacity for and promote
self-evaluation and encourage
establishments to take
responsibility for their standards
and improving outcomes.
We will carry out a programme of
specific tasks and studies. These
studies will provide in‑depth
analysis of aspects of education
and support improvement in
schools, pre‑school centres
and colleges, which leads to
improved outcomes. These
studies will cover all sectors
and will focus on impact on, and
outcomes for, learners.
14
National Outcome
Ongoing HMIE activity
Basis of ongoing
activity focused on
achieving outcome
Our young people are successful
learners, confident individuals,
effective contributors and
responsible citizens.
All school and pre-school
inspection programmes.
Inspection programmes for schools,
pre-school and community learning
and development (CLD) will all
include a focus on the curriculum
and the implementation of
Curriculum for Excellence.
This will encourage schools and
teachers to adopt Curriculum
for Excellence and lead to better
outcomes for children and
young people. HMI inspectors
will evaluate Improvements in
performance in all inspections
and will take account of
development of the four capacities
in children and young people.
HMIE Good Practice website,
publications and conferences
organised in conjunction with
Learning and Teaching Scotland.
Building capacity by publishing
online a series of examples
of good practice of school
education subjects and other
areas of provision. Supporting
their impact through good
practice conferences and other
media. Improving access to
all teachers, staff and others
involved as educators through
online interactive media,
for example The Journey to
Excellence resource.
The online series will bring
out the current and potential
contribution of the subject
or other area of provision to
developing the four capacities.
The series will be designed
to stimulate teachers towards
focused reflection leading to
adoption of improved practice.
HM Inspectors will contribute to
the development of Curriculum
for Excellence through providing
advice and support to the
national programme.
The Journey to Excellence
resource will provide high-quality
materials including online digital
videos. The resource is designed
to inform teachers of best
practice in Scottish education
leading to improved practice.
15
National Outcome
Ongoing HMIE activity
Basis of ongoing
activity focused on
achieving outcome
Our children have the best start
in life and are ready to succeed.
Pre-school inspections and
the early stages element of
the primary school inspection
programme.
HMIE evaluations in these
sectors will relate specifically
to the implementation of the
Government’s Early Years
Strategy and to improved
outcomes for children at these
stages and as they move into
education in primary school.
Examples of good practice
on the HMIE website which
are shared with schools and
pre-school centres.
We have improved life chances
for children, young people and
families at risk.
Inspection of child protection
in local authority areas and
development of approaches to
inspecting services for children.
The completion of the first
three-year cycle of the joint
inspection of child protection
will provide evidence for a
national report on the findings
of the inspection cycle and will
provide a benchmark for further
inspection of the indicators
within the national reporting
framework. Procedures for
child protection in local areas
will improve and will lead to
improved life chances for
children at risk.
HMIE’s work with councils, their
service delivery partners and
scrutiny bodies in developing
approaches to inspecting
services for children will lead to
improvements in life chances for
children and families including
those at risk.
16
National Outcome
Ongoing HMIE activity
Basis of ongoing
activity focused on
achieving outcome
We have strong, resilient and
supportive communities where
people take responsibility for
their own actions.
Inspection of community
learning and development in
secondary school catchment
areas, associated with the
inspection of the schools
themselves.
HMIE evaluations in CLD will
focus on outcomes for young
people and adult learners, and
will report on the effectiveness
of community capacity building
by local authorities and their
partners, thereby sustaining
steps taken by them to improve
communities.
17
National Outcome
Ongoing HMIE activity
Basis of ongoing
activity focused on
achieving outcome
Our public services are high
quality, continually improving,
efficient and responsive to local
people’s needs.
Through service and strategic
level inspection and studies
provide advice and build
capacity.
Seeking best value and
increasing public value to
improve the impact of HMIE.
Inspection and review activity
and the district inspector
network will focus on building
capacity, in particular in
promoting highly effective
self-evaluation and its use in
planning and implementing
improvements.
The development of an
overarching model of
self-evaluation which can be
used by services and individual
establishments to improve the
quality of their provision.
Building capacity for
improvement in Child Protection
Committees and Community
Planning Partnerships will
lead to improved outcomes for
children and families at risk.
Developing further approaches
to assessing risk and working
with councils to ensure the
maximum effectiveness of
inspection, including developing
approaches to assisted
self-evaluation.
External review of new
inspection procedures, seeking
stakeholders’ views and working
in partnership to improve the
work of HMIE.
Improved approaches to
self-evaluation will lead to
better services which are more
responsive to people’s needs.
18
www.hmie.gov.uk
© Crown copyright 2009
ISBN: 978-0-7053-1155-7
HM Inspectorate of Education
Denholm House
Almondvale Business Park
Almondvale Way
Livingston
EH54 6GA
Tel: 01506 600 200
Fax: 01506 600 337
E-mail: enquiries@hmie.gsi.gov.uk
Produced for HMIE by GRP
Published by HMIE, February 2009
This material may be copied without further permission by education
authorities and education institutions in Scotland for use in
self-evaluation and planning.
The report may be produced in part, except for commercial
purposes, or in connection with a prospectus or advertisement,
provided that the source and date thereof are stated.
This document is printed on recycled paper and is 100% recyclable.
ISBN 978- 0- 7053- 1155- 7
9 780705 311557