All Saints Academy, Dunstable, R (on the application of) v The Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills (Ofsted) & Anor

The claim was a judicial review of an Ofsted section 5 graded inspection and the subsequent quality-assurance process (the GAE protocol), challenging (1) procedural fairness at the draft-report stage and (2) the sufficiency of reasons in the final report. The court applied established public law principles on procedural fairness and reasons (including the principles in Doody and South Bucks), read against the statutory framework governing Ofsted inspections (notably the Education Act 2005 and the Education and Inspections Act 2006), the Inspection Framework (EIF) and the Schools’ Inspection Handbook (SIH) and the short, statutory time-limits for comment.

Key findings: (a) at the draft stage Ofsted was under a duty of procedural fairness but there was no obligation to provide the full evidence base or chapter-and-verse; the school needed the gist sufficient to enable it to respond; (b) oral feedback given during the inspection (particularly the final feedback meeting in the GAE visit), and the school leadership’s own background knowledge, properly formed part of what was available to the school when it prepared its factual-accuracy check (FAC) and complaint; (c) the draft and final reports provided sufficiently clear criticisms to enable the school to respond (the school in fact filed a detailed 21‑page FAC and a detailed complaint); (d) the final report met statutory and common law requirements for intelligible and adequate reasons in the context of short, accessible public inspection reports directed also at parents; and (e) the two grounds permitted by Linden J (Grounds 1 and 2) failed and the judicial-review claim did not succeed.

Background and parties: The claimant was All Saints Academy, a sponsor-led academy. The defendants were Ofsted and His Majesty’s Chief Inspector. The claim challenged the outcome of an inspection begun in November 2022 and concluded after Ofsted’s Gathering Additional Evidence (GAE) protocol resulted in a second on-site visit in January 2023 and a final report in March–May 2023.

Nature of the claim and relief sought: The school sought judicial review of the inspection process and final report and sought interim relief to restrain publication. At the permission stage Linden J allowed only two grounds to proceed to a full hearing: Ground 1 (that the school was not given sufficient reasons/explanation/evidence at the draft stage to enable it fairly to contest the proposed findings) and Ground 2 (that the final report itself did not give sufficient reasons/explanation/evidence to enable the school or reader to understand the adverse findings, their basis, what to do to correct them, or why the judgment had changed between the first inspection and the GAE visit). Other grounds were refused at permission stage.

Procedural history: The first inspection (Nov 2022) produced provisional grades; Ofsted’s internal quality assurance raised concerns about correlation between provisional judgments and surveys which triggered an enhanced review and then the GAE protocol. A second on-site inspection (24 January 2023) was undertaken; a draft report was provided (22 March 2023) and the school provided a detailed FAC response (16 March) and then a detailed complaint (30 March). The complaint was investigated and only minor wording changes were made; Ofsted proceeded to finalise the report and the school issued judicial-review proceedings and sought interim relief (directions and interim decisions are recorded, including an earlier hearing before Morris J and Linden J’s permission decision at [2023] EWHC 1834 (Admin)).

Issues for decision: (i) whether procedural fairness at the draft stage required Ofsted to disclose more than the draft report and the oral feedback already provided in order to enable a fair response (Ground 1); and (ii) whether the final report provided adequate reasons and explanations for readers, in particular the school, to understand the adverse findings, what they were based on and what needed to be done to remedy them, and to understand the change between the provisional first-inspection view and the GAE outcome (Ground 2).

Court’s reasoning and conclusion: The court held that the statutory and common-law duties of fairness and the duty to give reasons must be assessed in context. Important contextual features were: the statutory framework (including the short five working-day FAC period under the Education (School Inspection) (England) Regulations 2005), the public and parental audience for reports, the practical demands on Ofsted (thousands of inspections annually), the SIH requirement to give oral feedback (including provisional grades and main findings) and the GAE protocol. The court concluded that (a) there was no obligation to provide the entire evidence base or detailed comparative analysis of the rejected first-inspection provisional judgments; (b) the draft report together with oral feedback and the School’s own knowledge and the opportunity it exercised to produce a detailed FAC and complaint meant the School was given sufficient information to contest the draft (Ground 1 fails); and (c) the final report, in the light of the statutory duties, the SIH, and the context (including the oral feedback and the school’s background knowledge), provided intelligible, adequate reasons and a clear “what to do” section for improvement (Ground 2 fails). The claim was dismissed.

Wider observations: The court emphasised the need to read inspection reports in context, recognised the seriousness of an "Inadequate" grading for a school, and warned against using judicial review as a vehicle for merits appeals against inspector judgments or for wholesale challenges to Ofsted’s reporting format.

The claim is dismissed. The court held that (1) Ofsted’s draft report and the oral feedback provided during the inspection (notably the final feedback meeting in the GAE visit), together with the statutory and handbook context and the school’s own knowledge, provided sufficient explanation to enable the school fairly to contest the proposed findings (Ground 1 fails); and (2) the final inspection report contained intelligible and adequate reasons, and a clear statement of what the school needed to do to improve, such that it complied with statutory requirements and the common law duty to give reasons (Ground 2 fails). There was no obligation to disclose the full evidence base or to set out a detailed comparison with the first inspection’s provisional views.

Permission stage and interlocutory steps were before Linden J (permission was granted on two limited grounds and other grounds were refused) and Morris J dealt with initial urgent applications. Linden J’s permission decision is reported at [2023] EWHC 1834 (Admin). The present full hearing determined the two grounds for which permission was granted.