Estyn’s arrangements for assuring the quality of inspections

This document represents Estyn’s policy and procedures for assuring the quality of inspections. Quality assurance helps us to maintain high standards in our work but also provides us with valuable feedback to help continually improve our approaches and practices.

This document also sets out the procedures that Estyn will use when dealing with any performance by Registered, Additional, Lay or Peer Inspectors during inspections that does not meet our requirements.

The general terms of this policy have been in place since September 2010. The document was updated for September 2017 to reflect changes to our inspection arrangements regarding contracted inspectors, and in 2021 to reflect the removal of summative judgements. We introduced web-based systems for completing quality assurance forms from October 2011 onwards and updated these from September 2021 and again from September 2024. The document has been further updated to reflect the changes in the non-maintained sector, interim visits and Estyn’s role in quality assuring translations.

All of our inspection reports are quality assured by Estyn before they are published. In addition, assistant directors, strategic directors and other HMI visit a proportion of providers undergoing inspections each year, to quality assure the team’s work.

Since September 2016, all inspections in the non-maintained nursery sector became Estyn-led or CIW-led. The quality assurance arrangements also changed to ensure that all inspections in the non-maintained sector were quality assured prior to their publication. This policy sets out the quality assurance arrangements for Estyn-led inspections in the -sector.

The role of our external inspector workforce is invaluable. These arrangements also help us to support them in their ongoing professional development for inspection.