• Consultations
• Public involvement

Public involvement

Ofsted engages in an important and continuing dialogue with its users, providers and stakeholders through our Involvement strategy. Our involvement strategy says how we will promote and encourage the involvement of children and young people, parents and carers, learners, employers and other interested parties to help us improve our work and in all we do.

Ofsted’s involvement strategy aims to ensure that:

• we actively encourage involvement as a driver for improvement
• people who use the services we inspect receive clear, coherent and consistent messages
• Ofsted makes best use of people’s time in seeking their views, involving them in decisions and sharing information
• Ofsted is able to make use, at a strategic level, of all information, feedback and market intelligence gathered.

The strategy explains:

• Ofsted’s main consultation groups
• the purposes and principles of involvement
• our consultation promise
• roles and responsibilities.

We also listen to users, providers and stakeholders through our:

Parents panel

Ofsted is committed to listening to public opinion, and in particular to listening to the experiences and views of users of the services we inspect and regulate. To help us, in 2009 we set up a panel of 1,650 parents and carers with children attending state schools, and/or using registered childcare in England, and we consult with them on a regular basis. Most of this consultation is in the form of online questionnaires.

Children and young people's panel

The Ofsted Children and young people's panel ('Your say') contains 1,000 children and young people aged 11-18 (25 if Disabled and/or with learning difficulties) represented nationally in terms of region, gender and age. Formed in April 2011, the virtual on-line panel has been used for a range of consultations including Maintained Schools inspection framework, national volunteering survey and our Strategic Plan.