Private schools face 50% hike in Ofsted inspection fees

Private schools face paying thousands of pounds more to be inspected by Ofsted under reforms set out by the government today.

Annual fees for schools with more than 100 pupils will rise by around 50 per cent, while a 176 per cent rise in pre-registration inspection fees is under consideration.

The prospect of extra charges comes after the government started charging VAT on private school fees and removed the sector’s exemption from business rates.

While most of the biggest private schools are inspected by the Independent School Inspectorate (ISI), Ofsted inspects about 1,250 “non-association” independent schools.

These tend to be smaller private schools, with Ofsted’s fees ranging from £400 to £2,750 a year.

State currently subsidises inspection

But Schools Week revealed last week the government was considering raising the charges, because Ofsted currently recoups just 34 per cent of the £6.5 million annual cost of inspection.  

In a consultation released today, the Department for Education said its policy was that “fees charged by government bodies for (chargeable) inspections should, so far as possible, recover the full cost of those inspections and reduce the need for government subsidy”.

“We, therefore, aim to get closer to full cost recovery in the level of fees charged for the inspections covered by this document, but we intend to take a gradual approach to achieving this in order to reduce the immediate impact.”

The DfE said the funding recovered “will go to Ofsted to strengthen its work to keep children safe and improve the lives of millions of children in state education”.

Most fee rates face 50% hike

The smallest private schools – those with fewer than 100 pupils – currently pay a fixed charge of £400, plus £16 per pupil.

The government is proposing to raise the fixed charge to £420 and the per-pupil charge to £21 by 2030.

It then plans to raise the annual fee for larger schools by around 50 per cent by 2030. Those with 100 to 120 pupils would see their annual fee increase from £2,200 to £3,300, while those with 600 pupils or more would see rises of more than £1,500 – from £2,750 to £4,300.

The consultation also sets out plans to increase the fees schools pay for pre-registration inspections – those conducted when a new private school opens.

The DfE said that “in recent years, a small number of schools have been found to be unsafe at their first standard inspection after opening.

“We can reduce this risk with more robust pre-registration inspections which have additional resources committed allowing inspectors to focus more on leadership capacity and capability at the pre-registration stage.”

Pre-registration inspection fee could rise 176%

The DfE said the fixed charge of £2,500, introduced in 2019, “covers approximately 50 per cent of the actual cost at 2024 levels”.

Officials are consulting on two options. One would see the fee increase sharply to £4,000 next year before rising gradually to £4,600 by 2030.

However, the consultation said this option “does not allow for additional resources to be committed to these inspections so there will continue to be a risk that they do not adequately pick up on capacity and capability issues that may lead to problems after a school opens”.

The second option would involve increasing the fee to £6,000 next year, with it gradually increasing to £6,900 by 2030, an increase of 176 per cent.

The DfE is also proposing to raise fees for progress monitoring inspections. Schools with 150 or fewer pupils would see their charge increase from £300 plus £9 per pupil to £680 plus £19 per pupil by 2030.

Schools with 151 or more pupils would see their fee increase from £2,000 to £4,200.