Corporate report

Ofsted’s equality objectives 2026 to 2030

Published 14 July 2026

Applies to England

Background

Ofsted works in the interests of children, learners, parents and carers. Our mission is to raise standards and improve lives by identifying, championing and striving for high-quality education and care for all children and learners across England.

Our inspections highlight strengths and weaknesses without fear or favour. As a regulator, we take proportionate and timely action in the best interests of children. And in everything we do, we put a spotlight on disadvantaged and vulnerable children because if we get it right for those children, we will get it right for all children.

Introduction

We know that educational outcomes nationally are different for some groups with shared protected characteristics, and that certain groups are disproportionately represented in particular types of education and care settings. In light of the significant reforms Ofsted is undertaking to raise standards ever higher, we have updated our equality objectives, and the below replace our previous 2023 to 2027 objectives.

We publish our equality objectives in line with our commitment to comply with the Equality Act 2010 and the Public Sector Equality Duty within it. The objectives do not represent the entirety of our equality, diversity and inclusion work, but they provide useful structure and focus to this work.

We will review the objectives within the statutory 4-year period, so by 2030. We will also continue to provide updates on our progress against them in our annual report and accounts. 

Equality objective 1

Through our inspections, regulatory activity and insights, we will work with the sectors we inspect and regulate to raise standards and improve practice, and to help advance equality of opportunity for all. We will place particular emphasis on the experiences of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged. 

Education aims

We began inspecting under our renewed education inspection framework in autumn 2025. This covers early years, state-funded schools, non-association independent schools, further education (FE) and skills, and initial teacher education (ITE).

Under this framework, we will:

• carry out tailored inspections that enable inspectors to better consider a provider’s specific context and cohorts of learners, including those with specific protected characteristics

• follow the operating guides, which place greater emphasis on the professional dialogue and relationship between education leaders and inspectors – this enables inspectors to better understand the context of a provider and make adjustments in relation to protected characteristics, if needed

• use the toolkits, which strengthen our focus on inclusion and how providers identify children’s needs quickly and accurately – this includes the needs of disadvantaged children, those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND), those who are known (or previously known) to children’s social care, and those who may face any other barriers to their learning and/or wellbeing

• publish report cards, which include a section on children’s characteristics – such as the proportion with SEND – as well as other data, such as performance or staffing data

We will also continue to develop research and insights that focus on the experiences of disadvantaged and vulnerable children and learners.

Social care aims

Over the course of the next 4 years, we will improve our approach to inspection and regulation of children’s social care.

We will:

• ensure our frameworks reflect the requirement for local areas to publish their offers for care leavers and for children in kinship care and their carers

• update our framework for inspecting local authority children’s services (ILACS) so it aligns with updated statutory guidance, wider sector reforms and proposed changes in the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Act

• update our ILACS framework and social care common inspection framework (SCCIF) to make sure we consider protected characteristics consistently across all types of inspection

• work with the sector and the Department for Education (DfE) to encourage providers to offer highly specialist care for children and learners with complex needs, including those with the protected characteristic of disability

• alongside the DfE, work with local authorities so that they apply to register services that meet local needs

• provide ongoing guidance and training to our inspectors to help them understand and evaluate the effect of protected characteristics on children’s experiences

Combined, these reforms will help raise standards for all, and they will take account of shared protected characteristics.

Overall aims

When evaluating leadership, management and governance, we will continue to consider how diligently education and social care leaders, governors and managers carry out their duties under the Equality Act 2010.

We will continue to focus the training, learning and development of our workforce on best practice for those from minority groups, including children and learners and the leaders and staff in providers. We will regularly review this aspect of our training.

We will ensure that everything we publish is accessible in terms of format and content. This includes products, inspection materials, guidance and policies. We will also continue to revise these as required. 

We will carry out equality impact assessments for significant changes we are proposing to make to our frameworks, policy and guidance materials.

We will work alongside the DfE and other stakeholders on guidance around single-sex facilities and gender-questioning children and learners. We will keep any implications for our inspection and regulatory work under close review.

We will monitor the impact of our renewed education inspection framework. We will:

• look at whether it enables us to inspect and report better on how providers are tackling inequality and creating inclusive environments

• look at its impact on raising standards for children and learners with shared protected characteristics and those who fall into broad categories of disadvantage

• consider advice from an independent provider we have commissioned to evaluate the impact of this framework, including the extent to which inspections recognise the work providers do to identify and support children and learners who face barriers to their learning and wellbeing

• monitor how the framework is working to properly understand and inspect different contexts that specifically cater to those with shared protected characteristics, and continually revisit our methods for ensuring that inspectors have the experience and knowledge to assess these specialised settings

Equality objective 2

Ofsted is a welcoming and inclusive employer. We promote equality of opportunity for our whole workforce and encourage positive everyday interactions with one another. As a learning organisation, we strive to achieve this through our policies, processes, people leadership and performance management, as well as by remaining open and responsive to feedback from our workforce.

Aims

We will continue to ensure that all Ofsted employees have access to professional development, irrespective of their protected characteristics or socioeconomic background. We will create a mentor scheme for colleagues from specific groups and establish a more transparent approach to shadowing, through the Ofsted Academy. This may also contribute to increasing diversity in leadership in the sectors we inspect and regulate.

We will increase the representation of colleagues with protected characteristics that are under-represented, across all functions at Ofsted, so that our workforce mirrors the diversity of those we inspect and regulate. We will do this by introducing greater ethnic and disability diversity on interview panels, offering more training for recruiting managers (which we will review annually) and standardising the social mobility monitoring questions we use in recruitment and for onboarding new colleagues.

We will improve our processes to recruit and retain inspectors, ensuring that our ‘people group’ directorate and the Ofsted Academy apply these processes across both our employed and contracted workforce. The Ofsted Academy will also continually retrain and develop inspectors to ensure that they have a consistent and deep understanding of complex providers, and the right specialisms to inspect and regulate them. 

We will develop a mechanism to collect equalities data for temporary internal recruitment and become an early adopter on ethnicity and disability pay reporting. 

We will continue to develop an inclusive culture, underpinned by our values of professionalism, empathy, courtesy and respect. We will continue to celebrate diversity and encourage all members of our workforce to challenge bullying, harassment and discrimination. Our leaders will continue to model appropriate behaviours, lead by example and act swiftly when colleagues raise any concerns. We have introduced new ways of reporting concerns to our wellbeing team, and we monitor and report on these. We will also create a small network of ‘speak-up champions’ and introduce better training for managers.

We will continue to support managers with making reasonable adjustments for colleagues who may need them, for example disabled colleagues. We will continue to regularly update our guidance on the use of inclusive language for all our communications and recruitment activities. We also make sure all new internal products and written materials are clear and accessible to everyone in our workforce.

We will note updates to government guidance around the meaning of ‘sex’ in the Equality Act 2010, and keep any implications for our work under close review.

We will monitor our workforce data and use the analysis to make proportionate changes to our policies and processes, as necessary. This will also allow us track whether our development opportunities are inclusive and accessible to all, and to take action to reduce inequality in the development of our people.