External Validators

Summary

A requester asked for full external validation reports and the quality assurance framework used by Tribal for Manx schools since January 2024, but the Department of Education, Sport and Culture only provided parent summaries. The Information Commissioner upheld the complaint partially, ruling that exemptions for personal data and future publication were incorrectly applied to the withheld documents.

Key Facts

• The Department of Education, Sport and Culture withheld full reports from external validators Tribal, providing only summaries addressed to parents.
• The authority incorrectly applied Section 20 (personal data) and Section 41 (information for future publication) exemptions to withhold the reports and framework.
• The quality assurance framework was publicly stated to be published in July 2025, invalidating the claim that it was solely for future publication.
• The external validation process began in January 2024 using an Ofsted adapted framework.
• The Information Commissioner's review outcome was 'Upheld - partial' on 2025-07-04.

Data Disclosed

• January 2024
• July 2025
• 2025-07-04
• 2024-12-03
• 10 pages
• 2 documents
• Section 20
• Section 41

Exemptions Cited

• Section 20 (Personal data)
• Section 41 (Information for future publication)

Original Request

Dear Sir, Please may I be supplied with a copy of every report/compiled review findings which have been given to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture by the external validators Tribal, which began conducting audits/reviews of Manx schools from January 2024 using an Oftsted adapted framework. Please may this reflect the period of January 2024 until the most recent report. Please may I also be provided with the framework to which DESC understands Tribal are conducting their reviews by. Thank-you.

Data Tables (2)

Full Response Text

"Please may I be supplied with a copy of every report/compiled review findings which have been given to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture by the external validators Tribal, which began conducting audits/reviews of Manx schools from January 2024 using an Oftsted adapted framework.

"Please may this reflect the period of January 2024 until the most recent report. Please may I also be provided with the framework to which DESC understands Tribal are conducting their reviews by."

What has been provided is the summaries of the reports addressed to parents, and not the reports themselves which were given to the Department by Tribal in their entirety.

In order to provide a summary, it is reasonable to assume that there is a detailed report from which the summary was written.

Furthermore, I would like to request another review of the framework part of the request, as I do not believe "The matter is live and ongoing" to be a reasonable argument for non-disclosure in this situation.

Please may you review your response and check whether it accurately reflects what has been requested.

Statutory Considerations 1. Did the public authority respond to your request within the required timescales? Yes, the authority responded within the required timescales. No extended period was sought.

1. Did the public authority provide the information requested? No, the information supplied to a school / educational service following completion of a external validation visit was not provided. Although links were provided to parent/carer information issued by the respective schools and educational services.

2. Did the public authority conduct a reasonable search for the information? Yes, the authority conducted a reasonable search for the information.

3. If the public authority did not provide the information because of the application of a practical refusal reason, was the refusal clear? No practical refusal reasons were applied.

4. If the public authority applied an exemption was it correct and was it explained?

A section 20 exemption was applied in regard to the information provided to individual schools and educational services following their external validation, and section 41 exemption was also applied to the information provided to schools / services and the quality assurance framework. On reviewing information released by the ICO in England1 the application of a section 20

1 The right to recorded information and requests for documents | ICO

exemption relates to the recorded information in the document, which goes beyond actual wording and may include the design, layout and style of writing, therefore the reviewer believes that the application of section 20 exemption was not correctly applied. As to the application of a section 41 exemption for the information provided to schools/services, it has been confirmed that this is not for future publication and therefore a section 41 exemption, (Information for future publication) exemption is not applicable.

With regards to the quality assurance framework, it has been publicly stated that this would be published in July 2025. The publicly available information published by a school and educational services relates to the version of the quality assurance framework being used at the time of their school / educational service external validation visit. It has undergone some changes and may still be subject to further revision as the pilot revision comes to an end.

1. Did the public authority offer appropriate advice and assistance? Yes.

2. Did the public authority advise you of the internal review process and your right of appeal to the Information Commissioner? Yes

Outcomes 1. Yes, the public authority answered your request within the statutory time limit. 2. No, the public authority did not provide the information requested and did not seek further clarification of what was required. 3. Yes, the public authority conducted a reasonable search for the information. 4. The application of a practical refusal reason was N/A; no refusal was made. 5. The public authority did not apply all the exemptions correctly, although what was issued was explained. Other qualified exemptions may have been applicable subject to the application of public interest tests. 6. Yes, the public authority did offer appropriate advice and did not seek to obtain further clarification of the uncertainty of what was requested. 7. Yes, the public authority did advise the requester of the internal review process and their right of appeal to the Information Commissioner.

Specific Issues you raised You asked:

"Please may I be supplied with a copy of every report/compiled review findings which have been given to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture by the external validators Tribal, which began conducting audits/reviews of Manx schools from January 2024 using an Oftsted adapted framework.

The external validation process undertaken by Etio is a process which is centred around growth and is designed to externally validate and confirm where possible, the school’s / service’s own self-evaluation of its strengths and areas of growth and development in conjunction with school / service leaders. The information provided to schools / services prepared by Etio is used to inform school/service improvement plans. This information is not released publicly due to its detailed nature which permits

the identification/re-identification of Departments, individual members of staff (both directly by name and/or by inference by role/function) and their relationship to individual external validation priorities in each school or service.

To mitigate issues around this, the information provided for each of the schools and services is consolidated, aggregated, and anonymised to create the “Parent / Carer Information” for public release, which includes key findings, themes and any areas of growth. The information provided to schools / services uses language, terminology and descriptions deemed appropriate for parents/carers.

The Department is developing the external validation process which focuses on continuous improvement, reducing the pressure of external accountability and focusing on genuine school improvement as an alternative to the high stakes inspection model adopted by other jurisdictions.

You also ask:

Furthermore, I would like to request another review of the framework part of the request, as I do not believe "The matter is live and ongoing" to be a reasonable argument for non-disclosure in this situation.

It is the Department’s intention to publish the final version of the quality assurance framework in July 2025, following the completion of the pilot phase. All schools/services after July 2025 will be externally validated using the final version of the quality assurance framework. (s41 Information for Future Publication - FoI Act 2015).

Decision

The final decision of this review is that it upholds in part your complaint.

It has been decided that other qualified exemptions could have been applied as detailed below.

Section 35 (b)(c) ‘Conduct of public business’ – Information provided to schools / services

Factors in favour of disclosure

• School transparency and accountability.

• Parents/carers and pupils have a key stake in the state of education in their school. Releasing the information provided to schools/services will allow a clear picture about their school / service in relation to the framework, to the quality assurance framework.

Factors in favour of withholding • From the outset those involved in developing the process designed a model whereby the outcome would include a public facing document, and a

school/services facing more detailed document. To change this now would fundamentally undermine the whole process. However, as we come to the end of the pilot phase, the Department recognises that process and documentation needs to be reviewed and amended, and we are currently working closely with Etio to progress with this based on feedback which continues to be gathered.

• Disclosure of information provided to schools and services is likely to inhibit the ability of headteachers / heads of service, members of the senior leadership teams and staff generally to express themselves openly, honestly and completely, in giving their views as part of the external validation process. Disclosing such information could therefore impair the quality of decision making by the public authority.

• The authority needs a ‘safe space’ in which to evaluate key aspects of the school / service in line with the framework to identify areas for quality assurance and subsequently make decisions.

• School/service leaders and staff are already facing abuse, disrespect and derogatory comments through social media, etc. It is inevitable that details in the information provided to schools/services will be taken out of context, mis- interpreted or amplified negatively. This could then lead to comparisons being made between island schools/services which will not only be unfair comparisons but could lead to reputational damage to some school/services which could then impact on staffing and school budgets.

• There is a high probability that the likely outcome of releasing the information will lead to negative, unfair and biased reporting of aspects within the information provided to schools / services, coupled with the likely vitriol in comments on social media could make recruitment and retention of staff in island schools even more challenging.

• The impact on school / service leaders is likely to be acute and it is believed that such a ‘high stakes’ approach, with the information provided to schools and services being published, will mean the pressure of such a system on school / service leaders in a small island community like ours could be immense.

• The external validation process has been implemented via a pilot approach, which has very much been an ongoing iterative process, with changes being made to the documentation and the process throughout. The publication of the detailed information provided to a school or service is therefore not appropriate as the schools / services were externally validated on different sections of the Framework. (For example, pilot 1 was on the first section of the framework, and therefore the rest of the pilot was on all sections of the framework).

• Detailed priority areas identified in the information provided to the schools / services will be used to inform the school / service improvement plans. School / service improvement is complex and multi-faceted, and the Department needs to allow school / service leaders the space to use the information learnt through the external validation process, and recorded in the information

provided to schools / services to help inform and drive their school / service improvement plan and priorities

Section 30 2(b) ‘Economy and commercial interests’ – (Information provided to schools and services)

Factors in favour of disclosure

• Promoting Public Understanding - Need to ensure that commercial activities are conducted in an open and honest way.

Factors in favour of withholding

• Disclosure of the information provided to schools and services could be used to undermine Etios’ competitive position and reputation in the market. Etio believe that the confidentiality of information provided is essential to both the profitability and viability of their continuing business operation, given that they have other customers who continue to purchase similar services from them. There is a significant likelihood that this value would reasonably be destroyed or diminished through disclosure of such confidential information under the FOI Act (2015).

If you are not satisfied with the result of the review, you then have the right to appeal to the Information Commissioner for a decision on: 1. Whether we have responded to your request for information in accordance with Part 2 of the Freedom of Information Act 2015; or 2. Whether we are justified in refusing to give you the information requested.
In response to an application for review, the Information Commissioner may, at any time, attempt to resolve a matter by negotiation, conciliation, mediation or another form of alternative dispute resolution and will have regard to any outcome of this in making any subsequent decision. More detailed information on your right to a review can be found on the Information Commissioner’s website at www.inforights.im. Should you have any queries concerning this letter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Further information about freedom of information requests can be found at www.gov.im/foi.

Yours sincerely

Policy and Legislation Manager

Policy, Strategy and Governance Division Department of Education, Sport and Culture Thie Slieau Whallian Foxdale Road St Johns IM4 3AS

Telephone: (01624) 685808 Website: www.gov.im/dec Email: dec@foi.gov.im

Our ref: 4290373 20 December 2024

Dear ###

We write further to your request, received 3 December 2024, which states:

"Please may I be supplied with a copy of every report/compiled review findings which have been given to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture by the external validators Tribal, which began conducting audits/reviews of Manx schools from January 2024 using an Oftsted adapted framework.

Please may this reflect the period of January 2024 until the most recent report.

Please may I also be provided with the framework to which DESC understands Tribal are conducting their reviews by.”

Our response to your request is as follows:

Please may I be supplied with a copy of every report/compiled review findings which have been given to the Department of Education, Sport and Culture by the external validators Tribal, which began conducting audits/reviews of Manx schools from January 2024 using an Oftsted adapted framework.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, under section 20 of the Act, we are not required to provide information in response to a request if it is already reasonably accessible to you, whether free of charge or on payment of a fee.
In total 15 schools and 1 educational service have completed the external validation process so far. The parent information following completion of the external validation process, can be found on the individual school or the Department website for educational services, as provided below:

School
Parent Information Link
QEII
https://qe2.sch.im/pages/index/view/id/148/2024%20Validation%20Summary

Ballakermeen https://bhs.sch.im/blog/index/view/id/447/External%20Validation

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