Ofsted is piloting an independent route for schools in England to challenge how the inspectorate handled their complaints, including complaints about inspection grades. The Independent Complaints Review (ICR) service was announced on 16 October 2026 and covers state-funded schools inspected during the 2026-27 academic year. FE Week reported that chief inspector Sir Martyn Oliver announced it at the Confederation of School Trusts conference.

Writing in Schools Week on the same day, Oliver said the time-limited pilot starts this month. FE Week reported that it also takes in complaints about school inspections that are already under way this term. The published material does not name the organisation that will carry out the reviews or give the cost of the service.

How the review works

Schools can turn to the ICR only after Ofsted’s own complaints process has finished and their inspection report card has been published, Schools Week reported. At the internal stage, publication of the report card is paused while an inspector from another region investigates, and the findings are signed off by senior inspectors, Oliver wrote.

The existing Independent Complaints Adjudication Service for Ofsted (ICASO) can check only whether a complaint was handled properly. For the first time, the ICR can also consider whether the outcome was fair and reasonable, including where the complaint concerned the inspection process and findings. It can see the full inspection evidence base and the investigator’s internal complaint record, and it reports to both the complainant and the chief inspector.

The ICR can recommend that the chief inspector look again at a decision, including a grade. In law only the chief inspector can make grading decisions, so the reviewer cannot change a grade itself. Where a recommendation concerns grading, the chief inspector can set aside the published report card and arrange a new inspection, which could produce the same or different grades, according to FE Week. FE Week also reported that the reviewing organisation must be a full member of the Ombudsman Association.

Who is covered and why now

The pilot is limited to state-funded schools. Oliver wrote that Ofsted may extend the service to early years and to further education and skills providers if it is made permanent, after an evaluation that includes discussions with education unions. No timetable was given. FE Week reported that colleges and independent training providers are excluded for now.

The move follows Dame Christine Gilbert’s independent review of Ofsted in September 2024, which called for an element of independent external oversight of complaints with the power to reopen inspection judgements, Schools Week reported. In a letter of 24 July 2026 to Helen Hayes MP, chair of the Education Select Committee, Oliver said Ofsted’s board had approved changes to the complaints process and that a pilot for 2026-27 would soon be announced. The same letter said Ofsted’s provider helpline had received 555 calls about schools, relating to 463 inspections, between its launch and 28 May 2026, a period in which Ofsted carried out 8,224 state-funded school inspections.

According to Schools Week, 220 schools complained in 2025-26 (April 2025 to March 2026), about 5% of 4,640 inspections, and 67 of those complaints (30%) were at least partly upheld. NAHT general secretary Paul Whiteman said it did not deal with problems in the inspection framework itself, and ASCL general secretary Pepe Di’Iasio said it would not explain why so many schools feel they must complain, Schools Week reported. The paper added that NAHT, ASCL and the National Education Union had each passed votes of no confidence in Oliver’s leadership in the previous week.

What it means

TED analysis: three readings for school groups, colleges and suppliers.

  • Academy trusts: the ICR gives trusts a route that can lead to a fresh inspection, but only after a report card is public. A trust disputing a grade still carries the published result while the review runs, and none of the published material gives a timescale for the independent stage.
  • Colleges and training providers: further education and skills providers stay with ICASO, which cannot look at whether an outcome was fair. Any extension depends on an evaluation with no published timetable, so for providers inspected in 2026-27 the existing route is the only one available.
  • Suppliers: the reviewing body and the contract value are undisclosed. Who wins that work, and how many recommendations to reopen grades the pilot produces, will show whether the service changes outcomes or mainly changes process.