Guidance

Ofsted’s directed surveillance policy

Ofsted's policy on carrying out directed surveillance under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 to prevent or detect a crime.

• From: Ofsted
• Published: 9 October 2020
• Last updated: 19 January 2023 — See all updates

Applies to England

Documents

Ofsted's directed surveillance policy

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Ofsted is authorised under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) 2000 to carry out directed surveillance in order to prevent or detect a crime. We will only use directed surveillance if we cannot obtain the necessary information in any other way.

Directed surveillance means surveillance that is:

• covert, but not intrusive
• carried out for the purposes of a specific investigation or operation related to the preventing or detecting of crime
• likely to result in the obtaining of private information about a person or persons
• carried out in a way that is premeditated, rather than, for example, the chance observations of an inspector attending a setting to carry out an inspection

This policy sets out our legal powers, our authorisation process, the records we keep and how we will retain any evidence.

Published 9 October 2020
Last updated 19 January 2023 + show all updates

1. 19 January 2023

   Updates made to the ‘Obtaining RIPA authorisation’ and ‘Cancelling authorisation’ sections. Added a new section on ‘Errors’.

2. 9 October 2020

   First published.