THE number of school inspections in Scotland has fallen drastically over the past decade, new figures show.
Government statistics show there were 491 inspections in 2004/05, but only 148 will be completed in 2015/16 - a drop of some 70 per cent.
Education Scotland, which incorporates HM Inspectorate of Schools, said the drop was partly down to a deliberate move to reduce the burden of inspection on schools and target those that needed help the most.
Inspectors have also been used in recent years to help schools implement the Curriculum for Excellence (CfE) and the Scottish Government said inspections would increase following the introduction of CfE.
However, Liz Smith, the education spokeswoman for the Scottish Conservative Party, said the dramatic nature of the decline would be concerning to parents.
She said: "Notwithstanding the changes to the inspection process which took place in 2011, there is, quite rightly, an expectation that most primary schools will be inspected every seven years and most secondary schools will be inspected every six years.
"Inspections are a very important means of providing schools and parents with the necessary information to make judgments about educational standards and the strengths and weaknesses of each school.
"The statistics tell us there has been a marked decline in the number of school inspections which means the six and seven year cycles are not being met."
Ms Smith, who requested the figures, said the changes meant there was now a longer period of time where parents were unable to access the most up to date information about their school.
She added: "The changes made in 2011 were designed to improve the inspection process in qualitative terms, but it seems this ambition is being compromised by the declining number of inspections.
"This is surely a key issue when the whole educational debate is supposed to be focussed on raising standards."
However, Angela Constance, the Education Secretary, said the number of inspections Education Scotland undertakes each year varies.
She added: "Inspection is one strong driver of improvement, but the national inspection program is designed to recognise that local authorities retain primary responsibility for securing improvement in their schools.
"During the period of implementation of CfE deployed its staff to a number of other intensive support activities with schools and local authorities. This involved visits from.... HM inspectors to a large number of schools across Scotland.
Education Secretary Angela Constance
"Education Scotland is now refocusing its resources to increase the number of school inspections."
School inspections were overhauled in 2010 to reduce stress on teaching staff and increase the involvement of parents.
Under the reforms, the number of inspections were reduced with those schools seen as under-performing made more of a priority.
In addition, inspectors began to focus more on the aspects of a school's performance that were most important in driving up standards, rather than looking at everything they did.
The changes dated from the publication of the Crerar Review in 2007, which looked at scrutiny of public services across Scotland.
The review found most public services backed external scrutiny, but felt it was in danger of becoming a burden and was distracting resources from frontline delivery.
The figures show that the number of inspections fell to 96 in 2014/15 from 162 the previous year. There were more than 200 inspections in most years prior to 2011/12.
An Education Scotland spokesman said: “Over the past few years, teachers and schools have responded to a huge change in Scotland’s education system as CfE has been implemented.
"During this transition period, Education Scotland made a vital commitment to provide the range of intensive support that schools and teachers required to help ensure the successful implementation of the new curriculum and qualifications.
"Over this period we re-directed some resources from undertaking routine school inspections to providing a range of other intensive support.
“As we move into the next phase of CfE it is timely that we shift the balance from intensive support for implementation to a stronger emphasis on evaluating what is working best and sharing those practices more effectively."
"That will require us to once again to increase the number of school inspections in the forthcoming years."
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