This data collection consists of selected interviews from the 60 interviews carried out in phase 3 of the research project 'Governing by Inspection' on inspection as a form of governing at the local and school level in England. The third phase of enquiry attempted to map inspection practices in a range of contexts-urban and rural-in all four separate case studies. The data deposited relate to interviews conducted in association with the case studies in England, and all identifiers of case study areas have been removed. The data take the form of semi-structured interviews with inspectors-both HMI and contract inspectors working for the 3 providers: SERCO, CfBTand TRIBAL- along with the small number of head teachers who allowed us to record them (they were very concerned about confidentiality). The interviews deal mainly with changes in inspectors' work following changes in the regulatory framework in which they operate, and there is material relating to the impact of the new framework on inspection judgement, to the changing nature of the knowledge basis of inspection, to commercial pressures on inspection judgements, and to tensions in engaging teachers in the inspection process. This research project is a comparison of the use of school inspection as a form of governing of education in the three systems of Sweden, Scotland and England, in the context of current changes in inspection practices in Europe. We are investigating the tensions between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ governance revealed by analysis of inspection policies and processes. By this we mean tensions between controlling and regulating through technical means like performance data and the rules followed by inspectors in their school assessments, in contrast with using expert knowledge, judgement and persuasion as part of self-regulation. We are analysing the ‘discourse’ or rhetoric of inspection, and what it reveals about tensions in judgement and evidence, by mapping the interrelationships of inspection at different system levels and across Sweden, Scotland and England, with a focus on transnational policy learning. We also map inspection processes within local authorities/municipalities and between local policy spaces and schools. We focus on a process that has become taken for granted in much public sector provision, and look at it as a way of shaping and steering education, and the behaviours and assumptions of the people who work in education (including the inspectors themselves).

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