How the readiness score works

DullDocs tells you how ready your evidence is for inspection. This page publishes exactly how that score is calculated — the weights, the thresholds, the hard rules, and the things the product is forbidden from saying. Every number below is read from the same code that scores your setting, and our automated tests fail if this page and the engine ever disagree.

DullDocs helps organise, monitor and prepare document evidence. It does not replace professional compliance, safeguarding, fire-safety, legal or Ofsted advice, and does not certify compliance.

1. What the score is

Every evidence requirement has a severity. Severities carry different weights — a missing critical item hurts far more than a missing low-priority one:

• critical — weight 5
• high — weight 3
• medium — weight 2
• low — weight 1

Each requirement then earns a fraction of its weight based on its current status:

• Up to date — 100% credit
• Overridden (a recorded human decision) — 100% credit
• Met by recorded exception (a manager's decision on a statutory guidance expectation, with a review date) — 100% credit
• Due soon — 70% credit
• Needs review — 50% credit
• Review due — 40% credit
• Expired — 0% credit
• Missing — 0% credit
• Not applicable — excluded from scoring entirely

The score is simply earned ÷ possible, as a percentage. No AI, no judgement calls, no black box — the same inputs always produce the same score.

Recommended items are left out of both sides of this sum, whatever their status. Doing one never raises your score and leaving one never lowers it. They are counted on their own, as “Recommended practice: X of Y in place”. Here is the same setting scored twice by the live engine: without recommendations it reads 60%, and with two recommendations fully in place it still reads 60%.

2. Why an empty setting reads amber, not green

A setting with no applicable requirements yet (nothing provisioned, or everything marked not-applicable) is not assessed — the engine returns a score of 0 and a status of “amber”, never a green 100%. You cannot look inspection-ready by having nothing to inspect. (That result is computed live on this page by calling the engine with an empty setting: assessed = false.)

3. The hard rules no percentage can override

• Any critical requirement that is missing or expired forces the overall status to red — regardless of the score. Worked example, computed live: a setting scoring 86% with one critical item missing reads “red”.
• Any critical item that is due soon, stale or needs review caps the status at amber.
• Otherwise: below 60% is red, 60–84% is amber, and 85% or above is green.
• Marking a requirement not applicable requires a written reason, which is shown wherever the requirement appears — including on generated reports. Critical items additionally require explicit confirmation.
• A human override is the only way to bypass the engine — it is labelled as an override, carries its reason, and is audited.

4. What happens when you upload a blurry invoice instead of a gas certificate

Evidence must pass a deterministic quality gate before it can satisfy anything. A document below a confidence of 0.7, or carrying any of the following quality problems, is capped at “needs review” — it can never turn a requirement green:

• blurry_or_unreadable
• expired_version
• invoice_not_certificate
• missing_page
• missing_required_fields
• quote_not_certificate
• random_image_or_non_document
• unacceptable_evidence
• unknown
• wrong_company
• wrong_person
• wrong_site

Worked example, computed live: a clearly-classified invoice flagged blurry_or_unreadable is blocked by the gate (can satisfy: false).

5. AI never decides

AI in DullDocs reads and suggests; deterministic rules decide. Final requirement statuses are set only by the engine described on this page. Specifically:

• AI classification attaches automatically only at 90%+ confidence; 70–90% attaches marked “needs confirmation”; below 40% a document stays unclassified.
• An AI-extracted date that no deterministic read corroborates routes the requirement to needs review instead of marking it valid.
• Every AI suggestion is reviewable and correctable by a human, and corrections win.

6. Old policies can’t hide behind a future review date

For 6 key policies (safeguarding, complaints, medicine, allergy, mobile-phone and recruitment), a policy whose last review or issue date is before the framework threshold date (2024-09-01) is downgraded to needs review — a future “next review” date is deliberately not accepted as proof of currency. Worked example, computed live: a policy last reviewed May 2023 is flagged: true.

Transition note (EYFS 2026): our citations reference the EYFS 2026 edition, dated 13 July 2026 and in force since 1 September 2026, checked paragraph by paragraph. This vintage check still tests policies against the 2024 threshold above. A new edition on its own is never a reason to mark a policy out of date: a policy reviewed under an earlier edition stays valid unless the rules say otherwise. If the threshold ever moves, we will announce it at least 30 days in advance.

6a. Required, expected and recommended are shown differently

The EYFS uses “must” for a requirement, and says “should” means guidance a provider must take into account and follow unless there is a good reason not to. Every item in DullDocs records which of three kinds it is, with the paragraph it comes from. A required item is a legal requirement. An expected item is a statutory guidance expectation: an EYFS “should” or “expected to”, or statutory guidance a provider must have regard to. It counts towards your readiness score exactly as a required item does, shows as not recorded while nothing is on file, and is chased in the same way. It is closed either by recording it or by a manager recording the good reason not to follow it here. That reason is kept as their decision, with their name, the date and a review date, and the item then reads “Met by recorded exception”, never “Up to date”.

A recommended item is good practice that no rule requires. It is never part of your readiness score: doing it never raises the score and leaving it never lowers it. Recommended items are counted on their own, as “Recommended practice: X of Y in place”. While nothing is recorded for one, DullDocs does not chase it; once you have started it, you are reminded when it lapses.

Inside an attestation, a point the EYFS says must be done holds the attestation in review if answered no. A point it says should be done does too, unless you record the good reason with the attestation; that reason is kept as a manager’s decision with a review date. A recommended point never affects the attestation.

6a(i). A recorded exception is a decision, not evidence

Where the framework says a provider should follow guidance “unless there is a good reason not to”, a manager can record that reason against the item. DullDocs keeps it as their decision: their name, the day they decided, the reason in their words, and a review date, which defaults to 12 months. That 12 months is a DullDocs review period, not a legal deadline, and every surface says so. The item reads “Met by recorded exception” everywhere it appears, and never “Up to date” or “Evidence found”.

A recorded exception ends and the item reopens when its review date arrives, when evidence is filed against the item, when an answer the item depends on changes, or when DullDocs changes how it classifies the item. It cannot settle a question nobody has answered, it cannot set aside a finding such as a check that flagged a concern or a deadline the law set, and it never reaches any other item. A required item cannot carry one at all: that is what “override” is for, and an override is shown as an override.

6b. A date that has passed: how serious it is, and why

How DullDocs treats a date that has passed depends on the duty behind the item, not on whether the date was printed on the document or worked out by DullDocs. Where the law sets the interval, such as safeguarding training every two years or a let home’s gas safety check every 12 months, a passed date is expired. Where no law sets it, the interval is DullDocs practice: a passed date shows as review due, is chased, and counts as a gap in your readiness. Where DullDocs cannot tell which applies from your setting’s details, it shows as needs review with the question that would settle it. Every item with an interval says which of the three it is, beside where its date came from.

7. Coverage that can’t be gamed by deleting a record

Some requirements are derived from live data rather than documents. Paediatric first-aid cover, for example, is valid only while at least one active staff member at the site holds in-date evidence — deactivating your only first-aider makes the site read missing, not greener. (Honest limitation: staff are currently modelled at a single site each, and DullDocs does not compute rotas or ratios.)

8. Why we don’t cite KCSiE for early years

Every nursery requirement in DullDocs cites its source in the EYFS 2026 (group and school-based providers) statutory framework (or the named statute where an item is not directly an EYFS requirement), and those citations are printed in every generated report’s source appendix. We deliberately do not cite Keeping Children Safe in Education: KCSiE is statutory guidance for schools and colleges, not early-years settings. Citing it would make a checklist look more thorough while being less accurate — and an automated test in our codebase fails if a KCSiE reference is ever introduced into the early-years sources.

9. Known limitations

These are the duties, or parts of duties, that DullDocs does not evidence as fully as it should. Each one is also shown on the items it affects, so you meet it where it matters rather than only here. A duty DullDocs does not track is still your duty.

• DullDocs cannot yet tell from your setting’s details whether it is school-based provision, so items written for group settings are kept for it. Where a school has its own legal duty, such as identifying a SENCO, this item does not track that duty.
• DullDocs tracks Prevent training for each person, not the Prevent duty itself. The Prevent duty guidance expects Prevent to be part of your risk assessment and safeguarding policies (paragraphs 162 and 163). A training record here does not show that the setting meets the duty.
• DullDocs does not track the safety of portable electrical equipment as a requirement. PAT testing is shown as a recommendation because the law sets no testing cycle, and the electrical installation condition report covers only fixed wiring. Keeping portable equipment safe is still a legal duty.
• Where your setting’s details say Not sure about serving food, giving medicines, caring for children under two or having an outdoor play area, the items that depend on that answer are kept and read as missing, not as an open question. Answer those questions in Site settings so the right items apply.

10. What DullDocs will never tell you

DullDocs measures evidence-readiness. It does not certify compliance, and the following phrases are contractually banned from the product — they are enforced inside every AI prompt and pinned by automated tests:

• “you are compliant”
• “you will pass inspection”
• “this satisfies Ofsted”
• “you legally do not need this”
• “this is definitely valid”

The language the product is allowed to use instead:

• “evidence found”
• “evidence not found”
• “appears to match”
• “appears expired”
• “appears due for review”
• “needs review”
• “based on your checklist settings”
• “marked not applicable by user”

If a vendor tells you their score means you’ll pass an inspection, ask them to publish how it’s calculated. Ours is above.