
Andrew Webb, director of children's services at Stockport Council and former president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, said the current process "neither evaluates actual social work practice, nor provides a rigorous assessment of system impact".
He has called for Greening to consider a fundamental overhaul of the system.
Webb, whose children's services department was last week rated as "good" under the current single inspection framework (SIF), said he estimates that the inspection process cost his council upwards of £200,000, making it "phenomenally wasteful of scarce resources".
In an eight-page critique of the inspection process, Webb said that, despite the substantial cost of inspection, evaluation was "carried out at such superficial level that it cannot provide meaningful insight into the families being supported".
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