Half of children's centres fail to achieve 'good' rating

The inspectorate has published data revealing outcomes of inspections carried out during the seven months following the introduction of a new framework at the beginning of April last year.

It reveals that only 51 per cent of the 168 children’s centres inspected between April and October last year were rated as good or outstanding, while 49 per cent were judged to be "inadequate" or "requires improvement".

It represents a significant fall on the 65 per cent of centres rated good or outstanding that were inspected between September 2012 and August last year.

The report states that the data is not directly comparable due to the change in inspection guidelines but that “the lower grade profile may be an indication that the new framework has raised the bar”.

The report also shows that individual children’s centres performed much better than children’s centre groups – clusters of centres that share management and backroom functions, and integrate services.

The data reveals that 61 per cent of the 78 individual centres inspected between April and October last year were rated as good or outstanding, compared to only 23 per cent of the 40 children’s centre groups inspected.

Neil Leitch, chief executive of the Pre-school Learning Alliance, called for children’s centres to be given greater support to meet Ofsted’s new standards.

He said: “It’s disappointing that Ofsted has chosen to respond to such alarming statistics simply by arguing that the new framework has ‘raised the bar’.

“Even if this is the cause of this downward trend, it’s vital that Ofsted recognises that just ‘raising the bar’ isn’t enough – centres must be supported in meeting these tougher new standards.

“With half of all children’s centres now working in a group arrangement, it’s very worrying to note such a stark variation in quality between centre groups and single centres.

“Given the growing financial pressures on this sector, we are very likely to see formation of many more group centres in the near future, and so it’s vital that Ofsted provides the necessary support for such centres to ensure the families using these provisions are receiving a good quality of service.”