Ofsted moots week-long children's services inspections for 'good' councils

The regulator has said that as part of a new "targeted" inspection system, which is due to be introduced in 2018, local authority areas already deemed to be performing well will be monitored more proportionately.

Under the existing single inspection framework, which was launched in November 2013, all local authorities are subject to a three-year inspection cycle that can last up to four weeks.

But a consultation published today setting out proposals for the future of social care inspection reveals that this could be reduced to as little as a week for services that have achieved decent standards in the past.

Ofsted will analyse data and use local authority self-evaluations to keep track of how children's services departments are doing. Services will be subject to short "modular inspections" lasting a few days if there are any concerns or an authority needs to improve to be good.

Services previously deemed to be good or outstanding services would be subject to a "short inspection" every three years, which could be a short as one week.

For services previously deemed to "require improvement", or where a short inspection has triggered concerns, there will be a full two-week inspection.

Services previously rated "inadequate" will be subject to quarterly monitoring visits under plans set out last month and will face the prospect of a full four-week inspection.

"We are proposing a universal inspection, possibly over two weeks, once every three years for all local authorities except those that are inadequate," the consultation document states.

"The inspection should be the single event where a judgment is given about the impact of the local authority's work on children.

"It should be proportionate and, in some instances, could be less than two weeks long."

Ofsted said the modular inspections are designed to "avoid drift downwards and help those that need to become good". They will provide "short scrutiny of identified issues, followed by a letter outlining what needs to happen for them to remain or become good".

"For too long, our role has not been clear enough where things go wrong. An inadequate judgment is challenging for a local authority," Ofsted's national director for social care, Eleanor Schooling said.

"In those cases, we will be clear about what systemic change is needed to improve work with children."

Schooling said the proposed system is based on her experience that inspection can drive improvement if the approach is right.

"It is easy, and sometimes necessary, to identify what is not good enough," she said.

"We now need to turn our significant expertise to increasing the number of agencies, establishments and local authorities where systems, social workers, other professionals and carers do what matters most to children well."

The consultation will run until 9 September.