The inspectorate’s revised inspection framework of child protection, published today (31 January), will double the number of local authority case files that inspectors scrutinise and will attempt to impose greater focus on children’s experiences.
Inspectors will shadow social workers during the two-week inspections and talk directly to children and families.
Ofsted deputy chief inspector John Goldup said: "For the first time in our child protection inspections, we’ll be talking to children and their families directly and shadowing social workers in their day-to-day work. This will be a very important part of the evidence that inspectors will use.
"We won’t just look at what happens to children when they become subject to formal child protection processes – it’s just as important to evaluate the help that children and their families do or don’t get early on, when problems first emerge, because that can make a critical difference to whether the problems get worse and the risks to the child escalate."
Social workers and managers will be expected to go through each selected case file with inspectors to examine the support being offered to each child.
The current nine areas local authorities are judged upon will be replaced with three:
- The effectiveness of protection provided to children, young people, families and carers
- The quality of practice
- Leadership and governance
Children’s minister Tim Loughton said: "In her independent review of child protection last year Professor Munro advised that inspections should give greater weight to feedback from children and families, and that Ofsted should move to unannounced inspections because professionals and local authorities were spending too much time preparing for inspections.
"Ofsted’s changes will help put the focus back on the child and assess whether they and their families are really getting the help they need – rather than being a tick box exercise."
Nushra Mansuri, professional officer for the British Association of Social Workers, said: "We wholeheartedly support unannounced inspections; there is less opportunity to mask poor practice.
"We have anecdotal evidence from members of how poorly performing local authorities can still get through inspection processes through unscrupulous means such as altering information. We also hear that the current Ofsted process is not effective or trusted by social workers."
