Many directors are anxious about the way in which inspectors havecollected evidence for this year's annual performance assessments. Theybelieve the process has been inconsistent and one director told ChildrenNow that inspectors had been "confrontational, difficult and unhelpful"with a number of councils.
The high-level meeting is due to take place in October after Ofstedresponded to a letter from John Freeman, director of education at DudleyCouncil, on behalf of the Confederation of Education and Children'sServices Managers.
Freeman said: "There has been an inconsistent process across thecountry. These scores are very important for local authorities and weare concerned about their reliability and precision. We're concernedthat Ofsted and the Commission for Social Care Inspection are aware ofthat and do the best they can to get things right before they arepublished. And we want the process for next year improved to remove orreduce those sorts of problems."
David Behan, chief inspector at the Commission for Social CareInspection, said: "Directors of children's services fear thatsuperficial collection of evidence won't lead to robust evidence. What'simportant is that we continue to discuss the issues and make sure peoplecontinue to focus on meeting the needs of children at a locallevel."
Ofsted said it was aware of the concerns but would not comment beforethe meeting.
