Speaking at the Confederation of Heads of Young People's Services'convention in York last week, Tim Loughton said he had "seriousquestions about the ability and competence of Ofsted to inspectchildren's social care".
The inspectorate's social care role has come under scrutiny afterseveral local authorities' children's services, including Haringey,rated as good or satisfactory were later found to have serious flaws intheir child protection arrangements.
Loughton said: "I want to look at the way Ofsted inspects children'ssocial care and whether it remains the inspector needs to be lookedat."
He said that some serious case reviews had undermined recent Ofstedinspection ratings.
Hilton Dawson, chief executive of the British Association of SocialWorkers, agreed that social care inspections are in need of reform butsaid he would like to see a return to more local level inspections.
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