Ofsted under the spotlight as criticism of its role mounts

A string of critical reports and a high-profile departure has trained the spotlight on the effectiveness and future viability of Ofsted's social care inspection regime.

In March, a joint report by the Association of Directors of Children's Services (ADCS), the local authority chief executives group Solace and the Local Government Association said the current Ofsted inspection system for children's services should be scrapped and replaced with a lighter-touch and better-targeted approach.

Shortly after, it emerged that Ofsted's director of social care Debbie Jones had resigned her post, little more than 18 months after joining the organisation.

This was followed by Labour's shadow children's minister Steve McCabe claiming the inspectorate has "lost touch" on children's social care and should have its role reviewed.

Most recently, a scathing report by consultants Impower accused Ofsted of having a "one-dimensional view" of children's services, adding that inspections can have a "catastrophic spiralling effect" on a local authority, turning a poorly performing department into a "broken one".

So in light of all the criticism and the departure of Jones, what does the future hold for Ofsted?

One senior figure in child protection, who asked not to be named, told CYP Now that Ofsted is "a mess".

"It lacks sufficient well-informed, well-trained and experienced inspectors and there is huge variability in the quality of inspection teams," the figure said.

"It is high on challenge, but not high on support to improve.

"And it's based on a false premise - that embarrassing organisations creates improvement and raises the bar, and improvement can be very fast as well as sustainable.

"We know real deep-rooted improvement takes time."

Amanda Kelly, head of children's services at Impower, says fundamental change is necessary.

"There needs to be a rethink," she says. "There are too many fractured relationships between Ofsted and the sector."

"The extent to which people trust in what they are saying has been eroded."

Reshaping the system

Kelly points to a "variability" in the quality of inspections and the organisation "becoming more political" as areas of concern.

"I have been present at inspections that have felt fair, where the inspector was looking for examples of good practice," she says. "Although they were highlighting areas of concern, they were doing it with the authority.

"But I have also been present where there is a more adversarial relationship from the start, and I have seen this more and more recently."

Kelly says that were the system to be reshaped from scratch, she would like to see a genuinely multi-agency approach that looks at children's social care from a broader viewpoint - taking into account the roles of all partner agencies. The new inspectorate would be in a position to not only highlight areas for improvement, but also direct them to support to enable it.

Alison O'Sullivan, ADCS president, does not place as much importance on whether Ofsted continues to inspect children's services, or a new inspectorate is set up.

"I don't think we have a clear view about whether Ofsted should continue with social care inspections or not," she says. "I don't think that's the question.

"The question is how you get arrangements that are fit for purpose and drawing on the sector to get real experts carrying out those inspections.

"We would want to speak with whoever forms the next government to have an informed debate about inspection."

O'Sullivan says that while elements of the single inspection framework, which was introduced in November 2013, have been welcomed by local authorities - such as the fact that Ofsted inspectors get alongside practitioners and talk to them about the work being done - considerable improvements are necessary.

"We are not saying the whole approach is unhelpful, but the single inspection framework is fundamentally a monolithic mechanism that is not giving us the nuanced feedback on how things are that you need. It also takes up a lot of time and expense. It could be done better."

The ADCS is proposing a new inspection system involving a short annual inspection, based on "front door arrangements" to check that children's services departments are working as they should be.

If anything concerning is spotted, inspectors would be able to conduct a deeper inspection.

"Fundamentally, it would be much more streamlined and more targeted," O'Sullivan says.

Thematic inspections

Alongside this, the ADCS advocates the introduction of a series of thematic inspections that assess council performance on a range of specific issues such as child sexual exploitation, and serves to disseminate best practice.

O'Sullivan says the ADCS would also favour a rethink on the basics of inspections, with greater emphasis placed on the use of data to understand how services are performing.

"You need to see first hand what practice is like, but you can tell quite a lot from the right set of performance data."

She also points to the successful arrangements within the sector already, including peer-to-peer reviews as an example of promising practice that could be built on.

"You need inspections as well, but if you are looking at improving systems, you need to take a wider view of how things are and how they can be improved."

Nushra Mansuri, professional officer at the British Association of Social Workers, says Ofsted has "alienated" itself due to "constant moving of the goal posts" as a result of successive changes to the inspection regime. These, she says, have been driven by a mixture of government policy, regulations and legislation.

"There is only so much the inspected can take, but it also goes to show how knee jerk the inspectorate has become, accommodating every new political whim it would seem and adjusting the inspection framework accordingly," she says.

"This simply is not sustainable in such challenging times for the sector and in essence becomes unwieldy and burdensome.

"Even the chief children's social worker (Isabelle Trowler) has commented on several occasions that there are too many 'watchers' in the system."

She adds that the language Ofsted uses is "too deterministic and prescriptive".

"It does not reflect the reality of dealing with risk which is not linear but conversely complex," she says.

The future of Ofsted is likely to become clearer over the next few months as the new parliament sets out its priorities for children's services. Re-establishing the sector's confidence in its approach looks set to be high up that agenda.

• Ofsted was offered the opportunity to contribute to this article, but declined.

OFSTED UNDER FIRE Criticism of the inspectorate

In late March, a joint policy paper published by the Association of Directors of Children's Services, the Local Government Association and council chief executives group Solace recommended that Ofsted's single inspection framework be "stood down" because it is "no longer fit for purpose".

The three organisations want to replace it with unannounced inspections of "front-door" arrangements covering contact, referral and assessment procedures and systems, which could be done by a single inspectorate or on a multi-agency basis.

If significant concerns were identified, the authority would be subject to a wider, multi-agency joint inspection, with a narrative judgment.

Just two weeks later, it emerged that Debbie Jones had resigned her position as national director of social care at Ofsted and is set to leave the organisation at the end of May.

At the time, Ofsted said Jones had taken a decision to "seek new challenges". Figures within the sector believe her replacement is likely to come from within the organisation.

The announcement from Labour's shadow children's minister Steve McCabe that there needs to be a review of Ofsted's social care inspection function was a further blow to the inspectorate.

McCabe said Ofsted "seems to have lost touch" on children's social care, adding that children's services departments are under "enormous pressure".

"We need to narrow the focus of Ofsted and decide whether or not they are the best people to inspect children's services at all," he said.

"We want to consult properly. I'm sceptical they can continue in their present form."

However, the most scathing criticism was still to come. A report last month by public sector consultancy firm Impower described Ofsted's approach to inspection as "outdated" and as contributing to heightened anxiety and increased risk in the system.

The report stated that the single-word judgment issued to councils following an Ofsted inspection "does little to describe the overall progress or challenges facing local councils".

"This single word is often all that the majority of people see when the outcome of an inspection is presented in the press and it can have huge consequences for young people, families and professionals at many levels," the report states.

The report also describes the notion that a "completely broken service can be fixed within six months" as "illusory", as the problems children's social care teams face when they are failing are too complex to be solved in such a short space of time.