Ofsted plans 'less demanding' children's services inspections

Speaking to CYP Now, Schooling said the “burden” of inspection should be “kept to a minimum” with whatever system replaces the single inspection framework (SIF) once the current programme is completed by December next year.

She said a lighter touch inspection regime is necessary to reflect the fact there are fewer resources in children’s services – at last November’s Spending Review, the government outlined plans to halve the amount of funding given to local authorities by 2019/20.

Schooling said: “If councils have less resource we need to demand less of them through inspection.

“Each time we dream up another way of gathering data we need to think this is going to be simple and won’t make a whole new demand on councils. The burdens of data collection should be kept to a minimum.”

However, she said this approach would not mean watering down standards expected of services or practitioners.

“If an area decides to take a lot of money out of its social work teams and increase caseloads, then we’d have to say so,” she added.

"We couldn’t say ‘oh well, its ok to have caseloads of 45’. It is not."

Schooling added that the replacement for the SIF is likely to consist of a basic inspection that all councils undergo and which looks at “case work including help and protection services at the front door, looked-after children, those being adopted and care leavers”.

It would be shorter than the SIF, undertaken by fewer inspectors and done more frequently, she added. Those authorities where the basic inspection highlighted serious concerns would then undergo a full inspection.

The move is the latest by Ofsted to minimise the burden of inspection. Last week, it launched a consultation outlining plans to scale back how it re-inspects children’s services departments rated “inadequate”.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that only half of local authorities whose children’s services departments have been judged inadequate by Ofsted in the past two years are receiving improvement support from the inspectorate.

Figures from Ofsted show that just 10 of the 20 authorities rated inadequate for children’s services since the SIF was launched in November 2013 are being supported.

Ofsted’s improvement offer to councils includes hosting seminars; an improvement “challenge” day; monthly practice scrutiny days; and quarterly progress reviews.

Ofsted told CYP Now it is not able to support some authorities whose improvement plans have yet to be agreed by the Department for Education.

To read the full interview with Eleanor Schooling see the new edition of CYP Now, out on Tuesday 16 February.