Ofsted to share children's services concerns with local government watchdog
Neil Puffett
Wednesday, November 16, 2016
Ofsted and the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) have agreed a deal to share any concerns they have about local authority children's services departments with each other.
The two organisations said the move, which they describe as being "in the spirit of good cross-government working", will boost each other's intelligence of local authorities' children's services and help drive improvements.
The protocol between the two bodies means that information about complaints handled by the LGO relating to a local authority's children's services will be routinely shared with Ofsted, thus helping to inform its inspection processes.
Similarly, following an Ofsted inspection of a local authority's children's services, Ofsted will advise the LGO of any concerns it has about a local authority's failure to implement any changes to policy or procedure recommended by the LGO following an investigation.
Eleanor Schooling, director for social care at Ofsted, said: "Inspection and accountability help to drive improvements in children's services.
"I've been greatly encouraged by recent monitoring visits to children's services formerly judged to be inadequate, where inspectors saw tangible evidence of progress.
"So I look forward to working more closely with the Local Government Ombudsman to help improve care for some of the most vulnerable children in England."
Dr Jane Martin, Local Government Ombudsman, said: "Sharing information in this way will not only benefit both our organisations, but should also help drive improvements in children's care services across England."
So far a total of 110 councils have had their children's services assessed under Ofsted's single inspection framework (SIF). Of these, 26 councils (23.6 per cent) have been rated "inadequate", 54 (49.1 per cent) have been rated "requires improvement", and 28 (25.5 per cent) have been rated as "good". Just two councils have been rated "outstanding".
Ofsted is proposing to replace the SIF in 2018 with a more "targeted" system in which it analyses data and makes use of local authority self-evaluations to keep track of how children's services departments are doing.
