Ofsted 'too tough' on child protection teams, finds scathing report
Joe Lepper
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
Ofsted is unfairly tough on children's services departments and its inspections can have a detrimental impact on performance, a damning report has concluded.
A study by consultancy firm Impower, which has worked with local authorities including Doncaster to help improve services, says the inspectorate has an "an outdated approach to inspection and looks at children’s services "through a one-dimensional lens".
The report, which comes just weeks after Ofsted's national director for social care Debbie Jones resigned, calls for wholesale reform of children’s social care inspections.
It details how Ofsted’s labelling of social care teams as "inadequate" can have a "catastrophic spiralling effect on a local authority, turning a poorly performing authority into a broken one".
"Critically, the single-word judgment issued to councils following an Ofsted inspection does little to describe the overall progress or challenges facing local councils, nor does it provide appropriate balance for the detail that may be present in a report," it states.
"Rather, it heightens anxiety, increases risk in the system through increasing demand and can lead to significant workforce turbulence.
"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 also describes the notion that a “completely broken service can be fixed within six months” as “illusory”, as problems that failing children’s social care teams face are too complex to be solved in such a short space of time.
Ofsted is also accused in the report of being “unwilling to acknowledge that wider public spending pressures are forcing councils to be more innovative when it comes to approaches and models".
Analysis of councils labelled as “inadequate” found that after the judgment was made, work volumes increased by up to 50 per cent “in already overwhelmed organisations”.
There was also found to be a significant reduction in the "timeliness of interventions" as well as "a surge in staff turnover with the resultant use of an ever more transient and costly agency workforce".
Other key challenges for children’s social care highlighted in the report include a national shortage of social workers and a lack of early intervention support for families at risk of breakdown.
The report comes just a week after Labour’s shadow children’s minister Steve McCabe said his party will launch a consultation into the inspectorate’s future in relation to social care inspections should it win the general election.
An Ofsted spokesman has defended its track record of inspecting children’s social care.
He said: “We make no apology for carrying out robust inspections of local authority services on behalf of the children and young people who use them.
“Ofsted recognises the constraints within which social workers and their managers work, as our recent social care annual report acknowledged.
"Our inspectors understand the challenges facing the sector – they all have a background in social care."
“The independent scrutiny which Ofsted provides is essential.
"However, it is right that the inspectorate is itself scrutinised and we welcome this debate. We will continue to work with the sector to further develop and enhance inspection.”
