Never mind the inspectorate, recruit the right inspectors

But these are all structural changes and these alone will not ensure nor endanger children's wellbeing. Structures matter, but deliver matters much more. So whether the government takes up the committee's key recommendation is a relatively moot point. Indeed, in an era of quango bonfires and mass rationalisation, the government risks embarrassment if it creates two inspectorates and two chief inspectors where before there was one.

Of far more importance is the focus on the ability of inspectors across the board. Evidence to the committee cited a lack of expertise among inspectors, particularly in care services such as fostering, children's homes and social work. Even inspectors themselves doubted the abilities of some of their peers. So the committee's report urges recruitment of more inspectors with recent frontline experience and more secondments of serving practitioners from the frontline (with these secondments built into job descriptions). This is the direction in which Ofsted has started to move anyway and is something the Department for Education ought to pursue wholeheartedly. The roles of inspectors in education and children's care need to carry more kudos for able practitioners to be lured to join their ranks.

The report also calls for children's care inspections, but not education inspections, to actively support service improvement. Alongside a workforce with greater experience of the frontline, this would help build credibility, confidence and a sense of partnership in the care system. It would encourage the care inspector to be regarded as the "critical friend", rather than the "aloof bully" that is sometimes the case. The report also, rightly, urges more use of the evidence base that inspection itself provides.

So let us not obsess about inspectorates when the quality of inspectors is such a critical issue.

Ravi Chandiramani editor, Children & Young People Now