Behind the Inspection Rating: Quality trickles down from the top

When the first wave of Ofsted’s tougher new child protection inspections arrived late last year, the results were disappointing for many councils. Of the 12 reports issued by mid-November, only one local authority secured a rating above satisfactory or inadequate.

That council, Redbridge in north east London, was awarded a “good” by inspectors.

“Inspections are always challenging but this was really intense,” says Catherine Worboyes, head of child protection and early intervention services at Redbridge. “The inspectors viewed an awful lot of case files. They looked at cases from the point when they came in and at our decision making every step of the way.

“We had to demonstrate why we had done what we had done and whether it had made a difference to children and young people.”

Performance management
Worboyes attributes much of Redbridge’s success in the more intensive inspection to its approach to performance management – a belief shared by Ofsted.

In its report, Ofsted’s inspectors noted that the council’s “firmly established” performance management approach was significantly contributing to improvement at the council.

What makes this approach work, says Worboyes, is that the focus on performance filters from the director of children’s services right down to frontline social workers.

“The director of children’s services chairs a fortnightly performance board meeting where we present data and so on,” she says. “We take the objectives from that and hold weekly performance meetings in child protection with our team managers where we look at what the risks are and whether we need to put in extra support.”