Inspecting the inspectors: where Ofsted went wrong

In late November 2007, Ofsted rated Haringey's contribution to the staying safe element of Every Child Matters as good. One year and a high-profile child death later, the watchdog had changed its tune.

Last week, the urgent Joint Area Review (JAR) of Haringey, ordered after Baby P's death, said the borough's attempts to safeguard children were inadequate.

Inspectors identified a number of serious concerns, including insufficient management oversight of safeguarding and poor scrutiny of performance across the council.

But how could Ofsted have missed such glaring inadequacies just 12 months earlier? And what does this mean for the future of the children's services inspectorate, just one year old itself?

Caroline Abrahams, programme director for children and young people at the Local Government Association, says a debate about the nature of inspections is imminent.

Quality assurance

One issue is that the current Ofsted framework does not observe frontline social work practice. Whether or not it should is up for debate, but Abrahams believes the sector must decide how to develop quality assurance in this area.

Another issue is the suitability of inspectors themselves. "People raise questions about shortages of high-quality, experienced social care people in the workforce so it wouldn't be surprising if this were reflected in the inspectorate," she says.

Wes Cuell, acting chief executive of charity NSPCC and a former director of children's services, believes something has gone seriously wrong at Ofsted. Local authorities must look beyond its reports to assess what is really going on, he warns.

"I would like Ofsted to learn from this experience. They should ask what was different about their approach to the urgent JAR from the 2007 assessment," he says.

Self-assessment

He adds that the use of self-assessment must also be scrutinised. "Most managers are very careful to get self-reporting right. What worries me is that people believe they are doing better than they are," he says. Cuell says Ofsted must refine its assessment tools to measure performance instead of systems and process.

Another major concern with inspections is the extent to which the recipients of services are involved. John Kemmis, chief executive of children's advocacy charity Voice, says the watchdog is missing a trick.

"Clearly, Ofsted needs to talk to service users and go into depth to get a picture of what their experience is like. This is one of the primary tools of quality assurance," he says.

Continual restructuring

Kemmis adds that Ofsted is also suffering from the "current merry-go-round of restructuring", which he claims has damaged both local authorities and the inspectorate.

"This continual change creates a loss of expertise. Inspectors don't necessarily have the experience to do their jobs properly. The team who did the Haringey JAR obviously did, but the team who did its previous inspection didn't," he says.

But not everyone is so critical. John Chowcat, general secretary of the children's services union Aspect, says Ofsted is already improving.

He compares the watchdog's progress to the progress of the sector as a whole. "If you have integrated children's services then you need an integrated inspectorate. When the Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) comes in it should remove some of the problems," he says.

Improvement

Julie Jones, chief executive of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, says Ofsted is putting a lot of focus on improvement: "The government's response to Baby P will frame where we go from here. All of us need to focus on helping Ofsted improve."

A spokesman for Ofsted says inspectors are clear that they must look at practice on the ground, not just statistics, to get a full picture of local authority safeguarding practice. He claims Ofsted's new inspections will look more robustly at safeguarding and says it is "actively considering" its work programme for 2009 and will adjust numbers of inspectors as required.

Next year will herald a new era in inspections. Changes to Ofsted and the new CAA will transform the way local authorities experience scrutiny. While the Audit Commission and Ofsted put the finishing touches to their plans for 2009, Baby P's legacy is a guarantee that safeguarding will top the agenda.

FUNDING FOR INSPECTIONS ON THE SLIDE

•  £266m - Total expenditure of the inspectorates that now make up Ofsted in 2003/04
•  £230.5m - Ofsted's expenditure in 2007/08
•  £199.9m - How much Ofsted plans to spend in 2008/09

COST OF INSPECTIONS

•  £107 - Cost of social care inspection per place employed by Ofsted
•  £22.40 - Cost of childcare inspection per place
•  £6.90 - Cost of school inspection per pupil

Source: Ofsted

THE POTENTIAL IMPACT OF NO-NOTICE INSPECTIONS

No-notice inspections will not address safeguarding issues, the Association of Directors of Children's Services is warning.

The proposed focus of annual safeguarding visits is wrong and visits will increase administrative burdens on councils, a spokeswoman for the association claims. "Inspections will focus attention on local authority child protection services and not on how local partners are working together," she says. "This contradicts the principle that safeguarding children is everyone's business, which was the crux of the Laming Inquiry into the death of Victoria Climbie."

She adds that inspections should include agencies such as police child protection teams and accident and emergency services.

But John Chowcat, general secretary of the children's services union Aspect, says the introduction of unannounced inspections is laudable: "Our main view is that the right principles are being acted on. Improvements in safeguarding are needed."

Caroline Abrahams, programme director for children and young people at the Local Government Association, agrees that no-notice safeguarding inspections are necessary: "We don't have any problem with on-the-spot inspections."

In September, Ofsted announced plans to carry out annual no-notice inspections of children's services as part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment, set to launch in 2009. This plan was confirmed last week by Children's Secretary Ed Balls.