Ofsted exclusive interview: Savings could be reinvested to help councils rated inadequate, says Christine Gilbert

In a rare and exclusive interview with CYP Now, Christine Gilbert said any money saved by the changes would be best spent on authorities rated inadequate for safeguarding.

Last week, Professor Eileen Munro's interim report on child protection recommended that the inspectorate stop its evaluations of serious case reviews. Gilbert revealed she in fact wrote to ministers before Christmas to suggest the evaluations should stop after reviews began to be published in full.

"We felt the evaluations were incredibly costly," she explained. "It's more important for us to be looking at how the changes are happening on the ground."

Gilbert cited Haringey as an authority that had benefited from extra assistance. "Professionals said it was really helpful for us to go back at different times to look at how they were doing and to report on their progress," she explained. "That isn't something we do commonly with other inadequate authorities. But it would be more effective for us to be using our resources like that and far less expensive than evaluating serious case reviews."

Matt Dunkley, vice president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, said: "We agree that any savings made by changes to Ofsted’s functions should be retained within the sector for use on improvement support  - where that resource is most needed and best used should be decided in conjunction with the sector so that it has the widest benefit and largest impact on outcomes for children and young people."