Ofsted to draft in social workers to plug skills gap

The watchdog has struggled to recruit social care inspectors to fill posts created by a restructure that put more emphasis on social care.

Ofsted is now "investigating" using social workers or local authority social care managers on secondment to carry out inspections, a spokeswoman for the watchdog confirmed. She added that any new social care inspectors would have to have a social care qualification as well as experience.

Jon Richards, Unison senior national officer for Ofsted, said the inspectorate's plans are a "double-edged sword". He said: "On the one hand, they shouldn't be taking people from the frontline when there is a shortage of social workers. However, how are Ofsted going to understand what's happening on the frontline if they don't employ experienced professionals?"

But Tim Chittleburgh, chair of the British Association of Social Workers, claimed using social workers to carry out inspections would greatly improve the quality of Ofsted's work. "Of course there are vacancies in social work but I can't think of anyone better to carry out inspections than social workers. We would push very strongly for social workers to become inspectors, they are absolutely the right people," he said.