Alison O’Sullivan: It is time for new measures
A more tailored approach to inspection is required – one which better reflects the complexity of child protection and considers the significant impact of reduced local authority resources.
We believe that inspection has three core functions: it must facilitate a learning culture that supports local authorities to develop their services and drive improvements in outcomes for children; it should ascertain whether the range of services being provided leads to better outcomes for children and their families, and whether inherent risks are being appropriately managed; and it should act as a vehicle through which public-sector organisations are held to account for the effectiveness of outcomes achieved in relation to expenditure. This is not delivered by the single inspection framework (Sif).
The Sif itself is broken and is concerned more with compliance than outcomes. It is burdensome and disproportionately consumes the resources of both the inspectors and the inspected. So we must redesign the current arrangements.
In March, the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, the Local Government Association and Solace published a proposed alternative to the Sif. An annual, unannounced inspection of front-door arrangements would identify those places where the arrangements were not adequate and the focus should then be on understanding in more depth the extent of challenge and doing whatever is needed to put it right. And most crucially, those places found to have adequate arrangements should be left to get on with it.
This is not an argument for less scrutiny or less accountability. We both need and want a rigorous approach to independent evaluation of the effectiveness of services. It is time that we developed a significantly more effective and integrated framework to assess how well local agencies work together and individually to safeguard the most vulnerable children and young people in the communities they serve.
Alison O’Sullivan is president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services and director of children’s services at Kirklees council.
Eleanor Schooling: A robust system is in place
Inspection must do good first and foremost, for children and for those working with children. It must hold decision-makers to account, to ensure that a climate of improvement and always aspiring for the best outcomes for children and families is sustained and sufficiently well-resourced in a local area. It must also set out what the place is doing to protect and care for children, how capable it is of spotting and tackling problems, and of withstanding the many challenges it faces.
There are two ways of approaching this. One is to seek out the most pressing problems and make it clear they must be addressed. The other is to start by looking at what local authorities are doing well. Both are needed for public accountability and improvement.
The current “single” inspection is our most comprehensive look at the whole of the child’s journey and is certainly not broken. But to date, a focus largely on areas of concern has led to an imbalanced picture. At Ofsted we know what a good climate for learning looks like, with encouragement and fearless problem-solving where things can be done better, and increasingly we are able to identify the innovative and good work that exists around the country. This will help to create a positive climate for improvement.
Once we have completed the current programme, using it as a baseline, I’d like to see a “lighter touch”, shorter and more proportionate inspection model – one that retains an all-important scrutiny of casework and the experiences of children, identifying a small number of key areas to act upon. Where significant concerns arise, this would trigger a more comprehensive look at the area using the in-depth single inspection.
If we couple this with an expectation that local authorities will work with one another to jointly evaluate their practice and learn together, I believe we will have a more accountable system of inspection in future.
Eleanor Schooling is national director of social care at Ofsted.
