All local authority children’s services are subject to individual and collective inspections by OfSTED under an inspection framework which was established as part of Every Child Matters. However, following the tragedy involving Baby Peter in Haringey, the government reviewed how local authorities are inspected. This review resulted in a new inspection framework made up of two parts. The first part, the unannounced two day inspection of social work contact, referral and assessment services, took place in August 2009. The second part is a three yearly inspection of Looked After Children and Safeguarding Services and is due to take place by April 2012.
These new inspections have a sharper focus on evaluating outcomes for children and young people and the impact that services have on improving these outcomes. The inspection will cover all aspects of safeguarding and also focus on the outcomes for looked after children and care leavers.
Inspections will be graded against published criteria on a four point scale (outstanding, good, adequate or inadequate) in both the Safeguarding and Looked After Children categories. You can read more about the new OfSTED arrangements for the inspection of children’s services, including safeguarding and looked after children’s services
Inspections of local authority children’s homes, fostering and adoption and private fostering arrangements will continue separately. Alongside other evidence such as that arising from serious case reviews, findings from these inspections will help determine the scope and timing of inspections of safeguarding and looked after children inspections.
