Ofsted announces shake-up for childrens services

9 Dec 04
All children's services, from playgroups to prisons, are to be subject to a radical joint inspection regime under proposals announced by Ofsted this week.

10 December 2004

All children's services, from playgroups to prisons, are to be subject to a radical joint inspection regime under proposals announced by Ofsted this week.

From September 2005, each local authority area will receive a three-yearly Joint Area Review evaluating how well all their children's services work together.

The arrangements have been devised by the ten inspectorates whose work has an impact on children, including Ofsted, the Audit Commission, the Healthcare Commission and HM Inspectorate of Prisons.

The proposals aim to prevent the service failures that contributed to the death of Victoria Climbié in 2000 and fulfil the requirements of this year's Children Act.

Inspectors will assess services against a shared set of criteria and combine their judgements to produce a single, published report.

Speaking on behalf of all the inspectorates, Ofsted head David Bell said the review would also look at the way services work together. 'This will help to ensure that children and young people get the best possible services, support and chances, wherever they live and whatever their situation,' he said.

The review will be conducted at the same time as the Comprehensive Performance Assessment.

Alison King, chair of the Local Government Association's children and young people board, said the move to a child-centred framework was welcome but told Public Finance: 'We need to do more work on what joint inspection might mean.'

King added that inspection criteria should be locally focused rather than set against a 'one-size-fits-all' national template.

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