- Media & Campaigns
- Press releases
- 2009
- November 2009
- Extra funds for primary school places 'valuable'
- LGA to cut or freeze every member’s subs next year
- Gold buying companies fleecing unsuspecting consumers, councils warn
- Air pollution must be tackled to stop eu fines and thousands of premature deaths
- Plans to speed up home insulation for millions unveiled by councils
- LGA response to local government finance settlement
- New Local Innovation Awards Scheme shortlist
- Councils need the freedom to allow them to deliver better for less
- Parking tickets keep people safe and traffic moving - councils
- Improvement agenda set for Ofsted
- Ten finalists taking part in the local government challenge announced
- Bonfire of bureaucracy could save taxpayers £4.5 billion
- Councils helping flood hit areas
- Cut red tape for councils to fund personal care at home
- Flood and Water Management Bill - councils respond
- Councils improve recruitment and staff development opportunities
- Quangos face tough questions on acccountability and value for money - LGA
- Stop children using sunbeds to cut cancer risk to teenagers, say council
- Children's potential being wasted - response to unemployment figures
- Challenges remain in social work retention and recruitment
- No extremist threat should be ignored - council leaders
- Modern day pedlars force call for law change
- LGA response to council tax survey
- Recycling rates rise but urgent action still needed
- Bus fares scheme must be fully funded - councils
- Use RIPA for loan sharks, not littering - LGA
- Give taxpayers' more say over spending in their area
- Threat of prosecution will make school admission system "as fair as possible"
Improvement agenda set for Ofsted
LGA press release - 24 November 2009
Ofsted should be the calm, measured voice that helps to make child protection services work better rather than feeding people’s fears, council leaders said today. The Local Government Association is calling for the inspectorate to sign up to its own improvement plan to win back the confidence of the public, central government and councils.
The LGA believes Ofsted has become too concerned about protecting its own reputation and places a disproportionate emphasis on publicly highlighting weaknesses in child protection without adequately reflecting the huge amount of good work being done by councils across the country.
This encourages professionals in the police and health services to be excessively risk-averse over the handling of vulnerable children, driving up the number of referrals social workers are dealing with and consequently increasing the danger that a vulnerable child will be missed.
The number of care applications for the three months to September 2009 rose more than 47 per cent compared to the same period last year and the number of children taken into state care in the last year has leapt by 9 per cent. These increases are putting the systems which protect children under extra pressure and making it harder to identify the children at the greatest risk of harm.
Ahead of the publication of Ofsted’s annual report later (Tuesday November 24th), the LGA is calling on the organisation to incorporate five principles into everything it does. The aim is to help Ofsted develop into a body which contributes to improving the services which keep children safe.
Ofsted should:
- be a voice of reason rather than feeding people’s fears
- be independent of external influence, basing its conclusions on facts and research
- use expert and knowledgeable inspectors who can offer advice and support
- assess how well children are being looked after and protected rather than measuring processes and procedures
- be focused on making services better rather than on delivering detached, public judgements
Cllr Shireen Ritchie, Chair of the LGA’s Children and Young People Board, said:
“There is no question of complacency when it comes to the issue of keeping children safe from abuse and neglect. Councils want to do this as well as they possibly can, and getting feedback and reports on their successes and failures is a vital part of getting better.
“Ofsted, like any inspection body, needs to have the trust and respect of the people it works with. A good watchdog has to be seen to be independent, and to offer conclusions based on facts and research rather than being influenced by external events.
“The time when an inspector could sit on the sidelines and offer tick-box judgements is long past. Ofsted, or any future social work inspection body, must provide advice and answers to problems which will help councils and other public bodies keep all children as safe as possible.
"Councils must be worried if gaps are appearing in the safety net which protects children from abuse and harm. There needs to be a way of identifying and closing those gaps which is helpful and proportionate, and the principles the LGA is laying out for Ofsted would help that process. Merely highlighting failures fuels public concern over child protection and makes it harder for children’s social workers to get the respect they deserve, adding to problems of recruitment and retention.
“It goes without saying that I want every child to be able to grow up in a safe and happy home. That’s what every councillor wants, what every social worker wants, and what virtually every member of the public wants. This is work we can do better if Ofsted takes up the challenge of working with us rather than against us.”
ENDS
Notes to editors
DCSF: Children Looked After in England (including adoption and care leavers) year ending 31 March 2009 (Statistical first release)
There were 25,400 children who started to be looked after during the year ending 31 March 2009, an increase of 9 per cent from the previous year's figure of 23,300. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000878/index.shtml
At the end of last month, the LGA launched a debate called ‘Freedom to Lead’ about how councils can be best freed up from the burden of inspection so they can deliver more efficiency savings, to be fed into improved frontline services. http://www.lga.gov.uk/lga/aio/5103370