Ofsted publishes ‘state of the nation’ statistical picture of children’s social care provision
Quality of children’s homes has fallen
Ofsted has published data for children's social care in England 2015. The data incorporates the latest inspection grade for 2,787 active children's social care providers and 59 local authority children's services departments. This is the first time all Ofsted's social care inspection statistics have been published together in one bulletin.
Matthew Coffey, Ofsted's Chief Operating Officer, said:
"This overview of the performance of social care services for children and young people further reinforces the findings of Ofsted's social care annual report, published earlier this year. We are seeing a children's services sector in transition, with some, but not yet enough, local authorities demonstrating they are working in a more child centred way.
"The 14 local authorities judged to be 'good' have shown they are putting the outcomes of children at the heart of their decision-making and practice. These areas demonstrate what can be done, and we urge other authorities to learn from their example.
"The quality of children's homes has also fallen, which is cause for concern given the vulnerabilities of the children and young people they support. Ofsted will be closely monitoring the performance of the sector, bolstered by a new inspection framework, which explicitly focuses on the progress and experiences of children and young people."
The release contains:
- Inspection outcomes for local authority children's services inspections, from November 2013
- Inspection outcomes for all regulated, and other, children's social care provision, 1 April 2014 to 31 March 2015
- Inspection outcome of most recent inspection, for all regulated, and other, children's social care provision, as at 31 March 2015
- Information about the providers of children's social care, including the numbers of providers and places, as at 31 March 2015.
The key findings are as follows:
- Almost a quarter (14) of local authorities, so far, were judged to be good for Overall effectiveness for the single inspection framework for inspecting services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers (SIF).
- Just over one half (31) require improvement to be good for the SIF.
- One quarter (14) of local authorities, so far, were judged to be inadequate for the SIF.
- Under one quarter of children's homes (23% or 459) were run by local authorities as at 31 March 2015, a fall of 3% from the previous year.
- One third (54) of local authorities do not run any children's homes.
- The performance of local authority-run children's homes continues to be better than private or voluntary-run homes in 2014-15; ie 70% of local authority-run homes received a good or better Overall effectiveness judgement than private (62%) and voluntary-run homes (64%).
The release is here.
13/8/15