LGA response to Ofsted’s ‘big listen’ consultation

Sir Martyn Oliver
His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Ofsted
Clive House
70 Petty France
London
SW1H 9EX

24 May 2024

Dear Martyn,

I’m writing to you to share the Local Government Association’s response to the ‘big listen’ consultation that you published in March. I hope that you find our feedback to be constructive and we would be more than happy to continue to work with you as you consider any changes to Ofsted’s inspection activity as a result of responses from councils and other stakeholders.

Councils have raised concerns regarding the overall inspection burden being placed on councils at a time when demand for support continues to rise, while the financial pressures facing councils are well known. Some councils have experienced multiple inspections (a combination of ILACS, Joint-Targeted Area Inspection and/or SEND area inspection) in quick succession and this has been resource intensive for the council and been highly stressful for the officers involved, including central data teams. This can be further exacerbated by inspection activity by other agencies, for example inspections of adult social care and youth offending services. We would be keen to explore the extent to which some of this inspection activity could be combined or sequenced to ensure there are sufficient gaps between inspection that allow officers to focus on their roles and not servicing inspection teams. 

This burden of inspection can also then have an impact on a council, or local area’s improvement journey, whether that is focussed on children’s social care or SEND. Council with an ‘inadequate’ ILACS judgement will also be in receipt of Ofsted monitoring visits and Department for Education intervention. These interventions do help drive improvement, but we would like to explore how they can be better co-ordinated to ensure that councils, and their partners, can focus their energy on improving services to benefit children and young people.

Children’s social care

The Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) framework that covers council Children’s services is seen as a significant improvement on its predecessor, the Single Inspection Framework (SIF). Councils report that the ILACS framework has a welcome focus on the experiences of children, is more proportionate and supports improvement. There are however concerns about the continued use of a single word judgement and how this can accurately reflect the complexities of the child protection system.

Further to this, councils have raised concerns that some ILACS inspections can be deficit, as opposed to strength-based, with final reports often having a very different tone to that taken by inspectors during the inspection process, with areas of good practice not being included (including for ‘good’ and ‘outstanding’ councils).

We also have concerns regarding the experience of some inspectors and their ability to take a consistent approach to inspecting councils. Feedback from councils is that some do not have sufficient experience of in leading children’s services to judge a council’s effectiveness.

Ofsted currently only has powers to inspect individual settings, rather than groups of providers. With increasing numbers of settings managed by a small number of very large providers, it would be a positive step for Ofsted to have powers to inspect these large providers to identify strategic or systemic risks. 

We are concerned that Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAIs) have too greater focus on the role of the council, including an expectation that councils are responsible for driving forward recommendations and we would like to see these inspections being truly multi-agency, particularly with regards to those recommendations.

SEND area inspection

Local areas are testing a range of proposed reforms set out in the SEND and Alternative Provision improvement plan, creating a great deal of additional turbulence and uncertainty in local SEND systems. We would therefore interested in exploring whether Ofsted (and CQC) SEND inspection activity could be more positively focussed on identifying the national, systemic issues with the existing SEND system and using those findings to inform discussions on further reforms.

We do however support the SEND area inspection framework’s emphasis on the impact that local area partnership SEND support is having on the lives of children and young people with special needs. Having said that, councils have raised concerns with us that neither Ofsted or the CQC have the capacity or expertise to deliver against the proposed framework. We would be happy to work with Ofsted and the CQC to ensure inspectors have sufficient understanding of the complexities of local SEND systems and their accountabilities.

The SEND area inspection framework only makes limited references to the role of schools in supporting children and young people with special needs. Ofsted needs to better recognise that it is schools, not councils that have most influence over outcomes for pupils with SEND and the area inspection framework needs to have much better join up with the inspectorate's school inspection framework. Ofsted should consider how school inspection frameworks and outcomes, specifically approaches to supporting pupils with SEND and inclusion, should feed into area SEND inspections, particularly given the focus on children’s experiences in a local area. Councils have also raised concerns regarding inspector’s knowledge of education systems and the very limited influence councils have over academies.

Councils have raised concerns regarding a lack of triangulation of evidence identified by inspection teams, resulting in too much weight being placed on evidence given by a small number of families unhappy with how the needs of their children are being met. This in turn has resulted in areas querying the findings of inspection reports, in some instances delaying their publication for several months.

We understand that the 'systemic failings' judgement is intended to convey that those failings are collectively held across the whole system (health, education and social care) but in reality it is interpreted and managed as a council failing, with the council then being subject to a Department for Education improvement notice. This in turn plays into the significant stress and pressure on leadership in councils and can hamper the subsequent improvement journey and focus on improving outcomes for children. We would like to see Ofsted and the CQC develop a true local area inspection framework that holds councils, schools and health partners to account equally.

School inspection

On school inspections there is a building consensus about the inability of the single word/phrase to capture school complexity and support school improvement. There are also calls for Ofsted to be able to inspect Multi Academy Trusts as well as individual schools. We would like to see a much greater focus on inclusive practice and whether an individual school meets the needs of the community that it serves when inspected. Those schools that are not playing a meaningful role in supporting vulnerable children, including those with SEND and are care experienced, should be held to account for their lack of action. This work could be informed by the adoption of a nationally agreed definition of mainstream inclusion.

It has been suggested that relying on infrequent Ofsted inspections to assess the work of schools in safeguarding their pupils should be re-examined. This is because safeguarding is a ‘limiting’ judgement that can lead to an ‘inadequate’ judgement for an otherwise ‘good’ or ‘outstanding school’. We would be keen to explore whether councils, with their wider safeguarding duties and backed with sufficient resources, would be better placed to lead on checking and inspecting school and academy safeguarding arrangements and procedures on a more regular basis, dependent on risk.

Early years education and childcare

Council early years teams reflected a mixed relationship with Ofsted and raised particular concerns about inconsistent early years inspections, highlighting the input and expertise of the council is not always recognised nor used, and that they are not included in the feedback loop, thus impacting their ability to support providers to improve. 

Councils have a role in supporting providers to deliver high-quality early education and childcare. Although councils particularly focus on support for providers who have received a judgement of requires improvement from Ofsted, councils play a key role in supporting all providers to deliver high-quality early education and childcare, given their sufficiency duties. Their ability to do this, however, is limited by the fact that Ofsted does not consistently share information with councils in advance of or following an inspection, thus the council is often reliant on high-level information in reports or provider feedback which may not always accurately cover the content of feedback meetings. Furthermore, although the rationale for 6 yearly inspection visits for some providers is understood, there is a concern that this does not accurately pick up on concerns early enough, particularly when the council has contacted Ofsted about concerns in provision and no action is taken. 

There is inconsistency between different inspectors and their approach to engaging with the council, and their approach to and skills in inspecting early years settings. This has led some councils to feel concerned about the outcome of judgements, and some providers to raise concerns about the robustness of the process. Councils also report positive relationships with Ofsted where they are informed about inspections and seen as part of the process but this is not a consistent approach. There is also an opportunity to improve the communication between councils, providers and Ofsted for guidance interpretation. Councils feel that sometimes Ofsted is unclear in its understanding of and how guidance will be implemented, leaving councils to interpret this without responses to their queries and therefore being conflicted in the support they offer to providers. 

There is a concern about the ability of settings that are part of large chains to respond quickly to notification of inspections and therefore put forward an accurate picture of practice. This includes bringing in staff from other settings, or more experienced managers to meet with Ofsted which therefore does not accurately reflect the situation for the settings outside of the inspection period. 

Early years inspections should have a much greater focus on SEND and additional needs and how these settings prepare children for the move into school and their capability, competency and capacity in delivering this. This should be supported by a measure of how settings work with health visitors and other partners. This would shine a light on the involvement of those partners and hold them to account, as well as provide reassurance to schools, where their contributions are positive. Councils have also suggested that inspectors should work with them to understand the wider context of providers to clearly understand their approach to inclusive practice. 

There is a particular issue related to the expansion of early entitlements where councils have raised concerns about the rushed registration of early years providers where there are concerns the provision is not fit for purpose. This has come to light in relation to baby rooms which will continue to be a concern given the expansion of entitlements to young children. 

I know that our Children and Young People policy team enjoys a strong relationship with their counterparts at Ofsted and would be more than happy to discuss any of our feedback in greater detail if that would be of use and I look forward to working with you in the coming weeks and months.

Yours sincerely, 

Councillor Louise Gittins

Chair, Local Government Association Children and Young People Board

cc. LGA Vice-Presidents