Ofsted questioned on safeguarding and children’s social care after calls for ‘radical reset’ 

The Education Committee will question Ofsted chief inspector Amanda Spielman on the regulator’s role in supporting reforms to the children’s social care sector

Among the areas of focus in this session will be the supply and quality of places in children’s homes, which varies across the country. This issue has been linked to greater demand from older children and those with complex needs, a shortage of foster carers and increasing costs of funding children’s social care. A 2022 CMA report suggested the latter was partly due to private providers being able to take advantage of the scarcity of places. 

There will be questions on the number of social workers and the effect this has on care for vulnerable children. Between 2021 and 2022, 35% of permanent care staff in children’s homes quit the profession. 

The cross-party Committee will ask Spielman and Ofsted’s national director for regulation and social care, Yvette Stanley, about its inspections of Hesley Group children’s homes in Doncaster, where disabled children were found to have suffered serious physical abuse and trauma at the hands of staff.  

This session comes one year since the government published findings from its Independent Review of Children’s Social Care. It warned that the sector needed a “radical reset” due to the system becoming “increasingly skewed to crisis intervention, with outcomes for children that continue to be unacceptably poor and costs that continue to rise”.  

In February the government published an Implementation Strategy based on the Review’s findings. It also called on Ofsted to review the way it inspects children’s social care providers so that it aligns with new policies in the Strategy, and to provide more transparency about the way it forms judgements. 

Following the Education Committee’s report on Children’s Homes – which found that 41% of care leavers are not in education, employment or training – Ofsted announced in December 2022 that it will focus more of its scrutiny of local authorities on the educational and employment opportunities for young people who leave care. The Committee will question the witnesses on what early findings have come from this change. 

Witness schedule, from 10:00 

• His Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Amanda Spielman, Ofsted    
• Yvette Stanley, National Director for Regulation and Social Care, Ofsted