Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140
- 152)
MONDAY 13 DECEMBER 2004
MR DAVID
BELL, MRS
ANNA WALKER
CB, MR STEVE
BUNDRED AND
MR DAVID
BEHAN
Q140 Paul Holmes: Their silence presumably
means they agree with you. They are all happy that they can do
this within the framework of losing staff and within existing
budget levels as well. Is that going to affect the balance of
what an inspection is? How much of it is desk-based analysing
of information and how much of it will be going out and interviewing
people?
Mr Bell: In the best sense, you
have a desk element. Do not forget, as we have said, we draw upon
other field work that has previously been collected. If one looks
on a desk at the findings of institutional inspection, that in
itself has been derived from inspectors on site finding that out,
so in a good sense you are drawing upon existing evidence. We
have said that, as far as field work is concerned under joint
area review, that is likely to be either in areas where we have
insufficient evidence generated by a previous inspection activity,
or where we have particular concerns. You would expect us to do
that, to use our scarce inspection resource wisely and sensibly.
Going back to the point, we cannot and should not inspect everything
that we could conceivably inspect when looking at children's services.
We have to be smart in making those decisions.
Mrs Walker: Health care is a huge
remit, and quite clearly we do have to take decisions to match
the resources that we have available. We are very clear that these
issues relating to children, the joint area reviews and some activity
of our own in relation to children is extremely important for
us. The second point I wanted to make was that you talk about
this balance of analysing information and visiting, the more traditional
inspection. We believe that the only way we are going to be able
to carry out what we need to do going forward within the resources
which, quite properly, the Government is saying there is a limit
to, is actually to use the analysis of information precisely in
the way that David describes; analyse the information and visit
where you have a concern or you think there is a gap, and we believe
that only in that way can we get it where it matters.
Chairman: Some of us might feel that
the policy that says a 20% cut right across the piece regardless
of the service might also come from the Whacky Warehouse.
Q141 Mr Pollard: I remember, David
Bell, you said some time ago that you were starting a lighter
touch with your inspection, yet I can remember when you first
started with nurseries and play groups, I had a group come to
my surgery and said it was like the Gestapo going round. I did
report that at the time, much to the disgruntlement of your colleagues.
Is it likely that you will be able to maintain a light touch in
this new regime, bearing in mind that you are starting a new process
that nobody really knows about just yet?
Mr Bell: It is a big question,
and it really has exercised our collective minds when we have
been putting this together. We recognise that we have to and we
want to, under the instructions of the Minister, to do field work
in every authority in this first round of joint area reviews.
That will help us to establish a baseline, but I should say it
will not be the same field work in every place. We will use that
evidence base to determine how much field work, so right away
you will have proportionality in children's services. To take
an example, if you have, via the evidence that Ofsted and the
Commission has, evidence of high-performing education and children's
social services functions, and you have a range of other evidence,
including corporate performance, suggesting that an authority
is doing well, it will be a very light touch experience. We are
not starting off with a one size fits all. I think we are all
very clear, if for no other reason than we cannot afford it to
be a heavy touch everywhere. I would like to hope to persuade
you that we would not choose to have a heavy touch everywhere.
I think it is about strategic regulation, smarter regulation and,
in a sense, going where we are going to have most impact and most
value.
Mr Bundred: The only thing I would
add to that is that there is also a commitment on all our parts
to evaluation. So as well as piloting the approach, we will have
some independent assessment of whether we have achieved the objectives
that we have set ourselves such as the ones David has just outlined.
Q142 Chairman: Where is that independent
assessment coming from?
Mr Bundred: That is yet to be
commissioned.
Mr Bell: We have not commissioned
it yet. We are going to do it as an independent assessment, so
we will do our own internal "What has it felt like?"
in the back of the pilots, and we have committed some inspectorates
to commissioning external evaluation probably after the first
year or so.
Q143 Chairman: Who will do that?
Mr Bell: I do not know. It could
be a university. It could be a policy organisation. I genuinely
do not know.
Q144 Chairman: It is an interesting
question: who inspects the inspectorates? At the end of the day,
who does? Is it the Department? The Department for Education and
Skills is the lead department. Who at the end of the day says,
"Come on, all this inspection is not working" and pulls
the rug? It will be the Department, will it not?
Mr Bell: Chairman, I seem to recall
we have had this conversation on previous occasions with this
Committee.
Q145 Chairman: There is more of you.
You are growing like dragon's teeth.
Mr Bell: I think the Department,
possibly Departments, will have a view on this, and clearly they
are expressing views, whether it is the Office of the Deputy Prime
Minister or the DfES. They are looking to the outcomes of inspection,
but I think we just felt that it was important to have an external
commissioned evaluation that will be able to get our experience
of doing the inspection as well as find out about the experience
of those being inspected.
Q146 Chairman: The Children's Commissioner
cannot say, "Look, you are not doing a good job," can
he or she?
Mr Bell: The Children's Commissioner
may have a view on how well we are meeting our objective laid
out in this framework to solicit the views of children and young
people. In fact, I would be very surprised if the Children's Commissioner
did not want to comment on that. I would have thought they would
be looking at the inspectorates to determine how well we are doing
our job in that regard.
Q147 Chairman: So the Commissioner
could blow the whistle on you?
Mr Bell: I think it is very possible
the Commissioner could say "You are not doing enough for
children and young people" via this process.
Q148 Mr Pollard: I was pleased, as
we all were, to hear that children were consulted about the five
outcomes. That was excellent news. Are you going to involve children
in the inspection bit?
Mr Behan: I think it is a really
important question. It was at the heart of how I would have answered
Paul's question, because whilst we want to be light touch and
proportionate, it is also important where we visit that time is
spent with children, and indeed parents, because often some of
the issues are about how parents are supported to parent. So we
can ascertain their views about their experiences of services.
That will be a key criterion for whether services are delivering
positively and meeting the needs of people by asking people that
are using the services. We need to be quite careful that when
we do the field work, we are not just focusing on the strategic
issues, but we are focusing on the way services are delivered
at a local level, and when we are looking for the evidence about
how well those services are delivered, that time is spent with
people that are using the services about their experiences of
services. So we are not just asking front-line staff or senior
managers but we are asking people that use services. We have spent
a lot of time in designing the methodology to ensure that we have
activity going on to speak to children and to their parents about
how services are being met. The Children's Rights Director in
the Commission will need to work with the Commissioner on this,
because the Children's Rights Director by statute has a responsibility
to be aware of what is happening in regulated services—that
is boarding schools, children's homes, fostering services—and
the Children's Rights Director carries out a lot of consultations
during the year abut children's experiences of services. We have
just published a report on Safe from Harm, and a report on children
in boarding schools and what children think of boarding schools.
So I think it is important that the children's rights director
and the Commissioner work together and do come back to us as inspectorates
about what children are saying about their expectations of services,
about the qualities children expect to see in services, and making
sure that we in turn are asking local authorities the right kind
of questions about the way that they are meeting needs at a local
level. I think this is a really important relationship and we
are clear that we can judge services as being effective where
children, young people and their parents are saying "These
are good services; they are meeting our needs."
Q149 Chairman: Interestingly enough,
some of the people that we are talking to or talking about in
our prison education review at the moment, we get the sense that
we are asking people what they thought of the service, because
they are the very children we talked about earlier that disappear
out of the system at an early age. David Bell, you must feel a
bit worried about all this because, in a sense, you experimented
with consulting with parents and you do not think it works, because
on two fronts you are changing the method or giving up on parents,
are you not?
Mr Bell: Certainly not.
Q150 Chairman: Inspections are not
going to include parents in future, are they?
Mr Bell: That is not correct,
Chairman. What we are not going to do under short notice inspection
is have a parents' meeting, but as we are already finding through
our pilot inspections, parents are continuing to make their views
known to us. So for example when a letter goes out, even at short
notice, informing parents of an inspection, they are able to make
their views known, and we have found on a number of different
inspections carried out so far that parents have been in touch.
We are absolutely up for involving parents. It is worth remembering
that Ofsted was set up to provide that information to parents.
We have a question mark based on our evidence of increasingly
limited attendance at parents' meetings in advance of inspections.
We have the evidence that that is not as effective as it was 10
years ago, but we are absolutely committed to continuing to get
the views of parents and have those views inform our inspections
and our inspectors.
Q151 Chairman: The new Education
Bill also takes away some aspects of parental involvement does
it not?
Mr Bell: Are you referring to
lay inspectors?
Q152 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Bell: Mr Chairman, again, on
this point, I find it hard to be persuaded that if somebody has
done 250 inspections as a lay inspector that they are actually
a lay person inspecting. You may be a highly competent inspector
but I think it is hard to argue that you are a lay person bringing
a unique perspective. We want to ensure that the best inspectors
continue to inspect, and some of those people who have been designated
lay inspectors I am sure will come into the new system, but I
think we can capture the views of lay people. We have been consulting
on this issue recently. I think we have to do it differently to
make sure that we get those views and continue to get those views
to inform inspections.
Chairman: David Bell, David Behan, Steve
Bundred, Anna Walker, we have learned a lot. I hope you have enjoyed
the hospitality of the Select Committee, and we will be seeing
you again. Thank you very much.
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