Examination of Witnesses (Questions 160-179)
CHRISTINE GILBERT
CBE, MICHAEL HART,
VANESSA HOWLISON,
MELANIE HUNT
AND MIRIAM
ROSEN
14 MAY 2008
Q160 Mr Slaughter: I understand
that and I understand why it is important. I also agree with Fiona
that these things should not be ignored, but you are primarily
educationalists, not social workers or policemen. To play devil's
advocate, you have been accused, if that is not too strong a word,
of two things this morning. One relates to an excess of formal
teaching to four and five-year-olds; the other, which comes out
of this week's report, is turning a blind eye to widespread teaching
to the test and to a narrowing of the curriculum, with a focus
on a few subjects—principally those to do with literacy,
numeracy and so forth. Yet, the most telling comment that you
have made to me this morning is that 20% of children at age 11
have some form of functional illiteracy. That does not square
with me. If there is distortion in the system—I am not sure
whether you are admitting that there is one or whose fault it
is—that puts a great focus on learning to read and write
at an early age and on constant testing, why do we have a rather
scandalous situation in which there is that degree of illiteracy?
Christine Gilbert: It is not an
either/or. Children and their parents have a right to know that
they can feel safe and protected when they go to school. That
is an absolute precursor to effective learning. That said, we
need to do more to improve academic performance in schools. We
also need to do a number of things right across the five outcomes
to improve children's well-being more generally. I really do not
see them as opposing and contradictory.
Q161 Mr Slaughter: You think that
you can cope with that degree of work within your resources and
improve the educational outcomes?
Christine Gilbert: Absolutely. We can.
Q162 Mr Slaughter: So it does
not matter how much wider the brief becomes? It is certainly wide.
Ten or 20 years ago, people would not have said that the focus
of an education inspectorate was on whether children were being
molested or fed. I am not saying that those are the only important
things.
Christine Gilbert: The issue of
child protection, for instance, was part of the section 5 school
inspection reports introduced in September 2005, which was before
we took over formal responsibility for children's social care.
I cannot believe that we would try to run schools in which that
was not of absolutely paramount importance. Children have to feel
safe and protected in school, and their parents have to feel that
they are. That will not take a great deal of time once the system
and processes are in place, and the Ofsted inspectors check that
when they go in. They do check it sufficiently, too. I think that
there has been an example this year of a school going into special
measures because those systems and processes were not in place.
It was a maintained school, not an independent school.
Miriam Rosen: We have taken safeguarding
extremely seriously, and it has been specifically looked at under
the section 5 inspection arrangements from 2005. I would say that
schools also take it seriously, but if we found that they did
not, we would put them into a category of concern.
Christine Gilbert: Inspectors
have been trained in that. In fact, I was in a meeting yesterday
at which they were saying that they were trained 18 months ago
and needed refreshment in looking at safeguarding. Inspectors
do feel that it is a very important part of their job. They are
in no way resistant to doing it.
Q163 Chairman: But you can see
Andy's point. It seems that the inspectorate is getting a broader
and broader remit. To train people up to be responsible for inspecting
well-being covers a multitude of aspects of life. We have discussed
bullying when you have been in front of the Committee before,
and you know that we said in our report on bullying that there
should be a register of incidents of bullying. That has been resisted.
In your view, will that be part of the system? Will you be demanding
that there should be a clear indication of how much bullying takes
place in a school?
Christine Gilbert: Last September,
I think, we strengthened the element of the school inspection
reports that looks at behaviour. That was an initiative from the
new Prime Minister when he came into office. We looked at what
we were doing and tightened up how judgments were made to give
more advice on the matter. We do give a clear steer on that. We
look at what is going on in a school, ask the pupils and so on,
and take notice of what the parents say during an inspection.
Bullying is an issue that is dealt with—
Q164 Chairman: Recording incidents
of bullying—that is what I asked you about, Chief Inspector.
Do you believe that schools should record incidents of bullying?
Christine Gilbert: I think that
they should record serious incidents, but I worry about the central
imposition on schools of what they should do. Our evidence shows
that schools that have good behaviour policies—what they
decide to do within those policies is up to them, although the
Department offers guidance and so on—do extremely well and
improve behaviour in a relatively short time by following a consistent
policy whereby teachers and other adults working in the school
behave in a particular way.
Chairman: We will come back to that later.
Now we will consider looked-after children.
Q165 Paul Holmes: The Committee
is in the middle of an inquiry into looked-after children—fostering,
adoption and children in care. That is quite a new area for the
Committee, since the changes last year. It is also a new area
for Ofsted. You took over responsibility for inspecting care homes
from April last year. One thing that has come out of our inquiry
so far from children is that they want some stability, whether
it is fostering or residential homes. They have come from difficult
circumstances and want stability in their relationships where
they live, with adults including social workers. In the first
10 months since you took over inspections last April, 143 residential
children's homes closed. Can you see any pattern in why they are
closing? Is it good or bad that they are closing?
Christine Gilbert: I will ask
Michael to deal with the detail. We looked at information on children's
homes from April to the end of last year, and found that a high
number—10%—were described as "inadequate".
We went back in to inspect very soon afterwards, and there was
very rapid improvement in those homes. Almost 80% had improved.
I am not clear whether the 143 that you mention came out of that
because they were not going to improve and took that decision
themselves. I do not know whether Michael is able to throw any
light on that. I have the same figure for the number of homes
that closed in that year.
Michael Hart: To pick up the point
raised by Christine, about 10% were found to be inadequate. You
are probably aware that we have an inspection programme of going
twice a year into every children's home. We do a full formal inspection
of every children's home, and we also go back and do a follow-up,
focusing on particular areas of the Every Child Matters outcomes.
We are in the position of being able to look second-time-round
at whether there has been improvement. It is encouraging that,
when we went back to the 10% that were "inadequate",
the great majority had moved on to be "satisfactory".
Encouragingly, about 28% had moved on by that stage to being "good".
That seemed to show that the Ofsted inspection had made some difference
over that period. Picking up the rest of your question about the
children's homes closing, one of the things I have become aware
of over the last year is that quite a number of children's homes
have no children on their roll. There seems to be an overall over-provision
of places. Quite a number of homes simply do not have children
for a period of time, and that is behind some of the closures.
We began having a preliminary look at whether there was any difference
between children's homes that were run by local authorities and
those that were run by private equity companies. Overall, we found
that there was not a large difference. If anything, the judgments
from Ofsted were rather better for those from the private sector
than for those that were run by a local authority. This is only
the first phase of Ofsted inspecting children's homes, but our
initial look seemed to suggest that, if anything, the private
sector was somewhat better. We were aware of one significant group
that closed in the autumn. You will probably be aware of the Sedgemoor
group. Clearly, we had great concerns and a lot of involvement
at the time to make sure that the interests of individual children
were protected. That was our absolute priority: to make sure that
children were protected and, in particular, when many of the homes
were taken over by new organisations, that the new registrations
were done as efficiently and as quickly as possible.
Q166 Paul Holmes: Sedgemoor had
45 homes. They were owned by a private equity firm and went into
administration. What happens then? If a factory that makes jeans
or widgets closes down, it closes down. If 45 children's care
homes are closed down, what do you do with those vulnerable children?
Michael Hart: In the first instance,
it was not our direct responsibility to decide what happened,
but we showed a very keen interest in what was happening, both
because we were concerned about the individual children and to
make sure that we could respond as quickly as possible to any
new arrangements that were put in place, because we would need
to register any new provision. A significant number of them were
taken over by new companies and continued to operate. There were
some children who had to move from one children's home to another,
and clearly it was the responsibility of the local authority that
was placing them to make sure that those children's needs were
met as quickly as possible. One of the things that children themselves
say is reflected in reports from Children's Rights Director Roger
Morgan, who works with us. Children in care are very concerned
that there should be back-up plans for them. They have said to
us that local authorities may go down the path of making arrangements
for them but that things sometimes do not work out and that other
arrangements should be made that can be put in place relatively
quickly.
Q167 Paul Holmes: It is obviously
early days for you, but private equity firms are controversial
from some points of view. They are sometimes accused of asset
stripping—borrowing, doing up a company and then selling
it on, leaving it lumbered with debt. There are accusations that
while the economy was booming private equity firms could do a
lot of cheap borrowing, but what happens now that the economy
is hitting problems? As I say, if it hits a factory, it hits a
factory; but if it hits a whole string of children's homes—the
private equity sector also controls 30% of private independent
fostering—it would have much worse implications for children
who were already in difficult circumstances. I assume that you
are giving that careful consideration. You have that responsibility
not only in this first year but in the years to come. That is
self-evident. Why do you think private homes tend to do better
than local authority ones on your initial inspections?
Michael Hart: We have not reached
a theory on that. We wanted to check whether there was any apparent
difference. I am not in a position to say one way or the other.
I do not know whether anyone else has a view on that.
Christine Gilbert: We see a similar
pattern with fostering services. About 76% from private providers,
and 55% from local authorities, are "good" or better;
but the figure for "inadequate" is still far too high—7%
for private and 10% for local authorities. We are concerned about
that, and we are looking hard at it. I spoke recently at the Independent
Children's Homes Association, and we talked about that in questions
afterwards. The response to our reaction to the closure was positive,
but we do not have a formal role in that regard. In most instances,
the children involved are the most vulnerable.
Q168 Paul Holmes: One of the things
that you consider when inspecting care homes is their financial
viability. That will obviously be a factor this year, next year
and the year after that. You have that responsibility. You will
inspect them and say, "Is this care home company financially
viable?".
Christine Gilbert: It is my understanding
that we inspect against the national minimum standards; we do
not look at that aspect in depth.
Michael Hart: We look at it at
the level described, but we cannot pretend that our social care
inspectors are financial experts able to predict what the movements
might be of a particular company.
Q169 Paul Holmes: I understood
that it was a specific responsibility of the Commission for Social
Care Inspection to consider the financial viability of care homes,
and that you have taken over.
Michael Hart: We can only consider
it at a very general level. I do not think that I could assure
the Committee that our inspectors, who have a social care background,
would put themselves up as accountants or financial experts, able
to predict the detailed movements of a particular company and
the sort of decisions that it might make.
Q170 Paul Holmes: This matter
is crucial if more than half of care homes are now in the private
sector. A local authority will not go bust, but care homes, especially
those run by private equity firms, can go bust very quickly. Surely
that is a major factor, given that one of our inquiry's key findings
was that vulnerable children being taken into care want stability
and assurance.
Michael Hart: I agree that it
is an area of concern. I agree that we need all our antennae out
in order to spot anything suggesting that a company is likely
to go under. As we have done in other areas, we are beginning
to look at the head offices of major companies to see whether
there are policies in place; we would also look at overall financial
viability. However, I could not sit here and say that our inspectors,
who come from a social care background and who previously worked
for CSCI (Commission for Social Care Inspection), could predict
when the next Sedgemoor would happen. I would be giving you an
unfair assurance if I said that.
Q171 Lynda Waltho: Ofsted has
said that the gap in educational attainment between looked-after
children and their peers is narrowing. The Association of Directors
of Children's Services told us in evidence that Ofsted should
strengthen the way that it inspects schools for the quality of
support that they provide for children in care. Other than looking
at attainment, in what ways does the quality of support given
to looked-after children feature in inspections?
Christine Gilbert: Before we come
to the specific points about inspections, I will say that the
new organisation should be able to give the issue of looked-after
children a much more coherent focus than it has ever had before.
In the past year there have been improvements because of the stability
of placements, and although there are still issues, there is more
provision and better stability of placements than there was. However,
issues of attainment and attendance are still not making the move
forward that they should, because those children's problems are
deeply entrenched. They are the most vulnerable children that
the system deals with, and our evidence shows that every part
of the provision must work well, not just the school. The schools
aspect has to work well, but you must have really good performance
against the minimum standards that I have just mentioned. You
must have a really close focus on the assessment of that child,
with different agencies working and communicating together properly
about that child. You must have a decent care plan, health plan
and education plan, and they must all work really well. At the
moment, all of those things are working well in only a few places.
We are seeing real improvements up and down the country, but it
is not enough and there is still too much inconsistency. We saw
in schools—I recently read a survey report on this—that
there are a whole number of issues that need to be working. Schools,
however, are just part of the whole picture, and the numbers in
most schools are very small indeed, so it is a bit disingenuous
of the director to suggest that the focus needs to be on schools.
It is much broader than that. In school, it seems to work well
to have really high expectations for those children, engage them
fully in the school and in after-school activities and have a
really tight but unobtrusive focus on their performance right
across the piece—I do not mean just academic performance.
That should be unobtrusive because those children do not want
to be picked out as different when they are in school. All those
sorts of things need to be happening and operating in schools.
Most schools have made progress and have a designated teacher,
and that is really important. Carers are generally more engaged
than they were before, but that is still not enough. Attendance
is still dire for many of those children, and that is obviously
coming through in their performance. We are seeing some improvements
at GCSE, but not enough.
Q172 Lynda Waltho: Where and how
does the quality of that support feature within the inspection
report?
Miriam Rosen: Our main focus on
looked-after children is in the joint area reviews. Since last
April, all of the joint area reviews focus on looked-after children,
because they are such a vulnerable group. You will find a detailed
report for each of the local authorities that we have inspected.
We consider looked-after children in school inspections as well,
because we consider the needs of all children, but you would be
very unlikely to see that mentioned in the report, as there are
probably only one or two such children in the school. I would
like to re-emphasise Christine's point that every aspect of the
care of those children needs to be in place for them to do well.
For example, if they do not have placement stability, they might
move too quickly from one school to another. That relates not
so much to what the individual school is doing, but to the whole
package of support around them.
Lynda Waltho: Ofsted judged 76% of independent
fostering services and 55% of local authority fostering services
to be good or better. Why is the quality of fostering services
more inconsistent in the local authority sector than the independent
sector?
Michael Hart: It is too early
for us to distinguish between one and the other. At the moment,
we have just gathered the information. We are now looking at what
is behind your question. We now have a year's worth of information.
I have some colleagues who are reviewing all of the inspections
that have taken place in the first year to see what sort of patterns
there are within the inspections. Your question is the right one.
We want to look at that, but we do not have the answer at the
moment. We are doing some internal reviews of our social care
inspection reports to look at what is behind the children's homes
and fostering judgments and what sort of summaries and conclusions
we can reach. We could not do that earlier, because the number
of reports was relatively small.
Q173 Lynda Waltho: When might you
come to your conclusions?
Michael Hart: We have colleagues
working on that at the moment. I guess that some of our conclusions
will be published in the Annual Report.
Christine Gilbert: Those authorities
that take a corporate parenting role very seriously are doing
well in fostering services. Often, authorities do well in corporate
parenting, but forget the children that are fostered. They engage
with the children in children's homes. Our evidence is that, where
local authorities place this at the top of their work, there is
real improvement.
Chairman: We are going to move into a
more rapid session of broader issues led by Graham. I am conscious
that we must not let Melanie or Vanessa get away with saying nothing.
With these more rapid-fire questions, I am sure that we will be
able to ensure that your journey has not been unnecessary.
Q174 Mr Stuart: Before we move on
from the last topic, I want to mention a young man who had a fight
with his family the other day in one of the seaside towns in my
constituency. Before I intervened, he was about to be sent to
a hostel a long way away in another town, which would entirely
have disrupted his education by removing him from school. Very
few people in that position would know to contact a Member of
Parliament to intervene. It made me wonder how widespread the
disruption of someone's life by the corporate parent in such circumstances
could be.
Christine Gilbert: It is massively
disruptive, which is why the focus on the stability of placement
has been an issue. It is not just stability that is important,
but placement near the original place of residence. Young people
have told us that they do not want to be brought back from a placement
that is working, just so that they are nearer to home. It is not
easy for local authorities always to find local placements for
a variety of reasons. Nevertheless, the improvement that we have
seen over the past couple of years is to be welcomed. We want
to see that sort of improvement across the board.
Q175 Mr Stuart: Unease about standards
has not reduced since your last visit to us. In your estimate,
Chief Inspector, what percentage of children leave primary school
without the literacy and numeracy skills that they require to
prosper at secondary level?
Christine Gilbert: Today is halfway
between the two Annual Reports. The figure that I would still
use is that which I quoted in the Annual Report at the end of
last year, when I said that 20% of pupils move on to secondary
school not fully functional in literacy and numeracy. For me,
literacy is the most important of those because if it is lacking,
children do not have access to a range of other subjects.
Q176 Mr Stuart: That is one in
five children leaving primary school. Clearly that is not acceptable.
I was going to ask whether you thought that it was acceptable,
but I would not insult you by doing so. It is not acceptable.
We are discussing the effectiveness of Ofsted, and you said that
you would concentrate on impact when you last came to us. How
can Ofsted be doing its job properly if one in five of our children
are in that position?
Christine Gilbert: We have a key
role to play. In the time since I last saw the Committee, I have
received two surveys that I can remember on literacy in schools.
The first looked at letters and sounds to see whether the programme
introduced by the Government last year was having an impact. It
is having an impact. I also asked for a piece of work to be done
on secondary schools, because I wanted to see whether secondary
schools were really making a difference with children coming to
them unable to read fluently, as I would describe it. We have
looked at a number and identified some key issues that might be
of value to other schools and what they are doing. It is a constant
focus for us and is a key priority.
Q177 Mr Stuart: Given the scandalous
situation and the poor comparison with our international rivals,
do you feel that Ofsted is outspoken enough? Historically, for
many years, Her Majesty's inspectorate of prisons has been prepared
to condemn the Government of the day for failing to deliver the
expected improvements and standards in the institutions that it
is responsible for inspecting. Do you think that, too often, Ofsted
avoids rocking the boat?
Christine Gilbert: More generally,
we could have more leverage over the system. On your point, I
think that the coverage of what I said, last November, about it
not being acceptable was fairly intense. There was a great deal
of coverage of what I said.
Q178 Mr Stuart: Was it not sugar-coated
with comments about how standards have risen? The evidence that
we received in our testing and assessment inquiry was that standards
have probably risen rather less than the examination data suggest
and that, as you reconfirmed today, it has stalled since 2001,
perhaps, in key cases. I am not sure that the public are getting
the clear message from Ofsted and Her Majesty's Chief Inspector
that we have got a complete stalling, that standards have not
risen sufficiently and therefore that something is fundamentally
wrong with the system. I think that the message is still being
put out that everything is going great, that we are improving
year by year, that standards are rising and that the top-down,
target-driven approach—as my colleague put it—is actually
delivering benefits.
Christine Gilbert: I have said
it in speeches, in things that I have written and so on, so I
do not think that it has been sugar-coated. The language that
I used last November was fairly strong and was picked up as such
by the print media.
Q179 Mr Stuart: You suggested
in your evidence to us last time that the 20% of children in that
invidious position going to secondary school very often constitute
most of the 23% of young people who leave education at the age
of 16. You talked about what you thought the reasons for that
were—difficulties in primary school and the fact that, often,
those not up to standard at the age of 11 simply could not engage
with secondary schools. Can you comment on the passing last night
of the Education and Skills Bill, which has not taken additional
steps to tackle those core problems, but which has in fact decided
to force those disengaged, unmotivated youngsters to stay in education
until the age of 18?
Chairman: Education and training.
Christine Gilbert: I think that
the figure is 10%. Of those 20% going on to secondary school,
10% find themselves in the NEET figure as well.
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