Improving the way Ofsted inspects children’s social care

• the inspecting local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework, which we use to inspect children’s services run by local authorities
• the social care common inspection framework (SCCIF), which sets out how we inspect and regulate children’s social care providers, like children’s homes and fostering agencies

The proposals include:

• adopting a set of ‘ambitions’ which we will use to guide all policy-making for ILACS and SCCIF
• aligning our frameworks more closely with the goals of the government’s reforms
• moving beyond headline judgements towards reporting that reflects the real complexity of children’s social care
• improving the ways we seek out the voices of children, young people and families
• using Ofsted’s system‑wide insight to confront the biggest challenges in the care system
• changing the schedule for our ILACS inspections, so they continue to support improvement and focus on the authorities who need it most

You can find the consultation here.