Changes to Ofsted on 1 April will see it becoming one of the most powerful forces for improvement in the fields of education, children's services and skills.
The new organisation, created by last year's Education Act, will formally be titled the Office for Standards in Education, Children's Services and Skills. It will remain known as Ofsted.
At least one in three people in England makes use of the services that the organisation will inspect or regulate. It brings together the Adult Learning Inspectorate, the Commission for Social Care Inspection, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Court Administration and the Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Schools. The office of the Children's Rights Director will also be based at the new Ofsted.
A strategic plan, launched this week, sets out how the changes are to take place over the next three years. There will be consultation on the plan culminating in a further version published in early autumn.
Structure
The new Ofsted will have five directorates: children, education, learning and skills, corporate services and finance.
The children's directorate will be responsible for:
- Registrations and variations to registration of social care, daycare and childminding services
- Regulatory inspections in relation to registered services and inspections of other services (not registered by Ofsted), eg welfare provision in boarding schools
- Compliance and enforcement activity in relation to registered services
- Assessment of the social care performance of local authorities and related bodies through Annual Performance Assessments and Joint Area Reviews
- Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service inspections
- Strategy, regulatory frameworks and policy
- The Office of the Children's Rights Director, who provides a voice for disadvantaged children.
The education directorate will be responsible for:
- Inspection of maintained schools, initial teacher training providers, local authority children's services and non-association independent schools
- Monitoring of schools in categories of concern
- Co-ordinating of surveys across Oftsed, and development and delivery of surveys on subjects and aspects of curriculum
- Giving advice to HMCI and the DfES on Government policies relating to schools, 14-19 education provision, local authorities etc, liaising with the children's and learning and skills directorates where appropriate.
The learning and skills directorate will be responsible for adult learning and inspecting training providers, including early years courses.
Children's directorate
Dorian Bradley will remain acting director for the children's directorate. He will manage the deputy director, Children's Rights Director and three regional divisional managers, who will oversee much of the regulated inspection activity and associated compliance and enforcement activity.
The three regional offices will be based in Bristol, Nottingham and Manchester. These offices are responsible for the delivery and quality assurance of the regulation inspection programme, investigation of compliance issues, associated enforcement activity, and performance assessments and reviews.
All inspectors will be home- based but spend much of their time on site at the settings being inspected. They will not be required to inspect provision they do not already inspect, although this may change in the future after appropriate training.
When daycare for under-fives is provided at a school setting, the children's and education directorates will conduct a joined-up inspection.
Ofsted is developing a common approach across early years settings, maintained and independent schools for inspecting the Early Years Foundation Stage framework from September 2008. Inspections will continue to be done at little or no notice.
Childcare approval scheme
The Childcare Approval Scheme is also undergoing changes with the Childcare (Voluntary Registration) Regulations 2007 coming into place on 6 April 2007.
The Ofsted Childcare Register (OCR) will register provision for school-aged children in wraparound or holiday care. Nannies will not be required to register but can apply to be registered on the voluntary part of the OCR.
Ofsted will start taking applications for registration on the voluntary part from 16 April 2007. This will provide the same benefits as the CAS, such as demonstrating to parents that essential standards of childcare have been met, and parents employing registered carers will be eligible for tax credits and employer-supported voucher schemes.
Applications for approval on the CAS can also still be made until 30 September 2007, after which all applications should go to the OCR. Approval will last for one year once it is granted.
More information
- Ofsted: www.ofsted.gov.uk
- Children's Rights Director: www.rights4me.org
- Childcare Approval Scheme: www.childcareapprovalscheme.co.uk