Ofsted Consultation
Our response to the Ofsted consultation on Inspections of Local Authority Children’s Services
In 2022, Ofsted consulted on a proposal to change its inspection of local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework. You can find the consultation here.
The proposal was to introduce a separate assessment as part of the inspection on the “experiences and progress of care leavers”.
In the previous ILACS framework, this was currently included as part of a wider assessment on the “experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers”.
We welcomed this proposal.
It is important that local authority children’s services are actively assessed and inspected on the support they provide for care leavers and the wider experience of care leavers.
This should form a fundamental part of the wider ILACS inspection and the overall evaluation and judgement for local authority children’s services. Our response set out the criteria that we recommended Ofsted should consider.
Hearing from young people
At Become, we felt it was essential that Ofsted heard directly from care leavers about their views of the proposals.
We developed a short survey for care-experienced young people, breaking down the questions from the consultation, and asking their thoughts on what they felt was most important.
We have shared the findings with Ofsted and you can see the survey analysis here.
Outcome of consultation
Following the consultation, Ofsted have now changed their ILACS framework to include a separate judgement on the experiences and progress of care leavers. You can read more about this change here.