Lorna Fitzjohn HMI Regional Director, West Midlands spoke about Ofsted's regional prorities; school inspection; and children's services.

1. West Midlands Children's Services
Member summit
Lorna Fitzjohn HMI
Regional Director, West Midlands
27 January 2016

2. West Midlands management team
Regional Director
Lorna Fitzjohn HMI
Regional Director
Jane Millward,
Senior HMI for Schools and
Senior Operational Lead
Claire Turner-Jones,
Regional Business
Manager
Ian Hodgkinson,
Senior HMI for Schools
Angela Westington,
Senior HMI for Schools
James McNeillie,
Senior HMI for Schools
Ian Smith,
Senior HMI for Further
Education and Skills
Russell Jordan,
Senior HMI for Further
Education and Skills
Sarah Urding,
Senior HMI for Social Care
Lynn Radley,
Senior HMI for Social Care

4. What does inspection of schools tell
us?

5. Stability means that southern regions continue
to dominate, although the gap between
the best and worst has narrowed

6. Good or better providers in the
West Midlands by remit

7. The proportion of good or better early years
by local authority, August 2015

8. | 8
The proportion of good or better primary
schools by local authority, December
2015

9. The proportion of good or better secondary
schools by local authority, December 2015

10. What do results tell us?

11. Progress KS2 to KS4

12. % of pupils making expected progress

13. In the West Midlands, GCSE results were varied
and generally below the England level (2015)
% achieving 5+ GCSEs A*-C or equivalent including English
and mathematics
England level, 2015

14. FSM attainment by local authority (5+ GCSEs
including English and maths) 2015

15. Some local authorities in the West Midlands
saw an improvement from 2014 to 2015, but the
majority saw a decline
%pt change in proportion achieving 5+ A*-C GCSEs
including English and maths, 2014 to 2015

16. % pupils attaining 5+ GCSEs at A*-C including
English and maths in the West Midlands (2014)

17. Academy chains in the West Midlands| 17
Local Authority schools LLEs/NLEs
Teaching
school NLE/LLE
Teaching
school
Birmingham 447 75 14 6 32
Coventry 120 20 4 6 30
Dudley 108 12 3 9 36
Herefordshire 99 10 2 10 50
Sandwell 119 16 8 7 15
Shropshire 153 19 3 8 51
Solihull 82 4 1 21 82
Staffordshire 398 32 3 12 133
Stoke-on-Trent 99 18 5 6 20
Telford and Wrekin 75 10 1 8 75
Walsall 121 10 4 12 30
Warwickshire 244 30 3 8 81
Wolverhampton 112 12 1 9 112
Worcestershire 243 22 9 11 27
England 21976 2686 562 8 39
Number of… Number of schools per…
Teaching schools/NLE/LLE

18. What should you do?
 Know your schools (including academies) well
 Have high aspirations for your children
 Challenge those who don’t
 Question and challenge school leadership
 Celebrate success
 No excuses

19. Update and future of inspection

20. Lessons learnt so far on the new
framework
Key principles are being met:
Inspect the right things in the right way through a
standardised inspection framework.
Provide comparable and accurate information for
parents, carers, learners and employers to inform their
choices.
Deliver timely inspections where there are signs of decline
or improvement.
Have a proportionate approach to inspections.
Ensure rigorous quality of all inspections.

21. Lessons learnt so far on the new
framework
| 21
 We have received positive feedback from providers in the
education remits who have now had a short inspection, with
senior leaders commenting that they have found the
inspections to be rigorous, challenging and helpful.
 Additionally, in schools, our recent YouGov poll of teachers’
views supported the new arrangements, with 69% of
respondents agreeing that short inspections are a ‘positive
change’ in the way we inspect.
 We are evaluating this term’s inspections and the lessons
learned have been discussed with inspectors at inspector
conferences.

22. Lessons learnt so far on the new
framework
Further positives
New Ofsted Inspectors (OI) have been well received by
schools and are performing well
Schools have valued new notification arrangements and
sharing of lines of enquiry between Headteachers and lead
inspectors
New short inspection reports are succinct but detailed, with a
strong focus on leadership, ethos and safeguarding
Methodology tests so far confirm that inspectors apply the
framework consistently and come to the same judgements
about conversion.

23. Future of inspection
| 23
 We have recently moved to inspecting new schools in their
third year
 Academy converters that were previously good qualify for a
short inspection
 We await the outcome of the Education and Adoption Bill
which is seeking to enable earlier intervention on failing
schools in terms of academisation. This Bill also includes
the new powers for intervention in coasting schools.

24. West Midlands Region
Good Children’s
Services:
The elected member’s
role
Lynn Radley Senior HMI
Sarah Urding Senior HMI

25. SIF Ratings (first 76 published)
O G RI I % Good
Overall effectiveness 17 39 20 22.3
Help and protection 15 44 17 19.7
Looked after children 23 43 10 30.3
Adoption 3 36 31 6 51.3
Care leavers 1 24 40 11 32.9
Leadership, management
and governance 3 18 38 17 27.6
LSCB 23 38 15 30.3
Good Children’s Services:
• The elected member’s role

26. West Midlands
O G RI I % Good
Overall effectiveness 1 2 3 16.7
Help and protection 1 2 3 16.7
Looked after children 1 4 1 16.7
Adoption 3 2 1 50
Care leavers 1 4 1 16.7
Leadership, management
and governance 1 2 3 16.7
LSCB 1 2 3 16.7

27. Common weaknesses
• Management oversight
• Changes in social worker, managers and leaders
• Performance management and data
• Drift and delay, mainly in children’s case work
• Recognising potential cases of child sexual exploitation
• Managing children who go missing.

28.  Lead member for
children’s services
 Corporate parents
 Scrutiny and challenge
Elected member duties
Slide 2 of 17

29. The single inspection
framework
Framework and evaluation schedule for
the inspections of services for children
in need of help and protection, children
looked after and care leavers
6 October 2015

30. Key judgement: Leadership,
management and governance
• The Director of Children’s Services (DCS), the lead
elected member and the senior management team have
a comprehensive knowledge about what is happening at
the ‘front line’ to enable them to discharge their
responsibilities effectively.
• They know and understand the difference that help, care
and protection are making.
• They oversee systematic performance management and
monitoring that demonstrate rigorous and timely action in
response to service deficiencies or new demands.

31. Key judgement: Leadership,
management and governance
• The local authority works with partners to deliver early
help, protect children and young people, improve
educational attainment and narrow the gap for children
looked after and care leavers.
• It acts as a strong and effective corporate parent for
children looked after and those leaving or who have left
care.
• Leaders, both professional and political, drive continuous
improvement so that the local authority is consistently
effective as the lead agency for the protection and care of
children and young people and as a corporate parent.

32. Inspection reports
• Elected members are passionate and ambitious and have
high aspirations for children and young people
• Political leaders create meaningful opportunities for young
people to join them in strategic thinking and planning. They
engage well with young people and take their views
seriously
• Elected members are regularly provided with accurate data
and management information to enable them to track and
monitor performance and challenge any lack of progress.
• Elected members provide robust challenge through cross-
party scrutiny arrangements
• Members have been well briefed about key issues such as
child sexual exploitation and radicalisation

33. Inspection reports
• The lead member understands the challenges facing
children’s social care at both strategic and operational levels
• This is achieved through activities such as meeting regularly
with teams, shadowing social workers on home visits,
meeting children and families and being an active member
of the LSCB, corporate parenting board and adoption panel
• The Leader of the Council and elected members take an
active interest in frontline practice and regularly visit
services. They ensure that children’s services are financially
prioritised by the council
• All 44 councillors signed the declaration of corporate
parenting

34. Inspection reports
• Political leaders and chief officers state that children’s social
care is not in the top two priorities for the Council. This limits
the effectiveness of those with lead responsibility for
Children’s Social Care to drive up standards and sustain
longer-term change
• Progress has been hampered by the persistently poor
quality of performance management information available
within the children’s services, from electronic case file and
data systems which are still being developed
• The local authority struggled to provide inspectors with
accurate performance management information that was
outcome focused. This… limits the ability of senior leaders
and elected members to analyse and challenge
performance

35. Inspection reports
• Members of the corporate parenting panel do not have
sufficient knowledge and understanding of their roles and
responsibilities to make critical enquiries about the quality of
services for looked after children
• They do not ask the right questions or undertake the right
activities to have a good enough understanding of frontline
practice
• As a corporate parent, the local authority has not analysed,
prioritised and planned sufficiently to improve outcomes for
children looked after and care leavers. Corporate parenting
board members cannot give clear evidence of how or where
they have made a positive difference for children

36. Good lead members
•Champions for children
•Closely involved in strategic policy
•Know about performance, quality assurance and efficiency
•Able to judge the overall effectiveness of commissioning
•Visible to service users and staff, listening to children,
young people, parents and carers in order to identify gaps
in service or service improvements.
•Regional networks and buddy arrangements
•Statutory guidance
•LGA guidance: Lead member role and key relationships

37. Good corporate parents
Members of the corporate parenting panel demonstrate a
sound understanding of the key issues facing looked after
children and care leavers.
The panel is well attended by looked after children and care
leavers, council members from all parties, foster carers, the
virtual school and the clinical commissioning group.
It is focusing on the right things, considering key issues
such as education and health systematically and in detail,
while also ensuring that looked after children can bring the
issues that are most important to them (such as pocket
money).

38. Good scrutiny and challenge
• Cross-party collaboration
• Relates to strategic priorities
• Based on first hand knowledge
• Monitors external trends
• High quality performance information
• Outcomes – What difference has this made for
children?
• Briefing for Children’s Services Lead members
and Scrutiny Chairs: How well do you know your
children’s services?

39. Getting to good | 39
• Do I understand the strengths and
weaknesses in our children’s services
• Do I know about the needs and
achievements of children we look after
• Are our care leavers given the best
possible support with moving into
independence
• Would it be good enough for my child
• How do we know whether our services
improve vulnerable children’s lives?
Questions for councillors

40. https://www.gov.uk/ofsted
http://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/
And many of our presentations are at:
Ofsted on the web and on social media
https://uk.linkedin.com/company/ofsted
@Ofstednews
http://www.slideshare.net/Ofstednews