Does Ofsted have a ‘tick box’ approach to child protection?

In the week before a new system of child protection inspections is set to be rolled out, questions remain about the suitability of inspection agency Ofsted to carry out the task. Here, we present two very different views of how well the agency will fare.

 Ofsted’s “tick-box approach” to safeguarding ignores good practice in child protection and stifles innovation, social work expert Eileen Munroe has claimed.

Munro (pictured), reader in social policy at the London School of Economics, attacked the inspectorate for assessing only targets that were easy to measure and for facing to recognise high-quality social work.

She told Community Care that practitioners had described the regime as “high on criticism and low on warmth”.

Read her comments in full here.

Meanwhile, Roger Shippam, Ofsted’s new director of children’s services has defended the forthcoming tougher inspection regime, denying it is a knee-jerk reaction to the Baby P case.

In his first interview with Community Care, Shippam (pictured) says Ofsted had wanted more inspectors on the ground for “a long time” before the news broke of the 17-month-old’s death last year.