The early years sector responded with anxiety to the news that Ofsted was to take over care inspections from local authorities. The idea conjured up images of an invasion of bureaucrats bullying childminders into a state of nervous exhaustion. The then chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, offered little in the way of reassurance when he insisted that neither the head of the directorate, nor its management team, needed specific early years experience.
The early years sector responded with anxiety to the news that Ofsted was to take over care inspections from local authorities. The idea conjured up images of an invasion of bureaucrats bullying childminders into a state of nervous exhaustion. The then chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead, offered little in the way of reassurance when he insisted that neither the head of the directorate, nor its management team, needed specific early years experience.
The necessary confidence-booster came with the appointment of Maggie Smith as director of Ofsteds Early Years Directorate (EYD). Given the complexity of shifting from a local system of regulation to a single national one, there is no doubt that she has her work cut out for her.
Ms Smiths credentials for the job are impeccable. As a former head of childrens services at Manchester City Council, she had a strong local authority background. She also has plenty of experience of the voluntary sector. Her childcare career began in the 1970s when, as a lone parent, she was involved in founding a community nursery in West Yorkshire. She went on to work with Gingerbread as a daycare development officer.
Before moving to Ofsted she was director of childrens services for the charity Barnardos. She has set up 14 nurseries during the course of her career and says that in her experience, the biggest problems involved in opening up are dealing with planning permission, the fire officer and marketing - not registration.
Flexible thinking In person, Ms Smith comes across as frank and down-to-earth. She has pages of briefing notes but is willing to depart from them. She gives short shrift to the notion that the Government has sought to lower daycare standards to boost the growth of provision. It has never been the case that registration has either encouraged or discouraged growth, she says. Growth has occurred when public policy has encouraged it rather than discouraged it. I think its a hoot that everybody focuses on registration and inspection being the real reason why someone can expand or not expand.
I have a clear commitment here to be as rigorous and as professional as I can in making sure children are safe and well cared for and have opportunities to learn. That will not change. However, we will do our best not to create extra barriers to providers wanting to grow.
She stresses Ofsteds intention to take a flexible approach to applying the new national care standards, including the requirements on staff qualification, which are that anyone in a supervisory role should be at level 3, equivalent to the DCE, while half the remaining staff should be at level 2. Some people have contacted Ofsted to express concern that their qualification has not been put on the framework, but this, she says, will not lead to debarment. As she points out, there are a myriad different qualifications - many local authorities used to provide their own - and many of them will be recognised. Experience will be taken into account and Ofsted will be sensitive to shortages of qualified staff in particular parts of the country.
If theres no-one on the workforce with the right qualification, were not going to say you cant go ahead. Wed say, lets look at how we inform the local partnership on how they need to establish more further education training, she says. Providers who do not meet the criteria will be asked to work through an action plan to ensure the required number of staff are qualified. We have no intention of being draconian on qualification.
The Department for Education and Skills have been very clear that theyll take time and work hard to ensure people have training routes. She adds, I would think parents would not want us to shut or suspend a service unless theres a risk to a child - thats the key issue.
Monitoring consistency But if Ofsted is going to take the flexible approach, how can it ensure national consistency in standards - which was why it got the job of regulating childcare in the first place? Ms Smith explains the checks and balances which are in place to ensure that Ofsteds childcare inspectors apply the new national standards in the same way across England. Each inspector will have the same professional record notebook, in which they record the evidence that the standard is met or not met. Their line manager will be looking at the notebook regularly to make sure the judgements are being made in a considered way. A quality assurance scheme has been set up and as the whole system is now electronic, it will be possible to dip in and sample inspections to monitor the process.
Senior childcare inspectors, each in charge of about five childcare inspectors, will look at all draft reports and check for objectivity of evidence and consistent application of the standards. They will visit inspectors on site and work with them on visits. Where inspectors are seen to be struggling, they will do more training. Meanwhile, area managers will sample the senior inspectors work to check on their judgements.
There will also be mechanisms for providers to give their views on the process. Each of the regional EYD offices is being encouraged to build relationships with local groups and associations, while at national level there will be a consultative forum for Ofsted and associations such as the National Day Nurseries Association and the National Childminding Association, which will probably meet quarterly. Ofsted will also be consulting on criteria to measure providers satisfaction with the process.
Training for inspectors Meanwhile, the EYD has been training up its workforce of more than 1,500 former local authority inspection and registration officers who have transferred to become childcare inspectors. Training should be complete by the end of October.
It includes three days on each set of standards, interspersed with inspections, with childminding as the priority. In addition to the four to six weeks of initial training, each inspector will have 40 days training over the next year.
All the senior childcare inspectors have already received training on all the standards, and are thus in a position to undertake priority inspections. Perhaps the main casualties of the changes so far have been the registered nursery inspectors (RgNIs), some of whom had substantial experience in the field. They worked for contractors and have been told their services are no longer required, as enough local authority officers who were also RgNIs would be transferring to the EYD to carry out nursery education inspections.
In the event, about 120 of those who transferred were dual-registered. Ms Smith says Ofsted needs to assess how up-to-date they are, whether they need training and whether they are sufficiently well distributed around England. She does not close the door on the possibility that Ofsted may recruit RgNIs in future - however, we must make the most of the resources we have taken over.
The new regime is already experiencing teething troubles. Ms Smith says many local authorities have not pushed ahead with processing applications for registration, so Ofsted is facing a backlog (News, September 20). While it had anticipated some incomplete applications, she says, it had not anticipated a bit of a mess.
Some nursery managers are experiencing difficulties as a result of the handover, and over the past week or so Nursery World has begun to receive worried and frustrated phone calls, particularly relating to delays in processing police checks. A nursery manager who contacted Nursery World had no idea whether her application for police checks had been carried out, since the file had been transferred from the local authority and Ofsted could not find it. When trying to contact Ofsted she had come up against permanently engaged phone lines and the information she was given depended on whom she talked to.
The administrative task facing Ofsted, as its staff sort through the files from 130 local authorities, is formidable. And as EYD director, Maggie Smith has an unenviable challenge ahead. But, as she observes, We will inherit massive variations, and it will take time to change cultures, but we will have national standards for the first time.
The necessary confidence-booster came with the appointment of Maggie Smith as director of Ofsteds Early Years Directorate (EYD). Given the complexity of shifting from a local system of regulation to a single national one, there is no doubt that she has her work cut out for her.
Ms Smiths credentials for the job are impeccable. As a former head of childrens services at Manchester City Council, she had a strong local authority background. She also has plenty of experience of the voluntary sector. Her childcare career began in the 1970s when, as a lone parent, she was involved in founding a community nursery in West Yorkshire. She went on to work with Gingerbread as a daycare development officer.
Before moving to Ofsted she was director of childrens services for the charity Barnardos. She has set up 14 nurseries during the course of her career and says that in her experience, the biggest problems involved in opening up are dealing with planning permission, the fire officer and marketing - not registration.
Flexible thinking In person, Ms Smith comes across as frank and down-to-earth. She has pages of briefing notes but is willing to depart from them. She gives short shrift to the notion that the Government has sought to lower daycare standards to boost the growth of provision. It has never been the case that registration has either encouraged or discouraged growth, she says. Growth has occurred when public policy has encouraged it rather than discouraged it. I think its a hoot that everybody focuses on registration and inspection being the real reason why someone can expand or not expand.
I have a clear commitment here to be as rigorous and as professional as I can in making sure children are safe and well cared for and have opportunities to learn. That will not change. However, we will do our best not to create extra barriers to providers wanting to grow.
She stresses Ofsteds intention to take a flexible approach to applying the new national care standards, including the requirements on staff qualification, which are that anyone in a supervisory role should be at level 3, equivalent to the DCE, while half the remaining staff should be at level 2. Some people have contacted Ofsted to express concern that their qualification has not been put on the framework, but this, she says, will not lead to debarment. As she points out, there are a myriad different qualifications - many local authorities used to provide their own - and many of them will be recognised. Experience will be taken into account and Ofsted will be sensitive to shortages of qualified staff in particular parts of the country.
If theres no-one on the workforce with the right qualification, were not going to say you cant go ahead. Wed say, lets look at how we inform the local partnership on how they need to establish more further education training, she says. Providers who do not meet the criteria will be asked to work through an action plan to ensure the required number of staff are qualified. We have no intention of being draconian on qualification.
The Department for Education and Skills have been very clear that theyll take time and work hard to ensure people have training routes. She adds, I would think parents would not want us to shut or suspend a service unless theres a risk to a child - thats the key issue.
Monitoring consistency But if Ofsted is going to take the flexible approach, how can it ensure national consistency in standards - which was why it got the job of regulating childcare in the first place? Ms Smith explains the checks and balances which are in place to ensure that Ofsteds childcare inspectors apply the new national standards in the same way across England. Each inspector will have the same professional record notebook, in which they record the evidence that the standard is met or not met. Their line manager will be looking at the notebook regularly to make sure the judgements are being made in a considered way. A quality assurance scheme has been set up and as the whole system is now electronic, it will be possible to dip in and sample inspections to monitor the process.
Senior childcare inspectors, each in charge of about five childcare inspectors, will look at all draft reports and check for objectivity of evidence and consistent application of the standards. They will visit inspectors on site and work with them on visits. Where inspectors are seen to be struggling, they will do more training. Meanwhile, area managers will sample the senior inspectors work to check on their judgements.
There will also be mechanisms for providers to give their views on the process. Each of the regional EYD offices is being encouraged to build relationships with local groups and associations, while at national level there will be a consultative forum for Ofsted and associations such as the National Day Nurseries Association and the National Childminding Association, which will probably meet quarterly. Ofsted will also be consulting on criteria to measure providers satisfaction with the process.
Training for inspectors Meanwhile, the EYD has been training up its workforce of more than 1,500 former local authority inspection and registration officers who have transferred to become childcare inspectors. Training should be complete by the end of October.
It includes three days on each set of standards, interspersed with inspections, with childminding as the priority. In addition to the four to six weeks of initial training, each inspector will have 40 days training over the next year.
All the senior childcare inspectors have already received training on all the standards, and are thus in a position to undertake priority inspections. Perhaps the main casualties of the changes so far have been the registered nursery inspectors (RgNIs), some of whom had substantial experience in the field. They worked for contractors and have been told their services are no longer required, as enough local authority officers who were also RgNIs would be transferring to the EYD to carry out nursery education inspections.
In the event, about 120 of those who transferred were dual-registered. Ms Smith says Ofsted needs to assess how up-to-date they are, whether they need training and whether they are sufficiently well distributed around England. She does not close the door on the possibility that Ofsted may recruit RgNIs in future - however, we must make the most of the resources we have taken over.
The new regime is already experiencing teething troubles. Ms Smith says many local authorities have not pushed ahead with processing applications for registration, so Ofsted is facing a backlog (News, September 20). While it had anticipated some incomplete applications, she says, it had not anticipated a bit of a mess.
Some nursery managers are experiencing difficulties as a result of the handover, and over the past week or so Nursery World has begun to receive worried and frustrated phone calls, particularly relating to delays in processing police checks. A nursery manager who contacted Nursery World had no idea whether her application for police checks had been carried out, since the file had been transferred from the local authority and Ofsted could not find it. When trying to contact Ofsted she had come up against permanently engaged phone lines and the information she was given depended on whom she talked to.
The administrative task facing Ofsted, as its staff sort through the files from 130 local authorities, is formidable. And as EYD director, Maggie Smith has an unenviable challenge ahead. But, as she observes, We will inherit massive variations, and it will take time to change cultures, but we will have national standards for the first time.
