Director Michael Hart on how Ofsted is embracing social care

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Ofsted's takeover of the inspection of services for vulnerable children was announced in 2005's Budget and took place this year.
Between times, significant worries were expressed by the Commission for Social Care Inspection, which was to lose responsibility for children's social care inspection, and some charities over whether vulnerable children would receive sufficient priority.
After all, as Ofsted's strategic plan for 2007-10 said in April, the services it now inspects cater for 15 million people, just 300,000 of whom are children receiving social care.
The man charged with allaying these fears is Michael Hart, Ofsted's director for children, who took responsibility for all the functions that transferred from CSCI. These include regulated children's social care services, such as open and secure children's homes, fostering and adoption services and residential special schools, and secure training centres. He also manages social care inspectors, who contribute to the joint area review process, assess councils' and their partners' overall children's services performance. And his team inspect the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service, a role previously held by the courts inspectorate.
His message is one of continuity for social care: "We've tried to make sure that all the inspection programmes have continued much as they were previously."
He says 240 people transferred from CSCI and most are doing the same roles as before.
In terms of social care priorities, Ofsted's strategic plan reflects government policy, proposing targets for the organisation on improving placement stability for looked-after children and reducing turnover among care staff.
Hart says: "We need to ensure our inspection process is contributing to those targets. One of the most important areas of policy is looked-after children so we need to make sure we can influence that agenda."