Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what information her Department gathers on the safeguarding of children and the monitoring and review of safeguarding practice.

Local authorities’ services for safeguarding children are inspected under Ofsted’s Single Inspection Framework; this is the principal means by which the Department for Education monitors and reviews practice.

Under the Single Inspection Framework, Ofsted publish a judgement on the overall effectiveness of the local authority’s services, as well as sub-judgements for: children who need help and protection; children looked after and achieving permanence (including separate sub-judgements for adoption performance, and the experiences and progress of care leavers); and leadership, management and governance. In addition, the Ofsted report includes a rating for the effectiveness of the local safeguarding children board.

The department monitors inspection findings closely and intervenes formally in those local authorities whose performance is considered to be inadequate and where children are or may be at risk of harm. This intervention may be by way of an improvement notice, a statutory direction or – in the most serious cases – by the removal of services from the local authority.