Inspecting local authority children's services

A local authority is another name for your local council.

Your local authority provides lots of services to your community and one of them is to look after vulnerable children and young people that live in the local area.

At Ofsted we carry out inspections on the part of the council that is responsible for looking after those children to see how it is doing.

We have two types of inspections for a local authority.

Inspections of local authority arrangements for the protection of children: These unannounced inspections look at how well the local authority and its partners identifies, helps and protects children in the local authority area.

Between May to September 2013 we will inspect local authority services for looked after children. For further information go to the Inspection of services for looked after children page.

Our inspections of safeguarding and services for looked after children ended in July 2012.

Inspections of local authority arrangements for the protection of children

Before an inspection

We do not tell the local authority that there will be an inspection.

During an inspection

The inspection takes eight days. It covers things like: talking to children, young people, parents and carers; seeing social workers at work; and looking at case files. The inspectors will tell the local authority if they find a serious situation where there are still things that the local authority needs to do to protect a child or young person.

After an inspection

The lead inspector writes the report, which includes grades. We publish the report on this website within 22 days of the end of the inspection; there is also a version for children and young people.

Further information

For further information, go to the providers' Inspecting local authority children's services pages.