The three judgements

  1. The overall experiences and progress of children.
  2. How well children are helped and protected. This is a limiting judgement: if it is inadequate, the overall judgement is inadequate.
  3. The effectiveness of leaders and managers. If this is inadequate, the overall judgement is likely to be inadequate and can be no better than requires improvement.

Each is graded outstanding, good, requires improvement to be good, or inadequate. “Good” is the benchmark. Homes usually have at least one full inspection a year; a home judged requires improvement usually has a second inspection in the same year.

What inspectors sample

  • Case files for a sample of children, including new arrivals, children who have left, children who have gone missing, children at risk of exploitation and children placed far from home
  • Every unplanned ending
  • Risk assessments, missing episode responses and return home interviews
  • Restraint and search records
  • Recruitment and DBS records, supervision records, training and the qualification plan
  • Regulation 40 notifications and Regulation 44 and 45 reports
  • The Statement of Purpose, the Regulation 46 location assessment, complaints and case records
  • Children's views, and the views of social workers, independent reviewing officers, schools and police

How the Residential Childcare App handles this

The compliance hub lists every regulation with the place in the app that evidences it, grouped by the three judgements, so a manager can walk an inspector straight to the record.

Every regulation listed with where it is evidenced, grouped by Ofsted judgement

Self-assessment: could you prove it today?

Inspection evidence self-assessment

Tick each statement you could prove with a record today.

Overall experiences and progress of children0/4
How well children are helped and protected0/5
The effectiveness of leaders and managers0/5

0 of 14 evidenced

Thinnest area: Overall experiences and progress of children. Start there.

Keep this evidence in one place

Leadership warning signs

The SCCIF describes leadership situations that are likely to lead to an inadequate judgement, including:

  • no registered manager for 26 weeks, with little effort to recruit one;
  • a manager who has not applied to register after 12 weeks in post;
  • few qualified staff, with no realistic prospect of that changing.

The SCCIF also sets the qualification expectations: managers to hold the Level 5 diploma within three years of appointment, and care staff the Level 3 diploma within two years of starting.