Inspection of children's services
Children's services assessments
The Children Act 2004 requires local authorities to co-ordinate all the services provided by statutory, voluntary or private providers for children and young people aged 0-19 as part of an integrated children's service.
In December 2009 Ofsted published the outcomes of the new annual children's services assessments, which looked at performance in 152 local authorities in England for 2009.
The annual children's services assessment is a wide-ranging and robust assessment of the outcomes for children and young people in every local authority area which is strongly based on the evidence from inspections. It provides an overview of each council's performance in relation to children's services for which they have strategic or operational responsibilities (either alone or in partnership with other agencies) and the difference they are making to children's lives.
The 2009 reports can be accessed via the Audit Commission's Oneplace website (opens in a new window).
Related documents
The following document is in Portable Document Format (PDF). You can download the PDF software for free from the Adobe website (opens in a new window)