Select committee to grill watchdog over Haringey
Lauren Higgs
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The chair of the Children, Schools and Families Select Committee has pledged to question the head of Ofsted over the watchdog's failure to identify serious safeguarding issues in Haringey.
MP Barry Sheerman said he would summon Christine Gilbert to the select committee as soon as possible.
He told CYP Now: "There are some serious questions over Ofsted's role in the Haringey case. As soon as we can get Gilbert into our chair we will be asking her some very searching questions."
On Monday (1 December), the results of the urgent joint area review ordered by Children's Secretary Ed Balls after the death of Baby P was published. It identified significant weakness in safeguarding and child protection.
Balls sacked Haringey's director of children's services Sharon Shoesmith on Monday for failing to offer strategic leadership on safeguarding.
But in the last annual performance assessment of children's services in the borough, published in November 2007, Ofsted rated services as good.
Ofsted has decided to launch unannounced annual inspections of safeguarding practice in every local authority in the wake of the case.
John Coughlan, director of children's services for Hampshire, has been drafted in by Balls to act as the interim director of children's services in Haringey until January 2009.
