Ofsted, their new culture of fear, and why it is dangerous for children. It appears Ofsted has decided the way to get the childcare sector to perform, is to get out a big stick and beat us with it. I have learned over the years, that leadership, setting high standards and expectations, recognition of a job well done and a bit of carrot is a far better way to get people to perform than the stick approach that most leaders in business have consigned to the history books (the good ones anyway). Not only it is demoralising for those who have had dealings with this new, more aggressive Ofsted, but it is also dangerous; creating a culture of “us and them” and putting up a wall between the sector and the regulator, which I believe is dangerous for the children and families that we serve. Firstly, to put come context into the sectors concern, I want to deal with the issue of anonymous complaints. I feel this has to stop being allowed. I have no problem with the complainant being kept anonymous from the provider, but they must not be able to be anonymous to Ofsted at the time of logging the complaint. I feel a couple of forms of ID including photo ID should be required (you need this level of ID to get a mobile phone contract in the UK so we are all used to it) and if the complaint is later proven to be malicious, or worse still, from a competitor, then there should be consequences for the person making the complaint. I also think more information needs taking about the person making the complaint and any links established that may have a bearing on why the complaint is being made. Questions like: • Are they a current / ex customer • Are the a current / ex employee • Are they or are they relatives of, anyone working for another provider • Has anything happened between them and the provider that may have a bearing on the complaint etc I think overnight this would stop the majority of malicious complaints and leave Ofsted to deal with the ones that really matter; genuine complaints from parents or employees about childcare standards. Anyone reading this thinking that surely no one would make up things of this nature is, I am afraid, wrong. We know for certain that this has happened to us. In one case a competitor, when a little tipsy at a dinner party one of my team was also at, was actually bragging about having done so to us. So it is a real problem. I also think if it is a current customer or employee the provider should first be given the chance to resolve the issue directly with the customer / employee before Ofsted get involved. Mediation and communication is surely always best and only then if the issue cannot be resolved to the customer or team member’s satisfaction, should it be escalated to Ofsted. As an aside, just look at the new legislation around employment tribunals that was announced this month that the complainant has to pay to log a complaint. Now I don’t think we should do this, as it will disadvantage families that cannot afford to log a complaint and in my view, we must not put financial barriers up. However, the very fact that employment tribunals have had to do this shows that a free for all, with no consequences for those “trying it on”, does not work either. Unannounced Complaint visits I don’t have a problem with this per se, but I think Ofsted are going to very quickly recognise that coming out for every little thing is going to actually be impossible. Especially when they are anonymous. A few years ago, we had a disgruntled customer who sent two pages of complaints to Ofsted. A three day investigation visit occurred and after all of that, none of the complaints were upheld. We knew we had done nothing wrong and that the issue was more to do with the customer taking exception to their child being part of our behaviour management procedure and leaving in a fit of pique about it, and as a result, attempting to use Ofsted as a punishment. The idea above of not allowing anonymous complaints and also confirming any background that may be pertinent to the complaint so it has context, will help this. Mistakes Mistakes will happen, because childcare is delivered by people and people are not robots, they are humans and will make mistakes. It we want 100% guaranteed mistake free childcare, we all need to close our doors. This does not mean I am blasé about safety, far from it as we have comprehensive processes and procedures in place, however sometimes a team member will fall short. If we want an open culture in our nurseries, colleagues that make mistakes must feel they can put their hands up (or other colleagues must feel they can whistle blow) so that we as a company can learn from those mistakes and help the colleague learn as well. Hiding mistakes can have dangerous consequences for children and is never a good thing. In the early days of Kids Allowed, we used to be quite heavy handed about our disciplinary procedures and often used final written warnings for a mistake a team member made. We very quickly realised that this was counterproductive and it created the very “us and them” we now have with Ofsted. People stopped speaking up and stopped admitting to mistakes they made. We now approach things very differently, more from a “what went wrong? What can we the company learn? Do we need to change any policies, forms etc.? Why did the colleagues make this mistake? Do they need retraining?” etc. This approach ensures a culture of shared responsibilities, learning from our mistakes and improving practice for that individual and something the whole company can learn from depending on what the issue was. Now don’t get me wrong - there is a difference between a team member wilfully not doing something (we would come down on this like a tonne of bricks and may even dismiss them) and making a mistake, where I believe the lighter touch is required. However, I also believe in people and feel that most people do not wake up and come into work wanting to do a bad job that day – quite the opposite. This is the same with Ofsted; they need to recognise the difference between a provider that for example, has a totally inadequate medication policy and a total disregard for safely that puts the children at risk, and one that has a very good policy which a team member may not have followed quite right. I know of four great providers (not us) that have been downgraded to either inadequate or satisfactory for minor issues with paperwork around medication. They of course need to be dealt with and action plans need putting in place, but a provider that has a totally inadequate medication policy should be dealt with very differently than one who 99% of the time is spot on and has some training issues with an individual team member around paperwork. They are totally different and need dealing with differently. Ofsted have gone so over the top about paperwork, that many providers are now spending so much time trying to ensure that paperwork is 100% accurate, they are losing focus on what really matters…THE CHILDREN! Just like some hospitals have been criticised in the media for losing focus on “care of patients” driven by a regulator looking at all the wrong things, we are just about to go down this path in childcare if we are not careful. Consequences Did you know that if your provider is downgraded to below “Good”, they may no longer offer the free education grant? If Ofsted are not careful, they will have no one left to deliver the free entitlement for them! The four providers I referred to earlier, all great providers ran by great people that because of minor paperwork issues have been downgraded, are now finding themselves in a positions where children may have to leave their preschool (that they are delighted and happy with) because they no longer can access the free entitlement there. In turn employees are being made redundant because the children have gone – I know of people in the sector who have gone through this that did not deserve it…and what galls the most is the really poor providers, that do deserve to be shut down continue to operate (or reopen under a new name with the same people) because the regulators have no real teeth when it actually matters. Inspections driven by anonymous complaints This is nonsense, and again, I think they will soon realise it is not sustainable. At some stage, they were thinking of doing fewer inspections for good and outstanding providers and more for those with lower grades - this made sense. Now, even an outstanding provider like ourselves, can have a re-inspection triggered at any time. We even hear of cases, a month after a previous inspection, based on anonymous complaints. The world has gone mad! Standing up as one voice So what are we doing about it? We are getting together as a sector to ensure our voice is heard. Leaders in the sector are trying to ensure that this Neanderthal Ofsted with is big stick retires itself back to the history books and that a better relationship with them can resume. We, after all want the same things; high standards, to be held accountable, and for those that don’t deserve to operate, to be closed. We understand that many Ofsted inspectors are also totally disillusioned at the moment with the new way they have to operate. As an outstanding provider, why am I getting involved? It’s not my fight …is it? Because this is everyone’s problem; I cannot sit in my “Good and Outstanding” ivory tower and not roll my sleeves up and get involved, because, and I believe it to be true for all providers including the outstanding ones - “there but for the grace of God go I”. In other words, no provider in the land can at this moment in time be certain that 100% of its paperwork is 100% accurate. We are a service provider based on human beings who are not perfect and the consequences of Ofsted and its new big stick approach to any providers is unthinkable. And who loses out most….the children. kidsallowed/social/ofsted-their-new-culture-of-fear-and-why-it-is-dangerous-for-children/
Posted on: Wed, 31 Jul 2013 09:53:13 +0000
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