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Councils failing looked-after children, conference hears Local authorities need to improve their services to meet the needs of looked-after children, Maurice Smith said today in his first speech as the new chief inspector of schools. Councils are failing to improve the care and education of the most vulnerable children, he told the North of England Education conference in Gateshead. Mr Smith was delivering a progress report on the inspection of children's services, which will be shared between Ofsted and the Commission for Social Care Inspection. The first round of overall inspections were completed this summer and Mr Smith said that councils were performing well, with only 3% failing to regularly assess children on the child protection register compared with more than 11% in 2003-04. The number of children remaining on the register for two or more years has reduced for the sixth year running, and now stands around 6%, he said. But the needs of looked-after children were not being met as proficiently. Only half of children who have been with a foster carer for at least four years have stayed with one carer for more than two years. "They do not achieve well enough academically and absenteeism from school shows no sign of improvement," he said. Last year a report from the children's charity NCH revealed worrying trends in underachievement of looked-after children. Only 1% of care leavers go to university, compared with 37% of other young people. Only 43% of care leavers aged 16 or older achieve at least one GCSE or GNVQ on leaving care, compared with 95% of other pupils who obtain at least one GCSE. Ministers have, in the past, debated the use of boarding schools as a cheaper alternative to residential care though the idea, first mooted by then education secretary Charles Clarke, now seems to have been dropped. Mr Smith took over as chief inspector of schools and head of the newly expanded Ofsted on January 1, after his predecessor, David Bell, was appointed permanent secretary at the Department for Education and Skills, making him the most senior education civil servant in the country. There will be an open competition for a permanent chief inspector later this year. Polly Curtis http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1678591,00.html
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