Selective reporting of Ofsted assessment?

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Rochdale Federation of Tenants & Residents Association (RoFTRA) has criticised a council media release on Ofsted's Annual Performance Assessment of the borough's services for children and young people. RoFTRA say the council had a genuinely good story to tell, "but it didn't tell the whole story".

The assessment grades local authorities on a scale of 1 to 4 where 1 is inadequate and 4 is outstanding/excellent. The Council's score of 3 ranks it among the 75% who rate better than adequate (grade 2).

Ofsted's letter to Executive Director Terry Piggott makes the point that the assessment is not based on an inspection of the services but on data provided to them by the Council, quality assured by the Director.

The accompanying assessment provided identifies 20 major strengths in the sevices across the range of the government's Every Child Matters Agenda: Being healthy, Staying safe, Enjoying and achieving, Making a positive contribution and achieving economic well-being as well as in the Council's capacity to improve.

RoFTRA says these major strengths are all accurately, and rightly, identified in the Council's media release, however, RoFTRA go on to say: "What are neither included nor identified are the 13 important weaknesses and areas for development that the assessment also registers".

"These include:

• Significant inequalities in some of the health outcomes experienced by children and young people in Rochdale.
• The number of teenage conceptions remains higher than in similar councils;
  GCSE results are improving but are still below national averages.
• Key Stages 1 and 3 results are below national averages and the gap to the national average is not closing.
• The fostering service does not consult young people enough; and
  the number of children and young people supported by the youth service decreased significantly."