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Ofsted has vowed to go ahead with its annual league tables for children's services, despite calling the accuracy of councils' data into question. Chief inspector, Christine Gilbert, has written to all council chief executives, asking them to confirm their annual performance assessment (APA) data is accurate, after accusing Haringey LBC of submitting ‘unreliable' data. The final confirmation will feed into the APA, which is due to be published on 17 December. These results will form part of the final round of Comprehensive Performance Assessments (CPA) in February, which, in turn, will dictate how ‘light touch' councils' Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) inspections will be. One senior local government insider told The MJ: ‘No inspectorate should publish something that it thinks might be wrong. What we need is an inspection regime we can have confidence in.' Instead, he called for the final CPA to be scrapped altogether, with the Audit Commission going straight to the CAA process. A spokesperson for the commission said there were no plans to scrap CPA. Managing director of local government at the commission, Gareth Davies, said: ‘The Audit Commission and its partner inspectorates continually monitor the quality of the data they use, and this is an area for constant development. ‘The reliability and quality of data is a matter between the councils and each relevant inspectorate.' However, this does not resolve the loss of public confidence in the inspection regime. Speaking to The MJ, Ms Gilbert said: ‘Councils can't give us wrong information and be surprised their inspection results are wrong. They must take some responsibility for that.' A spokesman for Haringey LBC said the council was in discussions with Ofsted over its findings and it would ‘take whatever action is necessary as part of the review of child protection'.

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CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

Ofsted asks councils to check child data

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