Ofsted has published its new equality objectives for 2026 to 2030, replacing its previous objectives for 2023 to 2027.
While the document applies across education and social care, there are several important messages for children’s social care providers.
This is not simply an equality, diversity and inclusion update. The objectives provide an indication of how Ofsted intends to develop its approach to inspection and regulation over the next four years, including changes to inspection frameworks, greater consideration of protected characteristics and a stronger focus on the experiences of vulnerable and disadvantaged children.
Changes to social care inspection frameworks
Ofsted has confirmed that it intends to improve its approach to the inspection and regulation of children’s social care over the next four years.
This includes updating the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) framework to reflect updated statutory guidance, wider sector reforms and proposed legislative changes.
Of particular relevance to regulated providers, Ofsted also intends to update both ILACS and the Social Care Common Inspection Framework (SCCIF) to ensure that protected characteristics are considered consistently across different types of inspection.
For children social care providers, this is an important development.
Although equality, diversity and individual needs are already embedded within existing regulations, standards and inspection expectations, Ofsted’s objectives suggest that inspectors may increasingly explore how a provider understands the impact of a child’s individual characteristics on their experiences, risks and outcomes.
Knowing the child beyond the care or support plan
One of the clearest themes within Ofsted’s objectives is the importance of understanding the individual context and experiences of children.
Ofsted has committed to providing ongoing guidance and training to inspectors to help them understand and evaluate the effect of protected characteristics on children’s experiences.
For providers, this raises an important question:
Can your staff demonstrate that they genuinely understand how a child’s identity, characteristics and individual experiences influence the support or care they provide?
It may no longer be enough for a document to simply record a child’s ethnicity, religion, disability or other characteristics.
Providers should consider how this information influences:
- assessments and care or support planning
- risk assessments
- matching and placement decisions
- communication approaches
- access to education and healthcare
- activities and community participation
- safeguarding responses
- behaviour support
- preparation for independence
- children’s participation in decisions about their care or support
The key issue is likely to remain the same: what difference does this understanding make to the child’s day-to-day experience?
A stronger focus on children with complex needs
Ofsted has also stated that it will work with the Department for Education and the sector to encourage providers to offer highly specialist care for children and learners with complex needs, including children with disabilities.
This is particularly significant given the continuing national discussion around sufficiency and the availability of appropriate placements for children with increasingly complex needs.
Ofsted also intends to work alongside the Department for Education and local authorities so that services applying for registration better reflect local needs.
For organisations considering opening new children’s homes or developing existing services, this reinforces the importance of having a clearly defined model of care.
Statements of Purpose that describe services in very broad terms, for example, stating that a home can support almost any child with complex or challenging needs, ay become increasingly difficult to justify.
Providers should be able to clearly explain:
- the children their service is designed to support
- the needs the staff team is competent to meet
- the therapeutic or practice approach used by the service
- the training and experience required within the workforce
- how the physical environment supports children’s needs
- where the limits of the service are
Specialist care requires more than describing a service as “specialist”. The model of care, workforce and day-to-day practice should provide evidence of that specialism.
Equality will remain a leadership and governance issue
Ofsted has confirmed that, when evaluating leadership, management and governance, it will continue to consider how diligently leaders and managers carry out their duties under the Equality Act 2010.
This means equality should not sit only within an Equality and Diversity Policy or annual staff training.
Responsible and Nominated Individuals, Registered Managers, Registered Service Managers and other senior leaders should consider how they oversee equality in practice.
For example:
- What information do you monitor?
- What are children and young people telling you about their experiences?
- Are there patterns in incidents, complaints, missing episodes or sanctions?
- Do some children experience poorer outcomes or greater restrictions than others?
- How do audits and quality assurance processes identify potential inequalities?
- What action has leadership taken when concerns or patterns are identified?
For children’s homes, Regulation 45 quality of care reviews provide an opportunity to consider these issues.
For supported accommodation providers, Regulation 32 quality of support reviews should similarly explore whether the service is meeting the individual and diverse needs of young people.
Equality should be visible within quality assurance and service development, not simply within policy.
Inspection questions to ask your service
As Ofsted develops its inspection frameworks and strengthens its focus on children’s individual experiences, leaders may want to consider:
- Can staff explain how a child’s individual characteristics, identity and experiences influence the care or support they provide?
- Where can we see this understanding reflected in assessments, risk management and care or support plans?
- Can staff give practical examples of how they have adapted their approach to meet an individual child’s needs?
- Do our matching and admission decisions clearly consider whether our service and workforce can meet the child’s specific needs?
- What are children and young people telling us about inclusion, fairness and their experience of the service?
- Do our audits, incident reviews and quality monitoring identify patterns or potential inequalities?
- Can leaders demonstrate what action they have taken when a pattern, disparity or concern has been identified?
- Is our understanding of children’s needs visible in day-to-day practice — or mainly recorded within policies and plans?
These are useful questions not only in preparation for inspection, but as part of ongoing leadership oversight and service development.
What should providers do now?
There is no suggestion that providers need to immediately rewrite every policy or introduce entirely new systems because of Ofsted’s new equality objectives. However, this is a useful opportunity for leaders to review whether their current systems demonstrate how children’s individual characteristics and experiences influence practice.
Providers may want to review their:
- Statement of Purpose
- care and support planning systems
- risk assessments
- matching assessments
- workforce development plans
- staff supervision
- children’s consultation and feedback systems
- Regulation 45 or Regulation 32 monitoring
- equality and diversity policies
- staff training and competency frameworks
The most important question is not whether the correct equality terminology appears within documents.
The question is whether leaders, managers and staff can demonstrate that they know the children they support, understand the factors that shape their experiences and adapt their practice accordingly.
Looking ahead
Ofsted’s equality objectives cover the period from 2026 to 2030, and the regulator has clearly stated that its approach to children’s social care inspection and regulation will continue to develop.
Changes to SCCIF, developments within ILACS and further guidance and training for inspectors are therefore areas providers should continue to monitor.
For children’s social care leaders, the message is increasingly consistent: strong services must be able to demonstrate individualised care and support, a clear understanding of children’s experiences and leadership oversight that identifies and responds to inequality.
This is also why inspection readiness should not begin when an inspector calls.
On 31 July, Social Care Skills will be delivering our Ofsted Inspection Readiness training, exploring how providers and leaders can prepare their services, strengthen the evidence of practice and support staff to confidently demonstrate the quality of care or support they provide.
The session will consider inspection preparation from a practical leadership perspective, looking beyond policies and documents to the evidence, oversight, staff knowledge and day-to-day practice that inspectors may explore.
Our wider Social Care Skills training programme includes live online seminars, bespoke training, face-to-face workshops and leadership development focused on the regulatory and practice challenges facing children’s social care services.
At Social Care Skills, we will continue to monitor developments in Ofsted’s frameworks, guidance and regulatory approach and translate these changes into practical information, training and support for children’s homes, supported accommodation providers and fostering services.
