Inspection overview

Inspection teams use regular team meetings to identify and explore themes that emerge from inspection activities. We make sure that potential findings are triangulated and corroborated through a range of activities before accepting them.

Inspection reports for each strand of inspection activity are tailored to the requirements of that inspection, so there are differences between the reports produced by each strategic inspection team. There will also be differences in the reports produced by each team when they are working on different inspection themes.

However, in general, strategic inspection reports can be expected to contain:

• a summary of key findings and/or strengths and areas for improvement

• an analysis of the inspection findings based on the relevant quality framework

• some form of evaluation of the local authority or partnership’s performance – which may or may not have grades attached

• recommendations for action and/or improvement.