A contract aimed at making a positive difference to the lives of young children and their families has been awarded to leading education and careers company, Prospects Services Ltd.  The £71 million contract is to deliver the Early Years inspection services for Ofsted for the whole of the North of England and the Midlands.

 

The service involves the inspection of early years providers for some 55% of the country and includes childminders, nurseries, pre-schools and other settings. Inspections will focus on the outcomes for children and will assess how effectively a provider promotes children’s welfare, learning and development.  Prospects will be welcoming some of the existing Ofsted inspection staff, who will transfer into the company. The contract will run for five years and Prospects has firm plans to develop a highly innovative and cost effective service, to ensure the best possible early education and care for children and their families through high standards of inspection.

Executive Chairman, Ray Auvray said:

 “We are delighted to have been awarded this major new contract to develop excellent child care and educational provision. Prospects is passionate about finding new ways to support children, young people and families and this contract builds on our extensive range of services in schools and colleges throughout the country. Our highly experienced early years senior management team is already in place, and we are committed to deliver high quality services which provide value for money and meet all Ofsted requirements.”

 

Prospects is committed to effective partnership working and promoting communication about the inspection process with providers, parents and users of early years services. The skills of the existing staff teams will be built on, using their knowledge and abilities to drive innovation and capacity. There are also plans to introduce a cutting edge, bespoke computer system to support inspectors. These changes will benefit Ofsted through more flexible working methods, to help them respond to the challenges of the national agenda and offer greater value for money.

 

The area covered by the contract stretches from the north east and north west of the country and covers Yorkshire and the Humber, the east and the west midlands, and the east of England.

 

As well as being a leading provider of education and information, advice and guidance services for young people and adults, Prospects has extensive experience in delivering Ofsted inspections. From 2005 - 2009, Prospects’ high performing Ofsted school inspection team successfully provided over 7,000 Section Five Inspections and almost 1,500 subject and survey inspector days, and helped pilot differentiated inspections.  The majority of monthly judgements at contract meetings were considered “very good with many outstanding features” or “outstanding”.

 

Prospects is currently working as education advisers on the round of new, emerging Academies and BSF programmes.  We are working with Apollo construction as their education adviser on their bid to develop the three Richmond Academies and in a similar role with McAlpine on their tender for the Kent and the Medway Academies.