FIS

[teacake2]

I was checking my details on the local FIS website yesterday and noticed that I have been put down as only having a satisfactory result in my last inspection.
I am accredited and so the inspection was split between education and childcare, I got a GOOD for the childcare but SATISFACTORY for education for the simple reason I did not have any children in the 3/4 age bracket who I was claiming funding for, although I had been doing obs planning etc with the 4 year old I looked after (she had her funding a pre-school) (the inspection was 3 years ago).
I contacted FIS to ask them to change this for me. This is their reply
The information we hold on our system for your record is correct and is as you stated, all information held on childcare provision by local authority gets uploaded to the national directory (FIDy). However this is a government external website of which we have no influence over.
What I am going to do to-day is report this to the organisation that operate this website, they have clearly not taken into consideration the details of inspections that we split into education and childcare. I have no doubt this will get resolved but as to what timespan that will be I cannot comment I am afraid.
Now this is quite worrying and I would like to ask that all of you who are accredited and had the old type of inspection, to check your details on the FIS website if you are on there. Some others might not be showing the correct details, and it might be putting parents off calling childminders if they think that they do not have a very good inspection grading. Especially so if you are outstanding and this is not showing.
Sorry for the long one but I feel that this is important.
Teacake2

[suchagoodgirl]

There are thousands of mistakes like this. I've had my LA amend as much as they can (like the fact I do school collections had been knocked off both mine and many other local minders page) but the section that is updated by Ofsted shows me as having places available for 14 under 8's!!! I'm one Childminder working alone so I have no idea where they've been getting those figures from. :-/

[The Juggler]

that's awful hon. so you train hard and work hard to provide this additional service within your local authority then because you don't have any children accessing the education you get an automatic satisfactory and THEN they put this on your profile! that's gratitude for you.

[kentcfis]

I was checking my details on the local FIS website yesterday and noticed that I have been put down as only having a satisfactory result in my last inspection.

I am accredited and so the inspection was split between education and childcare, I got a GOOD for the childcare but SATISFACTORY for education for the simple reason I did not have any children in the 3/4 age bracket who I was claiming funding for, although I had been doing obs planning etc with the 4 year old I looked after (she had her funding a pre-school) (the inspection was 3 years ago).

Hi Teacake2

I may be able to explain this for you...
When FIS have to upload both OfSTED and FIS data to FIDy (the national directory) it takes only the last inspection details...

so if ofsted supply two inspection criteria and add the first one (childcare) as good and the second one (education) as satisfactory the system will only take the last data entry provided by ofsted.

We do not like it either but it is what we are stuck with and it has been reported to DfE, the 'programme managers' and the national FIDy support desk.

However this is a government external website of which we have no influence over.

this is true... us FIS cannot alter it or influence it however our only link seems to be the FIDy support desk - of late and with the spending review going on it would seem that very little if anything is being done to develop or fix existing issues; hopefully after the review we may start seeing movement?

but the section that is updated by Ofsted shows me as having places available for 14 under 8's!!

Hi suchagoodgirl

Again this is another 'reported issue'

The national directory seems to add up the vacancies spanned over different age groups which again is not helpful and more often than not makes it appear as if you have more vacancies than can theoretically add up with your max places.

for example - our systems are setup to how ofsted provide information to us

1 to under 2 years - max place 2 - vacancies 2
1 year to end of EYFS - max place 6 - vacancies 3
2 to under 3 years - max places 2 - vacancies 1

given this example you have different max places per age group and within that you have different vacancies according to each age group and some may overlap (i.e. 1 to end of EYFS)

when parents seek childcare we can utilise this 'grid' to search for people with vacancies that may suit parents needs however for some reason the national directory (FIDy) seems to add the vacancies up

2 + 3 + 1 = 6

although your maximum number of vacancies is actually 3 spanning the example age range.

you train hard and work hard to provide this additional service within your local authority then because you don't have any children accessing the education you get an automatic satisfactory and THEN they put this on your profile!

that one is OfSTED's domain - i'll leave that one to them !

[suchagoodgirl]

Thanks Kentcfis. That's really helpful. There was 1 other issue that really narked me though. My ofsted grading of good transferred over fine. However, my closest other minder got a grading of inadequate, about 2 months after my inspection. So how come her listing says that no inspection information is available? It seemed a little unjust.

[kentcfis]

hi suchagoodgirl...

Not too sure on that one... it would depend on what OfSTED have provided in their data feed to your local FIS.

It is a case of if they do not add it we cannot display it even if we know locally there is an update to a providers record.

[teacake2]

Thank you for your reply, I do understand what you have said and my local Staffordshire FIS, the thing is, it was correct on the website up until a few weeks ago and this is the most annoying part. I have not had another inspection, infact mine was due June 2010 so don't really undertand the need to change my details.
Still these things are come to try us all at times I suppose.
If the second part of my next inspection (education) is done the same, I will have the same problem again as I have no 3/4 year olds again at the moment.
Perhaps I will be lucky and they don't come for another 12 months when I will (if they all stay with me) have 3 in the right age group.
Thanks again for taking the time to reply.
Teacake2

[kentcfis]

Hi Teacake2

I wouldn't worry we had a case of ofsted removing a new inspection that was a outstanding which effectively reverted it back to a satisfactory (the last data record for this provider)

we have to monitor what ofsted send through to us also...

i welcome childminders checking in on us FIS and updating us but they need to checkup on ofsted too !!!

[StaffsFIS]

Hi Teacake,

I'm from Staffordshire FIS and although we don't routinely monitor forums, we came across your posting. Thank you to Kent CFIS for explaining the situation.

The problem that you reported has been raised with our IT system suppliers for resolution. We receive regular software updates and hopefully this will be fixed in a future release.

The change in the inspection grade that was displayed is due to a recent upgrade to our database. Previously, the latest inspection grade was taken from 1 field in our database. This field has now been replaced by a history list and only the most recent inspection grade is now uploaded. As Ofsted have sent us 2 inspections dated for the same day, either Ofsted has passed it to us in that order, or our database as processed them in that order. Sadly, these fields are read only to us (each FIS has an agreement with Ofsted that says we can't amend the data).

In the interim, I’ve popped an email to Ofsted to see if they can update their records so that the inspection grade orders are reversed.

I'm sorry this isn't more positive news for you, but if you would like to get in touch and discuss further, or if you would like some screenshots to explain how we see your data, please contact the FIS on 0845 650 9876 and ask for me.

Best wishes

Craig