Homes England is trialling shared office space with Coventry City Council to see if the centre of the country location could work as a new national centre for the agency.

The news follows the announcement that Homes England is trialling space with Liverpool City Region Combined Authority and supports its commitment to collaborate with regional partners, ensuring its experts can work hand-in-hand with local specialists.

Sir Edward Lister, Chairman of Homes England, said:

“Homes England is committed to a place based approach, working with local experts to accelerate the delivery of homes across England. The co-location that we are now trialling in Coventry is a way of cementing that collaborative approach as teams work side by side.”

Councillor Jim O’Boyle, cabinet member for jobs and regeneration at Coventry City Council, said:

“The announcement that Homes England is establishing a presence in Coventry, at Friargate which is located right next to the fastest growing railway station outside London, offers a strong statement of confidence in the city’s ongoing regeneration and transformation. We have already welcomed the Financial Ombudsman Service who are based at Friargate and now we are working closely with Homes England, sharing our local knowledge with its team.”

Andy Street, Mayor of the West Midlands, commented:

“We’re delighted to welcome Homes England to Coventry and we hope this will be the first step towards a new headquarters, with new jobs for people in Coventry and the wider West Midlands.”

ENDS.

For more information contact Kate Hall, Communications Officer at Homes England 0115 852 6900 or 07967 782252 kate.hall@homesengland.gov.uk

As the lead inspectorate, Ofsted works alongside the Care Quality Commission and HM Inspectorate of Prisons to inspect England’s 3 STCs.

Following consultation, the following changes to the way STCs are inspected will take effect from 1 April 2019:

• When an STC is judged to be inadequate, Ofsted and its partner inspectorates will respond more robustly. An urgent review meeting will be held with the Ministry of Justice to determine the most appropriate action, and inspectors will routinely return to check on the centre’s progress within 8 weeks of the initial inspection.
• The notice period that STCs are given before inspection will be reduced to 4 days. This is 1 day fewer than proposed in the consultation, and effectively 2 days fewer than under the existing arrangements.
• A ‘point-in-time’ survey of the views of children at an STC will be used to inform the timing of an inspection and key lines of inquiry. It is hoped the survey will empower children to speak more openly and honestly.
• A revised and simplified judgement structure will help tell a clearer story about what life is like for the children living at the STC.

Yvette Stanley, Ofsted’s National Director for Social Care said:

Children living in secure training centres need to feel safe and well looked after. Although there have been some improvements in conditions at STCs, overall, our findings in recent years have reflected the serious concerns held nationally about the experiences of those living at the centres. These changes will see inspectors focus more on the difference that the centres make to children’s lives, and less on processes and procedures.

Peter Clarke, HM Chief Inspector or Prisons, said:

This is a robust multi inspectorate framework that include a strengthened response to inadequate judgements. The new framework has the experience of children at the centre of all judgements and provides the foundation for developing a comprehensive inspection regime as children’s custody is reformed and new models of detention developed.

Ursula Gallagher, Deputy Chief Inspector of General Practice and lead for care in secure settings said:

Secure training centres are home to vulnerable children and young people who often have a very complicated set of needs.

Knowing that the healthcare services available to them, which CQC inspects, will be looked at in the wider context of their experience and better represented in the overall judgement will give a clearer view of what does and does not work well in these settings. Knowing this, we as regulators can help drive improvements in the system and better outcomes for patients.

Read the new joint inspection framework: secure training centres for guidance about how secure training centres are inspected.

We have also published a report on the responses to the consultation on the new joint inspection framework for secure training centres.

There are 3 secure training centres in England: Medway, Rainsbrook and Oakhill.

No STC has been rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ since 2015. The new framework is anticipated to result in a more consistent approach to inspection of secure settings for children and bring it more in line with how Ofsted inspects secure children’s homes. There are 14 secure children’s homes in England, and 10 (71.4%) have been rated ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’.

Ofsted has published a new joint inspection framework for secure training centres (STCs) that promises to focus even more closely on those are judged inadequate.

Are you interested in a career in digital?

We’ve recently launched an ambitious transformation programme which will completely change the way we offer services to our customers. Digital services are an essential element of this transformation.

Over the next few months we’ll be advertising a number of job vacancies in our digital teams, including roles in:

• product management
• user research
• interaction design
• software development
• testing
• architecture
• DevOps
• infrastructure

If you’re interested in being part of our transformation, please come along to one of our digital open days and recruitment sessions at our head office in Cardiff.

Located close to the city centre, our experts will be waiting to talk to you about our exciting digital strategy and the new roles available. Most importantly, you’ll learn more about our culture and why we’re a brilliant place to work.

There are 2 separate drop-in sessions.

Ross Maude, Director of digital said:

We’re starting on a really exciting transformation journey at Companies House, and we have a brilliant culture and way of working here. We’ve fully adopted working with Scrum, we’re working with agile and we’re at the forefront of using things like DevOps to make sure that we’re using the best practices to deliver our services in the most efficient way we can.

We’d really like people to come and see the work that we’re doing, and be part of a team that’s doing really quite amazing things here in the middle of Cardiff.

If you have the skills and experience we’re looking for, we want you to be part of this ambitious programme of change. You’ll have the opportunity to be at the forefront of the government’s digital transformation, and to develop our services to meet the ever-changing demands of the UK’s business landscape.

Find out more about working for Companies House.