ICAUGHT an item in the news this week about what are being called “cotton wool kids” – youngsters who are carefully cocooned by their parents from what they see as the dangers of modern life. These, it now appears, include public transport, sleepovers and playing outdoors.

It’s the balancing act every parent faces.

We want our kids to be safe, but we also want them to be independent, resilient individuals.

The key to it all is having a set of consistent, common-sense rules that both parent and young person understand and respect.

If you tell a teenager that their 2am curfew has suddenly become midnight, you’re going to have trouble; turn a little get-together for a few mates from college into open house for every under-18 in the Tees Valley, you’ll get the same reaction from a parent.

The cotton wool kids story struck a chord with me because, at times, I feel that the Government treats local councils like some perpetually rebellious, truculent teenager who will only function properly if their every move is monitored and measured.

Now, I know that public services have to be accountable to the people who pay for them and that the public has to have clear information about whether those services are efficient and provide value for money.

But I do query whether the current regime of inspection, target-setting and monitoring that councils, police and other public bodies are subjected to is giving the public the facts, or services, they deserve. In many instances, it is causing confusion and disillusion.

This week, the Ofsted report on Abingdon School, Middlesbrough, was published. For those who don’t know it, Abingdon and its head, Bob Eastwood, are legends on Teesside.

The school’s 400 pupils come from 30 countries and speak 18 different languages. It is a vibrant, happy and successful institution. If I had to explain to a visitor what I wanted to achieve for Middlesbrough, it would be one of the first places I would take them to.

In its last inspection, Ofsted said Abingdon was a good school with outstanding features.

This week, it said it was inadequate and needed special measures. The verdict has left parents, staff and pupils in a state of shock as most of them actually thought the school had improved in the intervening four years.

So what has changed? The answer is Ofsted’s inspection method. A new emphasis on attainment, irrespective of the level at which a pupil starts their school career, means that Abingdon and, no doubt, many good schools in our area have been marked down.

This is not so much shifting the goalposts as digging up the pitch. Three things separate successful organisations from failing ones. They are good management, motivation and morale. If anyone can explain how the Ofsted verdict has supported any of these, then I hope they will contact me, the parents and the staff with the answer.

This case illustrates some major weaknesses in the way public services are inspected and evaluated. The system is top-down, insensitive to local conditions and produces results which baffle the public and professionals alike. Inspection bodies that should be sources of simple, user-friendly information for the public have become instead self-perpetuating industries whose costs outweigh their contribution to good government.

Organisations delivering public services don’t need to be wrapped in cotton wool. The truth won’t hurt them, even when it is unpalatable.

All they ask for are those commonsense rules, consistently applied. Basically, to be treated like adults.