Ofsted finds 'steady progress' at inadequate authority

Buckinghamshire County Council's children's services department received the judgment over a range of concerns around the quality of child protection assessments, high caseloads, and poor record keeping.

But a monitoring visit, the second to take place since the last full inspection in August 2014, found a number of improvements.

Inspectors said social work practice has improved for children entering care in the last six months, with decisions around taking children into care deemed to be "timely and appropriate" in the vast majority of cases.

There was also evidence of proactive work to disrupt and respond to concerns of sexual exploitation, and inspectors noted that there had been investment in the independent reviewing officer (IRO) service, which has "resulted in increased capacity and real improvement in the service".

"Consequently, IROs are now rigorously monitoring children's progress; they advocate for children and hold social workers and managers to account," a letter from Ofsted outlining the findings states.

Ofsted also said there has been significant improvement in the timeliness and quality of health assessments for looked-after children.

But despite the progress, a number of concerns were flagged up.

Inspectors said "drift and delay" are still evident for some children who have been subject to statutory intervention for some time. Meanwhile social workers do not regularly update assessments in response to children's changing circumstances.

And risk assessments of looked-after children who at potential risk of sexual exploitation were found to be "inconsistent", or "in some cases absent".

"The current leadership team has been effective in achieving improvements in some parts of the service, most notably in the work carried out to strengthen the independent reviewing service, stabilise the workforce, and improve the timeliness and quality of children's health assessments," the letter states.

But it added that, despite evidence of stronger managerial grip in some areas since the last inspection, there remains too much variability for children in care.

"Some managerial decision-making does not effectively drive children's plans to ensure that they receive appropriate intervention," the letter states.

"Social workers do not always complete actions from supervision and managers do not rigorously track or challenge the lack of progress. Consequently, there has been drift and delay for some children."