Local Spotlight: Coventry City Council

Coventry children's services' Ofsted rating has recently improved from "inadequate" to "requires improvement". It is the culmination of three years of focus and investment in the service by the council since it received the lowest judgment in March 2014.

A new management team, led by head of children's services John Gregg, has since been put in place charged with turning around major problems with child protection and social work standards (see below).

The task will be challenging. The city has pockets of severe deprivation and has been hit by job losses linked to increased automation in the car manufacturing industry, one of the region's main employment sectors.

Coventry is the ninth largest English city and has a population of around 350,000, 76,000 of whom are children.

FORMER OFSTED INSPECTOR INVESTS IN FRONTLINE SOCIAL WORK PRACTICE

John Gregg knew Coventry well before he joined in November 2015 to head up children's services. "I was a senior Ofsted regional inspector and I came here to meet senior leaders as part of the follow-up work we did with the authority," he explains. When the vacancy arose, he applied because the challenge of turning the ailing authority around was "interesting".

Part of that challenge was to ensure the foundations for improvement were put in place, particularly focusing on leadership and frontline practice.

"When I came into post a third of social workers were agency staff," he explains. "We had to stabilise the workforce and particularly the senior leadership team. We had a combination of unmanaged performance issues and a significant number of interim consultants in key strategic posts. I got rid of a couple from day one and as we've recruited I've been able to let interims go. For the first time in five years, the leadership team, which includes me, three assistant directors and the principal social worker, is made up of experienced permanent staff."

Gregg is not the statutory director of children's services - responsibilities that lie with the deputy chief executive - but has taken the lead on developing the children's social care workforce. Since his arrival, staff vacancy rates and caseloads have fallen as part of a programme to invest in the workforce (see graphics).

"Inadequate councils are not an attractive place for people to come and work so we needed to change the brand - we care about frontline practice, social work and children's lives."

Workforce initiatives include creating a "grow-your-own" social worker training scheme with the Open University, and establishing a West Midlands teaching partnership with Birmingham University.

While Ofsted's recent re-inspection highlighted promising progress, Gregg admits there are significant challenges ahead. The city's child population is expected to grow six per cent by 2020, at a time when additional council investment in the department is set to taper off.

Gregg says the extra money has been invested in new initiatives such as a problem-solving court and multi-systemic therapy team.

"We now have to build on that," he says. "The danger is that once we're off the naughty step the investment stops, but the council leadership has said children's services will continue to be a key priority."

Initiatives on the horizon include working with social business Catch22 to deliver a project to reduce the number of children coming into the social care system. "Like other inadequate authorities we have too many children in care and children in need," he adds.

John Gregg is director of children's services at Coventry City Council