The department’s leadership, support for children in care and overall effectiveness all received the inspectorate’s top rating once again, following inspectors visit in April this year.
Meanwhile, its child protection work has been uplifted from "good" to "outstanding".
Good access to local early help is among areas praised in child protection work as is a “strong multi-agency partnership” in place to identify families’ needs and provide swift support.
Ofsted is particularly impressed that people in families' local community are used to help children as they “most often know them best and are already positively involved in their lives”.
Out of hours support for children in need of help is also praised.
A “strengthening of practice” when vulnerable teenagers at risk of exploitation go missing, is another area backed by inspectors.
Social workers also “demonstrate a sound awareness of the risk of potential and actual exploitation for young people,” inspectors add.
However, the county council’s support for care leavers has been downgraded from "outstanding" to "good", since the department’s previous inspection in 2019.
While most care leavers are “well supported by their leaving care workers” inspectors are concerned that “contact is not as responsive” for care leavers in custody.
One concern raised is that records of arranged visits by care workers “did not match with the higher number of attempts described by workers”.
“If those young people later review their records, they will not see the numbers of unsuccessful attempts made to keep in touch with them,” state inspectors in their report.
The council’s executive member for children’s services Patricia Bradwell said children’s services staff “try hard to make sure that the children’s views and wishes are listened to, and that they are helped to stay in touch with siblings and other family members who are important to their lives”.
She said that “although we were rated ‘outstanding’ during our last inspection, we have continued to look for ways to improve” adding that she welcomed inspectors praise for support for children who go missing or are at risk of being exploited.
