Ofsted tells children's services department to improve

Although no widespread failures were identified within children's services at Wokingham Council, inspectors said the quality of practice was "variable" and "not consistently good".

"Inspectors found that weak management oversight and supervision were common features in too many cases," the report states.

"Ensuring robust case supervision, management oversight and decision making by first and second line managers is crucial to improving social work practice and improving outcomes for children and young people in Wokingham."

Inspectors said that leadership and governance arrangements in Wokingham are "robust and effective" and demonstrate many elements of good practice, but added that first and second line management are not sufficiently rigorous in challenging, monitoring and driving social work practice.

The report said that a robust workforce strategy has begun to reduce a previously heavy reliance within the department on agency workers, but a legacy of high turnover among social workers and managers has impacted on the quality of social work practice, management oversight and the timely progression of care plans.

It added that in the vast majority of cases, children and young people in need of help and protection receive an effective and prompt response from the duty, assessment and triage team.

However, in a small minority of cases, delays in holding strategy discussions and instigating child protection procedures resulted in children remaining in situations of unassessed risk.

The authority had previously been rated "adequate" for safeguarding services following an inspection in 2010, and "adequate" for child protection services in 2012.

Charlotte Haitham Taylor, lead member for children’s services at Wokingham Council, said: "There are no surprises in this report and it reaffirms our own self-assessment of services.

"Plans are already in place to improve further; our development programme was acknowledged positively by Ofsted during the inspection. We know what we have to do to become ‘good’ and are already on the right path to making further improvements.

"Social work is a difficult job. We’ve worked hard during the past year to recruit and, more importantly, retain social workers within our borough.

"Having a stable workforce, and relying less on agency workers, is so important to us. We’ve been able to achieve this by making innovative decisions as a council to ensure we provide the best possible services for children and young people in the borough."