Somerset DCS pledges to improve Ofsted grade in a year

The council has made the promise after being labelled "inadequate" by Ofsted for the second time in two years in March.

Inspectors were critical of a “corporate failure” to keep children safe and a “continual churn” of senior managers, including eight different directors of children’s services (DCSs) in the last decade.

In a report to cabinet, Somerset Council DCS Julian Wooster pledged that by April 2016 the council will have achieved the higher Ofsted rating of "requires improvement".

In his report, Wooster says the “council is committed to rapid improvement of children’s services”, and concedes that “overall not enough improvement had been made” since 2013 when Ofsted first raised serious concerns about the department.

Assisting the council is a team of advisers, drafted in from Essex County Council and appointed in March by then children’s minister Edward Timpson.

The team, led by Dave Hill DCS in Essex and vice president of the Association of Directors of Children's Services, will support the implementation of a rapid improvement programme over the next six months.

The team will also report back to the Department for Education in June on progress made and whether the council’s leadership has the “capacity and capability to drive forward the changes necessary to achieve adequate performance”.

If the advisers' report is critical the council faces further government intervention and possibly being stripped of control of its children’s services.

The first three months of the six-month improvement plan will focus on improving frontline teams including those working with children in care, safeguarding, and children with disabilities.

Other priority areas for improvement include residential care, support for families on the edge of care as well as early intervention, performance data and IT systems.

Recruitment and retention is another focus, after Ofsted inspectors were critical of the council’s reliance on temporary staff in both frontline and senior management roles.

Among the most high-profile temporary staff members has been former interim DCS Peter Lewis, who left the council last October. While council leaders said he failed to deliver improvements swiftly enough, Lewis claimed he was hampered by a lack of authority-wide support for change and its "arcane" IT system.