Tory council boss hits out at government over Ofsted grading

Gordon Lundie, Conservative leader of West Berkshire Council said central government underfunding for social care, aligned with a “blame culture” among national politicians towards social workers both contributed to the authority’s poor Ofsted report earlier this week.

“There has been a dramatic increase in child protection plans but no extra funding for councils to deal with that, which is a problem that national politicians need to address,” Lundie said.

“I would like to see more investment in children’s services.

“We have been handed a lot of cuts and have been protecting children’s services from them, but that hasn’t been good enough to stem the rising tide of child protection cases.

“Instead we should have been investing more in it over the last five years.”

The small unitary authority has a 50 strong social work team, with around 17 vacancies filled by agency social workers.  

A high turnover of staff within the department and a reliance on agency social workers were among key concerns raised by inspectors.

Lundie says national politicians blaming social workers for challenges facing children’s social care has made it difficult for councils like West Berkshire to fill vacancies.

He said: “Anytime something goes wrong or someone is not achieving enough, the social workers get blamed.

“When they read headlines like that many wonder why they are doing that job.

“We need a more grown-up discussion that makes it clear that it is families that put children at risk, not social workers.

“When we read headlines that say 'West Berkshire is putting children at risk', that is not the case. ??We are the people trying to top children being put into harm’s way.

“We need a conversation from government that acknowledges how tough the job is.”

Last summer West Berkshire put in place a series of measures to improve its recruitment.

This included an additional £1.5m annual investment in retention bonuses for staff that remain for more than three years, sabbaticals of around two months for social workers after their first three years and a social work academy to better support new recruits.

In addition a one-off investment of £1.5m has been made to improve IT systems.

Lundie says that in the last month five social workers have been recruited.

Ofsted’s report said “there are positive signs” that the council’s recruitment and retention strategy will make an impact on staff stability.

West Berskhire was the third authority to be rated “inadequate” in the space of a week, with Lambeth and Cumbria both also receiving the lowest grading.