Warrington DCS to lead Ofsted's social care improvement work

Kath O’Dwyer, currently director of families and wellbeing in Warrington, will take up the post of national director of improvement in social care in May.

O’Dwyer said of the role: “It provides the opportunity to lead, develop and implement a new improvement model, with an aim of improving services and outcomes for vulnerable children and young people.”

Warrington was judged as adequate in its most recent inspection of safeguarding and looked-after children services, published in December 2011.

The inspection report found that a wide range of improvements had been made since safeguarding services were judged as inadequate following an inspection in October 2009.

Warrington’s chief executive Steven Broomhead said: “When Kath O’Dwyer came to Warrington Borough Council four and a half years ago, she hit the ground running.

“She led a complete shake-up of Warrington’s children’s services, from frontline practitioners through all tiers of management.

“She brought in a ‘back to basics’ training programme for all social work staff, as well as new training for frontline managers.

“She improved performance in a way that gave colleagues real confidence in the quality of the services they were providing.

“The result was simply better council services for young people in Warrington, whether those services were adoption or fostering, youth work or turning round the lives of young offenders.

“Kath took over Warrington’s children’s services at a time when they were judged to be poor, and she’ll be leaving them in a state we can be proud of.”

Last month Debbie Jones, Ofsted’s director of social care, told the education select committee that the appointment of a director of improvement was part of efforts to strengthen the way in which it helps authorities to improve.