Local Spotlight: North Lincolnshire Council

In September, North Lincolnshire became only the third council to be rated "outstanding" by Ofsted under the Single Inspection Framework.

The inspectorate praised the council's focus on putting children and young people at the heart of everything it does, particularly in its work with care leavers.

Leadership was judged as "exceptional". Meanwhile, stability in the workforce - illustrated by very low social worker vacancy rates - is a key factor in delivering improved outcomes for children.

Scunthorpe is the main town in the east coast authority, which has a population of 167,000. The area is ranked 127th most deprived out of 326 local authorities.

Around 20 per cent of the population are children, with 60 children per 10,000 total population in care.

MANAGEABLE CASE LOADS HELPS NORTH LINCOLNSHIRE RETAIN SOCIAL WORKERS

By Mike Gibbs, director of children and community resilience, North Lincolnshire Council

We've had stable leadership at every level for a long period of time. This has been backed by sustained commitment and resources despite austerity. But more than the money, we've got a real passion for the most vulnerable people that live in North Lincolnshire. This permeates through to the frontline managers, practice supervisors and practitioners.

We're not a huge local authority - there are 70 to 80 social workers - but we work with the whole range of needs and complexity.

We set out a long time ago that the workforce is our key resource. We've invested in enabling social workers to have workable case loads - they are around 18. There's also a strong training programme to ensure they develop direct work skills. By making the job more fulfilling, social workers are more likely to stay with North Lincolnshire.

We manage competition [for staff from other councils] by investing in them as individuals. We also put a lot of work into attracting students to take up positions.

We have invested in support for care leavers for a long time, particularly to improve accommodation.

We now have a studio flat in our children's campus that enables 18- and 19-year-olds to stay close until they are ready to move into independent accommodation. Even when they are aged 22 or 23 they stay in touch and we are there to help them if needed.

Phase is our accommodation service for children and young people that is run as a social enterprise. The model offered us the opportunity to expand the mix of accommodation available to care leavers. We've developed supported lodgings as well as Staying Put placements.

We have recruited a highly dedicated head teacher as our virtual school head, and invested in an education inclusion service that works at all levels of vulnerability. It offers information, advice and guidance, and employability services. It incorporates educational inclusion and teaching staff as part of a virtual team. They help children onto their next level of development.

Even though we have fewer children from ethnic minority communities, one of our biggest growing populations is families from Eastern Europe. We embrace [cultural] difference, and utilise [expertise] within the local community and the wider region.

My community resilience role is about building capacity of neighbourhoods. There is significant synergy between my director of children's services and community resilience roles. It is also about the adverse impact that children experience and how adults are part of that - managing and preventing that in partnership with others is key.