Concerns remain at trust-run children's services, says Ofsted
Joe Lepper
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
A trust that took over the running of a council's "inadequate" children's services is still struggling to reduce caseloads, attract social workers and tackle delays, according to Ofsted.
Sandwell Children's Trust, which is chaired by former Home Secretary Jacqui Smith, took charge of Sandwell Council's children's services in April this year, three months after the department was handed Ofsted's lowest rating.
Following a monitoring visit last month inspectors found that the social care workforce still relies too heavily on agency staff.
A drive to tackle poor performance has also seen some staff leave but their posts have not been filled. In addition, caseloads are still high, inspectors found.
"Although the number of agency staff is gradually reducing, the workforce is still fragmented, particularly in care management teams," states an Ofsted letter to the trust.
"The drive of senior managers and leaders to tackle poor performance has also resulted in the loss of some staff, and some posts are not yet filled. Caseloads have not yet reached the trust's expectations."
Inspectors also found delays in handling children's cases, in areas such as decision making, legal planning meetings, completing assessments and starting care proceedings. All were highlighted as concerns by Ofsted during its last inspection.
Inspectors also found that social workers are missing opportunities to intervene in serious neglect cases, which means that children at risk of harm are not entering care swiftly enough.
"These children often enter care in an unplanned way due to a serious incident, rather than as a planned intervention due to ongoing concerns," states Ofsted's letter.
"The decision-making of social workers and managers in some of these cases is hampered by poor-quality chronologies which do not contain full and detailed histories. Social workers are not identifying repeated patterns and trends that indicate a lack of "change to improve outcomes for children".
Despite their concerns inspectors noted efforts by the trust to tackle its recruitment and retention problems. They noted the success of a campaign called "12 reasons to work in Sandwell Children's Trust", which has helped reduce the combined proportion of agency and newly qualified workers from 60 per cent to 41 per cent since May.
Ofsted's letter to the trust concludes: "Many of the inspection findings identified at the last inspection remain and practice remains variable, but, crucially, the foundations are in place for practice to improve."
Smith said: "It's been six months since the trust was launched and it is encouraging that the latest feedback from Ofsted reaffirms we have made some improvements and put the right foundations in place for practice to improve.
"It also recognises that senior managers fully grasp the task ahead of them and are putting in the right measures to ensure we continue to improve.
"We are not there yet but we are definitely on the right track and will continue with improving the services we deliver to children and families in Sandwell."
Meanwhile, Wirral children's services was also visited by Ofsted last month, for a seventh monitoring visit since the department was judged to be "inadequate" in September 2016.
Inspectors found improvements in child protection, with all children tracked on the visit having their safeguarding needs identified and met.
However, inspectors want to see an improvement in the way social workers work with local partners. Health representatives do not always attend strategy meetings and inspectors want to see better information sharing between police and children's services.
"Police and children's social care staff do not share information well enough or plan together to ensure that children's needs can be met in a timely way because criminal investigations sometimes take priority over the safeguarding plan for the child," states Ofsted's letter to the trust.
"This has resulted in delays in children's needs being fully assessed and met.
Paul Boyce, who was appointed director of children's services at Wirral last year, said: "There is still much work to be done on areas such as working with partner agencies, but in a relatively short space of time we have seen a significant change for the better in Wirral children's services, and it is pleasing to see the Ofsted inspectors have recognised this."
