Council moves out of 'inadequate' following Ofsted inspection

Although children's services at Leicester City Council still "requires improvement", inspectors praised efforts to address a raft of problems highlighted during its last inspection in 2015. This included a social worker exodus, delays in allocating cases and poor oversight of work.

An overhaul of performance management and quality assurance systems has been a particular success. This has improved both the quality of information available about children and the accountability of leaders and managers.

The working environment for social workers, including their relationship with senior managers, has also improved markedly and led to inspectors rating leadership, management and governance, in addition to adoption support, as "good".

Action has also been taken to successfully reduce a reliance on agency staff and to recruit permanent social workers, both newly qualified and experienced practitioners.

"Services for children have improved significantly since the last inspection in 2015, which judged them overall to be inadequate," states Ofsted in its inspection report following their visit in June and July.

"Senior leaders and managers took decisive action following this inspection and have remained clearly focused on securing the necessary improvements. While more work is needed before services are consistently good, sustained progress has been achieved.

"One of the main foundations of this progress is the effective use of quality assurance and performance management information, which enables managers to understand what they need to do to keep children safe and how to better manage identified risks.

"In parallel with this is a radical transformation of culture, whereby staff feel safe working in an open and transparent environment, reporting that leaders manage change well."

Leicester children's services is also working better with partners, with inspectors highlighting an "effective" joint protocol with the council's housing department to support homeless 16- and 17-year-olds. The service's involvement in area-wide efforts to tackle child sexual exploitation was another area praised.

Despite the improvements, inspectors want to see more regular updates in assessments, to better take into account family history.

Action to protect disabled children also needs to be swifter and concerns remain around the high number of 18- to 21-year-old care leavers who are not in education, employment or training.

"To have our ‘inadequate' rating removed is excellent news, and we are particularly pleased that the report singles out some of our work as exceptional. This is the result of a lot of hard work and a strong, unwavering focus on raising standards across children's services," said Sarah Russell, Leicester's assistant city mayor for children, young people and schools.

"We recognise that we still have further improvements to make, but what the inspectors have confirmed is that we are moving in the right direction, with the right team in place to ensure that we can become a good service."

Meanwhile, children's services at Walsall Council have also been rated as "requires improvement", although its adoption support was considered "good" by Ofsted, following their June and July visit.

Senior managers are "keenly focused" on improving children's services, states Ofsted's inspection report, however, it adds that "the necessary improvements are not yet in place across all services and, as a result, some key areas still require improvement to be good".

Children's services are blighted by delays in seeing children, a high turnover of social workers and managers and quality assurance procedures that are not providing an accurate picture of every child's circumstances.

Management oversight is also too brief and the reasons why decisions are being taken are not routinely shown in casework.

Walsall's children's services portfolio holder Aftab Nawaz said inspectors' concerns are being addressed.

"I am pleased with the report and satisfied that we are moving in the right direction for children and their families. There were no surprises for us; the inspection team has confirmed that we are exactly where we assessed ourselves to be on our journey to be rated ‘good'," Nawaz added.

A previous inspection of Walsall's child protection arrangements in July 2013 rated services as "adequate".