Inspectors praise children's centre support at 'inadequate' council

The inspectorate carried out a monitoring visit to the London Borough of Bromley's children's services in March with a specific focus on progress to improve early help for children and families. 

This is the sixth visit since the overall effectiveness of the department was judged to be "inadequate" in June 2016.

Inspectors found that the use of multi-agency teams based around children's centres is ensuring vulnerable families are swiftly offered a wide range of support, in areas such as domestic abuse, parenting, housing, education and employment.

Such early help is also helping the council to cut the number of child in need and child protection plans, inspectors found.

"Integrated multi-agency early intervention services, based in localities around children's centres, offer parents a wide range of accessible services," states a letter from Ofsted to the council.

"These include an early intervention programme to support children who have witnessed domestic violence, early parent education classes and a ‘parenting plus' programme."

The letter adds: "Effective early support to families is reducing the need for a number of children to receive statutory interventions. This is reflected in the reduction of children subject to repeat child in need or child protection plans."

Parents praised the quality of support on offer, telling inspectors that help is highly valued. They also praised the "light touch" help offered by children's centre workers and family support officers.

"Parents who spoke with inspectors report that they highly value these services. All parents spoken to on this visit were unanimously praising of the help they receive and the positive difference that services had made to them and their children," states the letter.

It adds: "Children's centre workers demonstrate an appropriate understanding and response to risk. Timely and effective communication with children's social workers takes place should risks escalate.

"A small number of cases are held by family support officers, who offer additional support to parents to access help offered at the centres.

"Parents highly regard this ‘light touch' support, which offers advice, guidance and practical help on a range of issues, including benefit applications and budget management."

Areas of further improvement highlighted by inspectors include ensuring the experiences of children are given greater prominence when auditing the quality of early intervention support.

"This misses an opportunity to identify and improve the positive outcomes of this help on their individual needs and circumstances," states Ofsted's letter.

Earlier this month research by education charity The Sutton Trust claimed that as many as 1,000 children's centres have closed since 2009, twice as many as the government has acknowledged.

Meanwhile, Ofsted also visited Wirral council in March, for the fifth time since its children's services were judged "inadequate" in September 2016.

This focused on progress in improving the council's initial response to child protection and children in need concerns.

Inspectors welcomed the setting up of a multi-agency "integrated front door" service, which is effectively applying thresholds for help and ensuring children who are at risk of significant harm are identified swiftly.

However, inspectors are concerned that police reports of domestic abuse incidents are not being referred to social workers quickly enough. In addition they found that the quality of assessments is variable.

"This leads to some children being subject to multiple assessments as well as delay in their receiving the support that they need," states an Ofsted letter to Wirral Council.