Ofsted blames inadequate leadership for children's services 'drift and delay'

Following an inspection of Herefordshire Council's children's services department, the inspectorate gave a "requires improvement" overall judgment, but rated the leadership and management of the service as "inadequate".

Inspectors found that restrictions on some functions of senior managers and "challenging personal circumstances" have resulted in "a leadership team with constrained capacity, lack of stability and, in some areas, poor performance".

Ofsted said the service's leadership had failed to address many of the problems its inspectors found during their last visit to Herefordshire in 2014.

These problems included excessively large caseloads, ineffective performance management and a shortage of social workers.

Social workers, it added, are not getting quality supervision and feel disconnected from senior management.

"Social workers do not receive regular supervision and, when it does take place, it does not provide the necessary support and direction to ensure that all children's cases progress without delay," the inspection report states.

"Staff in some teams feel a strong disconnect from their senior managers, which is inhibiting improvement."

Ofsted also criticised the council for not acting on concerns identified by quality assurance processes.

"This is a missed opportunity to improve the quality of social work practice and a failure of managers," the report states.

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Despite the leadership problems, inspectors did find evidence of improvement within Herefordshire, including a strengthened children's disabilities service and better sharing of information about children who go missing.

They found no evidence of children being at risk of immediate harm and that the vast majority of children in care live in good placements that improve their outcomes.

Inspectors also noted that the council was investing more money in children's services and had just introduced an improvement strategy, although it said it is too early to tell if these moves make any difference to the quality of the service.

"We are pleased that Ofsted found we know ourselves well, that we had recognised areas of strength and been clear with the inspection team on the weaknesses that they would find," said Chris Baird, director for children's wellbeing at the council.

"We accept there are areas where we still need to improve. However, the overall judgment from the latest inspection remains a positive position to where we were back in 2012, when the council received a rating of inadequate.

"We have a new leadership team determined to build on the strengths that benefit children and young people in Herefordshire, and put right the areas of weakness that have been identified in the report."

In the meantime, this week also saw Ofsted publish the results of an inspection of the London Borough of Havering.

The inspectorate deemed children's services to be "good" overall, but said its work with children who need help or protection "requires improvement".

Ofsted said Havering has made significant improvements since its last inspection in 2016, when Ofsted found the borough "requires improvement" overall.

Improvements made since 2016 include enhanced work with care leavers and better quality assessments. However, inspectors said the borough's efforts to identify threats to young people at risk of exploitation are "insufficiently robust".