Ofsted judges Southampton children's services in need of improvement

The south coast council’s services for children in need of help and protection, looked-after children and care leavers were judged overall to “require improvement” following the inspection in July.

The rating reflects progress for the council. Although safeguarding and looked-after children’s services were judged “adequate” at their most recent inspection in 2012, Ofsted says the council’s April 2013 self-assessment of safeguarding services found children “were not safe or properly protected from significant harm and looked-after children received a service not consistently good enough”.

Southampton is the 17th out of the 33 authorities to receive the “requires improvement” judgment under Ofsted’s new inspection framework.

The inspection found that in the three main judgment areas of children who need help and protection, looked-after children, and leadership, Southampton children’s services were assessed as requiring improvement. Adoption performance was also judged as requiring improvement, but progress made by care leavers was assessed as inadequate.

Ofsted said it found weaknesses across services for looked-after children including inadequate care planning, poor quality life story work and case recording not sufficiently detailed.

Inspectors reported that around one-third of care leavers were either not in touch with services or living in unsuitable accommodation. In addition, too many were not in education, employment or training, while only three are currently in higher education.

Significant problems were also identified with leadership across the council, from elected members through to middle managers. Ofsted said politicians were failing to meet their corporate parenting responsibilities to champion looked-after children, supervision of social workers does not promote reflective practice, and performance management arrangements are not focused enough on improving practice.

Meanwhile, adoption is not achieved quickly enough for 17 per cent of children in care.

Improving information on children that go missing from home and care also needs to be addressed immediately, the report says.

Despite the concerns, the authority was found to have a “good understanding” of its strengths and weaknesses, has a clear plan for improving services and is backing this with appropriate resources.

Southampton’s multi-agency safeguarding hub and troubled families team were also praised for working collaboratively with agencies and tackling problems early. In addition, there is a strong understanding of domestic violence issues, while work to maintain placement stability for looked-after children, ensuring they receive good support and keeping siblings together is good.

Responding to the report, Alison Elliott, Southampton City Council’s director of people, said: “We welcome the findings of Ofsted's recent inspection and their judgment that children’s services in the city require improvement to be good. While the inspection highlighted areas where the council still needs to improve performance, the report also acknowledges the significant progress already made to improve children’s services in Southampton.

"We were pleased that Ofsted’s inspectors saw evidence of the good quality work that our children’s services staff do every day, including our proactive approach to providing early help to families and meeting the needs of our looked after children.

“Since children’s services were assessed as 'inadequate' in April 2013, work to radically transform the service has been underway and this remains the council’s top priority. We believe the foundations for ongoing improvement are now firmly in place.”

Last week, Blackpool children’s services were also judged as “requires improvement”, while earlier this month Manchester became the sixth to be rated “inadequate” under the new framework since its launch last October.