Private sector provider sought to revamp children's services in Sandwell
Janaki Mahadevan
Tuesday, July 10, 2012
Sandwell Council has outlined plans to draft in private sector support to help run its children's services department for two and a half years.
The authority was issued with an improvement notice in March 2010 following a critical Ofsted report into safeguarding and looked-after children’s services in November 2009.
In its most recent inspection in February this year, the council was found to have made “satisfactory progress” and its Ofsted rating for safeguarding services increased to “adequate”.
But following the departure of director of children’s services Barbara Peacock, who has taken up a post in Medway after 23 months at Sandwell, the council has decided to seek external support to speed up the department's improvements.
Sandwell Council chief executive Jan Britton, said: “Sandwell’s children’s social care service has had a rough time for a long time. We have had three separate periods of intervention by government in the past 12 years and in the same period we have had a high turnover of directors of children’s services.
“They haven’t always stayed at Sandwell for as long as has been necessary to make the sort of improvement that we need.”
The council is currently drawing up a tender document for a 30-month improvement contract. The authority hopes to have appointed a provider by the autumn.
He said: “We are putting a package together that asks experienced, external providers, in the private sector predominantly, to provide us with an interim director of children’s services for two and a half years.
“And with that provide a package of other support that challenges our performance management; helps us address budget issues and helps us with consistency and quality of practice.
“The change has started because earlier this year we had a better Ofsted result than we have had in years. We have turned a corner so this is an opportunity for the provider to accelerate the improvement in a service that has already demonstrated that it can improve, but needs to do so quicker.”
The contract will be paid for by reductions in senior management costs across the council.
Britton added that it was a crucial time to implement more robust procedures and significantly boost quality, given the introduction of the revised Ofsted safeguarding inspection framework.
He said recruiting private providers to help with service improvement is likely to become more common across local authorities in England.