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Dear colleague
Tomorrow, Ofsted will publish the outcome of the recent inspection
of services for children in need of help and protection, children who are
looked after, and care leavers in Devon.
We
are glad to be able to inform you that this inspection says things are
improving and the overall judgement is that
children’s services now require improvement.
The inspection report says that the quality of work with
children and families and outcomes for children and young people have improved,
particularly over the last six months, and that the welfare of looked after
children is safeguarded and promoted.
But
significant areas remain where practice is not yet good enough and overall we
are not yet delivering the “good” protection, help and care for children, young
people and families that we wish to achieve.
Inspectors make their
judgements on a four-point scale: inadequate; requires improvement; good; and
outstanding.
The separate judgements on
areas of the service that contribute to overall effectiveness for this
inspection are:
-
Children who need help and protection – requires
improvement
-
Children looked after and achieving permanence – requires
improvement
2.1. adoption performance – good
2.2 experience and progress of care leavers – inadequate
-
Leadership, management and governance – require
improvement.
In the report, lead inspector,
Jansy Kelly, says that overall, the pace of change and progress since the last
inspection have been sufficient to move us to a position where our safeguarding
and children's services now require improvement.
But inspectors reported that
the experiences and progress of care leavers remain inadequate, and the
achievement of looked after children in education needs to be significantly
improved, particularly in secondary schools.
Inspectors also said we need to
engage actively with partner agencies to ensure that early help and
safeguarding services to children and their families continue to develop and
become fully effective.
The 44-page report, which will be on the Ofsted website from tomorrow, 12 May,
(listed under 'Latest assessment/report') states:
-
The quality of work with children and families, and the
structures and procedures through which it is delivered, have improved
since the last inspection.
-
Outcomes for children and young people have also
improved.
Our strengths
-
Partnership strategy discussions held at the MASH were
seen as having the potential to support really good decisions for children
and young people.
-
The Adoption Service was rated as good with most
children being really well prepared for permanency in a timely way, and some
innovative practice based on research was noted.
-
Privately fostered children were found to receive a
high quality and effective service which promotes their welfare and
equality.
-
Personal education plans for looked-after children have
significantly improved but we now need to see the improvement for children
in their school results.
- Our ability to monitor children missing education and
support them to get back in school in a timely way was noted as
innovative with joined up practice between education and children's social
work managers through a ‘Missing Monday’ meeting.
- Good direct work with young people was highlighted, particularly that of family practitioners and the specialist REACH team who provided a range of effective interventions with young people at risk of child exploitation.
-
The improving workforce stability, the work to attract
children’s social workers to Devon and caseload levels were
recognised as helping social workers to focus on delivering better
outcomes for children.
Progress since the last inspection
Since the previous inspection,
much has been achieved in ensuring that we meet our core
responsibilities.
-
We are securing a far more stable base of permanent
staff, reducing the previous over-reliance on agency and interim staff and
managers.
-
Senior managers have a sufficiently clear understanding of many of the challenges ahead for the local authority and key partner
agencies.
What do we need to improve immediately?
-
Services provided to care leavers and ensure practice
is properly recorded.
-
More robustly take account of the child’s experience
and contributing factors of neglect to ensure that all children who
require a service receive one.
-
Improve consistency in practice, which was found to be
wide ranging.
-
Continue to work with partners to identify the most
vulnerable children at risk of sexual exploitation.
-
Ensure partners understand their accountability to
support children and families through a robust Early Help offer and that
they understand and universally apply thresholds for children's social work .
-
Lead a real commitment and ownership from all partners
at strategic level to joined up commissioning to deliver improved outcomes
for the children of Devon.
-
Work with our partners to ensure the Local Safeguarding
Children Board (LSCB), is more robust.
The inspection process was a
demanding and challenging time for us and we'd like to thank you all again for
responding so professionally, calmly, openly and honestly. The inspectors were
impressed by this and by senior managers’ openness and grasp of our strengths
and things we still needed to work on.
The inspection outcome tells us
we are heading in the right direction with many areas of positive practice for
us to build on. And while this improvement is a welcome stage on our journey to
provide good services for children and families across Devon, we cannot be
complacent and need to continue to build on these strengths while addressing
the areas highlighted by inspectors for improvement.
We are carefully considering
Ofsted’s report and refreshing our action plan to reflect the areas of work
highlighted by the inspection team, and we all have a part to play in
continuing to improve the work we do every day for children and young people in
Devon.
We would like to end by
thanking you all again and saying well done to each and every one involved.
Kind regards
Jennie and James
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