Ofsted inspection team has good and bad news
CHILDREN’S services in Stockport have been judged as ‘good’ by a government watchdog – but the Local Safeguarding Children Board ‘requires improvement’.
In an inspection carried out by Ofsted earlier this year, all service areas were given a rating of good and adoption performance was rated ‘outstanding’.
This is an improvement on the previous inspection, carried out in 2012, in which a number of areas were rated ‘adequate’ and one area - the health of looked after children and care leavers - was rated ‘inadequate’.
The report of the most recent inspection, published this month, indicates that services have improved across the board and says that ‘good social work practice is now in place across all children’s services, with some examples of outstanding practice, in particular for those children who need adoption services and permanency’.
It also praises the ‘comprehensive processes and skilled social work ensuring the early identification and robust monitoring of children for whom adoption may become the plan’ and describes family finding strategies as ‘creative, well recorded and highly effective’.
However, the report states that while the Stockport Safeguarding Children Board (SSCB) is ‘on a journey of improvement’, it still requires further improvement in order to be considered good.
“There is effective oversight and action in some areas of its work, but the SSCB needs to further improve its monitoring and evaluation of frontline practice.
“Performance data is too broad and does not provide a clear picture of children’s experiences,” it says.
Inspectors do go on to say that a ‘strength of the board is its understanding of children vulnerable to child sexual exploitation’ – something that Stockport MP Ann Coffey has been consistently striving to raise awareness of.
Councillor Colin Foster, cabinet member for children and family services, said: “The council has been driving forward an innovative approach to supporting vulnerable children and their families, working increasingly closely with partners in schools, the NHS and the police and this is delivering the outcomes we hoped to see.
“Both the inspection report and the review of the LSCB make recommendations about how we could ensure services are even better in the future; over the coming weeks we will be preparing an action plan that deals with these recommendations, some of which will be considered alongside proposed initiatives with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority.”