‘SHAMBOLIC’
Children’s services in Sunderland slammed after being rated ‘inadequate’ by watchdogs YET AGAIN
Children’s services in Sunderland remain inadequate, a damning report published today reveals.
Ofsted has delivered its latest critical report into children’s services in the city - which have been run by Together for Children (TfC) on behalf of Sunderland City Council since April 2017.
And although it said some improvements had been made since it first graded all areas across the service as inadequate back in July 2015 – when services were run by the local authority – there had not been enough done to lift the overall rating.
The re-inspection gave the service an inadequate rating for the category of ‘Children who need help and protection’.
The same rating was also applied to ‘Leadership, management and governance’.
TfC have now been given a 15-point list of recommendations by Ofsted, which include ensuring children at risk of sexual exploitation and those who go missing have up-to-date risk assessments.
Ofsted also call for improved training for social workers.
In their executive summary, contained in the 33-page report, Ofsted inspectors wrote that while children in Sunderland “are better served today than they were three years ago” they felt “there has not been sufficient progress made to ensure that the experiences of children who need help and protection have improved.
“For too many children, risk is not recognised, or appropriately responded too.”
They also said that “children who go missing and those at risk of child sexual exploitation do not receive aco -ordinated response to protect them” and that “risk is not recognised or responded to soon enough”.
Inspectors also noted that a number of changes in the position of director of children’s services in recent years had “impeded the pace of change” and also criticised both the council and TfC, say-
Ofsted called for improved training for social workers
ing governance agreements between them had not “provided sufficient challenge and scrutiny.”
The full Ofsted inspection took place between April 23 and May 18 and comes after six monitoring visits to the council and TfC.
However, inspectors felt that “actions taken following monitoring visits have not been sufficiently effective in improving social work practice.”
The report added that “senior managers and leaders do not have a good enough understanding of the quality of services being provided in some areas.”
Ofsted gave a ‘requires improvement’ rating in the category of ‘Children looked after and achieving permanence’ along with ‘Experiences and progress of care leavers’.
Adoption performance, however, was described as good with “significant progress” made. Inspectors said children are now moved into adoptive placements more quickly than previously and more “effectively matched” with adoptive parents.
Children’s services bosses said they were “disappointed” not to have moved away from an inadequate rating but promised to act on recommendations made by the report.
Deborah Jenkins, chairwoman of Together for Children, said: “Transformation of this scale and from such a low base takes time and while we are disappointed at the overall judgement, we are encouraged that in three out of the five inspection areas Ofsted have acknowledged the improvements that have been made.
“Everyone at Together for Children remains steadfastly committed to working tirelessly to quickly address the remaining areas that have been identified by Ofsted as still falling short of where they need to be.”