County’s social services criticised
A SMALL number of vulnerable children in the county have “remained in neglectful or harmful circumstances” for longer than they should have been due to errors within social services, claim Ofsted inspectors.
The quality of social care Leicestershire County Council offers children is still “too variable”, says the watchdog’s latest assessment of the service.
Inspectors also said there was evidence of unnecessary separation of babies from parents at birth in some cases, and the quality of plans for some children’s care was not consistent.
Other criticisms of the authority, which has been told it requires improvement to be rated “good”, included children not experiencing good practice “consistently enough”, and supervision of social workers not being of a “high enough quality” to ensure social work was always effective.
Inspectors said despite improvements to the service as a whole, “overall, children are not experiencing good practice consistently enough across all services, and the extent and impact of the remaining areas for improvement are substantial”.
The report, which went before the Conservative-run council’s cabinet recently, was written after inspectors assessed the service in September and October.
It states that the timeliness of assessment and help for children who live with the impact of “cumulative risk and harm” needs to improve, as does the “quality and consistency of social work practice in care planning”.
Inspectors also recommended more detail should be included in case notes to enable new workers to more easily understand a child’s history and circumstances.
The report states that for a small minority of children, there was “insufficient analysis of the risks they are exposed to”.
It goes on to say: “A lack of effective action and planning for a small number of children living in circumstances of chronic neglect or domestic abuse means that their circumstances do not improve quickly enough.
“These children have remained in neglectful or harmful circumstances for longer than they should have.”
Inspectors also noted that assessments were not carried out quickly enough in the cases of children who were not at immediate risk of harm, but stated children who were at immediate risk of harm were seen “early”, and that initial assessments were “prompt”.
The authority was praised for its partnership working with police, education and health partners. Work to address child sexual exploitation was described as “well established and embedded”, but Ofsted said both the council and the police “acknowledge further work is needed to understand the true scale of child criminal exploitation in Leicestershire and to develop an equally effective response”.
Inspectors acknowledged the work of social workers when it came to carrying out “timely” pre-birth assessments, and said that in most instances support was provided to parents before and after the birth “enabling parents to care for their baby safely”.
But they noted that in a small minority of cases, pre-birth assessments had not progressed quickly enough.
This meant that “risk could not be mitigated and mothers and babies were separated at birth while work was completed”.
The council said it had spoken to those parents about how this created stress for families at birth, and how it might be preventable with earlier action. Members noted the report and action plan.