Children’s services have declined and must improve, council is told

THE QUALITY of children’s services in York has declined and improvements are not being made quickly enough, according to Ofsted.

Inspectors have graded the local authority’s services as ‘requires improvement to be good’ in all areas after visiting York in March.

Ofsted rated the service as ‘good’ at the last full inspection in 2016 and there have been several warnings about the decline in standards since then.

The appointment of interim director of children’s services, Anne Coyle, who joined the council in October, has resulted in “recent improvements”.

But lead inspector Matt Reed said despite “significant investment” and an improvement board being in place since 2019, the pace of change was still too slow and that there is still “significant variation” in the quality of services and social work practice.

Mr Reed said that some children remained in neglectful situations for too long due to “overoptimism” about the progress made by some families.

“This means that, for a small number of children, their lives do not significantly improve, and families do not sustain change and are subjected to repeat interventions,” he said.

A lack of foster carers and suitable fostering placements, the quality of social workers’ evidence to court and the wellbeing of a small number of children in unregistered children’s homes were also raised as concerns in the report. But Mr Reed singled out the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), the targeted early help service and the “highly effective” virtual school for praise.

Most social workers are also happy about working for the council. Labour’s shadow spokesperson for children’s services, Coun Bob Webb, said: “When a council is told services that exist to protect children from harm and reduce risk to those children are deteriorating, you’d hope that would be a wake-up call. In York that hasn’t been the case.”

Coun Ian Cuthbertson, executive member for children, young people and education, said: “Whilst areas such as early help and schools and education work are rightly commended, we recognise the improvements that are needed in some other areas, such as consistency of practice and ensuring children and young people influence decision making at all levels.

“Work to address these challenges has been under way for some time and will continue, now we have completed the permanent appointments of chief officers within children’s services.”

York Central Labour MP Rachael Maskell said it has been detrimental to some children and families, and the pace of turning this around has been “too slow”.

We recognise the improvements that are needed in some areas. Coun Ian Cuthbertson, executive member for children, young people and education.