'˜Considerable work still needed': Ofsted turns the heat up on Bucks children's services after damning report

Services for Bucks children in need of protection are under the microscope after they were labelled inadequate - the worst rating possible - in August 2014 in a damning report which raised a litany of failures.

The monitoring report, which has been published on Ofsted’s website, found ‘the pace of improvement in the quality of some social work practice, the management of allegations against professionals and the response to privately fostered children are too slow’.

‘Considerable work’ is still needed to ‘strengthen the quality of child-in-need and child protection plans’ and the quality of private fostering remains ‘too variable’.

‘More work is needed’ to improve quality of service and ‘improvement is still required’ to ensure scrutiny of the suitability of each placement, and that placements are supported with ‘regular visits and robust assessments’.

Thames Valley Police was also criticised in the report due to the backlog in screening for domestic abuse referrals.

At the time of the visit, a remarkable 450 notifications were still waiting to be screened by police – with the oldest dating back to July 31.

The report states that since June 2016, ‘ongoing pressures’ of police capacity have ‘caused delays’ in screening domestic abuse referrals.

Because the police ‘have not screened all notifications in advance’, the children’s social care service ‘has less information to inform effective decision-making about the need for intervention’.

This, according to the report, has ‘impacted on the capacity of the children’s social care service’.

The purpose of social work visits is ‘not always clear’ and some children have ‘too many changes of social worker’.

Referral rates to MASH (the council’s safeguarding hub) and SWAN (its child exploitation team) ‘remain high’ and the capacity to manage allegations against professionals working with children ‘remains insufficient’ which means ‘tracking outcomes and closing cases is delayed’.

Development of an allegation-management system is ‘not fully complete’ and there is a ‘particularly high turnover’ of frontline managers in children’s units.

Government inspectors from Ofsted’s monitoring team visited the authority on August 16 and 17.

These visits take place every three months at local authorities adjudged to be inadequate at their last full inspection.

Overall, the report found that ‘the local authority is making progress to improve services for its children’ and this has been particularly evident in the last six months.

The inspectors did praise County Hall’s political leaders for prioritising improvements in the service and said children’s social care services are now a ‘firm priority’ for the council.

It also praised the fact that all children who require a statutory social work assessment and intervention now have an allocated social worker which is ‘a significant improvement’ from the findings of the inspection two years ago.

Lin Hazell, cabinet member for children’s services, said: “We have come a very long way since the initial inspection two years ago and I’m very pleased Ofsted have recognised the hard work we’ve invested in improving services to our children and families.

“I’m very grateful to all our staff for their work and the efforts they have made to make the improvements necessary to the quality of our work, and I’m determined that we’ll build on our excellent practice to achieve a top-performing service.”

Senior managers need to focus on ‘improving consistency in the quality of its social work practice’ and statutory assessments are ‘not always of consistent quality’.

A four-page summary of the latest report can be found online at https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/local-authorities/buckinghamshire