Cabinet to discuss Ofsted inspection

Services for children in care in Shropshire have been rated as good by Government inspectors who highlighted the “clear and unequivocal ambition throughout the council and its partners to achieve the best possible outcomes for looked after children.”

An inspection of services for looked-after children by Ofsted (the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills) looked at 10 outcome areas in total.  Seven were found to be good, two were adequate and the education of looked-after children was judged outstanding, with praise for “the impact of services enabling looked-after children and young people to enjoy their learning and achieve well”.

The inspectors’ report said: “Good quality services have been consistently delivered and plans for further development are well conceived and delivered effectively.”

Inspectors also assessed safeguarding children’s services provided by the council and partners.  Of eight outcome areas inspected, five were rated as good and three as adequate, with an overall rating of the services being adequate.  No areas were found to be inadequate.

Inspectors commended the “strong commitment to safeguarding”, “clearly articulated vision and ambition” and how “partnership working to address safeguarding issues is strong”.

Cabinet on Wednesday 11 May 2011 will discuss the findings of the report on the Shropshire Council and partner services, actions for improvement, and progress made to date.

In both areas inspectors praised leadership and management, how “the wishes and feelings of children are taken into account”, how practices to safeguard and minimise risks are “robust” and praised the development of the workforce.

Particular strengths in looked-after children’s services recognised by inspectors included:

• The stability of children’s placements – “safe and secure placements for children and young people are a priority for the council”.
• As part of this is good post-placement and post-adoption support – the council has achieved the fifth highest rate of adoption placement stability in England.
• Residential and foster care services provide “consistently good outcomes”.
• Ensuring that the services provided best meet children and young people’s needs.
• Clear focus on safety and well-being.
• Maintaining existing links in children’s lives.
• Transition arrangements for care leavers are managed well.

Particular strengths noted for safeguarding services included:

• Services to address bullying.
• Support for children and young people affected by domestic abuse.
• Work to identify and find children missing from home.
• Support for children with disabilities and long-term health conditions.
• Fostering and residential care services “have consistently achieved good safeguarding judgements in their Ofsted inspections reflecting the high standards expected by the council and its partners”.
• Good support is provided to schools to address safeguarding issues.
• Services are being refocused well “to ensure that key functions of early intervention, prevention and child protection enable consistently good standards to be achieved by all agencies”.

An action plan to address areas identified for improvement is already in place.  The actions include supporting frontline managers to ensure high quality supervision and performance management.

Councillor Aggie Caesar-Homden, Cabinet member for children and young people’s services, said:

“Partners are working hard together to continually improve services for children and young people.

“The inspectors praised many aspects of these services, recognising the strong commitment to keeping children safe and giving looked-after children a good start in life, and clear priorities and vision for improvement.

“We will learn from the positives in the report and the areas where we know we can do more to drive forward initiatives which further strengthen the work taking place.”

The Ofsted report was published on 25 March 2011.