Agenda item

The Committee considered a report of the Director of Children and Family Services which highlighted the progress made against the Ofsted Continuous Improvement Action Plan (OCIAP) in responding to the Single Inspection of Children’s Social Care in November 2016.  A copy of the report marked ‘Agenda Item 9’ is filed with these minutes.

Prior to consideration of the report, the Director provided an update on the outcome of the recent Ofsted inspection which had taken place in September and October 2019.  Members noted that the inspection had looked at four areas:

·         The impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families (rated good)

·         The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection (rated as requires improvement)

·         The experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers (rated good)

·         Overall effectiveness (rated as requires improvement)

The following points were highlighted:

i)             Ofsted had been clear that progress had been made since its last inspection in 2016.  It acknowledged that significant improvements had been made across all areas and identified positive impacts for children in some service areas.  However, whilst services for children in care and overall leadership were good, they were not experiencing consistently good practice enough across all services.  Also, the extent of the changes still needed meant that their overall judgement had been one of ‘requires improvement’. 

ii)            A number of strengths had been identified, including a clear commitment from elected members and effective work by staff and senior managers which had led to improved responses to the needs of children and families in many areas.  Ofsted found that most children in care were settled and were making good progress and the majority of care leavers were living in suitable accommodation and participating in education, employment or training.  The inspection also identified that there was now a more timely response to children when they first became involved with the service, that the quality of assessments had improved, and praise was given to the fostering and adoption services.  As a result, Ofsted had confirmed that children in Leicestershire were experiencing better outcomes.

iii)           Key issues identified included that the quality of social work practice was too variable and core areas needed to be improved.  There also needed to be improvements around management oversight and it was recommended that the service be more explicit regarding specific timescales in plans.  Ofsted identified a lack of consistency in relation to permanence planning for those children who were not going down the route of being adopted and said there needed to be more high quality supervision for social workers.

iv)           Six recommendations had been set out in the report and the Department would need to submit an action plan to Ofsted by 10 February 2020.  A full report, along with the action plan, would be presented to the next meeting of the Committee.

v)            In response to a query regarding Ofsted’s comments around a lack of consistent and sustained improvements in front line practice, the Director advised that the Department had made significant improvements but was currently in the third year of its four year improvement action plan which had been introduced after its last inspection in 2016.  Ofsted had acknowledged this, the work undertaken and that which was still in progress, and specifically the range of actions around quality supervision.  However, the impact of changes made could not been seen sufficiently enough at this time.  This had been an issue made clear throughout the inspection and was recognised by the Department.  Assurance had been given by Ofsted that the Department was in a much better position than in 2016 as a result of the actions taken so far.  These changes had taken significant effort and the Department was clear about what it needed to do next.

vi)           The Director stated that nothing raised by Ofsted had been unexpected and it was felt that the report provided a balanced view of the where the Department was at the current time, taking account of the fact that progress was still being made.  The Lead Member for Children and Families concurred that the comments made by Ofsted were fair and he praised the work undertaken by officers.

In terms of progress with the current OCIAP, an update was provided on the two amber rated actions - management oversight of practice and consistency in social work assessments.  The key activities being undertaken around these recommendations were summarised, along with planned work to take place. 

Members noted that this included work to help embed the refreshed supervision policy and to look at the quality of supervision to reflect robust management oversight and that cases and plans for children were driven.  These had been identified by Ofsted as the key issues to work on.  Further case file audits had been completed and the completion rates for assessments within 45 days had continued to improve.  The case file audits had identified that the quality of assessments were improving.  Work needed to continue on the issues surrounding assessments and to ensure that actions had clear timescales.  A campaign was due to commence around planning and supervision.

Arising from the discussion, the following comments were raised:

i)             In response to a query as to whether the two amber actions referred to above should have been rated as red, the Director stated that the OCIAP was a four year plan and it had been necessary to make some fundamental changes to address the outstanding actions.  A clear timescale had been set to make the changes for the longer term and as such the Department had given itself longer to complete the two outstanding actions.  In relation to management oversight, Ofsted had not said in its recent inspection that this was not evident, but that it was inconsistent.  It was therefore felt that the amber rating was correct.

ii)            The Road to Excellence Plan highlighted the four key aims of the OCIAP.  It had been agreed that the Plan wouldn’t simply reflect the Ofsted recommendations but would show how the Department would embed real change.  The four key aims were areas under which lots of activity was already being undertaken as part of the OCIAP.  These were fundamental areas that needed to be achieved in order to ensure that children and young people in Leicestershire got a consistently good service, particularly around supervision and planning.  Significant progress had been made but outstanding work now needed to be embedded.

RESOLVED:

a)    That the report be noted;

b)    That a further report and action plan be presented to the meeting of the Committee on 21 January 2020.