Commissioner’s report finds ‘a year’s progress has been lost’ for failing service

Children’s services in Tameside has been in disarray for years, but a progress report offers some hope in a largely scathing assessment of the directorate.

Workforce challenges; unstable leadership; and poor quality of practice have  been identified as key problems.

Ofsted identified ‘serious failures’ during its inspection in December 2023. Children were said to have been harmed, or at risk of harm.  

In the 18 months following the ‘inadequate’ inspection judgement, Tameside council has been marred by a string of issues. 

Last September, children’s commissioner Andy Couldrick’s report to the government was scathing. His report put enormous pressure on chief executive Sandra Stewart to resign.

She stepped down on October 8. She was quickly followed out of the door by council leader Ged Cooney, alongside deputies Bill Fairfoull and Jacqueline North.

An Ofsted monitoring visit in February identified no signs of improvement. Days after that report was published in March, the department was hit with an improvement notice by the Department for Education (DfE) after ‘poor progress’ in improving services for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) was identified.

Mr Couldrick has now found the turmoil at the town hall has actually cost the failing service a year of improvement time. 

Quality of practice; service leadership; workforce; and strategy all put under the microscope were scrutinised. 

‘Pockets of better practice’ were identified, but that was said to reflect the work and the skills of individual social workers, rather than a improved organisational approach.

Mr Couldrick said there was only one permanent head of service in post, which isn’t enough. 

The ‘open and available style’ of DCS Jill Colbert has been credited as important in order to counteract the ‘legacy of a bullying culture’, which has ‘bred a level of fear and anxiety in the workforce’.

The absence of a stable workforce remains ‘one of the greatest threats to improvement’ in Tameside, the commissioner found. The report outlined how in January 2025, 48 per cent of social workers in the borough were agency workers.

The report’s conclusion reads: “The legacy of poor leadership at every level, front-line and strategic, and the profound weaknesses in the council’s support services and the work of multiagency partners across the system, means that a year has, in effect, been lost without any significant improvement taking place.

“The legacy of the toxic, bullying culture, in the council and in children’s services, is diminishing but has not yet disappeared, and there is still fear and anxiety in the workforce

“The impact of more recent changes, including the arrival of a new chief executive and a new, permanent DCS, is beginning to be felt.”

Jill Colbert and the new council leadership was repeatedly spoken of in a positive light throughout the report.

In a candid interview with the Local Democracy Reporting Service last month, Ms Colbert said it could take around five years before they could have a ‘strong service’ and a ‘best of class’ operation model. 

Speaking on her overall vision last month, she told the LDRS: “You can’t fix something if you haven’t got a sustained work force who aren’t invested in getting through the hard times. Because it takes a lot longer than you’d imagine.

“If you haven’t invested in trying to recruit and keep a substantive social work workforce, you’re inevitably going to have a continuous churn of children and families.

“When you strip it back, at the end of the day, we just want to do well for children.”

Tameside Council Executive Member for Children and Families, Cllr Teresa Smith said: “As a council, we welcome the latest Commissioners Update Report and although this was a private report, we wanted to make this public to be fully transparent and include everyone in our Children’s Services improvement journey. The report recognises that while we are still in the early stages, positive steps have been taken - we are particularly encouraged by the report’s view that there are clear grounds for confidence that progress across Children’s Services will become increasingly evident.

“There are already signs of meaningful change, including a strong start in resetting the culture within our workforce—an essential foundation for delivering the best outcomes for children and families. Our Director of Children’s Services, Jill Colbert OBE, has been commended for her visible and engaging leadership, which is helping to rebuild trust and strengthen relationships.

“We continue to make progress through close collaboration with our Strategic Improvement Partner, Stockport Council, and by investing in a stable and permanent leadership team. It is fair to say that recent changes in leadership have slowed our progress over the last year and so I’m pleased that we have now appointed to seven permanent senior positions within the service which is a significant step towards our long-term stability and capacity.

“We fully acknowledge that further improvements are needed, and I’m pleased the report acknowledges our commitment to work collaboratively with families and partners to achieve that. Our focus remains firmly on delivering safe, high-quality services for children and families in Tameside and I’d like to thank our staff for their hard work and commitment as collectively, we build a Children’s Services that our community can be proud of.”

The Tameside One council and college building in Ashton. Credit: LDRS