Signs of improvement for failing children’s services

Improvements in children’s services in Tameside have been ‘hindered’ by a lack of permanent leadership, according to Ofsted. The education watchdog carried out a monitoring visit on the council service currently in special measures. 

Two new assistant directors in children’s social care have only recently been brought into post, with an education assistant director due to start next month.

Children’s services in the borough has been undergoing a huge improvement overhaul since it was rated inadequate by Ofsted two years ago. 

Director of Children’s Services (DCS) Jill Colbert has now been in post for one year. Her vision to create services that support children, families and staff has been set out in her child centred improvement plan.

The DCS was praised by inspectors Lisa Summers, Lisa Walsh and Jane Ayres for her ‘intricate understanding of frontline practice’ and developing a ‘secure platform to engage with frontline staff’.

The Ofsted monitoring report, published on January 27, read: “The pace of improvement for children in care has been hindered by a lack of a permanent and stable leadership, the breadth and depth of inadequacies across children’s services, previously high-staff turnover, and a reliance on agency social workers. Tameside is only now able to mobilise improvement planning. 

“Social worker practice is becoming more child centred, and there is effective role modelling of this by senior leaders. The turnover of staff and dependency on agency social workers has reduced. 

“There is now more robust oversight of children living in unregistered provision, and the systems to support timelier permanence are now in place. Many of these changes are very new, so it is too soon to impact on children’s lives.”

The report went on to highlight inconsistencies in the quality and impact of social work practice, including the quality of assessments, plans, and planning. Criticisms went further as inspectors found some children are not living in homes according to their assessed needs.

The report did emphasise that permanency for children is now a clear priority. Permanency comes through children and families seeing the same social worker, Jill Colbert explained.

The DCS has worked to reduce reliance on agency workers since she came in last year in order to improve the experience for children. Ms Colbert has also introduced weekly panels, allowing leaders better visibility of plans for children and creating opportunities for social workers to explore the best long‑term options for each child.

In the department, there has been a push towards improving the multi-agency approach, which includes NHS healthcare professionals and Greater Manchester Police. 

Tameside council’s director of children’s services, Jill Colbert, said: “I welcome the findings in the letter, as they affirm our understanding of the changes needed and confirm that our improvement plan is heading in the right direction.

“It is positive to see the letter recognise the progress made, particularly in how our social work practice is becoming more child‑centred. We know there is still much to do, and we remain fully committed to making those improvements.

“While it will take time for the positive impact of our changes to be fully evidenced for our children and families, we remain firmly focused on trying to be better for our families every day and I’m enormously grateful for the loyalty and commitment of our staff who show up every day to do that .”

Tameside council’s executive member for children and families, Coun Teresa Smith added: “I’m pleased the inspectors have recognised we’re making progress and getting better at supporting children and families, but we know we still have a lot more work to do.

“Our families are important to us and we’re working hard to improve their experience and our services. We have a strong foothold now, and I want to reassure everyone that delivering meaningful and lasting improvement is our absolute priority. 

“We are committed to building a service that families can rely on and one that our workforce can be proud to be a part of.”