An Ofsted inspection has found Nottingham City Council's children's services to be inadequate. More social workers to support young people and more help for 16 and 17-year-olds who are homeless were identified as some of the areas in which improvements are needed to be made.
The rating is lower than that of Ofsted's previous inspection of the council's children's services in 2019, which was a 'requires improvement' rating. The report, which was published on Monday, September 5), followed an inspection which took place between July 4 and July 22.
Ofsted describes the services for children who need help and protection as "inadequate because there are serious failures, leaving children at continued risk of harm."
Some of the key areas highlighted by Ofsted as needing improvement include:
- A quicker response when children are first identified as being at-risk
- More social workers to support children and young people
- More places for children who need to come into care
- Greater support for people aged over 21 who leave care
- More help for young people aged 16 and 17 who are homeless
- Better monitoring of children who are absent from school
The City Council will now have a series of Ofsted monitoring visits, followed by a full re-inspection. Between four and six monitoring visits are likely to be carried out over the next 18 months with the first one likely to take place late winter 2022 / early spring 2023.
Within the report, Ofsted highlights Weaknesses in the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) AS "significant, widespread and systemic". The report goes on to state that "risk of harm is not always recognised, leaving too many children with insufficient protection". It also states that "some children who have met the threshold for social care intervention wait up to six weeks to be seen by a social worker".
The report also found that "parental consent is not consistently obtained by partners in order to allow safeguarding information about children to be shared". It also states that "Too many children in care have experienced too many changes of social workers, including times when they are visited by duty workers". And "Too many children who are in long-term foster homes do not have an up-to date assessment of their needs, thus hindering effective planning to ensure that children are receiving the right support at the right time".
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Nottingham City Councillor Cheryl Barnard, portfolio holder for children, young people and schools, said: “I am sorry that some children are not getting the right help at the right time and I accept that our overall performance is not where it should be. Please be assured that everyone in our Children’s Services team is committed to providing the best possible care in our city – and will do whatever it takes to improve. Our children and young people deserve nothing less.
“I am confident that we have the right people in place to take on board all of the feedback and recommendations from Ofsted and provide the right care and support. In particular, it is encouraging that Ofsted acknowledged the improvements we have made – as well as the strong relationships our social workers build with children and young people who need our help and support.
“While these improvements will provide a firm foundation from which to build, consistency is important in all parts of the service. We accept the findings of the report and are committed to improving – and will work with all concerned to continue to keep our children safe.
“We’ve taken immediate action over the summer to make swift improvement in key areas, such as engaging more agency social workers to support whilst we recruit more permanent staff. We have moved swiftly to agree recruitment for additional officers to support the service when children go missing and to work with children who are leaving care.
“We have also increased our management oversight of decision making when information is first received by children’s services and we will be recruiting to permanently secure this in the service. Improving our service is about more than just improving the Ofsted rating… it’s about making sure children benefit from the best services possible, making sure they remain are safe, protected and inspired to reach their full potential.”
Regular inspections are carried out by Ofsted at all councils that provide support and care for children who are vulnerable or at risk. An action plan to address the areas for improvement is now being drawn up by the council.
Rosa Waddingham, Chair of Nottingham City Safeguarding Children Partnership, said: “The Nottingham City Children’s Safeguarding Partnership works together to ensure the best possible care for the children in our city and has strong relationships across health, local authority and police partners which support this. We recognise the huge amount of hard work which is being put in by leaders and staff right across the partnership’s organisations, in particular the local authority.
“The partnership is committed to keeping our children safe and recognised in advance of the Ofsted inspection some key areas where additional leadership and resource were needed to address concerns around how children initially access the care they need, including through our Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub. We also recognise that more pace is needed in recruiting additional permanent staff to support the changes needed to keep children safe.
"The partnership is keen to accelerate this work to continue to ensure that despite some failings children are not at increased risk. But there is more to do and as safeguarding partners we will continue to work collaboratively to support and deliver a comprehensive response to the challenges noted by Ofsted.
"We are assured that there is a plan in place to address these concerns and our partnership will continue to check that the actions needed to keep children safe are delivered.”
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