Social services chiefs were unaware that a small number of “highly vulnerable children” in South Gloucestershire live in unregistered temporary homes, watchdogs found. Ofsted also concluded during a recent focused visit to the council’s children’s services that youngsters in care have “too many changes of social worker” while some are kept waiting too long for a permanent home.
But in a letter to bosses, inspectors said many improvements had been made since the local authority’s service was rated as “requires improvement” in 2019, which came three years after it was judged to be “inadequate”. South Gloucestershire Council has welcomed the findings as “encouraging” but accepts more still needs to be done to “accelerate the pace of change”.
Ofsted inspector Sarah Canto said in the letter on Thursday, October 20, to executive director for people Chris Sivers: “Most children in care are living in homes that meet their needs. However, children are not receiving a consistently good service.
Read more: Damning Ofsted report into South Gloucestershire children's services prompts row
“Senior leaders know this and are taking appropriate action to address practice weaknesses.
“Overall, significant investment has paved the way for important improvements in both leadership and staffing capacity.
“Much of this is new and, consequently, positive impact for children is inevitably limited at this early stage.”
She said the council provided appropriate care for the unexpected influx of unaccompanied young asylum seekers. The inspector outlined five areas for improvement in the authority’s arrangements for children’s care – workforce stability, management oversight, speed of decisions to secure permanent homes, better supervision to drive children’s progress, and updating case records.
Her letter, following the two-day visit in September, said: “While most children are living in homes that meet their needs, a small number of highly vulnerable children live in unregistered temporary homes.
“Their vulnerability is therefore increased further due to the absence of the oversight provided by statutory regulation. Operational managers’ regular oversight of these children’s circumstances does, however, mitigate risk, while extensive searches are made to find suitable and safe homes for these children.
“However, senior leaders were unaware of these unregistered arrangements.”
It said youngsters had too many changes of social worker which affected their emotional confidence. The letter said: “When children return home or are placed with their parents under a care order, risk assessments are not always completed quickly enough.
“The lack of pace in completing risk assessments means that, at the point that children return to live with their parents, leaders cannot always be assured that children’s care arrangements are safe and appropriate.
“However, inspectors did not identify any instances of children placed in situations of significant harm.”
It said vulnerable kids were well supported by a specialist service to tackle exploitation, while a focus on ensuring all children had high-quality personal educational plans was succeeding, with every Year 11 pupil progressing from school to college and every underage asylum-seeker in education or training.
Cabinet member for children and young people Cllr Samuel Bromiley said: “The letter from Ofsted following their focused visit to our Children in Care services encouragingly highlights some areas of good practice where we have made progress since the last full Inspection, but also areas where we need to make further improvements and that we need to accelerate the pace of change.
“The letter recognises that we have put in place many important changes and improvements, but also notes that those have not yet had time to impact on children and families.
“The letter recognises the challenge that South Gloucestershire has in common with many local authorities across the country in relation to numbers of qualified staff in the workforce. The letter recognises progress made in this regard and also the impact on children and families.
“While the feedback from Ofsted rightly gives our staff much to be proud of; our response to young people seeking asylum, and the support received by some young people and some creative work that the inspectors discussed with us, we recognise there is still work for us to do in order to be where we want to be.
“The letter from Ofsted notes: ‘Social workers are child-focused and talked animatedly to inspectors about the children they care for.’
“We will look to harness that passion and enthusiasm for improving the lives of the children we look after and for their families as we seek to improve further and move up to the next level.”
Read next:
- Watchdog blasts council for leaving children at risk of 'significant harm'
- Three years on and children's services still need significant improvement
- Children's services in South Gloucestershire still need major improvement, inspectors find
- Bristol City Council social worker barred for dishonesty and misconduct
- Police officers 'at risk of corruption and control by criminal gangs' because of poor pay
