Cheshire West Council children's services 'require improvement'

That is the conclusion of Ofsted, following a two-day inspection of the services carried out in July.

The 11-page report, published on the Ofsted website this week, highlights a number of areas where inspectors feels the local authority needs to do more to help children, with an overall rating of 'Requires Improvement'.

Among the criticisms, Ofsted inspector Alison Smale reported, for children who need help and protection: "Too many children are not offered a return home interview after going missing from home or care. This means they do not have the opportunity to share information about being missing for social workers to fully understand their safeguarding concerns.

'Significant delays'

The inspector added: "Recognition of and the response to vulnerable children aged 16 and 17 at risk of homelessness is poor. This vulnerable group are not receiving the advice, help and support they need to keep them safe or to enable them to make informed decisions about how they will be supported and whether they want to be cared for by the local authority.

"Identification and assessment of children who live in private fostering arrangements is not effective. There are significant delays in children being initially visited and assessments completed."

In terms of care leavers, the inspector highlighted: "Most care leavers are not allocated a personal adviser (PA) soon enough to establish a meaningful and trusting relationship before they leave care. This late allocation of a PA means that they do not benefit from knowing who their PA is or what specific support they can expect before they leave care.

"The high workloads of PAs have an impact on their capacity to deliver a good and proactive service to care leavers. Plans are in place to address this.

"The local authority recognises that support to young people over 21 is an area that requires strengthening. The opt-in service offered to care leavers over the age of 21 means that too many care leavers do not get the support they need at the time they need it. The local authority is recruiting additional staff to develop capacity to better support care leavers."

'Over-optimism'

The inspector added "a high proportion" of care leavers were not in education, employment or training, due to the lack of suitable courses and opportunities available to them, and for a small minority, care leavers' accommodation arrangements were not suitable and not resolved quickly enough.

For the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families, the inspector reported: "Over-optimism by leaders about the consistency of practice means that despite improvement plans being in place to address many of the practice issues identified in this inspection, a lack of pace has undermined improvement delivery.

"As a consequence, the decline in service areas since the last inspection has not been addressed effectively. This includes services for care leavers, the response to children aged 16 and 17 years old who present as homeless, the management oversight of key decisions for children and the timely availability of accurate records for children who are subject to child protection processes and are in care."

More positively, the experiences and progress of children in care was assessed as 'Good', with the inspector noting: "Thorough parenting assessments inform decisions for children to be reunified with their parents.

"Separated migrant children come into care and have access to resources that meet their cultural and religious needs. There are long waiting lists for children to be allocated a solicitor in order to expedite their immigration status despite the best efforts of social workers.

"Children benefit from access to social activities and are supported to pursue their hobbies.

'Illegally placed'

"Disabled children benefit from social workers who know them well and work effectively with partners, especially in health, to ensure that their needs are met.

"Many children in care live in stable homes which meet their needs."

However, the inspector added: "A very small number of children are illegally placed in unregistered children’s homes. While leaders regularly monitor the welfare of children in these placements, expectations regarding the expected minimum frequency of visiting are not always clear."

Councillor Adam Langan, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, responded to the Ofsted report: “Whilst we are disappointed by the judgement, the report does acknowledge a high proportion of positive practice across our children’s social care service.

"The report states: 'Children and families can access a wide range of timely early help support services. Family intervention workers carry out thorough team around the family assessments. Plans focus on improving children’s and family’s experiences.

'Children enter care at a time that is right for them. Management oversight at the point of decision-making enables children, should they access their records, to understand how such an important decision in their life has been made.

'Robust improvement plan'

'For parents who have not been able to successfully parent in the past, a strengthened pre-birth pathway enables a clear and structured approach to pre-birth assessment and decision-making which is enabling some parents to parent successfully. Children live with their brothers and sisters whenever this is possible and in their best interests.'

"The report is clear that there are some areas that need to be improved, and the areas for development that were highlighted by inspectors are aligned to those which we suggested we needed to strengthen further as part of our set-up session and as documented in our 2023/24 Self Evaluation Form.

"We are now developing a robust improvement plan that builds on our existing knowledge and the inspection findings.

"Our excellent teams will continue to work hard to deliver the best outcomes for our children, young people and families.”

The children's services report was the first carried out since 2019.