Agenda item

Verbal Update on Outcome of Ofsted Focused Visit

To receive a verbal update on the focused visit by Ofsted that took place on November 27th and 28th.

Minutes:

Members were reminded that the last Ofsted inspection of the Council’s Children’s Services had taken place in May 2015, with a judgement of requiring improvement to be good across all areas. Since that time Ofsted had changed how it carried out inspections, using two intermediate activities: an Annual Conversation and a Focused Visit. Members were told that Ofsted held the Annual Conversation with Council directors in January, where it was suggested that a Focused Visit rather than a full inspection would be most helpful in 2018.

 

The Ofsted Focused Visit took place in the Royal Borough on November 27th and 28th with a focus on the Front Door services. These were the single point of access, Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and the Duty & Assessment Service. This focus allowed Ofsted to assess if Ofsted were confident in the Council’s ability to manage risks to children. In this focus visit, the inspectors spent almost all of their onsite time with frontline staff and asked them to show them the relevant policies and strategies in action so that the inspectors could see first hand the quality of social work. Their feedback was a narrative letter and there was no graded judgement,

 

The Director of Children’s Services said that staff talked to the inspection team in positive terms about the supportive culture they worked in, which meant they felt supported when making difficult decisions about families. Staff demonstrated they were able to challenge each other, and were able to work with partners in a more open and constructive way. It was noted that morale among staff was high. The inspection team noted that more work needed to be done by middle management to ensure greater consistency of management oversight, although this had been identified by the Council in its self assessment carried out prior to the inspection.

 

Members were told that feedback on the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub was positive. A daily meeting had been viewed by the inspection team, which had been assessed as being appropriately challenging for all agencies involved. Staff were making good decisions and were able to work well across all agencies. Families felt more confident that their queries were being handled in a timely manner. An area for improvement was to provide further information on available options for families who did not meet the necessary thresholds for support. Overall, Ofsted noted that the MASH service was effective.

 

The Director of Children’s Services informed Members that the self assessment of the Duty of Assessment Service identified a number of challenges. Seven of the eight members of the team were agency staff as there had been difficulty in maintaining a permanent workforce. The increased demand for support during the summer had resulted in high caseloads for some workers and the Council had increased resources in November as a result. The local marketplace for agency workers had also been challenging with increasing costs and declining quality. This led to a turnover of agency social workers which meant some children had seen more than one social worker during the course of a 45-day assessment, and this had undermined their confidence.

 

Ofsted recognised this assessment as being accurate and that the Council’s response has been appropriate. Ofsted raised concerns that some staff were unfamiliar with the computer systems used (known as the ICS) and that the system did not support managers with clear information or front line staff with an automatic workflow. There were proposals to move to a new system that is used across Achieving for Children and widely across England.  There is a 2019/20 capital programme recommendation to provide for this, which will be considered during budget setting. The Director of Children’s Services cautioned that it was likely to take up to 18 months to fully implement and the current system would continue to operate and require extra management effort in the meanwhile.

 

Overall it was noted that while there had been a decline in the quality of assessment services since the last inspection, there had been improvement in all areas visited since August 2017. No need for an urgent inspection had been identified and further improvements were needed and plans are in place to tackle those areas. Ofsted were expected to visit next for the Annual Conversation scheduled for March 2019.

 

Cllr Pryer asked about the makeup of temporary and permanent staff in all of the teams, as concerns had been raised about the Duty of Assessment Service. The Director of Children’s Services said that 18 months ago 50 per cent of professional staff across all areas were agency staff, but this had now been significantly reduced to about 10%. However that hid the challenge in the Duty and Assessment team. Steps to rectify this had been identified and were in the process of being implemented. Two permanent staff have started in that team during November and a further job offer had been made.

 

Cllr Wilson asked how the results of the Council’s inspection compared to other Berkshire authorities. The Director of Children’s Services said that Slough Borough Council was monitored directly by the Department for Education and Reading Borough Council had set up an organisation similar to a Trust, which meant they were not assessed in the same way as the Royal Borough. The only other authority to have a recent focus visit was Wokingham, with West Berkshire expecting a similar visit. As the letters were not graded it was hard to compare directly. The key issue, as ever, is the correlation between the findings and one’s self assessment and plans. The Director of Children’s Services stated his belief that the Royal Borough is in a strong position and the findings of the visit reflect the growing confidence of the management and leadership that children in the Borough receive an effective service.