Ofsted raises concerns over pace of improvement at children's services trust

A monitoring visit by the inspectorate found that Slough Children's Services Trust had made improvements from a "low base", but support for children in care remains inconsistent.

A letter outlining the findings said managers have yet to ensure "core elements of social work practice are evident enough in casework" and were not spotting weak practice fast enough, causing unnecessary delays in meeting children's needs.

Most plans for looked-after children were found to be up to date but inspectors reported that this often "falters" when children are assigned to new social workers. In one instance, a child went for four months without a visit from their social worker - a situation that was only rectified after they were allocated to another social worker.

Inspectors said multi-agency plans for children returning home from care were "too often not in place" and key decisions for some young people were not happening in good time.

However, Ofsted, which judged children's services in Slough "inadequate" in February 2016, did find that long-term planning for children had improved and children in care feel listened to.

In light of the findings, the trust said it would "step up" the pace of change and added that it had made "vast improvements" since the monitoring visit, which took place in late September.

Nicola Clemo, chief executive of the trust, said: "We have just seen an audit of our cases with clear evidence that both ‘inadequate' and ‘requires improvement' cases are going down and ‘good' and ‘outstanding' cases are going up."

She added: "We have a comprehensive action plan and have, since the visit, set additional key priorities to ensure we can more clearly demonstrate the work that is being done to improve services. The inspectors identified some very positive work too, including the fact that children feel their voices are heard and we engage well with them. It's important to stress that no children are at risk or unsafe."

Ofsted has also published the findings of a monitoring visit at Darlington Borough Council, the fifth since the authority was rated inadequate in September 2015.

During the visit inspectors checked the borough's progress on services for looked-after children and found improvements in several areas.

Inspectors said the introduction of a public law outline tracker had helped the authority ensure care proceedings are now concluding before the 26-week deadline set down in law. In addition the workforce was found to be more stable, leading to fewer changes of social worker for children.

However, the quality of assessments and plans remained "not yet good enough". Inspectors also said managers and independent reviewing officers' efforts to ensure assessments were up to date were inconsistent.