03 November 2006
More than a quarter of local authority children's social services are significantly underperforming, inspectors from Ofsted have found.
In the annual performance assessments of 102 of England's 150 councils, published on November 1, four authorities were rated 'inadequate' for their children's social services. Twenty-three were in a second category delivering 'only minimum requirements', and were neither cost-effective nor contributing significantly to wider outcomes.
Authorities performed better on wider services such as schools and education, with 85% scoring a 'good' or 'excellent' rating. But poorer performance in social services raised concerns.
Flo Handley, divisional manager for children's services inspections at Ofsted, told Public Finance: 'The main concerns relate to the provisions for the most vulnerable children and young people. It's becoming extremely clear that it's [here] where we need to focus the most.'
Handley said that authorities commonly fell down on services for looked-after children and those with mental health problems or learning disabilities. Authorities also needed to improve their performance in reducing teenage pregnancy.
Despite the integrated ethos of the Every Child Matters programme, a common cause of failure continued to be the lack of strong partnership working across different agencies.
But Andrew Webb, co-chair of the Association of Directors of Social Services' children and families committee, told PF that the mismatch between performance in children's social and educational services reflected a disparity in funding.
'The funding regime has favoured schools with passporting, the dedicated schools grant and ring-fencing,' he said. 'That has enabled government to deliver some promises on educational achievement, but social services funding… has not gone up as much and has been vulnerable to cuts.'
John Freeman, vice president of the Confederation of Children's Services Managers, agreed, adding that while the body supported the ambitions of the recent Care Matters green paper, 'these improvements will require proper resources – to train and employ enough social workers, and carers, for example'.
Cornwall, Isles of Scilly, Nottingham City and Stoke-on-Trent all received 'inadequate' ratings for their children's social services.
Bristol City was judged inadequate on just its broader children's services; Stoke-on-Trent was judged inadequate across the board and will now be subject to 'additional support' from the Department for Education and Skills.
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