A damning Ofsted report has rated Cheshire East Council’s children’s services “inadequate” and “requiring improvement” across a range of problems.
The report follows an inspection carried out between February 26 and March 8 this year.
It highlighted a number of failings by senior leaders as well as quality of care plans, visits to children in care, and support provided to homeless and vulnerable people over 21.
Now opposition councillors are calling on lead member for children Cllr Carol Bulman to resign over the report.
Ofsted inspectors highlighted the following as “inadequate” or “needing improvement” :
– senior leaders’ oversight of their performance, and the “quality, consistency and responsiveness of support, advice and guidance for care leavers, including those who are homeless with additional vulnerabilities and those who are over 21 years of age”
– quality of management oversight and supervision to ensure that consistent social work practice is in place
– quality of care plans
– quality and frequency of visits to children
– sufficiency of suitable placement that can meet children and young people’s assessed needs
– effectiveness of Child Protection Chairs and Independent Reviewing Officers to escalate, challenge and scrutinise plans for children
The report states: “Since the last inspection of Cheshire East in 2019, when services for children were judged to be requires improvement to be good, improvements have been made in some areas of practice.
“However, the quality of practice and the experience and progress of children and young people are too variable, and for care leavers they are inadequate.
“Following the Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI) in July 2022, when areas for priority action were identified for children at risk of child exploitation, practice shortfalls have been addressed effectively.
“The development and opening of family hubs have strengthened the early help offer, enabling more families to access timely and appropriate support.
“Nevertheless, there is much more to do to improve the quality of practice to ensure a consistent response to the most vulnerable children and care leavers in Cheshire East.
“There have not been sufficient improvements made in relation to services for those children who are subject to child in need and child protection plans.
“Furthermore, management oversight and challenge are not fully embedded across all service areas.
“Senior leaders had not recognised, until this inspection, the extent of improvement required in services for care leavers.”
In April 2018, Cheshire East Council was one of the first local authorities visited by Mark Riddell, the government’s national implementation adviser for care leavers.
At the time he praised CEC for the high standard of their support for care leavers.
Cllr Jos Saunders, who was Cabinet Member for Children’s Services in 2018 and currently Children’s Opposition spokesperson, said: “To see those excellent results decline in just 5 years is heart-breaking and our young people, in care and leaving care, deserve better.”
Cllr Janet Clowes, Conservative Group opposition leader, said: “It is recognised that dedicated staff are already working extremely hard to address Ofsted’s recommendations and we welcome this news.
“However, this report simply adds to the list of serious, emerging failures in the Children’ and Families Committee remit, including the Council’s High Needs (SEN) debt that already stands at £90m and is rising at rates described as “unprecedented”, threatening the financial stability of the whole Council.
“Over the past five years, the Lead Member for Children has consistently failed in their leadership to challenge, oversee and maintain the care of our most vulnerable residents, or the functionality of the service, to such unprecedented levels that the whole council is staring a Section 114 bankruptcy notice in the face.
“It is time that they ‘consider their position’ and resign this vital, statutory role to someone better able to fulfil it.”
Cllr Carol Bulman, who is lead member for children and families, replied: “We are, of course, deeply disappointed with the outcome of this latest inspection and are sorry that some aspects of our support for young people does not meet the expected standard.
“However, we accept the findings and are committed to addressing all the inspectors’ recommendations.
“I’d like to thank all the staff who support children, young people and their families, day in day out, with dedication, commitment and care.
“I am proud of how they have responded to the judgement and have committed to deliver the improvements set out in the report.
“Work is already under way to improve the experiences of our children and young people, learning from this inspection and building on the progress we have made over the last few years.
“I know this inspection will be a positive catalyst for change and we need to use it as an opportunity to reflect, learn and keep moving forwards.
“Our focus continues to be on achieving excellent outcomes for children and young people through establishing consistently good practice.”
You can read the full Ofsted report here.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, failure is systemic in this authority. By far, the worst run local authority I’ve ever encountered, having lived in Manchester, Salford, Tameside, Liverpool, Cheshire West and Conwy counties.
We’ve got a live case with the local authority ombudsman over issue’s created by these clowns failing to do their duties what we are obligated to fund. Their failures, poor organisation, wasteful behaviour is wholly unacceptable
All senior management should resign. So many headteachers have had to resign for less than this. Disgraceful.
CEC not fit for purpose.
disgraceful, there are children whose parents asked for a report on their child, were fobbed off at every point, autistic children behave well at school, yet when at home can be more than a handful to put it mildly, these children leave school without qualifications, they struggle at college, struggle to find jobs, struggle to find a partner, wreck family life, the prisons are full of those with special needs, society has let them down, thank goodness for the brilliant un sung care the parents give, they are total heroes.