Wokingham children's services requires improvement - Ofsted

The Wokingham Borough Council (WBC) department showed a ‘deterioration’ when inspected in November 2018 following high demand for services, changes in the authority’s top team and a high number of social care staff leaving the department.

Ofsted inspected WBC’s children’s services again in June but Ofsted found it still requires improvement despite ‘renewed optimism’ from changes made at the department.

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A report read: “Six months on, the position has improved.

“Senior leaders have managed to achieve a degree of stability. There is a sense of renewed optimism among managers and staff. However, the quality of social work practice is still too variable.

“Too many children and families are still not getting the right level of help and protection, care and support they need when they need it. This is particularly true of disabled children and their families.”

The watchdog found five key areas the department needs to improve in, including ensuring the stability of the disabled children’s team improves, making child protection plans more effective and improving the quality of support given to disabled children.

Losing high numbers of staff was said to have had a ‘debilitating effect on the disabled children’s team’ and as a result of this some disabled children are ‘not being well served’.

Senior staff are working to improve this but the lack of continuity from social workers has led to a ‘start again social work’ culture in the department.

While some children are benefitting from their social workers being based at Here4U, WBC’s children in care and care leavers team, children whose social workers are based in the disabled children’s team have a ‘not quite so positive’ experience of the services.

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Better scrutiny of children’s services is another issue the council needs to improve on according to the watchdog, as a ‘lack of transparency’ meant councillors failed to provide ‘critical challenge’ of the department in the past.

The council’s ‘corporate parenting board’ also came in for criticism as Ofsted attacked its lack of oversight and influence as a body overseeing children’s care.

The News understands an upcoming meeting of the board, which had been cancelled, is now set to go ahead in light of the report after pressure from opposition councillors. 

Liberal Democrats councillor Sarah Kerr said her party was "incredibly frustrated" a meeting of the board had been cancelled, adding: "We need to be working together to protect these children in our care and to continually cancel this meeting is wholly inappropriate."

She added: "There is still a long way to go to provide the children and families of Wokingham with the level of care they deserve, but with the new head of department and CEO addressing these issues and working hard to provide greater stability, we are seeing positive changes."

The watchdog praised new Chief Executive Susan Parsonage as being ‘open, honest and ambitious’ and children’s services director Carol Cammiss, who is said to have ‘a good understanding of strengths and areas for development.’

But the turnover of five children’s services directors, three CEOs and three council leaders was ‘unprecedented’ and left staff ‘bruised’, leading to a negative impact on ‘performance’ and ‘morale’ and a ‘legacy of uncertainty and mistrust.’

Despite a high and increasing re-referral rate, Ofsted found ‘prompt action is taken’ to protect children at risk of harm and social workers do well to reduce the risk to children living with abusive parents.

Care planning is ‘thoughtful’, ‘creative’ and ‘child-centered’ and children in care have access to a range of activities, sports and leisure.

The authority’s commitment to helping children carers is ‘tangible’ but WBC was criticised in the report for its ‘problematic’ recruitment of foster carers.

Ofsted found children’s services did not anticipate the level of interest generated by foster carer’s fortnight, held in May, and this led to a ‘missed opportunity’ in recruiting carers.

‘Incomplete’ foster carer records were also a worry for the watchdog, as this means not all carers have completed the necessary training to ensure the best possible care for children.

Those children who have left council care are benefitting from their placements with carers, however, as the authority’s financial support means foster carers can provide for these children.

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Director of children’s services Carol Cammiss said: “Our relentless focus must be on improving outcomes for all children and young people who need our help.

“Whilst I am pleased that the progress we have made in the last few months has been acknowledged, and some of the excellent work with children and families has been recognised, we are committed to improving all our services sustainably so that no children miss out on the support they deserve.

“The inspection process has been a very useful one which has confirmed our own assessment of areas needing improvement.

“We must now continue to focus on what matters for children and young people.”

The high turnover of managers has meant case files case files are often incomplete or not up to date - something the Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) reported on in January.

A month later one councillor told the LDRS social workers were dealing with up to 50 cases at any one time but Ofsted’s new report found caseload sizes have since been reduced, despite some caseloads changing hands between department teams and this leading to ‘significant implications’ for children and families.

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Executive member for children’s services, Cllr UllaKarin Clark added: “I welcome this inspection report, which validates and strengthens our understanding of service improvement priorities.

“I am very grateful that we have a team of dedicated staff who work so hard to improve the lives of our children and young people, and look forward to seeing continued improvements in our services.”