OFSTED have today released their report into Dudley MBC Children's Services and have found the department to be inadeqaute.
The report released today highlights serious and widespread weaknesses and criticises the authority for not taking 'sufficiently swift or robust remedial action to ensure the most vulnerable children and young people are protected'.
At the time of the inspection, 33 children and young people did not have an allocated social worker. Some had been waiting for as long as 29 days, and in some cases up to three months, so were without purposeful statutory involvement to assess and meet their needs.
The report stated that social workers do not visit children and young people regularly enough, with some times unacceptably long periods between visits. Assessments take too long and lack a clear analysis of risk. Planning for children and young people is not outcome focused or individual to children’s and young people’s needs and objectives are not measurable.
Dudley MBC have stated that work to radically improve children’s social care services in Dudley will continue at pace.
The new senior leadership team established an Improvement Board last September to drive forward improvements after its own self-assessment of the service flagged up long standing issues which meant the service was not fit for purpose. The council has already moved to make improvements over the past 12 months and while the report acknowledges this, it also confirms it will take time to see the benefits of the ongoing work.
On the back of the report the Department for Education has confirmed a children’s services commissioner will work with council bosses over the next three months to make further recommendations about future arrangements for children’s services.
Sarah Norman, chief executive of Dudley Council, said: “It became apparent to me very quickly after I joined the Council last January that Children’s Services in the borough simply weren’t good enough.
"This is why we brought in a new senior management team in April, commissioned an external review of practice in May, shared a hard hitting self assessment with cabinet members and opposition leaders over the Summer and established an Improvement Board in September to work with partners to make radical changes to the service.
“We fully accept Ofsted’s findings and the inspection has confirmed our own self-assessment of the services and we will continue at pace to rectify the issues. We have acted quickly over the last 12 months to drive forward these changes and we are pleased the report confirms ‘strong leadership’ is now in place.
“The report makes it clear that we were starting from a low base and that it will take time to for the improvements to be embedded into the service.
“We look forward to working with the commissioner to drive forward our improvements and we can assure all borough residents we will not stop until the children of the borough have a service we can all be proud of.”
The council will continue its work in developing a robust improvement programme working in partnership with other agencies. Work to develop a Children and Young Persons Alliance Board with key partners will continue and also the new Single Point of Access for social care queries. Both of these new initiatives were supported in the Ofsted report.
