Children’s services in Rochdale still ‘require improvement’ as watchdog finds council has failed to make ‘sufficient progress’

A watchdog has found children’s services in Rochdale have not made sufficient progress over the last five years and still ‘require improvement to be good’.

Ofsted says the council must do more to address the ‘inconsistent quality of social work practice and the multi-agency response to some vulnerable children’,  following an inspection earlier this year.

A new report acknowledges that the pandemic had a detrimental impact on the pace of improvement, while there has also been an increased demand for children’s services in the borough.

These factors – along with some changes at senior management level – have led to bosses not having ‘a good enough understanding of the improvements needed’, meaning some services for children have not progressed, it adds.

While some improvements have been made since the last inspection in 2018, officials say these ‘have not been sufficient to improve social work practice overall and services remain inconsistent’.

The report adds: “For some children, their experiences are poor. This has, in part, been due to the widely understood challenges of the pandemic, which has increased demand on children’s social care, along with subsequent workforce shortfalls.

“These factors alongside changes in the senior leadership team have hindered a sufficient line of sight to frontline practice. There has not been a consistent understanding of what good practice looks like. These elements have impacted on the focus and pace of improvements.”

Among the areas that Ofsted says needs to improve are the responses to disabled and vulnerable children – including youngsters who are in custody, privately fostered, and those aged 16 and 17 years who present as homeless.

The watchdog also wants to see greater ‘clarity of decision-making when children are cared for in their wider family’ and improved ‘permanence planning’ for children in long-term foster care and under care orders.

“Senior leaders have considerably more to do before services and outcomes for children are consistently good,” the report adds, noting that a new improvement plan fails to ‘identify some shortfalls in practice that inspectors have raised’.

It continues: “There are some areas where quality assurance is not sufficiently developed or fully implemented, for example in relation to the oversight of some vulnerable children, and addressing the safeguarding response by the police and health partners.”

However, the report notes that important progress has been made since Sharon Hubber was appointed director of children’s services in  September 2021.

“There is now a revised and more appropriately focused improvement plan,” it adds. “There are now conditions in place for better social work to flourish.”

“The local authority has started to address some keys areas for improvement, including restructuring teams to strengthen the response to children.”

“These changes are starting to support a better-quality response for children, and many children are receiving support that reflects and meets their need for help, protection and care.”

Sharon Hubber, director of children’s services at the council, said it was ‘disappointing’ that the rating had not improved.

But she highlighted that the report ‘does praise several areas of work, including the development of our new improvement plan and the significant additional financial investment we are putting into our services’.

She said: “The new funding will be used to create more children’s homes, recruit more foster carers and social workers, provide additional services for young parents and increase the availability of mental health advice and support.

“Ofsted also recognised that the Covid pandemic and increased demand and complexity have negatively affected our services. The report also said that children at risk of sexual and criminal exploitation receive an effective response.

“Our residents should be assured that we are already looking very closely at the areas where we need to improve and we look forward to welcoming Ofsted back in the future when we will be good.”

Nick Statham, Local Democracy Reporting Service