Inspection helps to improve children’s services

An Ofsted inspection of Rochdale's safeguarding and looked after children services, carried out in July, has been officially announced today (Friday 6 August 2010).

The inspection looked at the contribution, made by the council, health, schools and other services across the borough, towards making sure children and young people are properly safeguarded. The quality of service provision for looked after children and care leavers was also looked at.

The report states that overall services are adequate and that they are meeting the required standards for the children to be safe and feel safe. It identifies several areas for service improvement and highlights areas that are good.

Particular praise was given to children’s centres and the youth service in making a successful contribution to keeping children safe.

They also praised the enthusiasm and commitment of staff across the various services, highlighted that there are some examples of good partnership working and that equality and diversity across the services is good.

Inspectors found that since the last inspection improvements have been made, but that more work is needed.

Action is needed to develop the duty system (first point of contact) for dealing with children and families who are referred so they are dealt with promptly; to make sure all children in care are allocated to a qualified social worker; and that staff all understand their role in meeting strategic targets.

The recruitment of foster carers to help with the increasing demand of local placements has also been highlighted as a priority action.

Councillor Teresa Fitzsimons, Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Families at Rochdale Borough Council said: “I’m pleased that they’ve been able to identify a number of areas of good practice and have seen fit to comment on the hard work and commitment demonstrated by staff from across Children’s Services. It was also encouraging that the inspectors described the young people that they met with as being energetic, enthusiastic and proud to live in Rochdale. However we are not complacent and recognise that there are areas where we need to improve.”

Cheryl Eastwood, Executive Director of Children’s Services at Rochdale Borough Council said: “This inspection has been very helpful in the process of improving the services that we offer children within the borough. Staff were already working on improvements and we can now build on this, as well as further developing the areas of good practice. The Local Safeguarding Children Board, as well as the Primary Care Trust and council will be acting upon the recommendations made as soon as possible, as this work is one of our key priorities.”

As part of this inspection, a team of inspectors from Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission spoke with a wide range of professionals, parents, carers and young people to get their views on the services. They also looked at electronic case records and analysed reports from a variety of sources such as schools and day care reviews.