Child care ‘adequate’ at council criticised for deaths

GOVERNMENT inspectors today said a social services department that was slammed over seven child deaths and a violent attack by two boys on two young brothers had improved.

Doncaster Council’s children’s services were deemed inadequate by watchdog Ofsted in 2009 – a verdict which contributed to Government intervention at the authority.

The department has now been assessed as providing adequate services for children, but the head of the department said yesterday the judgement was “still not good enough”.

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Adequate is the second worst of four possible assessments, with the others being good and outstanding, and inspectors said the council still had “much to do” to improve.

The authority attracted stinging criticism after two young brothers in council foster care were jailed for attacking two boys in the village of Edlington in April 2009.

Social workers were also criticised over a string of child deaths when serious case reviews revealed each victim was known to child care staff.

Chris Pratt was drafted in last year to lead the recovery and told the Yorkshire Post he would agree with people if they thought the Ofsted judgement was disappointing.

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But he added: “If I was looking at from the outside I would say it was not a ringing endorsement of what we are doing, but we have now got a better basis on which to build.

“I think we need to understand how bad things were, it was pretty broad and pretty deep and all the evidence shows that in 2008 there were a series of failures.

“This Ofsted report is a significant landmark in the journey of improvement, but we were starting from a very, very low base.”

In today’s report, inspectors acknowledge that Doncaster Council now meets its statutory requirements for safeguarding children, which is described as “significant progress”.

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Mr Pratt said: “We have built confidence among our staff but we are under no illusion about where we are.

“We will not become complacent.

“We have made radical changes in how we deal with referrals of young people at risk and in our children’s homes, one of which has been judged outstanding.

“I would hope that within 18 months to two years we could be looking at receiving a ‘good’ assessment across the board.”