Four councils ranked ‘good’ at protecting vulnerable children

Inspectors have rated the majority of councils in the region “adequate” with Barnsley, Calderdale and Doncaster deemed to be failing.

The report from the watchdog Ofsted found more than half of councils nationally were “less than good” at protecting youngsters.

Sir Michael Wilshaw, the head of Ofsted, yesterday called on the Government to review the role of safeguarding boards – which are made up of key agencies such as police, probation, youth justice, heath, education and social care workers – to ensure local safeguarding of children is effective.

He said: “Too often, inspectors arrive unannounced in councils only to see child protection that is manifestly and palpably weak.

“Typically, these are the councils where case files of individual children demonstrate inadequate intervention; where referral thresholds are loosely defined, and where safeguarding boards aren’t worth the name.”

He also called for more clearly defined protection plans so that they clearly set out what actions will be taken against families as a consequence of their actions.

“I would like to see firm, authoritative action taken with struggling families across our social care system – tough but empathetic responses to parents who expect their children to live with the daily consequence of their violence, protection plans where the things that must quickly change are clear and the consequences of failing to act are obvious,” he said.

The report warned local authorities are facing problems recruiting and holding on to social workers.

Doncaster Council spent £4.2m last year on agency staff as it tried to cope with the number of children needing help and struggled to fill vacancies.

Sir Michael said: “Major improvements have been made of late and vacancy rates have decreased by more than half. But there remains a serious shortfall of experienced people in the system who can take on the more challenging cases and provide effective leadership and management.

“The statistics are stark. The average career of a children’s social worker is only eight years, one in 11 leaves their post each year and one in six are aged over 55 and are likely to retire in the next few years – meaning the sector is facing a demographic time bomb.”

Responding to the report, a Barnsley Council spokesman said Ofsted had found that children were safe but raised concerns about the council’s work with the police and health bodies.

He said the authority had taken 100 actions to improve services and a review by the Department for Education in June found safeguarding procedures “on track and satisfactory”.

Stuart Smith, Calderdale Council’s director of children and young people’s services, Stuart Smith, said Ofsted’s “inadequate” judgment in July had been “devastating” for staff.

He said a review of its front line cases had found no children at risk of significant hard but there were “areas of concern”. The authority had also struggled to recruit staff to cope with a doubling of referrals.

“Since July we have continued to make significant progress in implementing our improvement plan. We have recruited the staff we need to help us manage the increased case load, and we are continuing to recruit.

“We have also made significant progress in the role councillors play, our fostering service, our early intervention work, our work to protect children from child sexual exploitation and our locality and disabled children’s teams.”

Doncaster Council is developing plans to transfer responsibility for children’s social care, including protecting children, to an arms-length trust.

The proposal follows criticism both from Ofsted and a panel commissioned by Education Secretary Michael Gove.

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