Ofsted revisits Bradford children's services to find 'extensive drift and delay'

Ofsted yesterday published a letter to Bradford Council after a monitoring inspection of children’s services following a visit in September 2018 that exposed “serious failures”, which leftchildren “at risk of significant harm”.Among the 10 improvements needed was the "identification and response to risk, particularly the longer-term impact of domestic abuse and neglect".

Previous follow-up visits found that the service required improvement and inspectors last year said “the pace of change has been too slow”.

The latest visit took place on February 25 this year, when inspectors found the “progress and experience of children is characterised by widescale delay in having their permanence plans confirmed” - however there were “pockets of better practice”.

Permanence is a catch-all term in the services relating to longer-term stable arrangements for children including adoption, fostering or residential care.

“Senior leaders have been significantly challenged by the scale and enduring nature of the delay and the quality of care planning.

“The improvement plan had initially stalled due to a delay in recruiting permanent senior leaders, and in securing an understanding of the scale of the inadequacy by politicians and across the partnership. The new leadership team have now embarked on a wholescale restructuring of the service, which has required stripping the service back to basics.

"The service is now starting to address this legacy of poor practice and ineffective management and work through children’s cases to ensure the right planning is in place. While inspectors also found issues with current practice, particularly in relation to the effectiveness of managers in ensuring that children achieve timely permanence, there was also some pockets of better practice, which is benefiting some children in care.”

There remains a large number of children in care, said the letter, amid “significant challenges” with placements, particularly for children who need to live with their siblings. As a result, 21 per cent of children are being placed out of area – though they are being visited and seen according to their plan, the report says.

Its adds: “Children are not being consistently helped to understand their long-term plan and why they came into care. This is leaving some children anxious, and their emotional well-being is not being adequately addressed.”

Bradford’s strategic director for children’s services, Mark Douglas, is “taking authoritative action to ensure” that “deficits in practice are addressed as a priority,” reads the report.

Since he started in July 2019 there has been a wide scale plan which is “addressing improvement from the child’s first contact with the service,” said inspector Jan Edwards.

Mr Douglas said: “It’s good that Ofsted recognise that the new staffing structures we are putting in place will help services get the basics right for children. It’s also positive that they recognise how we’re starting to address poor practice across services.

"But we know we have a lot more to do, and need to move more quickly and up the pace of improvement.”

“We’re very aware of the additional pressure that coronavirus (COVID-19) is putting on our teams and how we need to manage the service to get through this unprecedented situation. We will undoubtedly face more pressure on our service as a result of both the health and economic impacts COVID-19 brings, but of course we also need to take care of our staff so that we can do that work.”

Coun Adrian Farley, portfolio holder for children and families, said: “The letter from Ofsted emphasises the firm commitment from council members and the Council’s Executive to support investment in the innovation and improvement programme for Children’s Services with significant recurring funding.

"We now need to make sure that this investment urgently accelerates the rate of improvement so we can deliver the services that children need.”