Inspections get tougher after Baby Peter
Written by Shaun Moore on February 24, 2010
£1.1m investment to recruit more social workers could help the county council meet challenges posed by Ofsted. It is hoped that the extra investment will help reduce workloads and address areas identified by an Ofsted inspection report, looking at how the council deals with caseloads in children’s social care.
The report, published today (24th February 2010), follows an unannounced visit by Ofsted as part of a new inspection regime following the death of Baby Peter.
Cllr Paul McLain, cabinet member for children’s service said: “We welcome Ofsted’s report – very strong, very tough, it confirms everything we’ve been saying about the challenges facing Gloucestershire.” “We are making some big steps to front up to the challenges, our commitment is demonstrated by providing an additional £1.1m in funding for social workers, however we know there is still a lot more to do.”
“The death of Baby Peter changed the face of social work and presented local authorities with a number of challenges in how they protect vulnerable children. What was deemed ‘good enough’ before Baby Peter is not what we consider ‘good enough’ now.”
“In Gloucestershire we are improving the way the council’s care teams operate. Ofsted are clear that the steps we are taking are the right ones; and that our analysis of our strengths and weaknesses is correct. That gives the reassurance that the improvements are going in the right direction.”
“The thoroughness of Ofsted’s report only serves to remind us that we are only part of the way through the journey we need to take to ensure that our services are as robust as possible.”
While the report pointed to a number of strengths, it also identified areas for development and areas for action.
However, Ofsted’s observations in all areas reflected the council’s findings from its own audit processes and back up the decision to recruit more social workers.
A proposal to put an extra £1.1m in next year’s budget for the recruitment of 30 social workers, has already been agreed by Cabinet and is being considered today (24th Feb) by Full Council.
This is the first time that Ofsted has conducted an unannounced inspection in Gloucestershire and in this case they were looking at how the council handles contact, referral and assessment arrangements for vulnerable children.
Ofsted introduced unannounced inspections in April 2009 as a way of improving the quality of its inspection of actual practice.
Similarly, council chiefs have also been scrutinising the way it operates services for vulnerable children in the county to ensure that lessons from Haringey have been learnt in Gloucestershire.
In addition to praising Gloucestershire’s self awareness amongst other strengths, Ofsted also identified areas for development and one priority action point. This is consistent with the majority of other authorities who have been through the unannounced inspection process.
Ofsted recognised Gloucestershire as a ‘good’ authority in 2009. There is no reason to believe this unannounced inspection will change that rating.
The inspection was carried out on 26th and 27th January 2010.
