Ofsted fires warning over quality of safeguarding services

The majority of local authorities provide frontline safeguarding services that meet minimum requirements for keeping children and young people safe but a third of the councils inspected to date deliver “inadequate” services, Ofsted has revealed in its annual report for 2009/10.

The watchdog stressed that the sample inspected was not representative of local authorities nationally, since weaker authorities were prioritised for inspection.

Ofsted acknowledged that the minimum standard is a demanding one, with just one local authority – Lincolnshire – judged to be outstanding for its safeguarding service.

The annual report said the impact of good leadership is very evident in those local authorities where safeguarding is most effective. “At the strategic level there is strong political engagement, often cross-party, and safeguarding issues are prioritized and championed by senior officers,” it added.

Ofsted also said that partnership working was critical to the effective delivery of safeguarding services. “In the best authorities this is evidenced not only by the strength of high-level partnership arrangements, such as the Local Safeguarding Children Boards and children’s trusts, but also the detailed day-to-day interagency working that takes place for the benefit of children and their families.”

The report suggested that in inadequate authorities, “in too many cases” action required to protect or safeguard a young person identified as high risk was not followed through in a timely fashion. It blamed an insufficient capacity in many social work teams, as a result of rising demand and poor planning and management of staffing levels.

“This leads to high caseloads, over-use of agency staff, turbulence in front-line teams, and the exposure of new and inexperienced staff to a volume and complexity of work that they struggle to deal with,” Ofsted warned. It also suggested that there was a persistent failure to manage quality.

The watchdog also criticized Cafcass, which “remains a poorly performing organisation and the pace of improvement remains inadequate”. The report said: “Overall, there is a continuing failure to improve outcomes, both where Ofsted has already identified weaknesses and where new concerns are emerging”, with potential repercussions as a result for the children and families that Cafcass serves. Four out of the five service areas inspected during the year were judged inadequate overall.

Ofsted nevertheless said the capacity to improve was judged satisfactory in those five service areas. The agency had also improved its case planning, recording and assessment, which were all rated “satisfactory” after being given an “inadequate” rating in 2008/09.

Other findings in the wide-ranging report include:

• Over two thirds of providers in the early years and childcare sector are judged to be good or outstanding. “There is strong provision, too, in the education and skills sectors”
• The quality of teaching in schools and colleges “is still too variable”. Teaching is still no better than satisfactory in half of secondary schools, 43% of primaries and 43% of colleges that were inspected during the year
• While a strong relationship remains between deprivation and weaker provision, "it is not a barrier to a school succeeding"
• 56% of the schools inspected provided their pupils with a good or outstanding education. This rose to 65% on the inclusion of those existing good or outstanding schools which were due an inspection but that were instead subject to risk-based checks by Ofsted
• Of the 43 academies inspected – the majority of which were set up to replace failing schools – 11 were outstanding, nine good, 20 satisfactory and three were inadequate
• 68% of childcare was judged good or outstanding, an improvement on the previous year
• In the learning and skills sector, 57% of general further education colleges, 48% of work-based learning and 70% of adult and community learning were judged to be good or outstanding.

Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector, Christine Gilbert said: “The report has much to celebrate. However, more needs to be achieved. In an increasingly competitive world economy we do not have the luxury of complacency. We must be relentless in the pursuit of the highest standards for all young people and adult learners – the best possible start in life with high quality childcare, the best teaching and the best training and social care the vulnerable can rely on.”