Agenda item

The Ofsted Inspection of Southwark local authority services for children in need of help and protection;  children looked after and care leavers; and review of the Local Safeguarding Children Board , published on 13 June 2017, is enclosed in the second supplement.

David Quirke –Thornton, Strategic Director of Children's and Adults’ Services and Alasdair Smith, Director, Children’s, Families and Adults’ Services presented the Ofsted report, following the inspection that took place in March. Southwark was rated good. The Strategic Director  reported that 28% of local authorities are rated good or outstanding, while the majority of  other Local Authority Children’s Services have been rated requiring improvement or inadequate. There are issues that the Strategic Director acknowledged need to be addressed, which included:

·  Stability of Placements

·  Care leavers journey and knowledge of rights

·  Consistency of social workers (in the context of a high national turnover and a national career average of only 7 years)

A report will be developed to address these.

The chair congratulated the team on the result. Members were invited to ask questions. The following points were raised:

·  The Directors were asked about social work continuity and how this is being addressed. The Strategic Director referred to a national piece of work to change the narrative about social workers. This has used the voices of young people to talk about the importance of the work. Unfortunately Social workers are now regulated by Whitehall, and the government is bringing in tests to be licensed. This is professionally unusual as most similar professions have Royal Colleges promoting professional development. Concerns were raised about the extra pressure licencing and tests would this place on social workers; particularly given the pilot had showed a 20% test fail rate. Officers  said they could not recognise this high fail rate in their experience of social workers, and this could increase turnover even further. Concerns were raised about the weak professional culture that allowed direct government assessment, rather than a professional body. Officers said that other challenges around retention include social workers leaving Southwark because of high housing costs. Positive features of the service are the good management support in place, which helps retention, recognised by Ofsted. The in-house recruitment and training programme means the council has a high quality cohort of the newly qualified social workers. Southwark is investing more in retention of this cohort. Social workers are attracted by the good judgement of Ofsted. ‘Frontline’ was identified as a programme that is also used by Southwark and social workers had been sustained from this route. 16% of Southwark Social Workers are agency – this is lower than average, though the lowest is 10 %. Officers are encouraging social workers to commit to the borough. The Directors emphasised that there doing lot to regarding retention, but the council can not ignore the report finding that young people want consistency.

·  Officers added they remain ambitious for the services and will still be pushing more on housing and training for young people.

·  Members asked about sharing the good story. The Directors suggested a generosity in helping other boroughs. This applies to scrutiny function as well. The Directors noted praise in the report for the effective chairing, and the contribution the committee had made through its FGM and adoption reviews.