Wiltshire's Children and Young People's Service slammed by Ofsted

10.01.00am GMT Wed 19th Nov 2008

A report published yesterday by Ofsted awarded Wiltshire's Children and Young People's Service the second-lowest grade of 'adequate'. The Ofsted inspectors identified numerous areas where improvement was needed.

According to Ofsted too few vulnerable young people are benefiting from early intervention and prevention services, and there is too much variability in the timely identification and completion of initial and core assessments.

Other comments from the report:

"There is a lack of placement choice for children and young people who become looked after and too many are in residential care. Whilst effective work with foster carers and adopters has improved stability some children are waiting too long to be adopted because of delays in the courts.

"Although some services, such as those for early years and schools, are inclusive, impacting well and improving outcomes, in others, the lack of, or undeveloped local provision for some children and young people with the highest levels of need, inhibits the impact of the service as a whole.

"The range of post-16 vocational provision, although improving, is insufficient to meet the needs of all young people.

"The impact of the strategy to reduce teenage conceptions is good. A strong commitment across the partnership and effective joint working has ensured that services are well targeted upon specific geographical areas and vulnerable young people. This has resulted in year-on-year reductions, although the 50% reduction in teenage pregnancy by 2010 remains a challenging target based on current trends.

"Service management and the capacity to improve further are adequate. Although the council, the Children's Trust and its partners have strong and well-founded ambitions for children's services and have been effective in engaging with parents and children and other stakeholders to help shape services, current management capacity ... is insufficient to ensure successful delivery. Some key strategies are not supported by delivery plans and planning is not consistently applied at service level."

If you want a nice example of how to spin bad news into good here is Wiltshire Council's press release in response to the report. Ofsted uses four grades - 'inadequate', 'adequate', 'good' and 'outstanding'. Wiltshire scored 'adequate' throughout. Note also that if this were a genuine good news story there would be a self-congratulatory comment from the Tory portfolio holder. As it is they've hidden away and have let the officers take the flak.

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"Wiltshire Council this week (18 November) renewed its commitment to giving children and young people the best opportunities in life following the publication of the Joint Area Review (JAR) of services for children and young people.

The review was undertaken by the education and social care watchdog Ofsted, and involved nine inspectors scrutinising the work of the council and its partners.

The report judged children and young people's services to be adequate overall, and also highlighted areas that are particularly strong.

The team of inspectors looked at the contribution of local services in ensuring that children and young people at risk or requiring safeguarding are effectively cared for, and that young people who are looked after or who have learning difficulties or disabilities, achieve the best possible outcomes.

The inspectors highlighted many of the strengths of the council and its partners as well as praising its 'significant and rapid progress'.

Inspectors said that the 'arrangements for agencies to collaborate in safeguarding children are good', as is the work to reduce the number of young people who are not in education, employment or training.

Young people interviewed by the inspectors said they feel safe and receive good quality information to inform them of potential dangers.

Working with partners like the NHS to reduce teenage pregnancies has also been marked as good, and the inspectors noted that effective work is undertaken across the partnership to prevent or divert children and young people from offending or anti-social behaviour.

Services for looked after children were judged to be adequate, along with services for children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities. The work of the county's special schools, the SEN parent partnership service and the early years SEN service was praised.

The youth development service works with comparatively high numbers of young people aged 13-19 and good early intervention and support is provided by youth workers.

The report also makes recommendations for improvement and this includes a focus on continuing to increase the range of provision within the county for children and young people with the most complex learning difficulties and disabilities, making sure that where additional support is needed this is available as quickly as possible, continuing the drive to recruit more foster carers in Wiltshire and making sure that there is a wide range of provision available for all young people post 16 so that they can successfully progress into employment, education and training.

Carolyn Godfrey, director for the department of children and education at the county council, said: "We are committed to providing the best possible opportunities for children and young people in Wiltshire. I am pleased that the inspectors recognised that all of the different partners and agencies are working well together. We will use the very constructive and helpful observations of the inspectors to make sure that we build on our strengths and particularly focus on those areas where we need to improve."

End of WC press report.