By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Progress to improve Nottingham City Council’s children’s services is being sustained despite severe financial challenges, a watchdog says.
However Ofsted, which gave the services an ‘inadequate’ rating in 2022, says there are still too many young children living in children’s homes due to a lack of suitable foster carers.
Ofsted has been conducting a series of monitoring visits over the past two years, and a report detailing the findings from its latest visit was published on Thursday (December 12).
Inspector Margaret Burke said: “Since the last inspection visit, Nottingham City Council has continued to make strides in its children’s services improvement journey.
“Progress has been sustained against the backdrop of severe financial pressures, changes in leadership and continuous external scrutiny of the council.”
The report also notes the capacity of the senior management team has been increased, while all senior leadership and team management posts within the children in care service are now permanently filled.
But inspector Burke said while most children in long-term foster care are thriving, too many young children live in children’s homes.
Some children are also continuing to experience too many changes in social worker.
“While this may be appropriate for some, for others, this is due to the lack of suitable foster homes,” she says in the report.
“The management rationale for placing children in such placements is not evident in records. For some of these young children their plan for permanence is ambiguous; they often have dual permanence plans of long-term residential care and long-term foster care.
“These plans are not always based on an up-to-date assessment or thorough consideration of all possible options.
“The quality and impact of assessments for children in care remains too variable.
“Some provide a fair overview of children’s needs, but others are based on too limited interactions with the child to understand their individual needs or the impact of their earlier life experiences.
“For many assessments, large sections of information are cut and pasted from previous documents. Assessments for children in care are not routinely updated.
“Most social workers visit children regularly and in line with their needs, and for those children who have had a consistent social worker, they build positive relationships with them.
“However, despite the increasing stability in the workforce, some children are still experiencing too many changes of worker.”
Jill Colbert, who was appointed as the council’s new director for children and education services in September, said: “The latest visit from Ofsted shows that we continue to do better in meeting the needs of those children who need our care.
“The council’s focus on ensuring permanent managers are in place, with the right support around them, is starting to show impact for children and families as the improvement work has picked up in pace.
“The inspectors noted that despite the backdrop of financial pressures, they spoke to staff who felt proud to work for the council.
“Social workers know their children well and ensure that children who are cared for have access to a range of support.
“We know that too many children are living in children’s homes, when we’d like them to live with foster carers, which is why we’re working hard through our fostering service, D2N2 Foster with East Midlands, to recruit more foster carers.”
Cllr Cheryl Barnard (Lab), executive member for children, young people and education, added: “With the changes we’ve made to create dedicated management posts and the continued financial support from the council, I’m confident the service can start the New Year ready for the next phase of lasting improvement work.”
