Agenda item

Verbal update

Sophie Russell, Head of Children’s Strategy & Improvement, gave a verbal update on the Ofsted Inspection which took place from 23^rd January to 3^rd February 2017, which was under a new inspection framework that Nottingham volunteered to pilot. Sophie highlighted the following:

(a)  the inspection involved 4 Ofsted inspectors over 2 weeks, and focussed on frontline practice and experience of children, young people and families. It used existing audits rather than requesting new ones which was less onerous and involved in-depth time with practitioner sampling case files in real time. Over 270 cases were sampled;

(b)  Nottingham City Council received a lot of positive feedback from the inspection, including the following:

·  strong political and officer leadership of services;

·  bringing together two directorates to create one directorate was a catalyst for change;

·  regional peer review and challenge are well used;

·  investment in recruitment of a permanent workforce;

·  Nottingham City Council is an environment where good and outstanding practice can flourish;

·  the council has invested heavily in an integrated model for effective partnership working;

·  the diversity of the community is well understood;

·  the voice of the child is a real strength;

·  social workers know their children well;

·  children live with carers who are ambitious and proud for them;

·  children’s assessments are consistently good which leads to meaningful indicative plans;

·  support for disabled children is good which leads to tailored support;

·  Multi Systemic Therapy/Multi Systemic Therapy Child abuse and Neglect and Edge of Care Hub are examples of a creative use of resources;

·  integrated locality hubs offer accessible, responsive and effective forums to support multi-agency services;

·  children’s emotional needs are considered and children are supported by wrap-around services like CAMHS and the Targeted Support Team;

·  education outcomes are improving;

·  Early Help is seen as outstanding, with access to Early Help services resulting in risks being minimised and welfare improving;

(c)  areas for further development were identified as follows:

·  a more robust response is needed for 16-17 year olds who present as homeless;

·  a need to be more tenacious to sustain contact and support for care leavers who aren’t currently engaged;

·  more analysis of themes and trends in relation to children missing and ensuring  they receive the help they need;

·  a review of Independent Reviewing Officer capacity;

·  multi-agency information to inform a shared view about risk and need;

·  partners, particularly police and schools, to contribute to initial fact finding, assessments and plans;

·  children’s social care to set clear expectations for responses from partners;

·  case file audit arrangements should be strengthened for children’s social care;

(d)  the council received a judgement of Good for overall effectiveness, with considerable improvement since the last inspection in 2014. However, the experiences and progress of children looked after and care leavers and achieving permanence was judged to require improvement;

(e)  as a result of the Ofsted findings, the following actions have been put into place:

·  phase 1 Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) arrangements with Nottinghamshire Police went live from June 2017, with phase 2 to expand to other partners;

·  a review of Children’s Integrated Services Learning and Improvement Framework to be launched in July 2017;

·  changes to the Leaving Care Service and development of a Keeping Touch protocol in Summer 2017;

·  a review of processes and tools for Return Interviews and further work planned to develop training for colleagues;

·  capacity added to the Independent Reviewing Officer service in the short term pending a decision on longer term investment.

(f)  the council generally found the inspection, with its focus on the child’s journey and with time spent with practitioners, positive. However, they found that the pace of inspection was very quick, and there was a lack of inspection of the effectiveness of partnership arrangements like the Children’s Partnership Board and Safeguarding Children’s Board. These findings have been fed back to Ofsted.

RESOLVED to note the information and thank Sophie for the update.