Internal 'deep dives' show children's services still 'inadequate'
Sefton Council's own internal 'deep dives' are still identifying 'inadequate' working practices and failing service areas more than two years after a damning Ofsted inspection report. The quality assurance audits are a key part of the council's monitoring processes, but inspections conducted up to July this year show ongoing problems around 'drift and delay'.
'Drift and delay' was a term coined by Ofsted inspectors and has been a constant reference point in monitoring visits since their full inspection in 2022. That report exposed 'widespread failures' within Sefton's children's services services and prompted a series of interventions including the amalgamation of education in the restructure of their provision and the appointment of new director, Dr. Risthardh Hare.
As part of the local authority's ongoing improvement works they regularly conduct 'deep dive' audits to analyse performance and identify any potential service failure. The latest quality assurance work covered the period May to July and included 49 deep dive audits with just 8% graded 'good. The other 92% of inspection reports graded services 'inadequate' or 'requires improvement to be good'.
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These figures were presented tonight at Sefton's Overview and Scrutiny Committee meeting for children's services and part of an update report which stated: "This is a decline in work graded good since the last reporting period which has resulted in scrutiny of work to understand where inadequate work mainly sits; potential reasons for this and actions to address this which are numerous and varied.
"When work is graded inadequate; audits are moderated swiftly; if the inadequate grade is maintained a reflective conversation is facilitated by the relevant Service Manager to unpick learning and ensure any remedial identified actions are followed up to improve the child and families' lives."
The areas of failure were not specified in the report, but Dr Hare assured the committee members the service failures had been identified and appropriate action had been taken - including the termination of three projects which were deemed to be deficient. Dr Hare said: "We won't fudge the numbers. Where we think there is inadequate work that's where we'll put our lens."
Responding to a question about the persistence of 'inadequate' work, Dr Hare added: "We do now expect to see the dwindling of inadequate work and we think we have highlighted where it has taken place and we believe we have taken appropriate action to address it."