The pace of improvement for children in care in Tameside has been hindered by a lack of permanent and stable leadership, the breadth and depth of inadequacies across children’s services, previously high staff turnover, and a reliance on agency social workers.
That is the headline of the latest OFSTED report into Children’s Services in Tameside which reported Tameside Council Children’s Services are in an “improved position” following a recent monitoring visit.
Tameside is only now able to mobilise improvement planning says the report
“Creating stability and permanence at a senior level has only been very recently secured, and as a result, many of the areas for improvement identified in the inspection in December 2023 are still a feature of current practice.”
There are however inconsistencies in the quality and impact of social work practice, including the quality of assessments, plans and planning. Sufficiency challenges are still evident, which means that some children are not living in homes according to their assessed needs.
On the plus side the report says The director of children’s services (DCS) has an intricate understanding of frontline practice and has developed a secure platform to engage with frontline staff.
“This platform has been well used to inform revisions to the improvement plan and to build the foundations and architecture to support service improvement.”
As a result they say social worker practice is becoming more child centred, and there is effective role modelling of this by senior leaders. The turnover of staff and dependency on agency social workers has reduced. There is now more robust oversight of children living in unregistered provision, and the systems to support timelier permanence are now in place. Many of these changes are very new, so it is too soon to see the impact on children’s lives.
Director of Children’s Services, Jill Colbert OBE, has now been in post for one year.
Her vision to create services that support children and families, as well as staff is evident in the improvement plan, which is reflected in the report, stating that “a refreshed and appropriately targeted improvement plan is providing a more methodical and systematic approach to improvement.
Tameside council’s director of children’s services, Jill Colbert, said: “I welcome the findings in the letter, as they affirm our understanding of the changes needed and confirm that our improvement plan is heading in the right direction.
“It is positive to see the letter recognise the progress made, particularly in how our social work practice is becoming more child‑centred. We know there is still much to do, and we remain fully committed to making those improvements.
“While it will take time for the positive impact of our changes to be fully evidenced for our children and families, we remain firmly focused on trying to be better for our families every day and I’m enormously grateful for the loyalty and commitment of our staff who show up every day to do that .”
Tameside council’s executive member for children and families, Coun Teresa Smith added: “I’m pleased the inspectors have recognised we’re making progress and getting better at supporting children and families, but we know we still have a lot more work to do.
“Our families are important to us and we’re working hard to improve their experience and our services. We have a strong foothold now, and I want to reassure everyone that delivering meaningful and lasting improvement is our absolute priority.
“We are committed to building a service that families can rely on and one that our workforce can be proud to be a part of.”
