CHILDREN who need help from social care services in County Durham are not always getting help at the earliest opportunity, according to a watchdog.
Children's services run by Durham County Council have been rated as requiring improvement following the latest inspection by Ofsted.
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The organisation said the council had made a significant investment in increasing the number of social workers and managers in the system but inspectors found more improvements needed to be made before the service could be rated as "good".
The service, which has been rated as requiring improvement since 2016, was visited by inspectors in September.
They said the council had taken "swift and decisive" action and had made solid improvements since a focussed visit in January, when a number of weaknesses were identified.
However, despite a "significant" increase in the capacity of the workforce, there are still issues with the management oversight, challenge and consistency of social work, particularly for disabled children, those who are privately fostered and for homeless 16 and 17-year-olds.
In a report published this week, lead inspector Rachel Holden said: "As a result, some children are not always receiving help at the earliest opportunity.
"Senior leaders and managers were not aware of some of these shortfalls until the inspection.
"However, they made plans to address them during the inspection."
Among the criticism of the service was that the quality of social work was too variable between teams while some child protection plans lacked clarity, were confusing for parents and made it difficult to monitor progress.
What Durham County Council has been told to improve:
- The quality and impact of management oversight, including that of child protection chairs
- The timeliness of assessments and support for children who return home
- The quality of children’s plans, so that they are time bound, and include clear actions and contingency plans
- The response to disabled children, children in private fostering arrangements, and children who are homeless aged 16 and 17
- The timeliness of foster carers’ reviews
- The tracking and monitoring of children missing from education
But the council's adoption service was praised, while the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers was rated as good.
John Pearce, Durham County Council's corporate director for children and young people's services, said: "The inspectors concluded this has led to the quality of practice improving and also noted there is strong political and corporate focus, oversight and challenge.
"This includes positive feedback on corporate parenting and scrutiny processes.
"While we are naturally disappointed that the progress that Ofsted picked up on did not result in an overall rating of good, we do recognise that there is room for improvement in a number of areas and, as the report notes, plans have already been made to address these.
"As the inspection team also identified, we have firm foundations in place to sustain and build on the improvements we have made and we are fully committed to doing so for the benefit of all our children and young people."
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