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Ofsted feedback shows improvement to Somerset County Council’s services for vulnerable children and young people (27 February 2017)

Date: 27/02/2017
Duncan Lewis, Legal News Solicitors, Ofsted feedback shows improvement to Somerset County Council’s services for vulnerable children and young people

Latest feedback from Ofsted has shown that Somerset County Council’s services for vulnerable children and young people are improving.

Ofsted inspectors carried out a monitoring visit in January 2017, which looked at how the local authority works with children and young people in need of help and protection.

The Ofsted report identifies areas of strength and areas where improvements are ongoing. The report concludes change is happening at an adequate pace, but inspectors also highlight weaker areas and the need for more consistency to make sure that the good examples become the norm in all areas.

Somerset County Council says this is the latest external report on the authority’s children’s services and follows a letter sent in December 2016 by the Minister of State for Vulnerable Children and Families, Edward Timpson, which highlights tangible improvements.

Somerset County Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Councillor Frances Nicholson, said:

“I welcome this feedback, which reflects our own understanding – we are making the changes that are needed and things are improving. Now the embedding of these changes needs to speed up in some areas –one of our key challenges now is ensuring consistency, so that the many good examples of social work become standard practice."

“I’m pleased by the letter’s positive references to partnership arrangements and joint working – protecting vulnerable children involves lots of different agencies and working better together is critical to making the improvements we all want to see. Overall, I am glad to see that Ofsted recognises that outcomes for children are improving. All the work of improving our services is ultimately to improve the lives of our children and young people.”


The council says that reducing caseloads and improving the ratio of permanent to locum staff is key to improvement. Following a recruitment drive and improvements to career development opportunities and training programmes the authority is ahead of targets to increase the proportion of permanent staff.

Somerset is leading a partnership of South West local authorities in delivering a Step Up to Social work programme, which encourages graduates to choose a career in social work.

The partnership has just been successful in a bid for funding for a second round of training, which will bring a further 49 children’s social workers into the region.

In 2016, a record 96% of newly qualified social workers also chose to remain at Somerset children’s services after they completed their first year in the role.

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