Action plan in place to secure high grade in next inspection of Warwickshire children’s services

An action plan has been put in place by Warwickshire County Council officers following an Ofsted inspection of children’s services with the aim of securing the highest grading possible when inspectors next visit.

A report published in February 2021 marked Warwickshire as ‘good’ in all areas and listed a number of strengths within the service including the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families and the overall effectiveness of the service.

But other areas were flagged up as requiring improvement including the use of timescales for action and achieving a consistently high quality of practice for disabled children.

In a report presented to this week’s [MON] children and young people overview and scrutiny committee, it was explained that the action plan would be shared with Ofsted next month with all the items completed by June.

Committee members were also told that due to the ‘good’ grading, the next inspection was unlikely to be until May 2025 at the earliest.

Council leader Cllr Izzi Seccombe (Con, Stour and the Vale) said: “We were really pleased that we achieved good and it is an achievement for the people of Warwickshire and, more importantly, for the children of Warwickshire. But the ambition mustn’t stop there, it is all about going forward and being outstanding because that’s where we want Warwickshire to be.

“Thinking about the quality of practice for disabled children which was an area we were concerned about, we are now moving that one forward and the number of social workers we have is in a better place. We are fully recruited which is a good starting point and I think it is the first time we have been fully recruited for many years so not being reliant on any agency workers is a good place to be.

“I think the position is the strongest we’ve been in for a while so we can start concentrating on the next stage which is outstanding.”

Members of the committee agreed to endorse the action plan and requested that regular updates on the progress be brought back to the overview and scrutiny committee.