Luton children's social services must improve to get a Good rating 'within six months'

A good rating for children’s services in Luton needs to be obtained within six months, a meeting heard.
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It follows a dismal Ofsted inspection which rated two aspects of these services as "Inadequate" and a further two as "Requires Improvement".

The borough council’s priorities have been “ensuring our children are safe and a fresh focus on our recruitment campaign for permanency of our front line managers”, its scrutiny children’s services review group was told.

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Corporate director for children and education services Amanda Lewis said: “There’s a strong corporate commitment to our workforce.

Luton's children's social services department has vowed to improveLuton's children's social services department has vowed to improve
Luton's children's social services department has vowed to improve

“Extra resource has been deployed already into our assessment service.

“We have been looking at the accommodation needs of our workers and action has been taken in relation to that.

“And we have increased our senior leadership and management capacity.

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“There’s a lot of work going on in the area we were most challenged about - the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) and the assessment team.”

Service director for children’s operations services Allison Parkinson added: “We have formed a MASH group.

“We are hugely interested in not getting into a blame space.

"'Whose fault is this?' There’s no mileage in that.

“What we need to do is look at what happens on a day-to-day basis and what has got in the way of good practice.”

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Liberal Democrat Wigmore councillor Diane Moles asked: “Did they tell you how short of staff you were in terms of the management and social workers?”

Corporate director Ms Lewis replied: “No, it would not be Ofsted’s role to do that. They would express concerns around our case loads or make comments about management oversight.

“It would be for the local authority to determine the staffing contingent that is needed.

“So we are working on what we think we need to address the criticisms Ofsted have and the challenges Ofsted has given us.

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“That’s our case loads and how many more staff to ensure everyone can have the case load that we’d previously agreed.”

Conservative Icknield councillor Jeff Petts asked whether that case load amount hovered at around 18.

Service director for children’s operations services Ms Parkinson replied: “In one week, we had 150 referrals coming straight through to the assessment team.

“In an outstanding authority an assessment team runs at 15.

“In good, and where you want to strive for good practice, case loads of 18 or 20.

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“Our case loads were not anywhere near this during that period.”

Labour Limbury councillor Rob Roche said: “To have good social workers you need to create a decent environment for them to come and work here.

“The right environment, the right package, the right contract, the right professional development and the right benefits, so it’s a good package.”

The corporate director responded: “We absolutely acknowledge that some parts of our services are not where we would want them to be.

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“And we are absolutely determined to putting those things right.”

Portfolio holder for education, councillor Mahmood Hussain, said: “We have to have an action plan by April. The timeline for us is a very short period of time.

“It’s all of our responsibility as corporate parents. The interest of the child is paramount.

“In six months time I would like to see improvement and I would like to this service as good.”

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