Luton Council children’s services ‘build on and sustain progress’ made when responding to needs

Changes to leadership in Luton Council children’s services have been ‘no detriment to services’, according to a report into the local authority by Ofsted.

The regulator, which assesses schools, universities, early years provisions and councils’ children’s services, released its report on Wednesday (July 19).

In response to the findings, leader of Luton Council Cllr Hazel Simmons MBE said: “We are incredibly proud of the feedback that we received from Ofsted following their inspection of our front door and assessment service.

"They were able to see the clear progress of our continued improvement journey including our strong and persistent practice, with our front door services providing advice, help and support in a timely manner and a workforce that is committed to Luton and its children, young people and their families.”

Ofsted inspected Luton Council’s ‘front door’ services for children over two days in June and praised its progress made in the past year. The report stated: “There have been significant changes in the leadership of children’s services since the last ILACS inspection in July 2022, with further senior management changes planned.

“Inspectors found no detriment to services as a result of these changes, which appear to have been well managed. This has enabled the authority to continue to build on and sustain the progress made in responding effectively to the needs of children in Luton.”

The report explained that processes in place to assure quality services have “increased in their reach and effectiveness, enabling leaders to have a clear oversight of practice and need”.

Inspectors said: “Leaders are proud of their continuous improvements but accept that they still have more to do to ensure consistency and quality in all the authority’s children’s social care practice.”

The speed and quality of single assessments were mentioned by inspectors as an area to improve. Inspectors said: “The quality of single assessments is inconsistent. For some children, they are comprehensive, informed by several visits to the family and include direct work with each child. For other children, visits do not take place at a time or frequency appropriate to their needs.”

Changes in social workers have had a “negative impact on the quality of the relationships, resulting in assessments which are superficial, lacking in depth and detail, and affects the service that children and their families receive”.

Ofsted said: “Challenges also include rising and fluctuating caseloads within the family assessment and support service and for some workers in other teams.” But the regulator noted that the authority’s out-of-hours service gives effective responses to children who need emergency help outside of office hours.

Homeless children aged 16 and 17 years old who ask for help get ‘a joined-up enquiry/assessment form completed with the child’ and have a social worker and a young person’s homelessness officer to assess and understand their needs. The report continued: “However, children’s records do not clearly evidence that practitioners are routinely ensuring that these children are made aware of all their rights and entitlements.”

Cllr Simmons added: “We recognise that there are still areas we need to strengthen further, in particular our step-up and step-down processes, as well as improving the quality and timeliness of assessments and multi-agency working arrangements to ensure all partners have a shared understanding of thresholds.

“The improvements achieved so far would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication of our staff, partners and leadership team and lays the foundations for a positive future for children and young people in Luton.”

The council’s focus on developing its own social work recruits has been deemed as successful by inspectors. The report stated: “ [It had] resulted in many more roles being filled by permanent, although inexperienced, social workers.”

The stability of its workforce is “increasingly evident” with a culture of care echoed by staff at all levels. Inspectors added: “Staff morale is positive. All workers who spoke to inspectors said that they feel supported by their managers, senior managers and the team.”