OVER 1,700 children’s services cases have been audited by Bradford Council since the service was given an “inadequate” rating last year, it has been revealed.

Ofsted published the highly critical report into the key Council service in October, calling for urgent improvement in the service responsible for the most vulnerable people in the district.

And inspectors are expected to return to Bradford in March for a “monitoring visit” to see what work is being done to improve the service.

The Council has now published a 42-page improvement plan that details how the service aims to turn itself around, and the report was discussed by the Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee on Wednesday.

During the discussion, it emerged that the service has now reviewed all 1,700 cases of children who were in child protection and child in need programmes at the time of the inspection, with action taken in any cases where issues arose.

Councillors were told there were no major issues, and the main issues found were that records of the outcomes of children in care were “not very clear.”

The meeting also heard that many children’s services staff were “nervous” about how the much-needed changes to the department would be implemented.

The Ofsted report said the service has “rapidly deteriorated” in the past 18 months, and that the main reason for the drop in quality was a huge increase in demand for services, at the same time that a “significant” number of social workers and managers were leaving Bradford Council to work for other councils.

Shortly after the report was released, head of Children’s Services Michael Jameson left the Council, and he has been replaced by Gladys Rhodes White, who is the new Interim Strategic Director.

It will be her job to implement the improvement plan, which the Council had to prepare by early February.

The plan has now been released, and says: “Our over-riding priority is to address the areas of improvement that have been highlighted by Ofsted. We are determined to focus on getting the basics right for children.

“Most importantly, we want to put children, and the quality of their experience, at the centre of what we do.

“Our aim is to move quickly to a position where our services are good or better for Bradford’s children.”

The improvement plan includes six different areas:

lThe lived experience and the voice of children;

l Improving the quality of social work practice;

l Improving the operating environment to create optimum conditions for success;

l Improving the Front Door and MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) arrangements;

l Improving management oversight and quality assurance; and

lImproving the sufficiency of placements for children in care.

Within these areas, there are 49 actions that the Council will take to improve, including improving the response to 16 and 17 year olds who present as homeless, improving the quality of supervision of social work staff and providing enough local placements to meet the needs of looked after children.

At Wednesday’s meeting, Mrs Rhodes White said: “We have to get to good, with a drive towards outstanding.

“There is good work happening already.”

Councillor Sinead Engel (Lab, Clayton and Fairweather Green), said: “It is clear from this report that there is an awful lot of change happening in a very short space of time.

“How is the workforce feeling about this upheaval?”

Mrs Rhodes White replied: “I think it is fair to say the workforce has slightly mixed feelings about all the changes.

“Some parts of the workforce felt very nervous and apprehensive, and slightly suspicious about what will come next.

“There are good intentions, but people feel the proof is in the pudding.

“We are waiting to see how these things take shape.

“Some staff are saying they have started to feel the change in culture.”

And Mrs Rhodes White drew attention to the changing situation in a part of the district where pressures had been felt previously.

She said: “In the Keighley area – for the first time – no social workers have unmanageable caseloads.”

Councillor Mike Gibbons (Cons, Ilkley) said: “Do you get the sense that staff are bearing with us?”

Mrs Rhodes White said: “Staff are now saying they are changing their mind about leaving and deciding to stay in Bradford. There are green shoots.”

Members questioned whether there was more the scrutiny committee could do to make sure the department was sticking to its improvement plan.

Mrs Rhodes White said the committee will be provided with regular updates on the progress of the plan, and would be given presentations on specific parts of the plan at future meetings.

Joyce Simpson, Church of England representative on the committee, pointed out that the committee had regularly heard from Children’s Service staff in the past, but that these were hand picked, and were often speaking about their experiences while sat next to their boss. She said it would be better if the committee had more choice on who they heard from at meetings, saying: “It will give us a much better chance to ask probing questions.”

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