Issue - meetings

Ofsted Inspection of Medway's Children's Services - Update

Meeting: 14/01/2020 - Cabinet (Item 6)

6 Report from the Minister of State for Children and Families on Ways Forward for Children's Services in Medway PDF 420 KB

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Background:

The Cabinet accepted this report as urgent to enable consideration of the matter at the earliest opportunity (the next scheduled Cabinet meeting was due to take place on 4 February 2020).

This report provided the Cabinet with details of the report from the Children’s Services Commissioner appointed following the Ofsted Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) and in accordance with the statutory direction issued to Medway Council on 27 August 2019. The Commissioner’s findings were summarised in paragraph 3.1 of the report.

The report also provided details of a new statutory direction issued to Medway Council in relation to Children’s Services under Section 497A(4B) of the Education Act 1996. This was published on the 10 January 2020 and revoked the first direction.

The report explained that the Council would be directed to work with a Leadership Improvement Partner to drive forward the changes necessary to achieve the required standards in children’s social care. In addition, the term of the Commissioner had been extended for a further 12 months to oversee the development of a comprehensive work plan with the Leadership Improvement Partner. A review of the arrangement would be carried out at six and twelve months.

The report also noted that Ofsted was required to carry out monitoring activity including an action planning visit, quarterly monitoring visits and a re-inspection after a period of around two years. The first quarterly monitoring visit by Ofsted would take place on 18 and 19 March 2020.

Section 6 of the report provided details of the progress made since the inspection.

The Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee considered this report on 9 January 2020 and its draft comments were set out in section 7 of the report.

Decision number:	Decision:
	The Cabinet noted the comments of the Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee
	The Cabinet noted the content of this report and the improvement steps taken so far.

Reasons:

To formally notify the Cabinet of the outcome of the Commissioner’s Report.

To ensure Cabinet are informed of the feedback from the Children’s Services Commissioner and the Statutory Direction from the Secretary of State.