Dudley children's services blasted: Council boss says sorry over 'inadequate' department

An inspection by the schools and children's services watchdog flagged up long-standing, systemic failings across the department.

Government commissioner Eleanor Brazil was yesterday appointed to help get children's services up to scratch, with a three-month remit to review the department's performance.

If improvements are not made in that time children's services in Dudley could be taken over by the Government.

In a frank appraisal of the council's children's services, Ms Norman, who joined the authority in January 2015, admitted serious work has to be done to get the department back on track.

However, she said the authority has already recognised the need for improvements and had got these under way.

Ms Norman said: "When I joined Dudley Council last year it was immediately apparent to me that there were serious problems in children's services.

"We brought in outside experts to review practices and that was quite a hard-hitting piece of work. None of this is a surprise to me but obviously it's very disappointing.

"The inspection result very much confirmed the results of our own self-assessment.

"I can only apologise to the children, young people and families in Dudley that the services aren't good enough."

The Ofsted report is critical across the board, with inadequate ratings for 'children who need help and protection', 'children looked after and achieving permanence', 'adoption performance', and 'leadership, management and governance'.

'Experiences and progress of care leavers' is rated as requiring improvement.

The report states: "There are serious and widespread failures in the services provided to children and young people who are in need of help and protection and who are looked after in Dudley.

"The local authority has been aware of the deficits for some time, but has not taken sufficiently swift or robust remedial action to ensure that the most vulnerable children and young people are protected."

A shortfall in the number of social workers is one of the many areas that needs to be resolved, according to the report, which says some vulnerable youngsters had to wait for three months to have contact with a social worker.

This says: "At the time of the inspection, 33 children and young people did not have an allocated social worker.

"Some had been waiting for as long as 17, 25 or 29 days and up to three months, so were without purposeful statutory involvement to assess and meet their needs."

The performance of councillors also comes under fire in the hard-hitting report, which says 'many aspects of political leadership are weak'.

This has led to calls for the heads of former cabinet member for children's services Councillor Tim Crumpton and council leader Pete Lowe by their political opponents.

Conservative group leader Councillor Patrick Harley said: "This report backs up what myself and other colleagues have been saying for several years that children's services were poorly run with a lack of leadership shown by the controlling group. At the same time from 2012 until July last year the cabinet member for that period showed a clear lack of understanding as to what was going on around him.

"He and he alone must accept that all along he was wrong."

The war of words continued with the comments of UKIP MEP and Sedgley ward Councillor Bill Etheridge.

"I am sickened by the findings of this report and demand that those responsible for these failures do the honourable thing and for the sake of vulnerable children go."

Councillor Lowe said the welfare of children should come before party politics.

He said: "Issues such as this should be way above party politics.

"The improvement panel I set up soon after I became leader had cross party support - so there are representatives from both the Conservatives and UKIP.

"They've been fully informed at each and every stage.

"This should be about putting the interests of our children at the absolute forefront of things - not the interests of political parties."

"Corporate parents have failed to discharge their responsibilities to children and young people looked after and care leavers," the report states.

"In addition, scrutiny by elected members is significantly underdeveloped despite the very recent efforts of officers to arrange support via the Local Government Association.

"Scrutiny does not offer robust challenge to the council about the effectiveness of services for the most vulnerable children and young people in Dudley."

Ms Norman said she fully accepted the findings of the report and warned it could take 'months' to make the needed improvements.

"One of the positives from the report was that it's very clear that the steps we've taken since April 2015 have really started to make a difference, particularly since the new senior management team was appointed," she said.

"We haven't been slack in making progress over the last 12 months - we've worked at pace to make these changes but as the report says, the weaknesses are deeply rooted and long-standing, so it will take time.

"I think from the experiences of other councils this will take a number of months.

"We started this work in spring last year and some improvements have already taken place, but not nearly enough."

This is backed up in the inspection report, which says 'senior leaders are now making concerted and appropriately focused efforts' to improve the service.

In the worst case scenario, the department could be taken over by outside bodies.

But Ms Norman said she is confident working closely with Ms Brazil for three months will ensure running children's services is not taken out of the authority's hands.

She said: "It's possible that the Government could decide to take children's services away from Dudley Council.

"We want to work very constructively with the Commissioner and we believe that the improvement work has already started and that is recognised in the report. I would be very surprised if any enforced change is necessary - I'm sure we can find a way forward."