Annual Report focus on children’s social care

The children’s social care sector includes a wide variety of services, which are either residential settings, agencies or provided by local authorities. The services are mainly for children but include some for adults. For example, children’s homes provide direct care and support for children and young people under the age of 18, while adoption support agencies provide services to adults and children who have been adopted.

Ofsted regulates some types of social care providers and services and both regulates and inspects others. In its regulatory role, Ofsted is responsible for the registration of providers and for ensuring that they meet the relevant regulations and national minimum standards. In its inspection role, Ofsted evaluates the quality of services or provision to ensure they meet certain criteria.

The key findings from Ofsted’s Annual Report 2008/9 are:

Children’s homes
Children’s homes are inspected at least twice each year and the majority of the inspections are unannounced. There are no major differences between the quality of provision in homes run by local authorities and those run by independent providers.

The quality of social care is good or outstanding in around 64% of children’s homes - 58% that were outstanding at their first inspection remain outstanding in 2008/9 and 78% that were previously good have stayed good or improved to outstanding. The proportion of inadequate homes has fallen slightly, from 8% in 2007/08 to 7% this year.

Overall, Ofsted has set over 6,500 actions this year to ensure homes reach the required standards and made a further 9,000 recommendations to bring about improvement.

Residential special schools
There are 214 residential special schools in England. Ofsted inspects social care in residential special schools at least once a year. In 2008/09, the quality of provision is not as effective as it was last year, with 79% of the 198 schools inspected good or outstanding and 3% inadequate. The figures in 2007/08 were 89% good or outstanding and 1% inadequate. In inadequate residential special schools, safeguarding and organisation are the areas most in need of improvement

Fostering Services
Recent national data shows that 73% of looked-after children are in foster care. Fostering services are responsible for approving people to become foster carers for temporary and long-term care for children. Services differ in size; some independent fostering agencies cater for small numbers of children, while local authority fostering services may support placements of around 1,000 children and young people.

Almost all the agencies and services inspected during 2008/09 are at least satisfactory. Of the 34 local authority services inspected, 21 are good or outstanding, while 31 of the 56 independent agencies are good or outstanding. The majority of individual services inspected in 2008/09 have improved since they were last inspected.

Private Fostering Arrangement
A private fostering arrangement is one in which a child who is under 16 years of age (or 18 for a child with special educational needs or disabilities) is cared for for 28 days or more by someone other than parents or close relatives. These arrangements are usually made by a parent or another adult, but sometimes by the young person. Children that are involved in a private fostering arrangement can be very vulnerable, especially if the local authority has not been notified of the arrangement.

As part of the three-year inspection cycle, between April 2007 and March 2009, Ofsted carried out 102 inspections of local authority work in relation to private fostering. Only 3% of these inspections have been judged outstanding. Provision in a further 36% of cases was judged to be good and in 38% it was satisfactory. A very high proportion, 23%, was found to be inadequate.

Adoption services
As at 31 August 2009, there were 203 adoption services in England. Adoption services recruit, assess, prepare and approve adopters and make adoptive placements for children. They also provide support and help to children that are with adoptive parents, and to birth parents and birth families.

Of the 76 agencies inspected this year, 57 are local authority services and 19 are voluntary adoption agencies. In total, six are outstanding, 47 are good, 22 are satisfactory and one voluntary service was judged inadequate. Almost all of those inspected in 2008/09 have made improvements since their previous inspections. Around seven in 10 services inspected make good or outstanding provision for keeping children and young people safe; one was judged inadequate in this respect.

In 2008/09, Ofsted set over 100 actions for agencies and services to reach the required standards, and made over 400 further recommendations to improve.

Although there have been improvements in leadership, in most services quality assurance can be improved further. Strategic planning is weak in services that are no better than satisfactory. Specific problems include a lack of a permanent manager to provide advice and support; vacancies for fieldwork staff, leading to high caseloads for other team members; and overstretched support services for adopters.

Adoption support agencies
There are 48 adoption support agencies in England. Adoption support agencies do not make placements but provide tailored services to adults, families and children who are involved in the adoption process. They also help adopted children and adults, for example providing counselling or helping them trace their birth relatives. Adoption support agencies also help adoption agencies in preparing and training adoptive parents.

All adoption support agencies are regulated and inspected at least once every three years. In 2008/09, seven adoption support agencies were inspected. Two were found to be satisfactory and five provided a good service, based on sound principles of working in partnership and taking an open and honest approach.

Residential family centres
As at 31 August 2009, there were 50 residential family centres in England. They provide residential services for parents and their children to monitor and assess parents’ ability to respond to their children’s needs and to safeguard and promote their children’s welfare.

Centres can also provide advice, guidance and counselling to parents, who are sometimes young people themselves. Residential placements are usually arranged and paid for by the local authority and will sometimes be ordered through the courts. Ofsted inspects and regulates each residential family centre at least once every three years.

Of the 14 residential family centres inspected this year, three are good and eight are satisfactory, while three are inadequate. Most residential family centres are satisfactory or good in promoting children’s safety. However, where safeguarding is inadequate, centres lack basic routines to ensure that all families’ needs are well met.

This year, Ofsted has set over 100 actions for residential family centres to put in place so they can provide the right support to promote better parenting. We have also made 50 further recommendations for improvement.

Secure accommodation
Ofsted inspects the care and educational provision for children and young people in secure training centres and secure children’s homes. We also inspect educational provision for children and young people in young offender institutions and in immigration removal centres, where children may stay with their families for short periods

Secure children’s homes provide care and support for some of the most vulnerable children and young people aged between 10 and 17, either to help them tackle offending behaviour and attitudes or sometimes for their own safety. Care for children and young people is good in 14 of 17 secure children’s homes, a higher proportion than in 2007/08. However, in one home the quality of care has declined since the last inspection and is now inadequate.

Secure training centres provide places for children and young people between the ages of 12 and 17 who have been remanded or sentenced by the courts. In all four secure training centres, the quality of care is at least satisfactory; it is outstanding in one and good in two.

Education and training are good or outstanding in nine of the 11 secure children’s homes and secure training centres in which they were inspected. They are satisfactory in the remaining two. Young people achieve a range of qualifications and there is an appropriate focus on basic skills; however, activities are not always as challenging as they should be. Secure establishments report an increase of placements of young people with mental health problems but are not always able to access appropriate child and adolescent mental health services.

Cafcass
The Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass) is a national organisation, currently arranged into 21 service areas across England. Cafcass works with children and their families and then advises family courts on what is in the best interests of individual children.

The quality of service delivery is currently not consistent enough, and in too many instances, it is not of a satisfactory standard. However, recent inspection shows that Cafcass is taking seriously the scale of the improvements needed. It has restructured, introduced good systems for managing the performance of its workforce and is tackling long-standing issues of accountability. But there is still a long way to go before Cafcass consistently ensures high-quality outcomes for all the children and families who receive its service.

More details are in The Annual Report of Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills 2008/09, which can be found on the Ofsted website at: www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Annual-Report-2008-09 

The Children's social care summary can be found on the Ofsted website at: www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Annual-Report-2008-09/Children-s-social-care-summary

The Improving outcomes for looked after children summary can be found on the Ofsted website at: www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Annual-Report-2008-09/Improving-outcomes-for-looked-after-children-summary

The Main summary of the Annual Report 2008/09 can be found on the Ofsted website at: www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Annual-Report-2008-09/Main-summary

 

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