A number of local residents from Herefordshire will share how they’ve been ‘damaged’ by decisions made by Herefordshire Council’s children’s services in a special programme aired by Panorama on BBC One this evening (Monday).
Louise Tickle investigates how social workers make critical decisions about children’s lives, and hears from families who have been damaged by decisions made by one local authority, which Your Herefordshire understands will be Herefordshire Council.
With more children in care in England than ever before, and the government about to publish a report on the deaths of two toddlers at the hands of their parent’s new partners, Panorama investigates how social workers make critical decisions about children’s lives.
Granted rare, exclusive permission from the family courts, reporter Louise Tickle hears from families who have been affected by decisions made by one local authority.
The programme will air on BBC One on Monday 16th May at 8pm.
More Details – BBC One – Panorama, Protecting Our Children: A Balancing Act
Read Herefordshire Council’s statement in response to the publication of an Ofsted letter following a recent planned visit of the children’s services department.
NEWS | Families in Herefordshire receive email ahead of Panorama broadcast into Children’s Services failings (Originally published on Friday 13th May):
A number of families in Herefordshire have received an email from Herefordshire Council this afternoon in relation to a Panorama episode that will be broadcast on BBC One on Monday at 8pm.
In the letter, Paul Walker, Chief Executive, Herefordshire Council apologises for the ‘serious failings that have occurred in Herefordshire Children’s Services over many years.’
He goes on to say that since his arrival in the position last year, that he has ‘taken these failings very seriously and made it my top priority to ensure we make the changes required, to ensure children and families in Herefordshire receive the help they need and are entitled to.’
Herefordshire Council’s Cabinet recently made a decision to invest £11.49m in Herefordshire Children’s Services.
Herefordshire Council Cabinet approved £11.49m funding at a meeting held on Thursday 31 March 2022, to support the ongoing improvements in Herefordshire Children’s Social Care Services.
The funding will help to ensure the council’s Children’s Services are adequately resourced and can provide a more secure and resilient service to Herefordshire children and their families in the future.
Corporate Director for Children and Young People, Darryl Freeman, said:
“The £11.49m investment provides us with security to support our significant and lasting improvements to Herefordshire Children’s Services.
“It means we will be able to offer our valued Social Workers a realistic workload, experienced managerial support and professional ways of working. It will help us to continue to build Herefordshire Children’s Social Care Services into a desirable place to come and work with a good work/life balance in a beautiful, family-friendly environment.
“Previous funding has already led to increased stability of our workforce, reduced caseloads for some staff, increased levels of personal and case supervisions, and increased frequency of visits to children and young people and their families. This additional funding will allow us to make many more changes, more quickly to improve our social work practice to support the children and families in the county that are most in need.”
From Herefordshire Council (Originally published in July 2021):
Ofsted has published their letter this week following a planned visit of our children’s services on 7 July 2021, in line with the inspection of local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework.
During the recent visit inspectors reviewed our arrangements for children in need and children subject to a child protection plan. They looked at a wide range of evidence, including interviews with staff, discussions with senior leaders and case discussions with social workers and team managers. They also looked at our performance management and quality assurance information and children’s case records.
Ofsted identified three areas for priority action:
- Address inconsistent and variable social work practice to ensure that children are the focus of assessments, planning and interventions.
- The frequency and effectiveness of case supervision and the monitoring of children who are subject to child in need and child protection planning.
- Shortfalls in case-holding capacity for social workers, including newly qualified social workers, to allow them to respond effectively to children in need of help and protection.
Inspectors recognised the significant changes recently made to the senior leadership for children’s services and stated the following:
“The new leadership team in place since March 2021 has completed a comprehensive critical evaluation of practice across the service. This team has begun to understand the challenges that need to be resolved in order to improve practice; they have accurately identified the necessary priorities for improvement. An improvement plan has been developed that appropriately addresses the concerns. This has corporate backing, including a financial commitment to support the improvement plan.”
Councillor Diana Toynbee, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Safeguarding and Corporate Parenting and Catherine Knowles, Director for Children and Families, shared:
“We welcome the findings of the report, Ofsted’s priority actions reflect those identified by the new leadership team. It was reassuring that Ofsted confirmed we knew ourselves well and recognised that our areas to improve have already been agreed through our newly formed, multi-agency, Children and Families Improvement Board.
“Our Children’s Improvement Plan forms the basis of the long-term vision and changes to Herefordshire’s children’s services. The delivery of this plan is monitored through the Improvement Board that is independently chaired by Gladys Rhodes-White, Department for Education Advisor, to ensure that real and sustainable improvements are made. This partnership approach will help to ensure that children are at the heart of everything we do and we support and help children, young people, and their families at the right time, in the right way.
“We are fortunate to have passionate and dedicated staff, managers, members, partners, foster carers and the children and young people themselves and we will continue to work together to achieve a Good Ofsted rating, but we recognise that this will take time.”
You can view the full Ofsted report for the 7 July 2021 visit here.
If anyone has concerns about the way they, or someone they know, have been treated by Herefordshire Children’s Social Care services, you can contact us at www.herefordshire.gov.uk/careconcerns or email CareConcerns@herefordshire.gov.uk
