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20/05/04 - Ministers encouraged by Council's progress

Today at a meeting of Cumbria County Council, Councillor John Mallinson, Cabinet spokesman for care and Social Services reported that the Chief Executive has received a letter from the Commission for Social care Improvement, stating trhat Ministers are encouraged by the Council's progress towards improved children's services. The letter states that Inspectors are,   

"encouraged by the amount of progress that has been made in Cumbria over the last few months and very much hope that this will be able to be sustained so that the children and families of Cumbria receive the quality of social care services that they have a right to expect."   

The letter comes after the Council successfully achieved the first steps to improvement oulined after Social Services received a zero star rating for performance last November.The Council successfully,   

- secured the services of an interim Chief Executive and started the process of recruitment for a permanent appointment 

- secured the services of an interim Corporate Director of Social Services   

- resolved the concerns surrounding accurate management information relating to the 543 children in our care   

- developed an acceptable action plan which is regularly scritinised by our regulators.   

Counnty Councillor John Mallinson says, 

"I am very pleased to report a positive start to this long term development programme. Unfortunately the benefits of this initial work will not have been evedent long enough to increase our performance star rating this year but I am confident that we can increase our rating in 2005. This Council is committed to this improvement programme and the support of vulnerable people and their carers. I believe that we have a committed workforce and can succeed in our long term aims."   

There has also been an unannounced inspection of children's services which concluded that staff were working `exhaustively' on improvement and that the initial stages of that improvement programme were evident to the inspectors.