Significant progress has been made in improving children's services in Cumbria according to Robert Lindsey, Lead Inspector for the Commission for Social Services (CSCI). Mr Lindsey presented his report to the county council's cabinet today.
Improvements identified were in the following areas:
- Substantial investment has been made in children's services, most notably services for children with a disability.
- Improvements have been made in the management arrangements and commitment of staff
- Better systems and reporting are now in place
- Future plans for recruitment and retention of a skilled workforce are now in place
- Effective partnership to safeguard children have been set up
County councillor John Mallinson, cabinet spokesman for care and social services said:
"The highest priority of all members of this council is to have safe and robust systems in place to protect children in our care.
We have given strong support to our social services department, including an improvement performance plan and increasing the budget significantly over the last few years. This additional money has enabled us to meet existing demands and provide for more front line staff in social services. The plans to increase capacity have suffered through the problems with recruitment and retention of social workers. But here in Cumbria we have established new and innovative ways to gain additional staff and support our own care and family support workers through additional qualification training taking them to qualified social work status. This work has already reduced the number of improvement projects from 87 to 66 in the last three months. By the end of the next quarter we expect to complete a further 31.
This latest report has recognised the good progress being made and many of the weaknesses identified in the last inspection being addressed. With this continued support and investment, services provided to vulnerable children in Cumbria will improve further."
Councillor Tim Stoddard, Leader of Cumbria County Council said:
"I am pleased that this latest inspection recognises the work being done to improve the services we provide to children in our care and the scale and breadth of this improvement in such a short space of time. Although many improvements have been made we recognise that much more work is still to be done.
Because the next overall star rating for social services in Cumbria will not be published by the Inspectors until November, sadly social services still has a zero star rating. However, the success achieved so far should undoubtedly move us from a zero to a one star rating. As social services is a significant aspect in our overall audit commission rating we would also expect our successes in children's services to improve this rating.
This council is committed to the development of quality services for children and families in Cumbria. I am confident that the continued commitment of council members and dedicated officers, Cumbria can deliver the quality services that children and young people in Cumbria deserve."