Children’s services staff at West Midlands council praised after Ofsted inspection finds 'significant improvements'

Staffordshire County Council’s children’s services were found to require improvement in an inspection in 2023, when they were downgraded from good.

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Concerns included a “lack of management grip and practice to safeguard children effectively including a lack of commitment to corporate parenting duties for care leavers”, a report to the authority’s latest Safeguarding and Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee said. 

Work has been taking place to address issues raised in the 2023 inspection, including the appointment of a new Director of Children’ s Services in 2024, and there has been investment in the care leavers’ offer and additional educational psychology roles.

The council has committed to investing an additional £5.5 million in children services, funding the equivalent of 119 new full-time positions in the next two years. Priorities include investing in front-line staff to reduce caseloads in social care and special educational needs, and to focus on early intervention to keep families together where it is safe to do so.

A focussed visit inspection of the “front door” service took place in December 2025. And the inspection results were discussed by the Safeguarding and Education Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday (March 10), where the report described “significant improvements in practice and leadership.”

Gemma Gerrish, assistant director for family safeguarding, said: “Ofsted visited us unannounced – they called us the week before and were on site with our staff on the 9th and 10th of December. This focused visit was very specific in terms of looking at our children’s integrated front door, where children are referred into the local authority for a response in terms of concerns for their safety or wellbeing, but also looking at our response to adults in positions of trust.

“This included thinking about children who are referred to the local authority, where we complete an assessment of those children and the management oversight of that. It also included thinking about the impact of leaders and managers including our out of hours duty response for children, and also whether our own evaluation of quality and practice was accurate and whether we understood our own performance.

“There was a real notable change in the leadership in children’s social care and social services, both in terms of operational and politically, in a positive way. They noted that the DCS (Director of Children’s Services Bernie Brown) brings a real vision and drive and that has led to real significant improvements.

“They could really see the changes that had happened and what that meant for children. They talked about change to corporate culture that had strengthened the effectiveness of oversight, and that there is a highly ambitious leadership team for children.

“It was also noted that leaders across children’s services had a much more accurate view of what’s happening for children, the quality of service, but also that realistic understanding of challenges that do remain as we continue on an improvement journey.”

Three key points were identified on what needs to improve however, the meeting was told. These included the evaluation of quality through audits and the quality of recording of initial contacts taken by the council’s contact centre.

Ms Gerrish said: “There are active plans in place to address this. They also recognise, particularly in relation to demand, the numbers of children allocated to our social workers was sometimes too many, and sometimes we needed to carefully think about the level of experience and capacity to meet the service’s practice standards where we had those higher caseloads.

“We’ve got some key significant things happening. Restructure internally (is) being progressed and the implementation of the national drive for the Families First Partnership and those social care reforms, which we really help with the lowering of caseloads and improving that consistency in terms of managerial oversight.

“The letter shows our staff’s dedication to making a difference. And it also hopefully shows we are well on our way in that improvement journey.

“(There is) always more to do, but we’re celebrating those successes. And we are likely to receive another Ofsted inspection; this will either be another focused visit on a key cohort of practice, could be a joint targeted area of inspection or it could be a full standard inspection.”

Councillor Nicholas Lakin, cabinet member for children and young people, called for a round of applause from committee members for the staff who had worked to deliver improvements. He said: “There has been a change in the management and structure taking place and the current situation is a lot better than it was before this administration came into office.”

Committee member Councillor Charlotte Kelly said: “I would like to congratulate you all. It is fantastic what you’ve done and how you’ve come this far in such a short amount of time is amazing.

“We can see there is some areas of improvement that they did find in there – I assume this is where your 2026 goals happen. When do you think we will see these improvements and when will we start to see that change?”

Ms Gerrish responded: “This is about our frontline staff who have been absolutely dedicated and committed. The improvements are relatively new and need to embed.

“In terms of key actions, they were already embedded in our improvement plan which we review on a regular basis. There is clear expectations within the next nine months in terms of restructure, to enable some of this change in terms of line of sight and reducing caseloads.”

Councillor Ann Edgeller said: “When you’re dealing with children there is always room for improvement, no matter what you do or how you move forward. We’re short of social workers and they’ve got too much work on their hands – what are we doing to improve that and get more social workers on board so they’ve not got as many cases to deal with?

“Can we also make sure that when a child’s got a social worker, they can keep that social worker for a while and don’t keep chopping and changing. For some children that is their friend, so they really listen to that social worker, and if you keep chopping and changing the children lose the bond that they build with them.”

Ms Gerrish replied: “We know we have an absolute need to look after the social workers we’ve got, recognise the hard work they do and also celebrate the difference they do make as well as recognise when we don’t get it right – and that’s a learning opportunity. We will be using this positive report in terms of recognising the progress made, and you will see in some of the adverts for staff we are on a really positive improvement journey.

“The investment we’re putting in from a restructure perspective to grow that front line is really important. Wherever we can, there should be consistency for a child if that’s appropriate – particularly for our children in care.”