TAMESIDE Council has been told it must act as one after a ‘devastating’ report into its children’s services department.
But a suggestion by Andrew Gwynne MP to put the department into an independent trust has been slammed as ‘irresponsible,’ ‘unsettling’ and ‘unhelpful.’
And suggestions the ‘failing’ political leadership of the department by Cllr Bill Fairfoull has been ‘complacent’ and led to ‘shameful’ findings by Ofsted were taken on board.
The Government inspection body published its findings of a focused visit on the borough’s children’s services at the start of June.
Its grim reading led to a call from council leader, Cllr Ged Cooney, to get on top of the issue regardless of political persuasion, while Conservative Cllr Dan Costello believes Cllr Fairfoull should be under scrutiny.
Cllr Cooney said: “That report is devastating, we’ve got to accept that but we have to talk about how we move forward.
“We have to be transparent. It’s important that when we get things wrong that we accept that. There’s no point winning a political argument at the expense of children.
“I think and it’s important that we listen to criticism, we should. Some of the points raised are correct.
“The Ofsted report is independent and we accept every single criticism there and we’ll address that but we’ll only deal with it successfully as a collective.
“All the children are our children and we’d et them down. I don’t wish to be the leader who does that.
“We shouldn’t be frightened of sometimes accepting, ‘It’s not working, what do we do?’
“As a collective sometimes, other people have better ideas and let’s listen to them.”
Ofsted found the people responsible for children’s services are lacking in many areas and how new director of children’s services, Ali Stathers-Tracey, saw gaps straight away.
It states: “Before this visit, the new director of children’s services had identified that the current improvement plan is not fit for purpose and does not sufficiently address the practice improvements needed to improve children’s lived experiences or hold individuals to account for their role in bringing about these changes.
“She has commissioned an independent review across services to better inform ongoing service planning.
“The local authority’s self-assessment of the front door does not demonstrate sufficient insight into the areas requiring improvement and the service improvement plan is not focused on the right areas to improve outcomes for children.
“When children are at risk of significant harm, there is a systemic delay in the process for convening strategy meetings.
“For too many children, the risk of harm is not being considered quickly enough to agree actions and put in place safety plans to reduce risk.
“The response to some children at immediate risk of harm has deteriorated. Too many children experience delay in having their needs for help and protection promptly assessed and met.
“Too many social workers have high numbers of children on their caseloads, and this leads to delay in timely interventions in children’s lives.
“For some children, decisions are not made in the child’s best interests at the first stage of raising concerns and this means they experience repeated contacts over a short period of time, this results in different professionals intervening in their lives and them having to repeat their stories.
“Children and family assessments are limited in their effectiveness. They lack a robust analysis, do not consider all information about families or do not always include relevant adults, including fathers and wider family members.”
Mr Gwynne had a suggestion after the report was issued, move children’s services into an independent trust.
He said: “It just cannot be right that Tameside Children’s Services is allowed to limp on with considerable issues for another year when both neighbouring Manchester and Stockport are now rated as ‘Good’ by Ofsted.
“As a cross-borough MP how can it be acceptable that a child and family in the Stockport part of my constituency will get a much better quality of service to children and families in the Tameside part?
“Ofsted seem to have singled out the lack of political drive or understanding, together with corporate and operational failings in the department as the main blockage for change. That’s a big worry for me.”
“That’s why I’m calling on Tameside to voluntarily hand their children’s services over to an independent children’s trust.
“I will be asking for a meeting with the Children’s Social Care Minister, Will Quince MP, to urge him to take all steps necessary to assist Tameside to improve this key council service, because at the end of the day the current situation is letting children and families down.”
That statement, however, was met with stinging rebukes from Cllrs Cooney and Fairfoull. The former saying: “I think it’s an irresponsible remark. He’d probably be on Twitter late at night telling me something I shouldn’t have said or done.”
The latter added: “Despite suggestions, this council has no intentions whatsoever of taking children’s services into a trust.
“The suggestion has been very unsettling for members of staff and foster carers but language like this is unhelpful. There are some very, very worried people.”
Despite some changes already being made, a new Children’s Services Scrutiny Panel has been created, Cllr Costello believes the light should be shone on how Cllr Fairfoull has managed the department.
He said: “It feels a bit like groundhog day.
“This latest report makes clear the failings of political and corporate leadership. Where’s the accountability for the political leader of this department?
“The corporate leadership has changed but the political leadership remains constant. How can that be with another damning report? How can it possibly be defensible for him not to know his service well enough?
“It says when children are at risk of significant harm, the risk of harm is not being considered quickly enough to put in place safety plans to reduce this. This is shameful.
“This is the consequence of a complacent political leader.”