TAMESIDE Council has once again issued a grovelling apology after yet another poor Ofsted report into its children’s services department.
The Government’s inspectors visited the authority after the service was deemed inadequate after it was looked at in December 2023.
Now after a second follow-up monitoring check in February 2025 found ‘a lack of stable leadership and clear strategic direction and a fundamental absence of grip on improvement activity,’ the authority has said sorry after a report was published on Tuesday, March 25.
In its latest findings, Ofsted essentially said it is not learning from its previous failings or doing it quickly enough – even the letters it sends it parents were criticised.
In some areas, things have got worse.
Their letter states: “The local authority has not ensured that improvements to the quality of social work for children in need, and those subject to a child protection plan, have been sufficiently prioritised or made at the pace needed to keep children safer and meet their needs.
“Weaknesses identified at the last inspection continue to be present in current practice.
“The percentage of initial child protection conferences held within 15 days has seriously declined, leaving some children without the necessary multi-agency safety planning for significant periods of time.
“There has been a lack of stable leadership and clear strategic direction, and a fundamental absence of grip on improvement activity.
“There is a serious decline in the timeliness of initial child protection conferences (ICPCs) since the last inspection.
“Some children wait up to 45 days for the necessary multi-agency child protection planning. This is due to several issues, such as insufficient communication between different teams and delays in the completion of reports.
“There is also little evidence of safety planning during this period and senior management oversight of the safety of these children is inconsistent.
“The quality of most assessments continues to be poor. Most lack depth and analysis is too weak to understand cumulative harm for children in the context of the current concern.
“Most assessments do not provide evidence of the involvement of professional curiosity, and do not always consider absent fathers.
“Most plans rely on parents completing tasks and do not sufficiently consider what is needed to mitigate the harm children have suffered or help keep them safer
“Children are not seen soon enough following reported incidents of harm, including by the out of hours service.
“There is not enough professional curiosity demonstrated during subsequent strategy discussions, and there is a distinct absence of safety planning.”
Even when homes are visited, Ofsted blasted them, adding they ‘still lack purpose, and the direct work which would help social workers understand children’s lives is mostly absent.’
They also say: “Critical decisions to remove plans are not always informed by detailed assessments, and reports provided to review child protection conferences are sometimes overly optimistic and focused on compliance rather than impact for children.
“As a result, some children live in long-term harmful situations and experience periodic statutory interventions without long-term change being secured or timely escalation into the public law outline (PLO).”
Training and experience, or rather the lack of it, for some social workers in communicating effectively with disabled children was also highlighted.
And the scathing summary – which also pointed out some records are not up to date and documents are missing, along with an over-reliance on agency workers – found: “Letters before proceedings are not good enough in quality.
“Many lack basic information regarding children and do not consistently articulate the local authority’s concerns, what actions have been taken to mitigate harm or identify what needs to change for children.
“Social work jargon is frequently used, which makes the content difficult for parents to understand.”
Inspectors did recognise the appointment of a permanent director of children’s services (DCS) in Jill Colbert OBE has provided a clear direction and “a better understanding of the service’s strengths and weaknesses.”
The letter also described new interim chief executive Harry Catherall as “bringing a renewed energy and focus on the improvements needed.”
But more needs to be done, much more.
In what could be seen by some as a depressingly familiar statement, a Tameside Council spokesperson said: “Tameside Council accepts and apologises for the recent findings that are outlined in the Ofsted Monitoring Letter from their second visit since December 2023.
“The safety and quality of care for children is an absolute priority and the council is aware of the changes that are needed to be made and have already taken action to address these.”
Tameside Council’s children’s services department dropped back to an inadequate rating in 2024.
The authority was rated inadequate after an inspection in 2016 but graduated to ‘requires improvement to be good’ in 2019.
Government-appointed commissioner Andy Couldrick blasted in a report, painting a grim picture, with staff describing the culture with the words fear, bullying, intimidating and toxic.
He also believed Tameside will not be able to maintain sustained improvement.
Mr Couldrick wrote: “Tameside MBC has provided poorly performing children’s services for too long. The overall picture is of an authority unable to effect sustained improvement over a considerable period.
“The council has neither enabled good services nor had mechanisms in place to spot service failure.
“It is my view the council currently does not have the capacity and capability to affect the necessary and sustainable improvements without oversight and support.
“The council, corporate and political, is quick to blame for failure – individuals, frontline staff, partners, advisors, Government departments.
“There is far less reflection as to its own role to enable successful service delivery, know how services are performing, deliver tailored corporate support, or recognise its collective accountability.
“Children’s services failure does not happen in a vacuum – high-performing councils deliver strong services.”
This latest verdict, however, is yet another blow with yet another apology.
Tameside Council’s executive member for children and families, Cllr Teresa Smith, said: “I’d firstly like to apologise that not all of our children and young people are receiving the quality and timely support they need and deserve.
“I’d like to reassure families in Tameside that our improvement plan is our utmost priority, where all of these findings have been addressed.
“I am working closely with our permanent director of children’s services and our strategic improvement partner, Stockport Council, to achieve the necessary improvements that ensure our children are safe, loved and thriving through consistent good practice.
“We are working hard to recruit permanent social care staff, whilst converting agency workers.
“We are keen to develop and grow our newly qualified social workers through our Social Work Academy, which will create the stability we need and robust training for the workforce.
“We are dedicated to nurturing a secure and thriving future for our children and families as we continue to put them at the heart of everything we do.”
Jill Colbert added: “I acknowledge the findings of the letter and find them helpful in that they confirm what we already know about the changes that need to be made and reinforce we are on the right track with our improvement plan.
“I am pleased to see the letter highlighted the progress we have made but we are disappointed for our families that there has not been more. We need to work at pace, and we need to get this right.
“We have reviewed our child protection work so that we address any safeguarding risks immediately.
“And we are working closely with partners to make sure that we provide effective support to children who come through our safeguarding front door.
“We are working towards our next monitoring visit, which will give us good insight into our progress as we build consistency and stability within our workforce and importantly for our children, young people and families.”