TAMESIDE Council’s children’s services department has once again been savaged by the man brought in to oversee its improvement.
Government-appointed commissioner Andy Couldrick believes a year to make significant improvement has been ‘lost’ because of ‘profound weaknesses.’
He also described an ‘apparent acceptance that inadequate service is acceptable’ as ‘the Tameside way.’
Also, the legacy of a ‘bullying’ and ‘toxic’ culture in the department he previously described still exists.
Mr Couldrick will deliver his first verdict after being brought in for three years at a meeting of the children’s services scrutiny panel on Wednesday, June 18.
And he pulls no punches in what he has found – including how it affects partner authority Stockport – and what he feels needs to happen.
In his report, he states: “Children’s services continues to be poorly served by corporate support services.
“There are weaknesses in the council’s seemingly fragile and archaic ICT infrastructure, along with an apparent acceptance that inadequate service is acceptable and ‘the Tameside way’ (for example an acceptance of inadequate Wi-Fi coverage, leading to offices used by Stockport having no Wi-Fi, hampering their ability to operate efficiently).
“The legacy of poor leadership at every level, front-line and strategic, and the profound weaknesses in the council’s support services and the work of multiagency partners across the system, means that a year has, in effect, been lost without any significant improvement taking place.
“The legacy of the toxic, bullying culture, in the council and in Children’s Services, is diminishing but has not yet disappeared, and there is still fear and anxiety in the workforce.
“There is a legacy of a bullying culture, quite stark in certain parts of the service and this has bred a level of fear and anxiety in the workforce that makes speaking out difficult.
“Staff have felt it necessary to go to some lengths to ‘hide’ their conversations with me as commissioner, having been warned against speaking to me.”
Since Mr Couldrick was brought in, he admits he has faced ‘an extended period of churn and instability, as a council and within its Children’s Services.’
That includes a new leader, Cllr Eleanor Wills, interim chief executive, Harry Catherall MBE, and executive cabinet, along with the director of children’s services.
Jill Colbert OBE has been brought into the latter position but the commissioner, who even refers to the Trigger Me Timbers WhatsApp group scandal, adds: “Progress in Tameside has been slow and is very limited.
“The scale of change and turbulence in leadership roles has not enabled the conditions for improvement to thrive, and a lack of leadership until January combined with ongoing churn in the workforce at every level have mitigated against improvement.”
Figures included in Mr Couldrick’s report highlighted the scale of the challenge faced to improve children’s services in Tameside.
Two Ofsted monitoring visits and the first evaluative ‘sprints’ led by Stockport Council have seen 33 practice and impact reviews carried out.
Of those, 36 per cent were deemed inadequate, 49 per cent as requires improvement and just 15 per cent as good.
He adds: “It should be noted that the first two sets of reviews invited Tameside to select the cases, therefore the picture is likely to look more positive than it is.”
A list of issues, including assessments lack depth and rigour, risk assessments insufficiently informed by evidence from partner agencies, timeliness and prompt action often absent and frequent changes of social worker are also listed.
Tameside Council has also been told to focus its children’s services scrutiny panel’s aims more, so specific issues ca be targeted.
Mr Couldrick continued: “For the next year, I would like to see scrutiny focus on a limited number of critical improvement areas, agreeing with officers a manageable agenda with manageable demands for detail and papers, rather using and scrutinising papers prepared for other boards (improvement board, SEND local area partnership board, the safeguarding partnership etc.)
“The new director of children’s services has made a good start and has been highly visible and engaged with the workforce.
“Sustaining this will be critical. The organisation has had a succession of leaders, initially highly visible but then effectively disappearing from view.
“They and the council face significant challenges. Improving children’s social care while leadership support is so depleted is a hard task. The paucity of corporate support services makes this harder.
“Over the next six months I would hope to see improvements in the following areas, led by the designated safeguarding partners:
“Increased, evidence-informed, confidence in the functioning of the MASH.
“Assurance that the appropriate agencies (including health, education) are appropriately resourced and represented in the MASH, with real clarity of roles and responsibilities.
“An embedded, shared and understood threshold policy that supports assurance that children’s needs and risks are being addressed in the right part of the system for the right length of time and for the right reasons.
“Stronger oversight of the effectiveness and impact of multi-agency child protection practice, actively seeking assurance that episodes of repeat harm for children with a child protection plan are reducing.
“Oversight of an agreed multi-agency performance data set that provides accurate intelligence as to the system’s efficacy in safeguarding children.”
Mr Couldrick does, however, see reasons for hope – as long as children’s services is backed up.
He states: “There are grounds for confidence that improvement across children’s services will begin to be increasingly evident in the coming months, and that future updates will be more positive than this one has had to be.
“For outcomes for Tameside’s most vulnerable children and young people, and their families, to improve sustainably, then improvement in children’s services will need to be matched by necessary improvement in two areas – the council’s support services, those corporate services that should enable delivery services to operate efficiently and effectively need to undergo significant improvement.
“Secondly, the partnership for children and families in Tameside needs reform and improvement.”
Tameside Council Executive Member for Children and Families, Cllr Teresa Smith said: “As a council, we welcome the latest Commissioners Update Report and although this was a private report, we wanted to make this public to be fully transparent and include everyone in our Children’s Services improvement journey. The report recognises that while we are still in the early stages, positive steps have been taken – we are particularly encouraged by the report’s view that there are clear grounds for confidence that progress across Children’s Services will become increasingly evident.
“There are already signs of meaningful change, including a strong start in resetting the culture within our workforce—an essential foundation for delivering the best outcomes for children and families. Our Director of Children’s Services, Jill Colbert OBE, has been commended for her visible and engaging leadership, which is helping to rebuild trust and strengthen relationships.
“We continue to make progress through close collaboration with our Strategic Improvement Partner, Stockport Council, and by investing in a stable and permanent leadership team. It is fair to say that recent changes in leadership have slowed our progress over the last year and so I’m pleased that we have now appointed to seven permanent senior positions within the service which is a significant step towards our long-term stability and capacity.
“We fully acknowledge that further improvements are needed, and I’m pleased the report acknowledges our commitment to work collaboratively with families and partners to achieve that. Our focus remains firmly on delivering safe, high-quality services for children and families in Tameside and I’d like to thank our staff for their hard work and commitment as collectively, we build a Children’s Services