The report, which noted ‘early signs of improvement beginning to emerge’ found:
- Children identified as at risk of harm receive prompt and appropriate responses with strong oversight and swift multi-agency collaboration
- Clear investment and support from the whole council for children's services
- High staff morale, stable workforce, strong peer and managerial support maintaining consistency for families despite leadership changes
The report also highlighted the following areas for improvement:
- Monitoring systems need to more reliably flag delays and support effective management decision-making
- More consistency in professional curiosity and threshold decisions needed
- Better recognition and response needed to patterns of concern when multiple or repeated requests are made for the same families
Since the ILACS report in August 2024, which found that the authority’s children’s services ‘Require Improvement to be Good’, Suffolk County Council’s children’s services have been on a transformation journey.
Cllr Bobby Bennett, Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s Services said:
“We welcome the report and opportunity to receive this focused visit from Ofsted. I am pleased to say that Ofsted’s findings were very much as we expected. The focused visit has demonstrated that we know our service well; we know our strengths and where we are making good progress, but we also know where we need to improve.
“As with any significant transformation, we know this will take time. We are where we would expect to be at this stage of our journey, and I am confident that we are moving in the right direction.”
The letter notes that leaders have ‘Strengthened Oversight’ of the service as a whole. This was a key area for development from the ILACS report, which is now considered a strength.
The letter continues: ‘Leaders have welcomed external reviews on services including the Front Door services and are acting on these findings’.
Work has also begun on an ‘Integrated Front Door’ for the service, which aims to provide a single, central point of contact for all children’s social care and early help services.
Information about children coming into the Local Authority will be centralised to enable swift, safe and consistent decision making. These changes will enable the service to consider children’s holistic needs in order to make decisions about who and how is best to provide support to them and their families.
Cllr Bennett continues: “We are using tried and tested methods and processes which we have seen working well in other parts of the country. The Integrated front door will not only make getting in touch easier for children, young people and their families, but it will speed up decision making and give us a fuller picture of the family, which will improve experiences and outcomes.”
Practice Managers from Targeted Early Help services (Family Support) have recently joined the service’s Integrated Front Door, Ofsted noted that ‘The recent involvement of Family Support Practice Managers in Front Door services is a strength. Their oversight promotes consistent threshold decisions and enables prompt transition to and from Early Help.’
