Ofsted rates Peterborough council's children's services 'Inadequate': What went wrong and how will authority improve?

Peterborough City Council’s (PCC) director of children’s services is “optimistic about the future” despite Ofsted rating the provision ‘Inadequate’.

John Gregg, who joined the council’s executive team in summer last year, says that “more money is going into children’s services, reflecting the Ofsted judgement” which will help ensure improvements are made.

Regulators said that “there has been a deterioration in the quality of practice and in the experience and progress of children and young people” in Peterborough since the service was rated ‘Good’ in 2018.

They were particularly critical of the council’s offer for young people leaving care, with a “small but significant” number ending up sofa surfing for short periods or living in BnBs.

What went wrong?

Asked what had gone wrong with the service – which is aimed at supporting children who require safeguarding, social work or social care placements – Mr Gregg said that it has seen an increase in volume and complexity of cases in recent years.

He added that “some of the challenges that we’ve identified have been as a result of being a Cambridgeshire–Peterborough shared service”, but that the council is now able to “focus on Peterborough families and Peterborough children” after parting ways with Cambridgeshire County Council (CCC) last year.

Council will partner with housing charity

Mr Gregg also laid out some of the initiatives he says will bring about much-needed improvement.

The council plans to enter a partnership with The National Housing Project, he said, a charity that supports care leavers into independent living and will also ensure that they’re given priority access to housing.

It will increase capacity in its care leavers’ team, he continued, and invest further in staff and their learning and development and update internal processes and protocols.

As mentioned in PCC’s current budget, it will do this in part by setting up a new social care academy to support newly-qualified social workers and ensure their caseloads remain manageable.

In the long-term, Mr Gregg said he would like to see a 'Youth Strategy' implemented across the city to make it more child-friendly, but that “in the short term we’re going to have to prioritise the improvements that are required to our statutory provision”.

Selling children’s centres ‘won’t impact outcomes’

Asked whether the possibility of selling off children’s centres and other buildings which support youth clubs runs contrary to that goal, he said: “I don’t believe that any of the decisions that are being made in relation to how we manage our estate will impact outcomes for children.

“I know there are discussions that are ongoing with a number of organisations to identify alternative provision to allow them to continue, albeit while allowing the local authority to manage its resources to best effect,” he added.

PCC is currently combing through its assets to identify which should be sold or repurposed to save money and which should be retained, with updates on this effort expected this week.

Corporate parenting committee to be reviewed

The council has also said that it has agreed to a Local Government Association (LGA) peer review of its corporate parenting committee, populated largely by PCC councillors, to ensure improvements in oversight of children’s services.

Ofsted said that this committee “has not been effective in ensuring that improvements for children in care are driven forward, or that issues leading to the decline in performance for care leavers are addressed”.

Mr Gregg has promised that future Ofsted reports will be more positive about children’s services at PCC.

“We will get to a position where we provide good outcomes for all our children; I’m very confident about that,” he said.

PCC has 70 days to submit an improvement plan to regulators after their judgement. It will also undergo a period of monitoring.