Oversight of Peterborough City Council children's services begins after authority told it must improve by government

Increased oversight of Peterborough City Council’s (PCC) children’s services officially began this week after the authority was told it was not “effectively promoting the protection of children”.

A new, independently-chaired improvement board met for the first time today (Tuesday, 7th November) to begin discussions about the council’s multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), which received a critical Ofsted report in May.

PCC began a full review of its child safeguarding arrangements shortly after receiving this report, which said that children in the city weren’t always effectively protected and were sometimes “left in situations of potential risk for too long”.

The council also drew up an action plan aimed at improving the service, which the board – led by former executive director of children’s services Sally Rowes – will ensure is fully implemented.

Improvement journey mandated by government

PCC was notified that this increased oversight would be required in August when the Department of Education (DofE) sent it an improvement notice requiring “appropriate and sustainable improvement” covering the areas of weakness identified by Ofsted as well as any more identified by its advisors.

The new board’s members include select councillors, council staff, representatives of local schools, representatives of Ofsted and representatives of the DofE among others.

Among them is John Gregg, PCC’s executive director of children and young people’s services, who joined the council in June.

Ofsted’s visit to the MASH this year was a short focused visit, resulting in a report without a full grading.

But the council anticipates an in depth inspection of all of its children’s services shortly, which will include one.

'Highly likely' children's services will require further improvement

Councillors quizzed officers as to what would happen if this inspection resulted in a negative outcome at a children and education scrutiny committee this week.

Cllr Katy Cole (Labour, Dogsthorpe), herself a primary school teacher, asked: “With children’s services waiting on a full inspection, will the outcomes of that likely feed into this improvement board?

“If it goes the same way as [MASH] did, will the improvement board be in place to make improvements for the whole of children’s services?”

She was told that the scope of the improvement board will be up to its chair and that it’s difficult to say at this stage whether any wider recommendations from Ofsted will be taken into account.

Cllr Samantha Hemraj (Labour, East), meanwhile, said that she believes it’s “highly likely that the whole of children’s services will need improvement”.

If a council’s children’s services are rated as ‘inadequate’ – the lowest possible rating – then further government intervention is likely, ranging from the issuing of an improvement notice to being directed to pass services over to a third party provider.

Children’s services at PCC were last rated as ‘good’ after an Ofsted inspection in 2018.