At the end of November, OFSTED published their Annual Performance Assessment of Children’s Services provided by Salford City Council.
It did not make particularly pleasant reading. OFSTED operates a grading policy with grades from 1 (inadequate) to 4 (outstanding). Salford’s Children’s Services did not achieve the top ranking of 4 in any category, and only 2 of the 8 areas were considered to be “good”. 5 areas were considered “adequate”, and most worryingly in the “staying safe” category the Council were considered to be inadequate.
This is a very disappointing report and even more so as it concerns services provided to some of our most vulnerable residents. These services clearly require urgent scrutiny, and it is therefore doubly disappointing that yesterday’s Childrens Services Scrutiny Committee was cancelled due to – unbelievably – a “lack of substantial issues for consideration”.
The story has been picked up in this week’s Advertiser – you can read their report online here. If you’d like to read the OFSTED report in full it is available on their website here (in pdf format).
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