A watchdog has found children’s services in Rochdale have not made sufficient progress over the last five years and still ‘require improvement to be good’. Ofsted says the council must do more to address the ‘inconsistent quality of social work practice and the multi-agency response to some vulnerable children’, following an inspection earlier this year.
A new report acknowledges that the pandemic had a detrimental impact on the pace of improvement, while there has also been an increased demand for children’s services in the borough. These factors - along with some changes at senior management level - have led to bosses not having ‘a good enough understanding of the improvements needed’, meaning some services for children have not progressed, it adds.
While some improvements have been made since the last inspection in 2018, officials say these ‘have not been sufficient to improve social work practice overall and services remain inconsistent’. The report adds: “For some children, their experiences are poor. This has, in part, been due to the widely understood challenges of the pandemic, which has increased demand on children’s social care, along with subsequent workforce shortfalls.
