An improvement adviser appointed by the Department for Education says there remains “a lot to do” to fix Nottingham City Council’s failing children’s services. Ofsted rated the Labour-run authority’s services as ‘inadequate’ in 2022, and said children had been left at risk of harm because of the shortcomings.
An inspection identified eight areas for improvement, including effectiveness and timeliness of support for children, social worker capacity and consistency, as well as an oversight of children missing from education and those who are educated at home. An action plan is now in place and progress is being monitored by an improvement board.
Should the council fail to make necessary changes, an external commissioner could appointed. As part of the work to rapidly improve the services, consultants expected to cost the council roughly £6.5million have been brought in for two years, alongside specialist resourcing which comes at an additional cost of £2.4m.
