A plan to improve Sefton Council's troubled children's service has been published.
The children's service - which works with some of the most vulnerable families in the borough - was rated inadequate earlier this year by Ofsted following an inspection which found children's safety was at times being put at risk.
A review was then carried out by a commissioner appointed by the Department for Education - who recommended a new commissioner be appointed to help oversee the changes needed at the service.
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That commissioner was announced last month as Paul Boyce, a former corporate director for children at Wirral Council.
Ofsted also told Sefton Council to submit an improvement plan for approval, which was sent to the education watchdog in September - although the details were not made public until this week.
With a meeting of the council's children's services overview and scrutiny committee set to convene next week the improvement plan has now been published and reveals the steps Sefton Council are taking in a bid to turn the service around.
The 36 page document, phase one of a long road ahead for the service, has a focus on four key "themes of improvement." These include quality, implementation of learning, tools and strategic partnership.
For each of the themes, there are a series of action points, listing milestones or activities the council must carry out as it takes steps to improve the experience of families in the borough, some of which have already been carried out.
In relation to quality, for example, the development of a social care workforce strategy, a targeted recruitment drive and moving all children's service teams into one place and the development of a social work academy are all listed as having been completed.
According to council documents accompanying the report, there are now 28 newly qualified social workers as part of the academy with recruitment underway for a further two.
Other tasks are yet to be started or remain outstanding, with some being listed as progressing but having "issues". These include around the recruitment of practice improvement managers, reviews into commissioned activities for children with disabilities and domestic abuse and planning for young people in the care of Sefton council.
Case file auditing, a review of the borough's virtual school offering and an action plan around partnership arrangements are also areas identified as having issues but also "plans in place to recover" while there are no actions in the plan listed as not being on track or at risk of not being implemented.
According to a council document accompanying the report, financial pressures are in place for the service, although the council has been earmarked £4m to support the implementation of a "family valued model" of which £447k has been paid out to date.
A further £300k grant was approved from the Department for Education for the development of the social work academy.
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