Nottingham City Council has enlisted the help of consultants at a cost of up to £6.5million to help improve failing children’s services. Children’s services at the authority were found to be leaving some children at risk of harm and were rated ‘inadequate’ by inspectors from Ofsted earlier this year.
The Government served the Labour-run authority with a formal ‘improvement notice’ after hearing of concerns raised in the inspector’s report. Now, Nottingham City Council has signed contracts with Newton Europe – a specialist in operational improvement based in Oxfordshire – to help deliver its improvement programme.
Support will be ongoing for two years, it was announced during a children and young people’s scrutiny committee meeting on December 1. At an Executive Board meeting in February 2022, councillors approved the plans to spend up to £6.5m to find a “delivery partner” and another £2.4m to support the internal delivery of the improvement programme over four years.
