Hull City Council children's services improving, watchdog finds

A council's children's services have seen improvements leading to better outcomes for young people, watchdog inspectors found.

Hull City Council's children's services, rated as "inadequate" in 2019, have moved up to a grade of "requires improvement", Ofsted said.

It highlighted the appointment of a new director in late 2020 as a key move.

But a report said some areas of concern highlighted in a previous inspection were yet to be fully addressed.

The local authority department was inspected from 14-25 November and was praised for having a "stable and experienced" senior leadership team "focused on improving children's lived experiences".

The report acknowledged Hull City Council was struggling to recruit sufficient permanent social workers "like many local authorities across the country", with an impact on capacity.

Inspectors were concerned that managers in agency teams were not as accountable as the rest of the service, resulting in inconsistencies and "a small number of children at risk of significant harm".

Other findings included:

• Most social workers "know their children well"
• Children's assessments, including children with disabilities, are of "variable quality"
• Most decisions for children to come into care are "timely", with the majority of children in care making progress
• Strategic partnerships with health, education and legal services have been strengthened

Ofsted graded the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers as "good".

Pauline Turner, director of children's services, called the judgement a "stepping stone" towards further progress.

"We will continue on with developing the service with the ambition of delivering good and outstanding services for the children of Hull," she said.

"I am proud of the staff who have undertaken a huge programme of change, alongside the impacts of Covid."

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