Hackney council has received a written warning from Ofsted over a decline in the quality of its children’s services in the last two years.
A “focused” visit to Hackney Town Hall’s children’s services, which are compulsory for local authorities who require improvement, Ofsted concluded that the council’s “quality of practice” had slipped.
Chief Inspector Kate Malleson told the council: “Too many children in too many cases are subject to multiple assessments and interventions, sometimes over several years, which do not improve outcomes for children quickly enough.”
“This means that a high number of children continue to live in situations of significant harm for too long.”
While in the majority of cases social workers have a thorough understanding about family dynamics, Ofsted found, inspectors found children often “wait too long for adequate help and protection”.
According to the report: “Improving children’s experiences was not evident in a significant number of cases.”
It said: “Thresholds are too high and decisions are too slow for too many children living in circumstances of pervasive neglect and domestic abuse, and they wait too long for adequate help and protection.”
Ofsted went on to say vulnerable women at risk of “exploitation and abuse to protect themselves and their children is not adequately understood or is overly optimistic.”
“In the most serious case example, this over-optimism led to the wholly inappropriate use of a safeguarding agreement for a very young mother who was at significant risk of harm herself.”
Ofsted last inspected Hackney children’s services in 2016 and judged them “good.”
Winston Morson, an independent social worker who worked for Hackney children’s services from 2010-2012, told the Hackney Post: “Over the last decade, local authorities have witnessed a double whammy of a decrease in budgets at the same time as an increase in demand for support.”
“These tensions need to be balanced, but the idea of any of these issues could be resolved without further investment is disingenuous.”
Ofsted requires Hackney Council to submit an action plan within 70 days to assure the local authority “is taking action with the urgency commensurate to the seriousness of the findings”.
The Ofsted inspection is the first since the announcement of Hackney Mayor’s Philip Glanville’s 2019 budget. Granville had said his third budget was the “most difficult”.
