Wigan children’s services "improving" – one year on from damning Ofsted findings

A recent visit from the regulator found that since the “Requires Improvement” rating was slapped on the council back in July 2022, the local authority has “identified appropriate priority areas for improvement in children’s services.”

Following May’s second visit, Ofsted found the council’s recruitment strategy has helped provide skilled and committed social workers to their ranks.

After the disappointing rating last year, the council also invested in retaining staff partly by creating an additional academy team which is trained up in-house.

The recruitment drive helped fix staffing issues blamed for problems highlighted by Ofsted last year, the council claimed. Previously, the service had been overreliant on agency staff, which usually comes at a higher cost.

“Systems and processes have been strengthened and risk of harm is recognised promptly, which ensures that the majority of children receive an appropriate level of support at the right time,” the Ofsted report, read. “There is continued strong corporate and political support for children’s services in Wigan, including substantial financial investment.

“This has enabled senior leaders to respond proactively and creatively to workforce challenges, such as increasing the number of managers and social workers at the front door, which is having a positive impact on practice. The introduction of a new Early Help Development Team means that children and families in Wigan are now receiving earlier help and support to meet a range of complex needs.”

The report’s positive nature is in stark contrast with what inspectors wrote last year. Then they found responses to domestic abuse concerns “not sufficiently robust” and the “immediate risk of harm” to children was “not as quick as it could be”.

The council said underfunding and staff shortages were the cause of the “Requires Improvement” grade – which is why they have since invested heavily in the service. Despite the council raising taxes in order to reduce their budget deficit, a £37.5m programme to continue to overhaul the council’s children’s services department was included in the financial plan going forward.

Children’s services director Colette Dutton said: “We are pleased that this visit reflects the improvements that we have worked to embed, since our Ofsted visit just over a year ago. With a strong vision for how we want our Children’s Services to operate and a transformation plan to get us there, we have made a substantial investment in and worked to support our staff who are the backbone of everything we deliver.

“Our workforce strategy has been key to our success in attracting both experienced and newly qualified social workers and I am truly delighted at the feedback our staff gave during this visit.”

Giving examples of staff feedback from the report, Ms Dutton highlighted: “Staff were unanimously positive when speaking with inspectors about working in Wigan…they are well-supported by managers and leaders at every level’ and that ‘they feel valued and listened to and told inspectors that senior managers collaborate with them to find better ways to improve outcomes for children.

“Our journey is not over; this is a very welcome step on the road and I know we will continue to improve and deliver a safe, efficient and effective service for children and families in our borough.”

Two points for improvement were offered in the report written by inspectors Teresa Godfrey and Kathryn Grindrod. The "consistency of quality and the robustness of management oversight and effective screening in the hub” and “the recording of the rationale for decision-making concerning parental consent” were both seen as areas the council could progress.

Despite this latest report being largely positive, the Ofsted rating of the council’s service for children has not changed as this was only a focused visit and not an inspection. Inspectors did state that this report would be taken into consideration at the next full inspection.