City’s children’s services rated "outstanding"
Brighton & Hove’s children’s services have been rated as ‘Outstanding’ by an Ofsted Inspection of Local Authority Children Services (ILACS).
An Ofsted Local Authority Children Services (ILACS) inspection focuses on the effectiveness of a council’s services across 4 main areas:
- the impact of leaders on social work practice
- the experience and progress of children who need help and protection
- the experiences and progress of children in care
- the experiences and progress of care leavers
The council was graded as 'Outstanding' across 3 of these 4 areas leading to the top grade for overall effectiveness.
Making a positive difference
Key feedback from the Brighton & Hove children’s services inspection report noted that:
- The quality of work is strong throughout children’s social care services and is making a positive difference to the progress and experiences of children and families in Brighton & Hove.
- Social workers know their children very well and talk about them with great affection, warmth and care.
- Children subject to child-in-need or child protection plans are helped by skilled and knowledgeable social workers.
- Most children experience continuous, long-standing and trusting relationships with their social workers, enabling them to make progress and to feel safe at home.
- Social workers consciously choose to work in Brighton & Hove. As a result, there are exceptionally low levels of temporary or short-term staff.
- Staff are drawn by the strong commitment to anti-discriminatory practice and the relationship-based practice model. They value the highly supportive, child-centred environment in which they practise and feel that the responsibility for children is shared.
- Management oversight is thorough at all levels and social workers value the individual and group supervision, within each of the small discrete teams.
- Social workers have manageable, mixed caseloads, reflecting the complexity of needs faced by the children, young people and families they support.
Areas to improve
The inspection noted 2 specific areas for improvement around the sufficiency of placements for children with complex needs; and ensuring consent was consistently gained and recorded when referrals are received at the Front Door for Families.