Oxfordshire's children's services rated 'good' by Ofsted in new 2024 inspection

The assessment took place as part of the government’s inspecting local authority children’s services (ILACS) system and is not to be confused with a report criticising special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) provision last September.

The report includes a range of areas including children in care and care leavers, children’s mental health provision, the needs of children suffering neglect, ‘virtual’ school and education, young carers, keeping children at risk safe and child protection. See the full report here.

Inspectors praised the county council for a number of improvements across its services since its last inspection in 2018.

In this year’s report Ofsted judged the council’s children’s services as ‘good’ across all five areas of inspection criteria which are overall effectiveness, impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families, experiences and progress of children who need help and protection, experiences and progress of children in care and experiences and progress of care leavers.

Ofsted said: “The chief executive officer is ambitious for children and has a good understanding of the priorities for improving the lives of the most vulnerable children.

“Strong political and corporate support has continued and has ensured that the children’s directorate has received ongoing investment to develop and strengthen services for vulnerable children.

“The newly appointed permanent director of children’s services, together with political and corporate leaders, are committed to and ambitious for children and young people. They have a good understanding of what is working well and the areas for ongoing improvement.

“Additional investment has also enabled services to be developed and strengthened.”

The report said the experiences and progress of children and young people in Oxfordshire are good across all aspects of the inspection framework. Leaders have made good progress in addressing the areas identified for improvement at the previous inspection in 2018 and at the focused visit in 2020.

“The senior leadership team has experienced significant turnover during the past 18 months. The stability of longer-standing operational leaders and the middle management team has helped to maintain and improve the quality of service delivery during this period. Additional investment has also enabled services to be developed and strengthened. The newly appointed permanent director of children’s services, together with political and corporate leaders... have a good understanding of what is working well and the areas for ongoing improvement,” the report says.

Areas where the service needs to improve include

◼ Multi-agency arrangements within children’s and adult services to promote information-sharing, analysis of risk and planning for care leavers who misuse drugs and alcohol, engage in criminal behaviours and are at risk of, or are, being exploited

◼ The work, together with corporate leaders, to increase the range and take-up by care leavers of employment, education and training opportunities

◼ The quality of direct work with disabled children who are in care

◼ The timeliness of actions when decisions have been made for children to escalate to the pre-proceedings arrangements of the Public Law Outline

Spokesman Cllr John Howson said: “This result is testament to the incredible hard work and dedication of our children services teams, supporting and protecting some of the most vulnerable young people and families in the county.”