Latest Ofsted monitoring visit

An Ofsted report following a fifth monitoring visit of children’s services this May, has found Birmingham Children’s Trust ‘has made further progress in improving the quality of services for young people leaving care’.

The report also noted children are benefitting from stable long term living arrangements, with further work needed to ensure outcomes are consistently good.

This is the first monitoring visit made by Ofsted to Birmingham Children’s Trust, after Birmingham City Council placed the delivery of children’s social care in an independent trust in April 2018.

Inspectors spoke with Trust social workers, personal advisors and a number of young people from the Birmingham Care Leavers’ Forum to review progress made in services to young people aged 18 who have left care.

The report noted that personal advisors know their young people well and are aware of and ensure young people have access to their entitlements.

It also found that:

• There is a continuing focus on reducing the number of young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)
• A new pathway plan template is a ‘significant improvement’ enabling young people’s views and aspirations to be better captured, although work is required to ensure these are completed in a timely manner
• There has been an increase in the number of care leavers in apprenticeships since the last inspection, and work-based taster days have been a success

The report highlighted areas for development, including the need to move to focus on quality over compliance, a greater understanding and use of reflection, and consideration of Special Guardianship Orders (SGO) for children in long-term foster care.

Andy Couldrick, Chief Executive of Birmingham Children’s Trust said: “We are encouraged to see that Ofsted is continuing to acknowledge that progress is being made, in this case with services we offer to young people leaving care and in long term care.

“As a Trust we benefit from having one focus – that of improving outcomes for our children, young people and families. We acknowledge there is still work to do,  but we are seeing tangible evidence of improvements after every Ofsted visit and I want to thank our staff for their continued hard work.” 

Councillor Kate Booth, Cabinet Member for Children’s Wellbeing at Birmingham City Council added: “As the newly appointed member responsible for overseeing the work of the Birmingham Children’s Trust, I am very pleased to see that children’s services in Birmingham continues to make progress on its improvement journey. It is encouraging to find that all social workers know well and understand young people leaving care and in long term care.  It is good to see that our social workers commitment in continuing to support our young people to develop both academically and vocationally has been noted.”

The latest assessment report is now available to view in full on the Ofsted website; scroll to 'latest assessment/report' - publication date 8 June 2018.

Download the latest Ofsted assessment