Continued improvements in Children’s Services to be recognised by Cabinet

The upward trajectory of Swindon Borough Council’s Children’s Services has been validated by three monitoring visits by government inspectors over the past year.

And the Council’s Cabinet will meet next Wednesday to discuss the progress made since the Children’s Services department was judged to be ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted last year.

Councillor Paul Dixon, the Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care, will formally present the outcomes from the monitoring visits in May and October to fellow Cabinet Members and share some of the positive comments from inspectors in several areas.

These relate to improvements to the services provided to care-experienced young people, how there is a more stable workforce and highlighting how most of the team are now permanent members of staff.

Inspectors also noted that the corporate partnership is becoming more effective and that the children’s commissioning team is identifying and servicing gaps in provision.

Councillors will also be told about improvements to safeguarding with inspectors confirming: “The family safeguarding model has become more embedded, and adult services workers have been recruited and trained in the model. This enables a joint approach, working alongside children’s social workers and practitioners to address safeguarding risks in child in need and child protection planning.”

Other positive comments highlighted by inspectors included: “Child in need and child protection plans are increasingly reviewed by appropriate managers. There is greater management oversight evident both at key decision points and on plans and conference reports. This is beginning to lead to an increasing number of children experiencing support from the local authority that meets their needs and reduces risks.”

And that: “Senior leaders are determined to improve services for vulnerable children in Swindon. There is positive engagement by both political and corporate leaders in the improvement journey.”

At next week’s meeting councillors will be told that the recommendations are taken forward following the receipt of each letter and added to service improvement plans.

The recommendations are then built into an updated version of the original Children’s Services improvement plan to ensure that the plan remains current and changed to incorporate any new findings.

The Children’s and Adults’ Overview and Scrutiny Committee also reviewed the progress made in the improvement plan in detail at its meeting held on 17 October.

A Children’s Services improvement board, is also meeting regularly and is being overseen by an independent chair and tasked with providing effective governance, oversight and challenge of the improvement plan and programme of work. This will ensure that all the recommendations outlined in the Ofsted report are responded to and the plan improves outcomes for children and young people in Swindon

Further Ofsted monitoring visits will continue every four to six months until a full ILACS (Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services) inspection is undertaken again, possibly in Spring 2026.

Councillor Paul Dixon, Swindon Borough Council’s Cabinet Member for Children’s Social Care, said: “I am really pleased we are continuing to see steady progress in Children’s Services and that Ofsted has recognised all the hard work that is going on to keep us on this improvement journey.

“We know there is more we have to do to improve practice, but we are committed to providing the services children and families in Swindon deserve.

“We have a robust improvement plan in place with regular oversight and challenge from the improvement board and sharing this progress with Cabinet and the Children’s and Adults’ Overview and Scrutiny Committee is all part of that process.”