PROGRESS is being made to improve children’s services across St Helens following an ‘inadequate’ rating back in 2019.

A report on the steps being taken to improve services in the borough came before the cabinet last week.

It highlighted a number of areas where progress has been identified by regulators.

Over the last 12 months, the council says there has been "demonstrable improvement" in a range of services as a consequence of targeting key areas of work.

Six areas of improvement focus have been agreed with the secretary of state for education.

These comprise improving permanency arrangements, continuous practice development and improvement, delivering people’s issues including recruitment and retention as well as staff development, delivering service improvement in particular edge of care as well as placement options, quality assurance/performance framework delivering improvements and early help.

In order to ensure sufficiency of progress, the authority is now subject to an ongoing review from the Department for Education intervention unit and regular monitoring by Ofsted – although much of this work has been affected by the impact of Covid-19.

Part of the report highlighted the progress made after the council received an inadequate rating for children’s services by Ofsted in 2019.

It stated that a number of improvements had been made including reducing the number of children in the council’s care, caseloads for social workers remaining consistent and increasing and fulfilling case audit figures.

Meanwhile, independent chair of the St Helens child improvement board Linda Clegg described the workforce as the council’s strongest asset in her latest feedback.

The report also sets out the next steps for the council to continue on its improvement journey, including greater integration for early help support for families.

Cllr Nova Charlton, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “Our journey of improvement continues and we thank Ofsted and Linda Clegg for their feedback on our current progress.

St Helens Star:

Cllr Nova Charlton

“Our entire organisation plays a role in transforming the way that we work but in particular the children’s services team who are doing a fantastic job not only dealing with the impact of a pandemic but also in supporting our transformation and it’s right that they are recognised as our biggest asset.

“We also recognise that there is much still to do to make sure that our children’s service is good but with a senior leadership team now heavily embedded and supporting the work we are confident that the improvement will continue.

“We have had a range of new policies to support our children’s services which have been approved such as the commitment to create new homes for children in our care in the borough and respite care for young people too.

“Measures such as these will help us to support families and young people in need of our help and give our children every opportunity to have the best start in life.”