Services to children and families provided by Swindon Borough Council continue to improve, according to Ofsted.

The government watchdog rated the service provided by the authority as inadequate in July 2023 - the lowest rating before an authority is placed into special measures.

It has made two monitoring visits since that damning rating, and in the latest report from the second monitoring check, Osted says Swindon’s services continue to improve.

The letter says: “Swindon has continued to make positive and steady progress since the last monitoring visit in February 2024.

“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.

“Some inconsistencies remain in the quality of social work practice, but increased management oversight is starting to have some impact on planning for children. The senior leadership team has a clear understanding of where improvement is needed and what needs to change.”

The letter goes into detail about how much progress is being made.

It says: “Most children in need of help and protection have social workers who understand their needs and experiences.

Social workers establish relationships with children and parents, supporting children to remain safely with their parents, or considering other options if this is not possible.

Social workers develop a clear understanding of children's family support networks and how they may offer support to the children.”

It adds: “The embedding of adult service workers specialising in working with adults with poor mental health, substance misuse issues or where there is domestic abuse has strengthened the support that families receive in the family safeguarding service.

“Increasingly, planning for most children is well coordinated through group supervision. This supervision enables a thorough understanding of the child’s experiences within the family.

“Social workers in the disabled children teams are sensitive in gaining an understanding of the voice of the child.

“Their assessments review the whole range of children’s wide-ranging needs. This leads to comprehensive plans that support children to remain with their family when it is safe for them to do so.”

But it makes clear there is still work to do: “There is still variability in practice for a minority of children. Some recordings of visits to children and their families are comprehensive, and visits are at a frequency that meets children’s needs. For other children, visits are less frequent. Records do not always reflect the risks to children. Furthermore, records are not reflective of children’s experiences.

“A minority of children have experienced drift and delay in decision-making. This has meant that they have lived in circumstances for too long that are not improving quickly enough. Equally, for those children experiencing domestic abuse, there is an over-optimism as to whether parents have made significant change to their behaviours.

“Some children on child protection plans who have experienced cumulative harm do not have plans that are robust enough to fully address risks within the family. This results in plans being repeated and children left experiencing harm for too long.”

The council has recently appointed a new director of children’s services in Lisa Arthey and  has put together a new senior leadership team for the department and this is reflected in Ofsted’s letter which concludes: “There is a greater positivity being created by the visibility and approachability of the senior leadership team and more joined-up work within the council.

“This is supported by the embedding of the new model of practice and more stability in the senior leadership team, service managers and team managers in this part of the service.”