The services to children and their families offered by Swindon Borough Council continue to improve.

The local authority’s children’s social services were assessed as being inadequate at a formal inspection in the summer of 2023.

A monitoring visit this summer said there had been improvement and another visit made in September this year has identified further improvements.

It said: “The actions taken by leaders are beginning to focus the council and their partners on the needs of care-experienced young people in Swindon.

“This change is recognised by workers and young people and is beginning to positively impact on services to care-experienced young people. They are supported well by committed local authority workers.

It added: “The workforce in Swindon is now more stable. The senior management team is permanent and the majority of workers are now permanent. Investment by the council into the leaving care service has seen increased capacity through the creation of an extra assistant team manager and an extra personal assistant post is beginning to lead to a reduction in the number of changes in workers experienced by young people.

“Young people have workers who are imaginative and persistent, which results in positive relationships with them. As a result, they know young people well and the important people in their lives.

However, the inspectors noted work was needed on life pathway plans with the young people in the council’s care: “Young people are involved in their pathway plans. However, plans do not involve either their family or professional support network. This means that plans do not identify or coordinate all areas of support for the young person. The plans do not reflect significant changes in young people’s lives.

“Most plans have actions that lack focus and are too general. This means that for young people, support planning is not wholly effective and not responsive to their changing circumstances.”

It also said: “Workers would be better supported with regular and positively challenging management oversight of their work.”

Councillor Paul Dixon, the authority’s cabinet member for children’s social care, said: “Our staff are striving to make sustained improvements to the services we provide to children and young people and I’m really pleased Ofsted has again seen evidence of this in practice.

“There are a number of positives in this assessment of the services we provide to care-experienced young people and separated migrant children, but we know there are areas where we could do even better so we will continue to work on those to bring about the necessary improvements.”

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