Children services praised in Cornwall

Cornwall Council has been praised by Ofsted for the radical turnaround of it’s children services.

Since intervention between 2009 and 2013, the council has progressed in almost all areas and received a ‘Good’ rating in its latest inspection, placing it within the top 25 per cent of children’s services in the country that have been inspected under this tougher new inspection framework.

Within the report, Ofsted gave particular praise to a ‘stable and dedicated senior management team’ and singled out Trevor Doughty, director of children’s services for the council, for his work in implementing ‘systemic change to services’.

Doughty said: “The chief inspector for Ofsted is on record for deliberately making it much more difficult for children’s services to achieve a ‘Good’ rating. This is reflected in the fact that over 73 per cent of local authority children’s services inspected under the new regime have been rated either ‘Inadequate’ or ‘Requires Improvement’, with just 12 per cent of the 90 authorities whose reports have been published during this period improving to ‘Good’. In Cornwall we see this raising of the bar by Ofsted as tough for us but good for children.”