Councillor Lucy Smith, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services presented an overview of the findings from the recently undertaken Ofsted visit. An accompanying Ofsted Monitoring letter had been circulated to Members ahead of the meeting. The visit took place on the 12th and 13th of October 2022.
The Cabinet Member reported that this is the Second monitoring visit and the first to be published on the Ofsted website following Children’s Services receiving an overall judgement of inadequate on the 17th December 2021.
Recommendation(s)
1. That the findings of the monitoring visit be noted by Cabinet.
2. That Cabinet note the progress made.
3. That Cabinet note the breadth of assurance mechanisms in place to
support/challenge and scrutinise the impact of improvement activity upon outcomes for children and families and therefore recommend to Council that the requirement for Chief Executive provide verbal monthly updates to cabinet is no longer required.
Reasons for recommendation(s)
The headline findings from Inspectors indicate that the strategic approach and
improvement activity has delivered progress, though there is much more to do
to consistently improve outcomes for children and families in Bury.
There is a comprehensive assurance system around Improvement activity
both within Bury and via external Scrutiny from the DfE
Council agreed a motion on the 19th January 2022 requesting the Chief
Executive provide a monthly update to Cabinet on the progress of the
improvement plan. Cabinet is now asked to recommend to Council that this is
no longer required due to the range of other reporting mechanisms in place as
set out in the body of this report.
Alternative options considered and rejected
Consideration was given to whether to continue with monthly verbal update
reports to Cabinet however following review of the mechanisms in place to
track and share progress this was discounted.