Hendon Town Hall
Ofsted has published its findings following its latest monitoring visit.
The monitoring visit, which took place in January, is the second to take place since it judged Barnet’s Children’s Services to be in inadequate in July last year.
In its latest monitoring visit, Ofsted acknowledges that Barnet is “continuing to progress and consolidate recent improvements”, with senior leaders and managers “appropriately focused to improve and embed good quality social work practice”.
The visit focused on a number of areas of work, including the effectiveness of the council’s Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), and the quality and timeliness of certain assessments and management oversight and decision making of case work.
Last year the council established an Improvement Action Plan which it is currently working towards achieving. This plan sets out what needs to be done, structured around seven improvement themes, and is aimed at ensuring all the necessary improvements happen as quickly as possible.
Councillor Reuben Thompstone, Chairman of the Children, Education, Libraries and Safeguarding Committee, said: “The safety and welfare of our children and young people remains our top priority, and we accept that we have fallen short of the care they need and deserve.
“We are pleased that Ofsted has recognised that we are continuing to progress and consolidate the recent improvements we have made, but we fully acknowledge we still have a long way to go to bring services up to the standards expected.
“We will continue to concentrate our efforts on working to deliver our action plan and we remain completely committed to achieving the improvements we need to make.”