Ofsted Inspection of Children's Services in Buckinghamshire Council

Ofsted recently conducted an inspection of Children's Services in Buckinghamshire Council, focusing on the experiences of children and young people receiving help, protection, and care from the local authority.

The inspection took place at the end of January and beginning of February 2025.

Leader of Buckinghamshire Council, Martin Tett said: "We are pleased to hear that the experience and progress of our children in care is good, and they feel settled and safe where they live.

Ofsted has also identified that since 2022, we have made progress in a number of areas including the positive and open approach of the workforce; the success of the transformation programme, and the timely response to children's needs. They also highlighted that we have made improvements in assessments; the effectiveness of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) service, where we handle concerns expressed about young people; and how we provide support for children missing full-time education. Stable relationships with social workers are now in place and there is strong support from the virtual school (an additional resource which supports children in care with their education). We were particularly pleased to see positive recognition given to the work of the MASH (the multi-agency safeguarding hub) in providing a swift response to children at risk of harm. 

Our fostering and adoption service have received particularly positive feedback around the diligent work on early permanence for children that have recently entered care and that our fostering placements are quickly matched and approved. Both services have seen an increase in people coming forward to either foster or adopt. "

During the inspection, Ofsted met with staff, partners, children and young people, care leavers, parents and carers, adopters and foster carers.  As part of the inspection, inspectors evaluated:

• overall effectiveness of the service
• the experiences and progress of children in need of help and protection
• the experiences and progress of children in care and care leavers
• the impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families

The inspection revealed several key findings and recommendations:

• The impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families: Requires improvement to be good.
• The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection: Requires improvement to be good.
• The experiences and progress of children in care: Good.
• The experiences and progress of care leavers: Requires improvement to be good.
• Overall effectiveness: Requires improvement to be good.

Councillor Tett acknowledged the need for further improvements, stating, "We know we still need to improve in several areas, and we are fully committed to making these changes. Our focus will be on enhancing management oversight, improving service quality for children at risk from neglect, refining transition planning for disabled children, addressing pathway plans for care leavers, providing better support for care leavers aged 21+, and increasing the engagement of children and young people in the corporate parenting board."

A detailed improvement plan to tackle these issues will be presented to Cabinet in September.

Full Ofstead report can be found here (external site) and young people can find out more about the report here (external site)