Funding of £342k to improve city children's services

The funding will "support the service move from inadequate," said Nottingham City Council

More than £342,000 of government funding will be spent on improving Nottingham City Council’s children’s services.

The department was rated Inadequate following an Ofsted inspection in July 2022.

A number of improvements have since been made, says the council, however, the latest monitoring visit from the service’s watchdog noted some children were still being impacted by high staff workloads.

The council said in new report: “The funding has been allocated to support the service move from inadequate to delivery of good quality services for children and families."

High workloads

The Local Democracy Reporting Service said according to the new report, the council has been successful in securing a grant from the Department for Education totalling £342,752.

Of this, £86,000 will be spent on an improvement specialist job role, £130,000 on a children’s case management IT system, £92,000 on learning to ensure practice is consistent and continually improves, and a further £35,000 on training for staff.

The report said the improvement specialist had been funded by the government before, and helped the council prepare for monitoring visits and embed “consistently good strengths-based social work practice”.

Ofsted’s report, detailing the findings from its fifth monitoring visit, was published on 2 September.

Inspector Margaret Burke praised the work environment and said staff enjoyed working for the council, but noted some workers still have high workloads.

“Workers and managers attempt to juggle and balance continuing workload pressures,” Ms Burke said.

“At times, this has impacted on a small number of children, affecting the quality and timeliness of work with them.”

Ofsted went on to praise the council’s commitment to improving children’s services despite ongoing financial challenges.

It said the changes made to the council’s senior leadership structure, to create two new service director roles, will help to prioritise adults and children’s services.

Ofsted says the separation of adults and children’s services has “enabled greater energy to be focused on developing services for children”.