Ofsted: Thurrock children's services needs improvement

Thurrock Council's scrutiny committee will discuss the department next week

A children's services department, which whistleblowers allege "buried" failings over a child's death, still needs to make changes, Ofsted has said.

Thurrock Council children's services was inspected on 11-12 September, after being found to require improvement to reach a "good" rating back in 2016.

It comes after allegations emerged that mistakes had been made in the handling of a toddler's death in January.

The department's performance will be considered at a meeting on Tuesday.

In a letter to Rory Patterson, Thurrock's director of children's services, Ofsted said while there had been improvement in some areas. workload pressures were still "significant" in some teams.

It also states children needed to be given better access to advocacy services to feed their views back to the service and the quality of plans needed to improve.

However, Ofsted said there had been significant changes since the last full inspection including increasing social work capacity to cope with a rise in referrals and "greater responsiveness to the changing circumstances of children and families".

The visit comes after whistleblowers wrote to the council's chief executive warning that missed opportunities to prevent the death of a one-year-old in Grays had been "buried".

The council has said it takes its commitments to children "very seriously".