OPPOSITION politicians have reacted with anger at news that Bradford’s Children’s Services have once again been judged inadequate, with calls for Council leaders to resign.
The damning Ofsted report released today once again gave Bradford Council the lowest rating for its Children’s Services, and said in some ways the service had got worse since a similarly damning report in 2018.
After the report was published Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, Leader of Bradford Council, said: “We know that the pace of improvement in children’s social care services has been too slow since 2018 and fully accept Ofsted’s findings. Everyone is focussed on trying to speed up the pace of change.”
Councillor Rebecca Poulsen, Leader of the Conservative Group on Bradford Council said “This report is damning of both the Political and the Corporate Leadership of the Council.
“It highlights that since the last inspection over four years ago and throughout the seven monitoring inspections between the two Ofsted reports, the experience and progress of many children have declined.
“It is not the case that improvements have not been fast enough, they have gone backwards.
“This is despite huge amounts of funding put into the service. The report criticises the high turnover of social care staff and the impact this has on children and young people who have no consistency of social worker which negatively affects some children’s willingness to engage.
“This report is critical of many areas, specifically the lack of Corporate Leadership, a failure of Leaders to understand the scale of improvements needed and weak and inconsistent strategic planning.
“In having presided over four years of consistent decline, since Children’s Services were identified as already being inadequate, this report says the Labour Controlled Council has absolutely “failed to fully and effectively discharge its role as a corporate parent”.
“Every failing directly affects the lives of a child or young person in our District.
“Our children and young people deserve better and the Political Leadership as well as the Corporate Leadership of the Council are letting them down and it is high time that the Political Leadership of the Council showed some accountability and took responsibility for their failings”
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Green Party Councillors Green Party councillors have also called for the Leader of The Council to consider her position in light of the report.
Councillor Celia Hickson (Tong Ward), Deputy Leader of the Green Party Group on Bradford Council and the group spokesperson on Children’s Services said: "It is absolutely shameful that in the five years since the last Ofsted report we find ourselves in a situation where Children's Services in our City is still ranked as inadequate.
"Not only are improvements happening at a glacial pace, the report suggests that in some areas things are getting even worse.
"The one saving grace in the report for me is that Ofsted have seen that frontline social workers are committed to doing their best to children. We just need more of them.
“But whilst we wait for that recruitment to take place, there are children across Bradford who are still being failed. The start of the new Children and Families Trust really can't come soon enough.”
Responding to the claim in the report that, “corporate leaders continue to lack understanding of the scale of improvement required,” Councillor Matt Edwards (Tong Ward), Leader of the Green Party Group said, “It is absolutely staggering that after five years, Ofsted think that leaders at our Council still fail to grasp just how bad the situation in Children's Services actually is. This is a massive red flag.
"Ofsted have also said that this lack of leadership is one of the main reasons why we as an employer are struggling to retain staff. I am hopeful that with the new permanent Director of Children’s Services combined with the recruitment of an experienced Chief Executive of the new trust, we can see senior leadership make the improvements that are needed.
"Over the last five years we have seen changes in the leadership on the ‘business’ side of the Council but the political side is still largely the same. Many of the issues in Children's Services are the direct result of political decisions and I think that the Leader of The Council really needs to be considering if she is the right person to continue to lead our Council."
Liberal Democrat Councillor Jeanette Sunderland (Idle and Thackley) said: “I read the report with a huge amount of sadness, because Bradford is a great place, filled with great people doing really good things. But the people at the top, including the political leadership in the Labour group, has totally failed to get a grip of things.
“They are letting down vulnerable children, as well as every other child in Bradford. We are having to put so much money in Children’s Services other parts of the District are losing services.”
Last week she put forward a motion to improve scrutiny procedures in Bradford Council. The labour group put forward a watered down amended motion that was voted through. During that debate Cllr Sunderland described Children’s Services as the “canary in the coal mine.”
Referring to that meeting she said: “For Labour Councillors to vote last week to not change things is an absolute scandal. People should get into politics to do a good job, not fall into the party line.
“It sickens me to read in this report that it has got worse.”
She said there needed to be changes at the top of the Council, adding: “The Council needs a wholesale refresh of how it works. The canary is well and truly dead.”
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