Improving Children's Services 'like swimming through treacle'

But the Councillor who made the comparison said: “At least we’re swimming in the right direction.”

Work to improve the service was discussed at the latest meeting of Bradford Council’s Children’s Services Scrutiny Committee.

The Children’s Services Improvement Plan was put into place in an attempt to turn around the service that was judged inadequate in 2018.

The slow pace of improvement led to the Council service being placed under the control of a new Trust, which took over in April.

Committee members were told that there were positive signs of improvement, including an increase in permanent staff.

A reliance on agency staff has put Bradford’s Children’s Services under huge financial pressure in recent years – so news that 47 new starters had been recruited since April was welcomed.

However, this was offset by the fact that 40 staff have left in the same time period.

When asked if leavers were asked why they were moving on, Ruth Terry, Executive Director at the Bradford Children and Families Trust said: “Many of our social worker staff move on to agency positions. Others move because of family or because they are leaving Bradford. But the biggest driver is the move to agencies.”

She told members that recent data and responses from Ofsted showed encouraging signs of improvement, but added; “It is showing progress, but we are nowhere near where we need to be.”

Referring to the poor state of the service before the Trust took over, Councillor Jeanette Sunderland said: “God, we must have been awful for us to have ended up in this situation!

“We are seeing improvements, but we’ve still got problems with staffing. It is nothing to celebrate when we have 47 people coming to work for the Council when we have 40 people leaving.

“We still don’t have a steady financial footing.

“It is like we’re swimming through treacle. We’re swimming in the right direction, but its still swimming through treacle.”

She pointed out that Bradford seemed to have many more issues than other areas of the country, adding: “We seem to have more of everything. Whatever problems other places have – Bradford seems to have more.”

Mariam Haque, head of Children’s Services, said: “Bradford is a very deprived District, and deprivation with its own set of challenges.

“When you are the eight most deprived District and 38 per cent of your children are living in poverty it means there will be more issues in Bradford.”