Barnsley Council to improve service for care leavers and praised for investment into its young people

Ofsted visited Barnsley Council in January to inspect its service for care leavers, and praised the council’s senior leadership team and its ‘significantinvestment’ into the service.

They found that most youngsters leaving care are “living in suitable and safe accommodation”, and encouraged into education, training or employment.

However, the council was told it needs to improve in a number of areas, including providing earlier opportunities for care leavers to build relationships with personal advisers; managing workload capacity; and regular reviews when young people’s circumstances change.

Inspectors found that personal advisers were ‘not spending enough time building strong relationships with young people’, as they are only allocated after a service user’s 18th birthday.

Barnsley Council say they are on the path to rectifying this, to provide personal advisers when a young person turns 16.

The inspection report adds that the service does keep in touch with youngsters leaving care, but the approach is ‘often piecemeal, with youngpeople visited by a number of different social workers and personal advisers, making it harder for care leavers to sustain meaningful relationships’

It states that staff sickness and high caseloads compound these issues, and that some young people had ‘had not seen a PA for a long time, or were unsure if they were still receiving a PA service’.

The report, which was published today (March 1), praised the leadership team in children and young people’s services, adding that they ‘know their services well. They were highly receptive and responsive to feedback throughout the inspection process.’

Barnsley Council implemented a plan to improve its care leavers service in November, which includes a one off investment of £6.5m, and £2.5m funding per year.

Barnsley, like councils across the country, is facing a ‘significant workforce crisis’ – Ofsted warned in its end of year report that recruiting and retaining staff are ‘the biggest challenges in the social care sector’.

Inspectors note that the service has been ‘weakened’ by ‘workforce challenges and workload pressures’.

Councillor Trevor Cave, cabinet spokesperson for children’s services, said: “Barnsley is a place that is ambitious for its children and young people.

“We’re determined more than ever to make sure that our Children’s Services are strong, can protect our children and young people, and can withstand the challenges we face as a society and as an organisation.

“We’re so proud of the work that our employees do, showing such commitment to all Barnsley children and families.

“They’re passionate and work incredibly hard against ever-increasing national challenges such as a significant workforce crisis, a slow recovery from a global pandemic and a cost-of-living crisis which is meaning many more people are parenting in adverse circumstances.

“This along with increased demand and caseload levels is making it difficult for us to do quality work with our children and families.

“We know that there are areas where our services are not supporting young people to the standards that they should expect and that are required from us, and this is not acceptable.

“Over the last six months, we’ve reviewed our children’s services, and with support from a £6.5 million one-off investment (and £2.5 million recurrent funding) agreed in November 2022, we’re implementing our development plan focusing on capacity, leadership, and early help.

“We created our own review and development plan because we wanted to be on the front foot of the national challenges facing all local authorities.

“When Ofsted visited in January, we already knew what our challenges were, and it’s reassuring that their report highlights the same challenges and key findings as we did in our own internal review. It means that the changes we’re already implementing are the right ones for our children and young people.

“We’re confident that if we continue to implement our development plan, our services will be in a strong position going forward.”