CAFCASS SECURES THIRD ‘GOOD’ RATING FROM OFSTED
Cafcass has made “outstanding” progress in providing a timely
service to children and families in Cheshire and Merseyside,
according to an Ofsted report published today.
Inspectors praised the team for its “outstanding”
progress in ensuring that vulnerable children get the help they
need, with all cases “allocated promptly”. They cited the “highly
effective steps” Cafcass has taken to improve including the
introduction of an early intervention team to provide “timely risk
assessed safeguarding information about children and families to
courts.” Inspectors also praised the use of proportionate working
which, “ensures that cases are allocated resources efficiently in
relation to the assessed safeguarding needs of each case.” Ofsted
concluded that, “The improvements achieved ensure that service
delivery is efficient and effective and the safeguarding needs of
children and young people are assessed at the earliest
opportunity.” Overall, the progress in the area was rated as
“good”, the third such rating Cafcass has recently received,
following inspections in Tyneside
and Derbyshire
and Nottinghamshire.
The report coincides with the publication of national care
application figures which show that care demand
in 2010-11 was 3.5% higher than the previous year’s record
figures with 9,127 new applications, compared to 8,826 in 2009-10.
Despite the continued increase in demand only 3 out of our 12,792
care cases was unallocated at the end of March 2011, a 99% decrease
in unallocated cases over the year. At the same time, our reliance
on duty allocations has fallen nearly 80% with only 223 care cases
allocated on a duty basis, compared to the 12,566 cases currently
allocated to Children’s Guardians.
Anthony Douglas, Chief Executive, said, “These figures show that
our proportionate ways of working are allowing us to help more
children than ever before. With higher demand it’s been important
that the work that we undertake on each child’s case is focused and
really does add value. The inspection result in Cheshire and
Merseyside is the third “good” result that we have received
recently and shows is that at the same time we’ve absorbed more
work, we have also improved the quality of our service. I’m
delighted that the hard work of staff has paid off and even more
delighted that children and families in the area are receiving the
“good” service that they deserve. Our work now is to continue, as
we have been, to replicate this improvement across the
country.”
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read the full report.
Click here to read the
full press release.