Press Release By Conservatives:
Conservative Councillors have called on the Labour & Lib Dem Coalition Council to set up a special committee and develop an action plan to improve children services in Milton Keynes.
It comes as an Ofsted report, released last week, concluded Milton Keynes Council’s children services ‘required improvement.’
The report followed an inspection which took place in October this year.
The most damming comments from the Inspector was contained within the statement: “elected members have not had a wholly accurate understanding of practice quality and the areas of work that have development plans in place."
Eight areas were identified as needing improvement including: timely allocation of social workers, the consistency of the quality of assessments of children in need and support for children who are privately fostered.
Conservative Education Spokesperson Cllr David Hopkins said:
“This is a deeply concerning report. Clearly our children services are not delivering as they should and the political leadership needs to take responsibility for the lacklustre attempts at improvements.
“The children we care for are the most vulnerable in MK. They deserve better. Officers work incredibly hard, but political direction and leadership is lacking.
“The report has rightly challenged the Council’s Cabinet for failing to grasp what is required to improve the current state of the service.
“Given what has happened in other areas of the country, where Councils have failed their children, I think a sensible next step is to set up a task and finish group that is focused on the areas of concern outlined by Ofsted and ultimately feeds into a comprehensive action plan."
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