Children's Care Services found to be inadequate

8.21.00am BST (GMT +0100) Sun 16th Sep 2007

A recent review of Hertfordshire's services for children and young people conducted by a team of inspectors representing such bodies as Ofsted, the Audit Commission, the Healthcare Commission and the probation Service has given the service a major thumbs-down. It found the 2 critical areas of safeguarding vulnerable children and caring for its own Looked After Children to be inadequate, the lowest rating possible.

No service was rated "good" or better. Out of four services, the above two were declared "inadequate" and the other two, caring for children with learning difficulties/disabilities and service management were deemed just "adequate".

At several meetings last week, leading Conservative County Councillors, including the Acting Leader and the cabinet Member for Children's Services, admitted that these failings had been known to them for some considerable time.

Cllr Aislinn Lee, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for Children's Services said "It is an outrage that these weaknesses have been left unresolved for so long. I have strenuously and consistently appealed to the Tory administration to take remedial action. Perhaps now that they have been found out by an independent report, we can look forward to our vulnerable children being better cared for at last."

Cllr Paul Goggins, Lib Dem spokesman for Resources added "The Administration now has to find £1million to tackle the weaknesses uncovered by this report that could have been dealt with earlier at less cost."

Cllr Malcolm Cowan, Lib Dem representative on a working party comparing the performance of Herts County Council with other Local Authorities, concluded "Despite some recent improvement in Children's Services, the critical issue of time taken to carry out initial assessment, Herts was the worst shire county in the country. This is quite appalling."