BCP Council's children's services have been severely criticised by Ofsted, who said vulnerable children have been put at risk by “serious and widespread weaknesses”.

The scathing report said work to identify youngsters at risk of harm was “not fit for purpose”.

BCP Council said it “accepts and regrets” the watchdog’s criticisms.

These are seven of the key findings by Ofsted.

You can read the full report from Ofsted here

1) 50 cases being reviewed following inspection

During the course of this focused visit, inspectors asked the local authority to review the cases of 50 children, due to serious concerns about their safety and well-being. The inspection team expressed serious concerns about the quality of management oversight across children’s services, with the state of their oversight not deemed sufficient to ensure children are protected.

2) Children in care feel let down by BCP

Children in care and care leavers reported they felt let down by BCP. They reported having minimal contact from social workers or personal assistants and felt alone, isolated or unsupported. “Young people who are parents, or those who had left school and were going to university, spoke of having to cope pretty much alone", the inspector's report to the authority said.

3) Assessments ‘not fit for purpose’ were signed off by managers

More than 700 assessments were completed which did not result in a service being offered and inspectors found that the vast majority of the assessments “were not fit for purpose”, according to the report. Among the criticisms “they failed to consider all of the current and historical issues, accepted parental self-reporting, and did not check out information with other agencies”.

Perhaps most starkly, the report says they failed to focus on the experience of the children and young people.

Sections of the report were left blank – but “despite their evident poor quality” were signed off by managers as acceptable pieces of work.

This resulted in many children not receiving a service when they would benefit from doing so, the inspector stated.

4) ‘Permanence’ decisions take years

"This is unacceptable"

The full point in the report states: “Drift and delay in achieving permanence were evident in the experience of almost all children in care. Matching and permanence decisions are not timely, often taking several years. This is unacceptable. Ofsted carried out a focused visit on permanency in November 2019, and there has been a failure to ensure that there has been effective management oversight in this area since then.”

5) The screening process

The report states in the past six months the service received 8,000 contacts with fewer than 2,000 accepted as referrals. Screening "was not sufficiently child-focused and did not take account of all the issues". The report adds: “A high number of children’s cases were passed to early help services. However, inspectors saw that many of these were children at risk of harm, and that a more robust response was needed from the MASH (Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) to ensure that they were protected.”

6) Over-reliance on short-term workers and managers at all levels

More than 50 agency staff used by BCP at time of visit, social workers saying there is too much churn in workforce and inexperienced social workers need more support to perform better. One-to-one supervision is “perfunctory” and there is poor management direction.

7) Areas previously addressed for improvement a year ago have not been addressed

BCP had a focused visit a year ago from Ofsted following the merger of the council in April 2019. Lead inspector, Neil Penswick says in his letter to interim corporate director, Elaine Redding on Friday November 27, 2020: “While there has not been a full inspection of this local authority, a focused visit was undertaken in November 2019, which focused on permanence arrangements. The areas for improvement identified at that time have not been effectively addressed.”