CHILDREN’S services which were so poor that the county council was put into special measures are getting better.

In fact, the commissioner appointed by the Department for Education has said the rate of improvement is faster than could have been expected.

The authority’s assistant director Tina Russell spoke to councillors on County Hall’s Children and Families Oversight and Scrutiny Panel about the latest Ofsted report on the service, made in January.

She said: “Such was the severity of the shortcomings found in the October 2016 inspection that we were put under the direction of the Department for Education and a commissioner was appointed. Some authorities didn’t have the additional level of direction.”

But, said Ms Russell, the improvements made so far have impressed the commissioner who she quoted as saying it was ‘beyond expectations.’

The latest report from Ofsted said children’s services still had “areas of improvement; this is an ongoing and positive trajectory for the quality of …social work.”

One major improvement that Ms Russell pointed out was an increase in social workers, meaning their caseloads had been reduced.

She said: “We have reorganised the front door service into small teams, with five to six social workers in a team and one manager per team. This means that one manager now has 110-120 cases rather than 250 or more that they used to have.”

Answering Cllr Tracey Onslow’s question, Ms Russell said: “At the front door team in County Hall there used to be two teams of 10 social workers, with a manager each. There are now six teams with a total of 30 social workers and a manager each and there was also a contact and referral until with three managers and eight social workers.”

Cllr Onslow said of the Ofsted report: “The key line is the inspectors ‘didn’t see any evidence of children suffering any adverse impact’ from those areas we still need to improve. It means I can sleep better rather than worrying. It means we’re doing the important work.”

Ms Russell added areas which still needed improvement included reducing caseloads, improving the quality of recording discussions and decisions and she added: “We’re not aware enough of things like gangs, trafficking and modern slavery.”