Tower Hamlets scores “outstanding” mark in children’s services review

Tuesday, 05 August 2008 10:54

Children and young people in Tower Hamlets are receiving an outstanding service from the council and its partners, as revealed in the Joint Area Review (JAR) of Tower Hamlets’ children’s services – officially released on Monday (August 4).

The JAR assesses the way the council and its partners such as the Primary Care Trust (PCT) is working to improve outcomes for local children and young people in the borough. And the findings of the report are good news for the East End’s children, with the inspectors awarding an overall “outstanding” rating – the highest available to the inspectors.

Assessed in four different categories – safeguarding, looked after children, children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities and capacity to improve, the inspectors found plenty of examples of excellent practice in helping keep the borough’s children and young people safe and giving them a chance to progress.

Particular strengths of the council-led partnership include its work with children in care or looked after children. The borough has successfully implemented a strategy that helps prevent children coming into care and where possible, returns them safely to their families. As a result, the number of looked after children in Tower Hamlets has reduced steadily for the last three years and is now well below the national average.

Provision for children with learning difficulties or disabilities in Tower Hamlets was also praised by the report. It notes the excellent opportunities given to them to express their views to the relevant services, and also highlights the impressive progress that children with special educational needs make within the borough’s primary schools.

The innovative way in which the council and its partners are working together to combat inequalities is also pointed out as a particular strength in the report, it reads:

“Prime examples of excellent partnership working include the ongoing work with the Muslim community on developing a shared understanding of and approach to safeguarding, the focused work with families whose children are at a risk of offending, the targeted youth work project for the Somali community, the development of improved access to recreation and sporting activities for young people with disabilities, and specific recruitment and training programmes aimed at minority communities.”

And thanks to excellent leadership, high aspirations and a record for providing value for money – the inspectors believe that the future is looking good for children’s services with the report rating the partnership’s capacity to improve as “outstanding”.

Cllr Clair Hawkins, Lead Member for Children’s Services at Tower Hamlets Council said: “The council is absolutely delighted to receive this outstanding Joint Area Review.

“As the report points out, we have extremely high aspirations for children and young people here in Tower Hamlets, and we want to keep on improving our services to give them the very best possible chance of success in life.

“We know there is more to do, but this is fantastic recognition for all the hard working and talented staff we have in children’s services in Tower Hamlets.”

Kevan Collins, Director of Children’s Services at Tower Hamlets Council said: “We have an extremely large population of children and young people in Tower Hamlets, so it’s vital that all of the organisations providing services for them work as closely together as possible.

“This outstanding report shows how we are doing that successfully – helping to keep local children safe and give them a great chance of progressing well as they grow up.”

The JAR was conducted in two stages - consisting of an analysis stage where inspectors scrutinised evidence from the organisations involved and a fieldwork stage, where inspectors met with children and young people and the staff working with them.

Young people also played their part in the review, with a team of 12 local “young inspectors” contributing to the inspection evidence for the investigations on safeguarding and on children and young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities.

The “outstanding” review follows last year’s Annual Performance Assessment (APA) – where Tower Hamlets received the highest possible mark in every single category.