West Sussex children’s services team ‘beginning to feel what good looks like’

The service was rated ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted in May 2019 and, in December, the secretary of state for education decided control should be placed with an independent trust.

Since then, efforts to bring the service up to scratch have been continuing at pace.

At a meeting of the full council, Jacquie Russell, cabinet member for children and young people, praised the ‘pace, determination and drive’ of the team – but acknowledged there was still much to do.

Ofsted should have carried out another monitoring visit to see how things were going but the pandemic meant those visits had to be postponed.

But Mrs Russell shared some good news.

She told the meeting that commissioner John Coughlan, who was appointed by the Department for Education to oversee the changes for the first year, felt the progress was going well.

Mrs Russell said: “For both myself and the service, it was reassuring to hear that he had formed an overall favourable opinion of our progress to date, endorsing our direction of travel whilst, at the same time, underlining the fact that we do still have much to do.”

The next step for the council will be to agree the details of a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department for Education, which will define the scope of the independent trust.

This matter will be scrutinised before being considered by the cabinet on October 18.

Ofsted aims to restart its monitoring visits soon and, if all goes to plan, will return to West Sussex in October or November.

In the meantime, the council can still turn to Hampshire County Council for advice, with Mrs Russell describing the authority as ‘a very good critical friend to us’.

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