Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether he has made a recent assessment of the capacity of Coventry City Council to discharge its statutory responsibilities to vulnerable children; and if he will make a statement.

Formal assessment of local authority delivery of children’s social care is the responsibility of the independent inspectorate, Ofsted.

Ofsted conducted a full inspection of Coventry City Council’s (CCC’s) children’s social care services in March 2017, and the subsequent report, published on 14 June 2017, found services to be ‘requires improvement’. This is an improvement from their previous inspection judgement in May 2014 which found them to be ‘inadequate’.

Following the inspection in March 2017, consistent with government policy for councils that have previously failed an inspection but have now improved services, CCC were no longer formally in ‘intervention’. However, it was clear, as Ofsted reported, that the council still had more work to do to ensure all vulnerable children were receiving a good service.

Since then, the department has continued to work with the council to monitor whether recent improvements are being sustained. CCC are now participating in a regional improvement alliance joining with other local councils in the region in a programme of supportive peer challenge to ensure services continue to improve and do not deteriorate back into being ‘inadequate’.

Concerns about the functioning of a local authority’s children’s social care services should be reported to Ofsted.