Government inspectors have ordered workers who monitor the protection of Surrey’s vulnerable children to improve, just months after “widespread and serious failures” were uncovered by a separate inspection of Surrey County Council (SCC).

Ofsted slapped Surrey’s independent safeguarding children board (LSCB) with its second-lowest rating and said its links with the council are not strong enough to allow it to effectively scrutinise social workers.

The board oversees the cases of more than 4,500 children who need specialist services, including some 793 looked-after children.

Inspectors said that while the LSCB, headed by 32-year child services veteran Alex Walters, “benefits from the strong leadership of an experienced independent chair”, it does not consistently exercise its power as a “critical friend”.

They added: “There is no annual appraisal by the [SCC] chief executive of the chair’s performance.

“This makes it difficult for the chief executive to hold the chair to account for the effective running of the LSCB, or to benefit fully from her independent view about the quality and effectiveness of services for children provided by the local authority and partner agencies.”

Ofsted also reported that:

  • The LSCB uses a multi-agency data set to scrutinise agencies’ performance, but it neither analyses the data consistently and fully nor does it link data analysis with audit findings to develop a full understanding of the quality of practice
  • Decisions about when to initiate a serious case review are sound and learning from such reviews is disseminated effectively
  • The board provides a broad range of appropriate training. Feedback about its quality is largely positive, but there is no formal evaluation of the long-term impact of training on the quality of practice
  • Progress has accelerated in the last year and brought a growing culture of professional challenge