Setting

Tara Geere Director of Starting Well (DCS) Main Road Romford RM1 3BB

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Monitoring visit to Havering local authority children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Havering children’s services on 26 and 27 March 2025. This was the second monitoring visit since the local authority’s overall service effectiveness was judged to be inadequate in December 2023. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Naintara Khosla and Nicki Shaw.

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Areas covered by the visit

Inspectors reviewed the progress made in the following areas of concern identified at the last inspection:

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Children’s entry into care and care planning, including reunification. ◼ The response to children aged 16 to 17 who present as homeless. ◼ Children living in supported accommodation. ◼ Missing children.

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Areas covered by the visit

This visit was carried out in line with the inspection of local authority children’s services (ILACS) framework.

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Headline findings

Since the last inspection in December 2023, the Director of Children’s Services has, together with corporate and political leaders, secured substantial financial investment to address practice shortfalls. The council has appreciated the need to establish sufficiency in children’s social work services to meet the demand for services. The recently appointed permanent senior leadership team is beginning to show positive impact on the significant areas for improvement identified at the inspection. While it remains very early in the improvement journey, policy frameworks are providing the scaffolding for senior managers to develop more effective social work practice for children who enter care and live away from their parents.

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Headline findings

There remains much to do as, for many children, social work practice is not yet responding to their care needs at sufficient pace. For too many children and families, stable home circumstances are not being achieved at the earliest opportunity. Ofsted

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Headline findings

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 Textphone 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.gov.uk/ofsted Social workers are not receiving regular and consistent supervision to progress care plans and to understand technical and complex care-planning pathways. Consequently, too many children experience delay in achieving permanent care.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Since September 2024, a new child in care service has been introduced. Most social workers in the service have reasonable caseloads, although a lack of consistent, stable management limits the regularity of supervision. Social workers do not always have the help they need to prioritise workloads and undertake effective risk assessments and detailed care planning.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Performance data reflects an improving picture, with more timely visits to children and more children in care reviews being held on time. Leaders are aware that further progress on the programme of data cleansing that sector-led improvement partners are assisting with is essential to better understand the legal status of children in care and manage workloads.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children are supported to maintain their community links and build relationships with their carers. Short-term and long-term indicators of placement stability are improving. Children in supported accommodation receive additional oversight and support from social workers to ensure they are making progress in their education and gaining life skills.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The independent reviewing officer service is starting to add value for some children’s reviews. Minutes and recommendations are beginning to detail care plans with timebound actions. Some children’s reviews have a clear focus on meeting their needs and progressing the actions necessary for them to live permanently and securely in alternative care arrangements. However, for too many children, independent reviewing officers are not yet the catalyst for securing stable and matched long-term homes.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children who go missing from care receive an effective response that reduces both risks and the frequency of missing episodes. For some children who are categorised as absent from placement and are at risk of exploitation, action to manage risk is undermined by ineffective use of missing procedures and a lack of multi-agency information-sharing.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

While policies outline services available for 16- and 17-year-olds who are vulnerable and present as homeless, the response does not always recognise their individual circumstances and lived experiences.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Very recent practice shows a trajectory of improvement in the quality and timeliness of visits to children in care. Records of visits to children are detailed, they confirm the reasons for the visit and show how children are being helped to understand their journey into care. It is evident from visit records that children in care benefit from social workers discussing life-story work with them. Case records of visits to children and children in care reviews acknowledge the importance of later-life letters. Although improvements are very recent, most children’s records are sensitively and compassionately written, reflecting workers’ understanding of children’s early trauma experiences. The language in most records is appropriate, however, for a small number of children, their personal circumstances are not sensitively written.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most social workers record children’s wishes and feelings, understand what they want and give them insight into their care experiences. Social workers are committed and passionate advocates for their children, ensuring their voices are heard and recorded sensitively. In examples of better practice, social workers analyse children’s diversity needs, to inform their risk assessments and create effective safety plans.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Skilled social workers in the disabled children’s service undertake direct work with a range of communication tools that engage children who are non-verbal. This ensures that children’s wishes influence their care plans.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers know their children and their identities, although information about their culture and heritage is not always recorded well. Information in placement plans is significantly underdeveloped, so carers are not always well informed about children’s needs at the beginning of their placements. Children’s placement records have gaps in the story of children’s lives and do not describe how carers are meeting their cultural and religious needs. Some children are matched in permanent stable placements with carers who help them make good progress in their education and achieve their ambitions. However, this is not consistent for all children. While some social workers are confident and understand the process for matching and care- planning arrangements with foster carers, others are less familiar with these important aspects of practice.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Compassionate, creative social workers, including those for disabled children, understand children’s likes, dislikes, their activities and their ambitions and interests. Children are supported in developing their interests. Carers are providing enrichment activities, so that children develop their talents, for example, through attending music, drama or singing lessons. Relationships between brothers and sisters are considered thoughtfully and protected. The wishes and feelings of siblings are sought and used to inform decision-making about children’s living arrangements, including whether they want to live together or apart. For most children, family time is prioritised and is safe and regularly reviewed during child in care reviews. This allows for a range of family-time arrangements, including visiting parks, shared gaming and phone calls and video calls. Positively for some children, arrangements for family

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Findings and evaluation of progress

time are reviewed when necessary, outside reviews and adapted with safety plans.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children in care told inspectors that they are happy where they live, are supported to access leisure activities and receive help to do well in education, although they also said that they do not always have their phone calls returned by their social workers. An active Child in Care Council is consulted and engaged in activities to directly influence and shape policy, including ‘take over’ sessions when children in care and care-experienced young people share their lived experiences and run training sessions with senior leaders. Children said that they would like more timely feedback from the Corporate Parenting Panel when they provide their views to influence documents and strategies.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Care planning for some children is not of sufficient quality to meet their timescales for permanence. Many practitioners do not have the confidence and technical knowledge to undertake detailed care planning and contingency planning, for example, lacking detailed understanding of the purpose and expected timeliness of viability assessments and the range of legal orders and statutory processes available to secure permanence for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Practitioners do not consistently articulate what needs to happen for children so they can live with their permanent carers or their immediate family at the earliest opportunity. Sequential, rather than concurrent planning, means that children’s care plans may drift, as social workers do not know what to do when an alternative plan is necessary. Too many children live in situations which are likely to change. These children live with uncertainty that affects their ability to attach to a long-term primary carer and enjoy a consistent family life. A lack of regular supervision and clear direction weakens workers’ confidence in progressing care plans that are discussed in children’s reviews. This can delay children being afforded long-term security in their home circumstances.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children’s reviews are increasingly held on time, but children who do not regularly attend their reviews are unable to build meaningful relationships with their independent reviewing officers (IROs) and do not understand their advocacy role. Leaders recognise that communication and relationships are maintained through a culture that prioritises regular and consistent review processes. More recently, IRO midway reviews are beginning to strengthen children’s care planning. IROs have increased in confidence in escalating concerns when actions remain outstanding following reviews of children’s care plans. This is helping to identify and resolve shortfalls in practice. Too often, reviews lack the detailed contingency planning needed for children, families and practitioners to understand the options available when children live away from their parents or care arrangements end unexpectedly.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social work assessments identify children’s mental health needs and local arrangements are effectively sought to support children’s well-being and manage trauma experiences. Children are supported with effective therapeutic interventions, although delays in them starting mean that some children’s needs are not met at the earliest opportunity, and this can impact on their stability in placement.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers convene child protection missing strategy meetings, use return home interviews to formulate safety plans and, when necessary, seek court orders to reduce risks and missing episodes. The response to some children’s missing episodes is effective, however, this is not consistently in place. Where practice is stronger, children are placed in environments that help to reduce missing episodes. Better return home interviews highlight push-and-pull factors, consider the geographical areas involved and lead to practical steps to reduce risks. Some children who are away from home and whose whereabouts are unknown are not being correctly categorised as missing. These children do not receive an equitable service, as missing procedures are not instigated and opportunities are missed to understand their vulnerabilities and the reasons for missing episodes, and to respond promptly to risk.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The needs of homeless children are not always assessed at the earliest opportunity when they present with vulnerabilities and live in volatile circumstances. The current joint housing and children’s social care protocol sets out the need to focus on children’s vulnerabilities and education experiences. However, practice does not ensure sufficient safeguards, as children do not consistently receive written information along with the support of an advocate, to understand their rights and entitlements. Instances of family homelessness are better managed at an early stage.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders are acutely aware of the shortfalls in practice for children in care. The inspectors’ findings broadly aligned with the insights leaders have gained from their own audit activities. It is accepted that leaders are targeting these activities on weaker areas. However, the number of audits that are identifying inadequate practice remains stubbornly high, reflecting limited progress in improving children’s experiences. The quality assurance framework provides for collaborative auditing with practitioners, children, families and carers. However, this is not consistently in place, denying opportunities for rich social work discussions about practice. Auditors remain over-optimistic, and leaders therefore have to rely heavily on moderation of audits to identify and address shortfalls.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders have increased management capacity. They have begun to promote an open culture of listening to workers and allowing for a spectrum of opinion about social work practice and its delivery. Social workers recognise the authority’s commitment to getting it right for children. They talked about their loyalty to the borough and about supportive teams and managers. However, effective supervision is not consistently in place and some workers have experienced repeated changes of manager. These issues affect social workers’ ability to manage their caseloads and to deal confidently with decision-making in complex care-planning scenarios.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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