Surrey local authority children’s services

Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services

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Lead inspector: Rachel Griffiths, His Majesty’s Inspector

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Judgement Grade

The impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families Good

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Judgement Grade

The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection Good

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Judgement Grade

The experiences and progress of children in care Good

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Judgement Grade

The experiences and progress of care leavers Good

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Judgement Grade

Most children and families in Surrey now receive the help, protection and care that they need. Services have improved substantially since the last inspection in 2022, when they required improvement. These improvements to practice have been achieved through skilled leadership, strong political and corporate support, and well- trained and committed staff. Senior leaders’ ambition for children permeates throughout the organisation and they have successfully improved consistency of practice across all parts of the county. Early help services, the virtual school, relationship-based practice, the quality of direct work with families, and a focus on supporting children to remain within their family networks are areas of particular strength.

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Judgement Grade

Senior leaders know their services well. They understand which aspects of practice need further development so that they can achieve their aspiration for every child in Surrey to have a sense of belonging and positive experiences. This includes the continuation of the recruitment strategy to appoint more permanent staff, the ongoing implementation of the sufficiency strategy, increasing housing sufficiency for care leavers, increasing the numbers of care leavers in education, employment and training, strengthening the consistency of approach to children at risk of exploitation and the quality and impact of safety planning. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025

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What needs to improve? 1

◼ Collaborative safety planning with children and families. (Outcome 3, National Framework) ◼ The numbers of care leavers in education, training and employment, and the equity of experiences for care leavers with regard to sufficiency of housing and the local offer. (Outcome 4, National Framework) ◼ The embedding of the work of the central hub to ensure that protective responses to children who go missing or are at risk of exploitation are effective for every child, including children in care placed outside of Surrey. (Outcome 3, National Framework)

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protection: good

1. Most children in Surrey receive effective and responsive help and protection.

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protection: good

2. When children and families require early help, they receive this in a timely way. Parents who spoke to inspectors were unanimously positive about the help, support, advocacy and signposting that they receive from early help practitioners. As a result, most children and families receive the right help at the right time. For most children, this results in improved outcomes, and if it does not, early help practitioners step families up to statutory services at the right time.

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protection: good

3. Children who are referred to the children’s single point of access (C-SPA) receive a timely and proportionate response. Practitioners and managers in the C-SPA routinely apply the authority’s continuum of need guidance to inform decision-making, generating a consistent approach to contacts and referrals. Effective partnership working with the police means that initial responses in the C-SPA to domestic abuse and to children who go missing are prompt and child focused. Parental consent is sought or dispensed with appropriately.

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protection: good

4. When children need help and protection out of hours, social work responses are prompt and proportionate. The handover of information to daytime staff is effective, resulting in appropriate follow-up the next working day.

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protection: good

5. Multi-agency strategy meetings regarding children who are identified as being at risk of significant harm are timely and well attended. These meetings lead to well-considered decisions regarding subsequent actions to explore and to reduce the risks to children.

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protection: good

1 The areas for improvement have been cross-referenced with the outcomes, enablers or principles in the Children’s Social Care: National Framework . This statutory guidance sets out the purpose, principles for practice and expected outcomes of children’s social care. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 6. Social workers visit children promptly during child protection investigations. They seek their views to understand the presenting safeguarding risks, and these are taken into account when planning the next steps. Decisions to hold an initial child protection conference are carefully considered in line with the assessed risk. While families are waiting for their initial child protection conference, social workers continue to visit and monitor children’s welfare. However, there is some inconsistency in the quality of the written interim safety plans, meaning that children and families, and those supporting them, may not

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protection: good

be clear about immediate actions to take pending the outcome of the initial child protection conference.

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protection: good

7. For a small number of children who are not at immediate risk but need a statutory assessment to identify their help and support needs, there are short delays in children being visited and an assessment starting. In the interim, contact is made or maintained with the family to monitor their welfare. Stronger assessments pay careful attention to children’s histories and use these to generate hypotheses for further enquiries. Social workers spend time alone with children during assessments to help to understand their experiences. They consistently engage fathers and male partners as part of an assessment when it is safe for children to do so.

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protection: good

8. Social workers undertake comprehensive pre-birth assessments in close consultation with midwives and health visitors. This leads to effective planning to safeguard the child as soon as they are born.

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protection: good

9. Children subject to child-in-need or child protection arrangements have written plans that are clear and easy for children and families to understand. Social workers develop and refine contingency plans during well-attended and regular core group meetings and child-in-need reviews. Wider family networks are increasingly part of child-in-need or child protection planning from an early stage. However, some safety plans are not well crafted with families and so are of limited value if risks increase.

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protection: good

10. Social workers make regular visits to children who are the subject of child-in- need and child protection plans, at a frequency dictated by their assessed level of need. Social workers are skilled at building relationships with children. Creative direct work helps the social worker to build a rounded understanding of children’s daily lives. Social workers also build positive relationships with parents, enabling honest and sometimes difficult conversations with them regarding their children.

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protection: good

11. Multi-agency interventions, delivered in line with a well-embedded practice model, are improving the safety, circumstances and experiences for most children at risk of harm from domestic abuse, parental mental ill health and substance misuse. Since the previous inspection, social workers have gained a greater understanding of the detrimental effect of neglect on children, aided by a neglect assessment tool to measure the impact. A small and decreasing Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 number of children have lived in neglectful circumstances for too long before decisive action has been taken to address this.

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protection: good

12. When children’s experiences are not improving or risks to them increase, most children are appropriately escalated into the pre-proceedings stage of the Public Law Outline. Many children’s lives improve during this period of intervention, and they are diverted from the need for court proceedings, demonstrating the positive impact of the work undertaken. When children do enter care proceedings, the quality of family court work is mostly strong.

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protection: good

13. Disabled children receive effective help from their social workers. Social workers offer children and their families a wide range of interventions, aligned to their complex and unique needs. Workers know the children they are working with very well and are keen for them to achieve to their full potential. Many children enjoy spending time with their workers and confide in them when they have any worries. Disabled children’s transitions to adulthood are considered early, allowing sufficient time to establish their level of independence and capacity before they turn 18.

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protection: good

14. A recently created central hub is improving the protective responses to children who go missing and are at risk of exploitation. However, ‘safer’ plans (as they are known locally) for a small number of children are overly focused on what children need to do, rather than the support and services that they will receive from the team of professionals around them. Some safer plans are not updated in real time, as practitioners wait for multi-agency risk and vulnerability meetings to set actions. This means that any new risks may not be promptly considered. When specialist workers in the central hub carry out return home interviews, these are of high quality and demonstrate a caring approach.

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protection: good

15. The intensive and highly effective support provided to children and families by adolescent team social workers, intensive family support workers and edge of care workers enables children to remain living with their families when it is safe to do so and in their best interests.

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protection: good

16. The identification and response to children at risk of female genital mutilation and honour-based violence have improved since the previous inspection, as has the response to homeless 16- and 17-year-olds. However, social workers occasionally miss opportunities to intervene earlier with 16- and 17-year-olds. When children are provided with accommodation, it is safe and suitable.

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protection: good

17. Social workers provide privately fostered children with an effective response. This is an improvement since the previous inspection.

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protection: good

18. The local authority designated officer service is effective, ensuring a timely and proportionate response to allegations about individuals who work with children.

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protection: good

19. Social workers identify children who are young carers and refer them to a commissioned service so that they can enjoy a range of fun social activities. Children and family assessments do not always consider the specific needs of Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 children arising from their role as young carers. Leaders have introduced a new assessment template to address this, but it is yet to demonstrate impact.

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protection: good

20. Case supervision for social workers is regular and demonstrates a strong focus on children’s experiences. Supervision is helping to drive children’s plans forward.

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protection: good

21. Comprehensive tracking and stringent oversight ensure that children missing from education are identified and supported to return to school. Legal action is taken when necessary. Effective communication systems ensure that safeguarding concerns regarding children who are home educated are appropriately considered.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

22. Most children in care enjoy positive experiences. They make good progress in many aspects of their lives and most achieve well.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

23. When children are not able to live safely at home, most enter care at the appropriate time. Social workers assess kinship carers promptly to enable children to live in their family/friend networks when it is safe to do so. Kinship carers are well supported via a recently strengthened kinship offer.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

24. When it is not possible for children to remain in their family network, social workers, managers, independent reviewing officers (IROs) and leaders explore alternative permanence options for them from an early stage. Regular management scrutiny of permanence plans results in many children achieving permanence at the right time for them, and with the right carers.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

25. Many children achieve permanence via long-term fostering, which is giving them a sense of belonging. Other children live in residential children’s homes, when social workers assess that this is the most suitable option for them.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

26. When adoption is the right plan for a child, there is sometimes a purposeful delay while seeking to identify the most appropriate permanent home. This is due to persistence in finding the most suitable family to meet the child’s needs, including for older children, children with complex needs and brother and sister groups. Adopters who spoke to inspectors were positive about their experiences, facilitated by strong strategic and operational relationships between the authority and the regional adoption agency, Adoption South East. As a result of the careful matching of children with adopters, outcomes for children who are adopted are positive.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

27. When children in care live with their parents, thorough assessments ensure that the arrangements meet children’s needs, and that they are as safe as possible. When a child’s plan is to return home, children accessing the reunification service experience a very well-coordinated return home, based on well-crafted and collaborative return home plans. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 28. Children in care have trusting and positive relationships with their social workers. Social workers use creative life-story work to help children to understand the reasons why they are in care. The impact of this was evident in the words of one child, who, after completing life-story work, said, ‘Considering everything that has happened to me, and everything I have been through, I am pretty amazing.’

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

29. Disabled children in care live in homes that meet their needs. Social workers use a range of methods that are in line with the child’s communication needs to help them to understand their wishes and to inform decisions about their care.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

30. Social workers update assessments of children’s needs in readiness for regular looked-after reviews. Children participate in these meetings and have advocacy support according to their wishes, including advocacy for non-verbal disabled children. Review minutes are sensitively written to children, to help them to understand who will be doing what and when to implement the agreed plan.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

31. Social workers and carers help children to make good educational progress from their starting points. The virtual school is well regarded by practitioners for its dedication and expertise and consistently serves as a steadfast advocate for children. The refined and ever-evolving personal education plan process fosters effective collaboration among children, schools, families and social workers. As a result, academic performance and attendance among children in care continue to improve.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

32. Children benefit from participating in a range of activities and they are encouraged to follow their interests and hobbies. This helps children to feel proud of themselves and their achievements.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

33. The health needs of children in care are usually well addressed. However, some children living outside of Surrey do not receive a timely initial health assessment, which delays a full understanding of their health needs. Since the previous inspection, leaders have strengthened the range of therapeutic support on offer for children with emotional and mental health needs. Access to services is usually timely and where there are waiting lists, priority is given to the children at greatest need. The extended Hope House service is impressive, offering a specialist multi-agency response to highly vulnerable children with complex mental health needs. This service helps children to avoid a hospital admission or supports them to transition from hospital stays back into the community.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

34. Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in Surrey live in homes and receive help that meets their care, educational and religious needs. While initial health assessments are initiated in a timely way, tuberculosis screening is delayed for a small number of children, meaning a potential delay in receiving treatment should it be required. Access to specialist therapeutic services enables unaccompanied children to receive support regarding previous trauma. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 35. Initial responses to children who go missing from care are effective. However, when children return or are found, return home interviews are not consistently offered, and the quality of these varies. Social workers in the children in care teams try to understand the reasons behind children going missing through their own return home interviews and safety planning. However, they are not

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

making full use of the specialist exploitation service at the earliest opportunity. This means that, for some, the child’s vulnerability is not fully explored in a multi-agency context soon enough to develop safer plans.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

36. Children are supported to keep in touch, re-establish links and make first-time connections with important people in their lives, who include brothers and sisters, wider family and significant friends. This helps children to maintain and strengthen relationships and it promotes their sense of identity.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

37. Most children live in stable homes where they thrive and make good progress. Foster carers told inspectors that they feel valued as part of professional networks and the team around children in their care. They have easy access to help and support when and if they require this, including via hubs, which are accessible to all foster and kinship carers.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

38. Due to sufficiency challenges, a small number of children experience placement moves before the right home is found for them. However, because of an effective sufficiency strategy, which includes increasing the number of in-house children’s homes and fostering capacity, the numbers of children aged under 16 living in unregistered children’s homes have reduced. At the time of the inspection, no children under 16 were living in unregistered children’s homes and only one child aged 17 was living in an unregistered children’s home. Leaders closely monitor the arrangements for children living in unregistered settings, including supported accommodation awaiting registration. Actions include recording the rationale for decisions, increased visiting to children to monitor their safety during the registration process, checking on the progress of registrations, or identification of a more suitable placement.

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The experiences and progress of children in care: good

39. Participation and engagement with children in Surrey are strengths. Children and young people told inspectors how engaging with the ‘user voice’ service has positively impacted on them individually, as well as on wider service improvement.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

40. Personal advisers (PAs) make and maintain positive relationships with care leavers. Care leavers speak with warmth about their PAs. Care leavers who are involved with the Children in Care Council feel involved, valued and listened to.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

41. Managers carefully consider which PA should be allocated to each child, balancing skills, strengths and interests. Most children build relationships with their PA at the right time, before they transition to the care leavers’ service. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 42. PAs write sensitively about care leavers in their records. Pathway plans reflect care leavers’ needs and wishes. They are written collaboratively with care leavers, using the care leaver’s own words. PAs adapt their approach to pathway planning, taking into account the care leaver’s preferences as to how the plans are developed.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

43. For the small number of care leavers who are in custody, PAs keep in touch with them and help them to prepare for rebuilding their independence on release.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

44. PAs provide good support to care leavers who are parents, and advocate for them as parents if there are safeguarding concerns.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

45. Specialist PAs support care leavers who were unaccompanied asylum-seeking children well. They help them to follow their chosen religion and to maintain or improve their health. Unaccompanied care leavers are enabled to develop good social networks.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

46. Support provided to care leavers through commissioned services, including cognitive behavioural therapy and talking therapy, means that care leavers who need help with their emotional and mental health are well served. Mentoring also makes a positive difference to some care leavers’ lives.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

47. The local offer for care leavers has recently been refreshed, with input from care leavers themselves, and has resulted in many care leavers taking advantage of driving lessons, gym membership and funds for celebrating birthdays and achievements. However, the offer has some built-in inequality, as the amount of the setting-up grant allocated by government is dependent on when care leavers were born, and the offer is not clear that other support is made available to care leavers who receive a lower rate. In addition, care leavers who live outside of Surrey do not benefit from full council tax exemption in the same way as those who live in the area. This approach is not focused on the needs of the care leavers. This is currently being reviewed.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

48. PAs help care leavers to develop strategies to reduce risk of harm. Although written assessments do not always reflect this, PAs confidently describe how they support care leavers to stay safe. When worries about care leavers’ welfare increase, PAs carry out additional visits and liaise well with other relevant professionals.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

49. Care leavers remain living with their foster carers when this is possible, and most live in suitable homes that meet their needs. However, a small number of care leavers do not obtain suitable permanent accommodation at the right time for them. The disparity in banding across 11 district councils is a perennial factor in a minority of care leavers not securing the right accommodation at the right time.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

50. Although the numbers of care leavers who are not in education, employment or training are gradually reducing, leaders recognise that there is more to do to Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 maximise the opportunities for care leavers to achieve and succeed in this area. The introduction of ‘personal coaches’ is beginning to have some positive impact. For some, this is leading to greater opportunities, including going to university.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

51. For care leavers who are accessing the local housing project, they have a clear structure and pathway towards being ready for independence. Without exception, every care leaver involved with the project who spoke to inspectors was extremely positive about what they had learned. For those care leavers not accessing the project, the preparation for independence is less consistent, with a range of approaches being used with varying levels of success.

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The experiences and progress of care leavers: good

52. Care leavers over 21 continue to have an allocated PA for as long as they want one. When decisions are made to no longer have an allocated PA post-21 and to reduce contact to annual calls and emails, these involve the care leavers themselves and are appropriate. These follow-up calls do take place and care leavers appreciate this connection. However, the contact does not lead to an updating of records if, for example, the care leaver has moved home, making it more difficult to assess whether they are living in suitable accommodation.

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families: good

53. Children’s social care services are led by an impressive, highly motivated, resilient and established leadership team, whose members have been relentless and successful in their quest to improve the quality and consistency of social work practice in Surrey. Leaders’ vision to ensure that children have a sense of belonging and positive experiences has been embraced across the workforce at every level.

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families: good

54. Strategic partnerships have improved since the previous inspection and are increasingly strong. The operation of the C-SPA, the family safeguarding teams, early help services and adolescence services are good examples of partnership working that keeps children at the heart of practice.

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families: good

55. Political and corporate leaders share the senior leaders’ aspiration to improve the experiences of every child in Surrey. This is evident in the significant investment in the development of early help services, investment into the council’s sufficiency strategy to develop new children’s homes and increase fostering capacity, and investment into restructuring the approach regarding children who are at risk of exploitation. All these remain work in progress and are gaining traction.

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families: good

56. Through regular involvement and communication with the leadership team, the leader of the council and the chief executive have a sound understanding of the priorities for improving children’s lives. Both provide effective support and challenge to help to ensure that children’s lives continue to improve. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 57. A well-attended corporate parenting board provides effective challenge on behalf of children in care and care leavers. The board, co-chaired by care leavers and the cabinet member, and with active participation from children, enables board members to understand the successes and challenges that children and care leavers experience. This, and the impressive ‘user voice’ group, hold leaders to account and promote service development.

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families: good

58. A model of strengths-based practice has become embedded since the previous inspection. In particular, the quality and consistency of relationship-based practice, direct work with children and families, and written records have significantly improved. Given the size and geography of Surrey, this is impressive and means that most children in Surrey receive effective help and support that improves their lives.

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families: good

59. An accurate self-assessment demonstrates that leaders know the strengths of their services and the priorities moving forward. This includes continuing with the implementation of the sufficiency strategy, continuing with a recruitment strategy to appoint more permanent staff, increasing housing choice for care leavers, increasing the numbers of care leavers who are in education, training or employment, and strengthening the consistency of approach to children at risk of exploitation.

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families: good

60. Leaders embrace opportunities to learn. This is evident from their responses to a range of different inspections and visits over the last three years. In addition, following significant and tragic incidents, leaders have worked closely with partners to understand what has happened and to identify learning. Leaders have implemented actions in response to learning and they have provided strong support to the workforce during a recent period of intense media scrutiny.

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families: good

61. Performance data and a comprehensive quality assurance framework, which includes collaborative auditing with moderation, dip sampling, practice observations, peer reviews and feedback from children and families, provide leaders with a clear view of frontline practice. This helps to keep a focus on improvement activity. Learning from audits is individually discussed with workers after audits and wider learning is disseminated via practice learning sessions and fortnightly ‘team Tuesday’ events.

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families: good

62. Leaders have strengthened frontline management oversight of social work practice. Regular individual and group supervisions, valued by staff, provide opportunities for staff to discuss and reflect on children’s experiences. This is informing practice and decision-making.

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families: good

63. Staff speak highly about the training and development offer in Surrey, noting how the offer helps to equip them with the understanding, knowledge and skills that they need to practice in a kind, sensitive, motivational and respectful way. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 64. Recruitment in Surrey has not been without its challenges, and while retention rates are improving and a comprehensive workforce strategy is helping to stabilise the workforce, vacancy rates remain higher than leaders would like. Positively, increasing numbers of children are benefiting from having a stable and consistent worker in whom they trust and confide.

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families: good

65. Although social workers’ caseloads are slightly higher in some teams than others, workers feel well supported to manage their workload and can see that caseloads are gradually reducing.

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families: good

66. Practitioners are extremely positive about the working conditions and culture created by senior leaders. They feel highly valued as workers and are proud to work in Surrey. Inspection of Surrey local authority children’s services 17 to 28 March 2025 regulates and inspects to achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children’s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children’s services, and inspects services for looked-after children, safeguarding and child protection. If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print

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families: good

or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk . This report is available at https://reports.ofsted.gov.uk/ . Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

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families: good

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

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