Setting

Stuart Easingwood Director of Children’s Services Town Hall Civic Offices Westoe Road South Shields NE33 2RL

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Monitoring visit to South Tyneside children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to South Tyneside children’s services on 14 and 15 May 2025. This was the fifth monitoring visit since the local authority was judged inadequate in May 2023. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Catherine Heron and Lisa Walsh.

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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

◼ The response to contacts and referrals for children and families to the multi- agency safeguarding hub (MASH) and ‘front door’ of the service.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Partner agencies’ understanding and application of the threshold guidance for making referrals to the local authority about children who may be in need or at risk of harm.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Management recording of decision-making rationale, the effectiveness of performance management and quality management.

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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

At this monitoring visit, inspectors revisited the front door and the MASH. The previous monitoring visit took place in March 2024. Leaders have built on the developments and improvements identified at the previous visit, further strengthening practice in this area of the service. Children in need of help or protection receive a timely, effective and consistent response from the front door 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 and MASH service. Children’s needs continue to be promptly identified and responded to when requests for services are made. There is a clear interface with early help and improved pathways into this service have reduced delays. The interface between the out-of-hours and daytime services results in timely and proportionate decision-making so children receive the right service at the right time.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Partner agencies’ understanding of thresholds for making referrals is improving. The quality of information in contacts is more focused on professional worries and concerns about children. Improved collaboration with partner agencies has contributed to improvements. Leaders recognise that further work is needed to reduce the number of contacts and achieve consistent quality of information-sharing. A trial telephone referral process has recently been introduced for education and early years professionals to discuss concerns about children who they are working with. Although workers in the front door spoke positively about this new approach, and the effective relationships with partners, it is too early to fully assess the impact of this for children. Multi-agency training and good practice examples of contacts are offered widely within the safeguarding partnership so that professionals have guidance to follow. This is helping to ensure proportionate decision-making in the

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The majority of contacts are triaged in a timely way. Workers carry out thorough, often same-day enquiries, consulting children’s parents, relevant professionals and sometimes the child. Parental consent is well understood by workers in the front door, but it is not always sufficiently clear in professional contacts, resulting in workers spending additional time to confirm the status of consent. Workers’ analysis recognises factors that can increase children’s vulnerability, such as those electively home educated or those who may be persistently absent from school. Information gathered focuses appropriately on understanding the child’s lived experience and the help they need.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders have taken the decision to reposition the entire early help service from the Education, Inclusion and SEND service and merge it with children’s social care, creating Children and Family Services. This alignment of the two services has simplified the management structure, improving leaders’ line of sight. The timeliness of early help triage has improved considerably so that children who need early help and support are referred for help and seen quickly. Early help assessments are proportionate, and support plans are co-produced with families and regularly reviewed. There is an effective interface between early help and statutory social work at the front door. When the needs of children and their families change, their support plan and the level of support are adapted accordingly.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The response to children at risk of domestic abuse has improved at the front door since the monitoring visit in March 2024. Workers have a clearer understanding of the complex nature of this type of harm and are alert to warning signs and the impact on children. When concerns are at a low level, children and families are referred for early intervention to avoid situations getting worse. Children with higher levels of need are allocated for a full assessment and planning. Social workers are skilled at building relationships with parents, particularly those who are more reluctant to engage. Workers sensitively explore issues and address worries so that parents understand what needs to change and the available support. To further strengthen the response to children exposed to domestic abuse, leaders have commissioned an independent domestic violence adviser (IDVA) position at the front door as an expert adviser and advocate. This remains in development, so it is too

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Findings and evaluation of progress

soon to evaluate the impact for children and their families.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The quality and timeliness of assessments of children’s needs at the front door is strong. Management assessment checkpoints are embedded, which is supporting workers to reach completion timescales. Although a relatively high proportion of assessments are still completed in the longest time permitted, children do not wait for help to be provided. Planning and support for children and their families start at the earliest opportunity, resulting in some children’s situations improving during the assessment process. Assessments are comprehensive and thoroughly consider the child’s individual needs, family history, the identification of risk and resilience. Children are seen at a frequency that meets their needs, so their voice and perspective on daily life are well documented and inform assessment analysis. This means that children’s needs are well understood, resulting in timely support.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers are increasingly engaging the child’s network, for example non- resident parents, relatives, neighbours and family friends, to build support and extend safeguards to children. This work is well evidenced in children’s records. Contingency plans are usually included should children’s situations not improve. The increased use of family networks means workers are supporting more families to create their own solutions to meeting their children’s needs.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

When concerns about risks to a child increase, strategy discussions are timely. The vast majority involve key professionals who share information, which is an improvement since the monitoring visit in March 2024. Recommendations from strategy meetings are based on analysis of risk to the child and result in well-defined future actions for individual professionals. Child protection enquiries are effective. Multi-agency information-sharing, interviews with children and parents, and analysis of history contribute to robust risk assessments and determine the action needed to promote the child’s welfare. Decisions have a clear rationale and are proportionate to the level of risk. Children in need of urgent support also receive an effective response from the out-of-hours team. This service liaises with available agencies and carries out visits to children to implement and monitor the effectiveness of safety

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Findings and evaluation of progress

planning. Management oversight at the front door is robust. Oversight by managers provides workers with clear direction from the screening process through to assessment. This includes effective challenge when more information or further work is needed to ensure the right decisions for children. The quality of supervision of workers continues to improve. It is regular and reflective and mostly provides clear direction to workers that is focused on improving children’s circumstances.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The resolute commitment and investment from the council has supported the director of children’s services (DCS) to resource the children’s services improvement plan effectively. The chief executive and lead member are well informed. There are clear lines of reporting and thorough scrutiny of the service improvement, ensuring a rigorous approach to holding senior leaders to account for the quality of children’s services.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The local authority’s self-evaluation of the front door and the MASH is accurate. This is informed by strengthened quality assurance arrangements that are providing leaders with clearer insights on service improvement as well as the pace and momentum of change. Audit activity has continued to improve, applying a more collaborative approach through greater inclusion of social workers, children and their families. Leaders balance their self-evaluation by being open-minded, exploring good practice examples from the sector and valuing independent scrutiny. Leaders’ strong grip on their improvement plan and the recent investment in a quality assurance lead are testimony to their unwavering commitment to continuous service improvement.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders continue to build resilience into the system at different layers of the organisation. Investment in the MASH has increased the number of permanent social worker posts in the team structure and reduced the number of agency staff. During the recruitment phase, changes in workers affected team stability and the timeliness of work in some areas. Leaders and managers have responded well to this challenge and the impact has been mitigated due to the effective processes already embedded, additional management oversight and the strong leadership. Caseloads have remained manageable and equitably allocated to staff based on their experience and capacity. Newly qualified social workers have been protected, with reduced workloads and joint working with colleagues. Recruitment to fill the small number of vacancies in the team is well under way.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders are nurturing a healthy and cohesive leadership culture that encompasses collaboration and welcomes challenge and scrutiny in a respectful way. This positive culture is felt by workers in the front door. Workers consistently talked about leadership in the front door and MASH being supportive, with fair challenge. Leaders are visible and personable, providing reassurance and motivation to workers. The strong sense of loyalty and commitment from workers to their service, aligned with the trust they have in their managers and leaders, means that workers are fully on board with the improvement journey. I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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