Setting

Brenda McInerney Corporate Director of Children’s Services Swindon Borough Council Euclid Street Swindon SN1 2JH

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Monitoring visit to Swindon Borough Council children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Swindon’s children’s services on 11 to 12 November 2025. This was the fifth monitoring visit since the local authority was judged inadequate in July 2023. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Nick Bennison and Joy Howick. Since the time of the monitoring visit, there has been a change of director of children’s services, and the new permanent director is now in post.

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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 consistency and appropriateness with which thresholds for intervention and the provision of support are understood and applied for children in need or at risk of harm.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ How accurately assessments identify children’s needs and risks and support the framing of timely and clear plans that match children’s circumstances.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ The regularity and effectiveness of management oversight.

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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, there has been continuing political and corporate support in improving the quality of help and support provided to vulnerable children in Swindon. The ‘front door’ service is now consistently applying appropriate thresholds for the provision of help and support. The quality and depth of assessments completed by the assessment service are increasing, and the ability of social workers to capture the child’s voice is now particularly strong. However, children experiencing 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 cumulative harm are not receiving an effective response, and the regularity and quality of management oversight remain variable.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There continues to be strong political and corporate support for children’s services in Swindon. The leader, lead member and the chief executive are fully engaged in the improvement agenda and are active participants in the corporate parenting board and the children’s services improvement board. There has been significant financial investment into children’s services, and a recent commitment to further increase staffing levels, across services, to better manage demand, and to improve and develop the quality of practice. The local authority has also invested in an IT system aiming to better support workers and managers in their work with children. A permanent director of children services has recently been appointed and is due to start soon. These imminent changes have brought a renewed sense of energy and purpose to the workforce and senior leadership team.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The previous interim corporate director of children’s services and interim director of safeguarding and support have focused on improving the quality of frontline practice within the safeguarding service. This has led to a much more consistent application of thresholds and has improved the quality of assessments when children are referred to children’s services. The Early Help offer provides children with a responsive and seamless service that meets their needs. Equally, social workers in the assessment teams undertake more detailed assessments that gain a strong understanding of the child’s world. Some children are, however, still waiting too long for a service to support their needs and reduce the harm that they are experiencing.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

When children’s needs increase, or decrease, they receive an effective early help response. Workers gain an understanding of the child’s world through sensitive and imaginative direct work. This allows them to recognise and respond quickly to children when risks escalate, and it ensures the timely provision of statutory multi- agency support for the child and family. Equally, when risks to children decrease, they receive a timely allocation to early help workers. Children are increasingly benefiting from seamless early help support.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children referred to the multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH) receive the right help at the right time. MASH workers consider children’s and families’ history and are diligent in reviewing children’s records. The enhanced quality of multi- agency information-gathering within the service is bringing added depth to children’s assessments, and children’s needs and areas for support are appropriately identified. There is regular and well-considered management oversight of practice within the MASH that ensures children receive an appropriate response to their needs or any potential harm. There is, however, a lack of timeliness in the completion of MASH assessments for some children in need of help and support. This leads to these children experiencing delay in the provision of appropriate services. When children are referred to children’s services, partner agencies are not routinely helping parents to understand their concerns or why they are referring them to

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Findings and evaluation of progress

children’s services. This means that for many parents, they are unaware or unclear about the concerns professionals have about their children or that children’s services have been notified of these concerns.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The benefits of working collaboratively with families is well understood by MASH workers. They support parents in understanding their rights and the reason for the referral. When information is shared or actions taken without parental agreement there is, however, both a lack of clear rationale from the workers and a lack of management oversight to ensure the appropriateness of this action.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children who need help and support out of hours receive a timely and appropriate response from the Emergency Duty Service (EDS). EDS coordinates rapid multi- agency responses to children who are at risk of harm in order to ensure their immediate safety. They work diligently and swiftly to also support children to remain safely at home with their family when appropriate. There is a smooth transfer of information and actions between EDS and daytime services and children benefit from a service that meets their needs.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Many children who are at immediate risk of significant harm receive the help and support they need quickly. Multi-agency child protection strategy meetings are timely and include the relevant professionals involved with the child. Professionals make a comprehensive assessment of strengths and risk within the family network, which leads to proportionate actions being taken to help safeguard children. However, actions are too general and, for most, too focused on social work tasks rather than actions that need to be taken immediately or by other partners. For a small number of children, this means they experience delay in risks being reduced.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Child protection assessments are mostly timely and detailed. Social workers gain an understanding of the child’s experiences and views, as well as those of parents and agencies, and this leads to a clear outline of the areas of concern. However, for some children experiencing cumulative harm, there is a superficial understanding of the impact of harm on children and an over optimism about the likelihood of sufficient sustained improvement. This leads to ineffective planning, and these children experience harm for too long.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children are visited and seen alone by social workers at a frequency that is responsive to their needs. Social workers communicate effectively with children using a range of methods and tools to gain their views. This work is clearly recorded within the child’s assessment and adds depth and supports the work being undertaken by social workers. Social workers use children’s voices in a purposeful and powerful way to help parents to understand their child’s experiences.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Child-in-need assessments are mostly comprehensive, and children are involved in the assessment process. Social workers ensure that they gain the views of parents, including non-resident parents and stepfathers, the wider family and other agencies. This means workers gain a strong understanding of the child’s world. For most children, this leads to an analysis that appropriately outlines the child’s level of need and the areas for support. However, for those children experiencing cumulative harm, social workers’ analysis can be over optimistic, leading to children experiencing recurring harm for too long.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Senior managers are visible to the workforce. They have developed a workplace culture of support, openness and accountability within children’s services. Senior leaders have implemented changes in processes and practice in the MASH, and in the assessment teams, which have supported the quality of practice to improve within both service areas.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Senior leaders are focused on developing positive understanding and relationships across the safeguarding partnership. This has supported the development of the MASH into a more effectively functioning multi-agency hub with all key partners participating in the service. There is, however, a need to develop a consistency of understanding and recognition of cumulative harm for children across the partnership. Equally, partners need to ensure that when appropriate and safe to do so, they inform and help parents to understand the concerns about their parenting and the need for children’s services involvement.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There are an openness and commitment to learning within children’s services . Multi- agency training in the MASH has strengthened the team’s knowledge and has led to a more consistent approach in the initial response to children’s needs and risk, and in working with parents and multi-agency working. Leaders have welcomed and embraced the learning from an external peer review to help support the development of the service. Social workers within the assessment teams are supported with protected time to engage in whole-service practice learning. There is a wide training offer for both workers and managers, although some workers find this difficult to access due to current workload demands.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Senior leaders know their service well and their self-evaluation provides an accurate and realistic understanding of the areas of strength and where practice and services need to improve. Managers at all levels across children’s services receive performance management information that gives them a clear understanding of areas of strengthening practice, and those that are either under pressure from demand or need further support to embed improvements. While quality assurance activity is giving leaders a line of sight into the quality and impact of frontline practice, audit activity is not inclusive of social workers, or children and their families. This limits learning opportunities for workers as well as opportunities for hearing directly from children and their families about the impact of social work practice and interventions on their lives.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders have responded quickly to increasing demand in the safeguarding service by increasing staffing in the MASH and the assessment teams. This has created greater management oversight and support in the MASH and has started to reduce levels of work within the assessment teams. However, there is more to do to strengthen workforce stability and reduce workloads within the assessment service.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Management oversight and supervision is variable in both timeliness and quality. There are significant gaps in supervision for some workers. The quality of supervision is inconsistent, with some workers experiencing reflective conversations that support learning, while others focus on process and do not support or develop the workers understanding and learning. Most supervision leads to actions that are too general and process focused. There is regular oversight of assessment work that gives a clear summary of concerns and appropriate recommendations for next steps. However, for some children, particularly those experiencing cumulative harm, this is not leading to effective actions and decision-making to reduce harm quickly enough.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers in Swindon are committed to the local authority and to the children they are working with. They are positive about the support that they receive from their immediate and senior managers.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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