Setting

Stuart Collins Corporate Director Children, Young People and Education 4th Floor, Bernard Weatherill House 8 Mint Walk Croydon CR0 1EA

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Focused visit to Croydon Children’s Services

This letter summarises the findings of the focused visit to Croydon children’s services on 4 and 5 February 2026. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Zafer Yilkan, Tom Anthony and Mark Scanlon.

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Focused visit to Croydon Children’s Services

Inspectors looked at the local authority’s arrangements for the ‘front door’.

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Focused visit to Croydon Children’s Services

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

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Headline findings

The front door service in Croydon provides a timely first response to the needs of most children and families in the borough. The arrival of a new permanent director of children’s services in December 2024 has brought greater stability that has supported the positive progress made.

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Headline findings

The new leadership team has responded positively to previous inspection findings and focused on further improving practice, quality assurance and performance management. A focus on the provision of services to children and families out of hours has resulted in a timelier response to need. However, some social workers are holding very high caseloads in the assessment service, and this is having a negative impact on the timely completion of assessments. Many children and their families are waiting too long to receive the services and help they need despite social workers demonstrating significant commitment to supporting them. Ofsted

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Headline findings

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 Textphone 0161 618 8524 enquirie@ofsted.gov.uk www.gov.uk/ofsted

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What needs to improve in this area of social work practice?

◼ Social work caseloads in the Family Assessment Service (FAS).

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What needs to improve in this area of social work practice?

◼ The timeliness of completion of child and family assessments.

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What needs to improve in this area of social work practice?

◼ The timeliness and quality of management oversight and supervision.

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Main findings

When children who may be in need of support or protection are referred to Croydon’s multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), these referrals are reviewed by practitioners in a timely manner and appropriate actions agreed. This ensures that any immediate safeguarding concerns and needs of children are identified and responded to promptly. Levels of need and the thresholds for different levels of intervention are well understood and consistently applied by experienced social workers and managers at the front door. Contacts and referrals which result in a decision to ‘step down’ to early help, or which result in no further action are appropriate, and, when suitable, children and families are signposted to community services for support.

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Main findings

When there are concerns in relation to extra-familial harm, a screening tool is routinely completed and is proving effective in helping to identify risks and shape interventions to such children and young people. Social workers routinely speak with partner agencies and parents, including fathers, to inform effective information- gathering. Children and their families referred to the MASH benefit from strong management oversight and direction and swift multi-agency collaboration. As a result, children and their families needing urgent safeguarding are identified and responded to quickly to reduce immediate harm.

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Main findings

Staff demonstrate a strong awareness of the range of risks that children face, both within and outside the home, including risks from being exposed to incidents of domestic abuse. The co-location of the domestic abuse service and the Independent Domestic Abuse Adviser helps coordinate an early response to children and parents experiencing domestic abuse.

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Main findings

When risks of significant harm are identified, child protection strategy meetings are convened swiftly. They are well attended by partner agencies and immediate protective actions are taken to ensure children’s safety. Strategy meetings are comprehensively recorded and capture details of concerns about children, setting out clear actions, including whether to progress to child protection enquiries. The co- location of rotating duty assessment teams within the MASH provides a smooth and timely transfer of children and their families from oversight by MASH workers to social workers who will be working with them from that point and completing assessments. This limits delay and promotes continuity in children and families’ experiences of receiving support. Child protection enquiries are mostly timely and progress the actions agreed at child protection strategy meetings. Generally strong analysis of information gathered

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Main findings

during these enquiries underpins decisions that are consistent with the level of risk that children face. This includes decisions to convene initial child protection conferences. There are delays in the timely convening of initial child protection conferences for some children. Leaders are aware of this and are taking action to improve the timeliness of such interventions.

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Main findings

When children require immediate safeguarding, swift actions are taken to ensure they are protected. Collaborative and responsive partnership working with the police and health providers supports timely decision-making to protect children. When it is not safe for children to remain living with their parents, appropriate actions are taken, including seeking protective legal orders to safeguard children. The potential of extended family networks to provide care and support when children cannot safely remain with their parents is explored well.

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Main findings

Assessments, although not always completed when they should be, are generally thorough and comprehensive. Historical information and past interventions are considered well in assessment and planning. This information is used to enable a clear analysis of children’s current circumstances, including identifying any risks and needs.

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Main findings

Children are routinely seen, and mostly on their own, sometimes in their schools when this is more appropriate. Visits are timely and detailed and capture children’s views well. Children’s needs are well identified in assessments. Although not consistent across the service, some assessments are skilfully written to children. Children’s needs, identity, support networks and information from partner agencies, such as health and schools, help to gain a strong understanding of children’s lived experiences. Social workers in the assessment service pay good attention to the levels of risk children face alongside short-term safety planning. When increased risks are identified, social workers progress to child protection strategy meetings and enquiries when this is needed to help keep children safe. Risk and safety plans for children are carefully considered and reviewed, and this means that they are typically

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Main findings

well matched to children’s current circumstances and risks.

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Main findings

Children’s needs are well identified and assessed. However, the completion of assessments often takes too long, reflecting the very high caseloads held by assessment social workers. For some children, these delays in completion can increase their difficulties and increase family stress, due to their needs remaining unmet for too long.

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Main findings

Following assessments which recommend that early help support be provided to children and their families, the pace with which this support is provided is variable. For some children, there can be delays in allocating and initiating early help support. Similarly, when children’s needs require child in need plans following assessments, there are sometimes delays in this help being provided. This means that some children and their families are not receiving the right support and help at the right time or wait too long to receive it following a period of assessment.

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Main findings

Pre-birth assessments result in appropriate decisions and safety planning in line with children’s assessed need. Pre-birth meetings are well attended by partner agencies. The pre-birth multi-agency panel chaired by the specialist midwifery support is effective in identifying need, monitoring progress and providing early interventions to expectant mothers.

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Main findings

A timely and appropriate response is provided to children coming to the attention of Croydon’s out-of-hours (OOH) service. Immediate risks to children are identified and responded to well, including holding child protection strategy meetings with the police to take urgent protective actions when needed to ensure children’s safety. OOH practitioners liaise with MASH and other day services effectively to notify them of children who have come to the attention of the OOH service. This is a busy service with a small workforce, providing services to children, adults and housing out of hours. Leaders are aware of the staffing pressure experienced by this service and have plans to increase capacity to strengthen support to children and families and reduce pressure on the busy OOH staff. This was an area of improvement that was identified at the last ILACS inspection, and, while tangible progress has been made

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Main findings

to provide a timely and responsive service to most children, leaders are aware of the need for further work to enhance the effectiveness of the service.

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Main findings

The quality assurance and performance framework is well established. The auditing (windows into practice) programme is purposeful and guides auditors to address things that matter for children. It helps to identify strengths in practice as well as improvements and learning opportunities for practitioners and managers. Audits are providing leaders with a broadly accurate line of sight to frontline practice. Audits are completed with social workers and managers, providing reflection and learning opportunities for them. It is a particular strength that auditors routinely seek direct feedback from parents and include their feedback in recommended actions. When this is not possible or inappropriate, auditors record a clear rationale for not seeking direct feedback. Leaders are extending this to seek direct feedback from children to enhance their understanding of the lived experience of children.

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Main findings

Most social workers hold very high caseloads in the assessment service. Social workers told inspectors that they worry about high caseloads causing delays to the timely completion of assessments, having to prioritise those children with most need and those with less need not getting the same level of attention and support. They worry about not having sufficient time to get to know children and not being able to carry out preventative work with children and their families.

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Main findings

The quality of management oversight of assessments is variable. Although providing some initial direction to guide practitioners’ activity at the point of allocation, the high number of children being worked with by individual social workers delays managers providing sufficient reflective guidance and direction to help social workers to reflect on children’s views, experiences and progress.

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Main findings

Social workers and managers told us that they benefit from extensive training and development opportunities which support their learning. They talked positively about recent motivational interview skills training which is helping them to engage more effectively with parents.

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Main findings

Social workers at the front door say that they feel valued and supported by their managers. Although they receive regular management guidance and direction from their managers, their individual supervision is less frequent. Social workers reported that they find reflective peer discussions helpful to reflect on their work with children and provide learning opportunities for them. However, they said they are not always able to attend, and that these are sometimes cancelled due to work demands.

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Main findings

Social workers know their senior leaders and describe them as being visible, accessible and supportive. Social workers told us that they enjoy working in Croydon.

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Main findings

Ofsted will take the findings from this focused visit into account when planning the next inspection or visit.

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