Setting

Julian Wooster Interim Director of Children and Young People’s Futures County Hall Topsham Road Exeter Devon EX2 4OD

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Monitoring visit to Devon children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Devon children’s services on 3 and 4 March 2026. This was the second monitoring visit since the local authority was judged inadequate for a second time in January 2025. Devon has had 7 previous monitoring visits due to an inadequate judgement in January 2020. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Steve Bailey and Andy Whippey.

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Areas covered by the visit

Inspectors reviewed the progress made in the quality and impact of help and protection for children with a child in need or child protection plan, with a particular focus on the following areas of concern identified at the last inspection:

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ The quality and impact of plans for children.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ The response to children at immediate risk of harm, including the timelines of strategy discussions.

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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, leaders have implemented significant organisational change, including service remodelling and the recruitment of permanent leaders and managers, which is bringing greater stability in the workforce. Leaders have set a clear direction for improvement that emphasises more thoughtful, proportionate and purposeful work with families to promote meaningful change. This approach is helping the majority of children with a child in need or child protection plan to make better progress through more tailored help.

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Headline findings

However, the analysis of the impact that multi-agency support makes is not yet consistently clear or sufficiently robust. As a result, some decision-making about 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 interventions and next steps remains too hesitant, especially for children where concerns are cumulative, multifaceted and fluctuate. Leaders have introduced more systematic oversight of children with a child in need or child protection plan as an additional check and balance to address this. This oversight is at different stages of implementation across the service. Where this work is active, it is having a positive impact on decision-making and influencing practice.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children who have a child-in-need or child protection plan receive proportionate and tailored support in line with their assessed needs. Children, including those who have a disability, are visited regularly and, consequently, social workers develop constructive relationships with them and their families. Direct work with children, parents and carers is restorative and intentional, reflecting leaders’ chosen model of practice, with social workers showing strong commitment and persistence, which is helping families to improve their children’s circumstances.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children are seen regularly and practitioners understand their circumstances well. When children share worries about their safety or wellbeing, social workers take them seriously and respond appropriately, taking actions to address these concerns. As a result, children experience responsive help as needs change over time.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children’s plans are reviewed regularly through core groups, review meetings and conferences. Parents and carers are encouraged to attend and contribute their views. These arrangements help ensure that interventions are monitored and that the majority of planning remains relevant.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

In some reviews and core group meetings, the impact of support on children’s lives is not analysed with sufficient clarity. Progress against actions is regularly monitored, but the effectiveness of interventions on children’s day-to-day experiences and parental change is not consistently examined in depth. As a result, some children experience limited progress and less decisive planning about next steps.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers respond promptly to risks of immediate significant harm. Strategy meetings are now convened quickly and child protection enquiries are generally thorough, particularly when responding to children’s disclosures of harm. While these responses help ensure that immediate safeguarding concerns are addressed without delay, analysis and planning is weaker for children who experience the cumulative impact of multiple risk factors. Where domestic abuse, parental mental ill health and substance abuse occur together, some enquiries do not produce a realistic sense of the vulnerabilities and fragilities of children’s care. As a result, while the majority of enquiries lead to proportionate next steps, a minority do not lead to a clear analysis or rationale.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Practice in responding to domestic abuse is improving. Practitioners are increasingly making use of tools and pathways that help them recognise and respond to the impact of domestic abuse on children. Direct work with children and families takes full account of the safety of victims. Some practice is not sufficiently persistent in including fathers and male carers in this work to strengthen the sustainability of improvements for some children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Decisions to step down child protection plans are generally well supported by clear rationale and effective oversight. Child protection chairs provide appropriate challenge when reviewing whether risks have reduced sufficiently. Early review meetings help ensure that decisions remain timely and proportionate so that children do not stay subject to statutory involvement longer than necessary.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers actively involve children’s wider family networks. Practitioners understand children’s extended family relationships well and use this knowledge early on to strengthen support and contingency planning effectively. As a result, children benefit from broader networks of enduring support.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Passionate and committed family group conference (FGC) coordinators deliver effective FGCs during child protection planning. However, some FGC plans lack clarity about who is responsible for specific tasks. This can make it harder for professionals and families to remain focused on achieving and sustaining change for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Partnership working continues to present challenges in meeting some children’s needs. Some disabled children experience delays in receiving services, equipment or specialist support from partner agencies. These delays affect children’s daily lives. Social workers stridently advocate for children they support, which helps alleviate some of the pressures on families.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The quality of supervision continues to improve and is becoming more embedded. While variability remains, stronger supervision is reflective, analytical and appropriately directive. In weaker examples, supervision is too infrequent, and, when it does take place, it provides limited opportunity examine the impact of interventions or strengthen planning for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The quality assurance framework provides leaders with an accurate understanding of social work practice. Audit activity is increasingly collaborative, with auditors and moderators reflecting a warmly forensic approach that combines detailed scrutiny with constructive feedback about how practice can improve. As a result, audit activity is becoming an increasingly impactful tool in strengthening practice and improving services for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Most social workers who support children with a child in need or child protection plan have manageable workloads, although some specific teams experience capacity pressures. In these teams, the timeliness of some interventions and the amount of time workers can spend directly with children and families are affected. Leaders are aware of the challenges and have targeted recruitment and retention work in harder- to-fill positions. Leaders have a clear understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the service and the scale of improvement required. They recognise that children in Devon have not received good services for too long. Improvement plans are in progress and leaders are focused on embedding change across the service. The newly introduced locality model provides clearer organisational structure for delivering services across the county. The transition has been carefully planned and implemented, supporting

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders are carefully balancing the pace of improvement with the needs of the workforce. Service remodelling in locality teams, workforce development and strengthened oversight arrangements are being implemented alongside impactful efforts to stabilise staffing across teams. Social workers and managers who met with inspectors demonstrate commitment and determination to improving children’s lives in Devon. Most showed strong knowledge of the children and families they support.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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