Setting

Jill Colbert OBE Strategic Director of Children’s Services Tameside One Market Street Ashton-under-Lyne OL6 6BH

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Monitoring visit to Tameside children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Tameside children’s services on 20 and 21 May 2026. This was the fourth monitoring visit since the local authority was judged inadequate in December 2023. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Lisa Summers and Rebecca Quested.

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Areas covered by the visit

Inspectors reviewed the progress made in relation to achieving permanence for children in care, and in particular:

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ the quality of assessments, plans and planning

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ visits to children and direct work, including life-story work

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ the quality and timeliness of health support for children in care, including emotional and mental health

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ the provision of suitable placements for children in care

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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

Leaders continue to build the framework to support service improvements for children and young people. The leadership team is now permanent, and leaders demonstrate a shared focus on improvement, underpinned by well-targeted improvement planning. The monitoring of quality and performance continues to be strengthened through effective and regular auditing, and more focused data reports. Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 Textphone 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.gov.uk/ofsted As a result, leaders have a good understanding of quality and performance, which is used to shape improvement planning. Leaders are taking a methodical and steady approach to improvement. Through coaching, training and support, the workforce is being successfully brought on the journey of improvement. This steady pace of progress is helping to embed sustainable change.

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Headline findings

A greater focus on the quality and impact of practice is leading to timelier assessments of children’s circumstances. Reviews of children’s assessments and plans are more regular, and management oversight, including by independent reviewing officers (IROs), has increased. There is a reduced use of agency workers, and the workforce is stabilising. Some of the higher staff turnover within the cared for children’s teams has had a negative impact on the stability of relationships for some children. There continues to be inconsistency in practice in the quality of plans and supervision. Leaders continue to address the extensive legacy of poor practice. There is a significant focus on securing legal permanence, but this has not been secured for too many children. For some children in care, if they go missing, the response is not consistently robust or effective.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The corporate parenting board continues to be strengthened. The board is well attended by partners, and attendees are becoming increasingly curious about children and young people’s experiences. Meetings now provide opportunities for children to set the agenda, to chair meetings and to share presentations about issues that are important to them.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

While the data presented to the board is improving, it is not sufficiently detailed to support robust critical challenge. For example, performance information relating to children securing permanence is limited. A new corporate parenting strategy has been developed to better support focus and ongoing prioritisation. The strategy has been co-produced with children and young people. Workstreams to deliver the six service priorities are planned. It is too soon to see the impact of this renewed focus for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders continue to refine and improve the quality assurance mechanisms to support their oversight of practice. Practice and impact reviews, which are used to audit children’s records, are appropriately evaluative, and are now informed by feedback from families. Practice strengths and areas for improvement are identified, and corrective actions are appropriate and timebound. Social workers and managers are provided with a reflective space to consider the impact of practice, what is working well and what could be improved. Actions are monitored for completion, and as a result, most children’s experiences are improving.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Securing permanence is a priority. The permanence panel is now starting to gain traction in progressing children’s plans where there has been drift and delay. This is providing better management oversight, direction and ensuring a shared understanding of current needs and whether children’s plans are still appropriate. Barriers in progressing children’s plans are identified and are being used to improve children’s experiences. For example, there have been delays in completing medicals for both adopters and carers where the plan is to progress to a special guardianship order (SGO), and as a result, the local authority is now commissioning this resource to support timelier decision-making.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders are working to strengthen the permanence dashboard to provide more in- depth data. This does not provide the granular detail to help managers prioritise reviews of children’s permanence.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There is a high proportion of children who have been placed with their parents for many years without a review of these arrangements. When a decision is made to discharge a child’s care order, progressing this remains slow for too many children. Some of these children and their families disengage from statutory support and the local authority do not consistently address this. As a consequence, the local authority cannot be assured that these placements continue to be appropriate or safe.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders are aware that there is a significant number of children with plans for long- term foster care that have not been permanently matched to their long-term carers. Work has focused on preparing children and their carers for matching, while testing if this remains the most appropriate plan given the delays many have experienced historically. Newly developed practice standards and processes to secure matching have been completed and launched recently, which have been shaped by children’s views. This has led to the recent development of a celebratory panel to formally match children with their long-term carers.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

When special guardianship is identified as the permanency plan, considerable delays occur in securing the special guardianship order after the plan is ratified in the child’s care plan. However, the permanence panel and challenges raised by IROs are helping to resolve some of these delays for children who have lived with long-term foster or kinship carers. Nonetheless, assessing potential special guardians remains slow. Some children and their carers are expressing frustration at the delay in legal permanence being secured. Support plans lack specificity, in particular detailing the arrangements for family time. This has the potential to impact on the stability of children’s care.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The work within the regional adoption agency is appropriately overseen by senior managers who act as the agency decision-maker, and through monthly meetings and monitoring of a tracker. Social workers successfully prepare children for adoption, making good use of direct work. Children who are new to care are starting to benefit from a more robust approach to care planning for adoption. For some children, fostering for adoption is now more likely to be considered, when appropriate, which provides consistency for children while securing permanence. The quality of assessments is improving. More assessments are updated to understand children’s current circumstances and changing needs. Most are thorough and well written, with children’s voices now being used to shape and influence decisions impacting their lives. Children’s individual needs and identities are better understood. If reunifying children with their parents is possible, parenting capacity is

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Findings and evaluation of progress

evaluated, and social workers identify what change is needed to support a return home.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social work assessments are providing better evidence of an understanding of the impact of trauma on children’s experiences. However, chronologies are lengthy and are not contributing to the overall evaluation of children’s needs.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

While permanence planning is now routinely considered, the quality of care plans remain inconsistent. Stronger plans are comprehensive and show that consideration has been given to all aspects of children’s lives. Weaker plans are not sufficiently individualised, and they do not specify what actions are needed and in what timescales. For example, family time arrangements are not always sufficiently defined.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children’s individual needs are well considered and met through core group meetings. These meetings are mostly regular, well attended by partner agencies and are used to share updates on children’s circumstances, review progress against the plan and identify specific actions. The introduction of a meeting structure is supporting greater consistency of focus on potential risks and children’s needs. These routine reviews are leading to more responsive planning.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers take time to build relationships and to understand children’s lived experiences as they develop permanence plans for them. Consequently, many children live in stable homes and access support that meets their specific needs. Some children benefit from having an advocate to support them.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Children’s physical and emotional health needs are quickly understood and met. This includes swift access to consultations between CAMHS professionals and social workers to identify the most appropriate support for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There are multiple mechanisms in place to identify and respond to the risks associated with children going missing from care. Despite this, there is an overfocus on process. Children are subject to multiple assessments and plans which do not consistently translate into a coherent and effective multi-agency response. Leaders understand this and have plans in place to improve this for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers speak with fondness and pride about their children, and most know them well. More visits are purposeful and sensitively written to the child, with the voice of children being central to planning. For some children, the frequency of visits is responsive to children’s changing needs, but this is not consistent. Many children have experienced changes in social worker, which impacts on their ability to foster trusting relationships. The completion of life-story work is inconsistent, with only some children having the opportunity to understand their journey into care and beyond.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There is increasing oversight of children’s plans by IROs in between looked-after reviews. IROs meet with children to understand their views, wishes and feelings and these forums are being used to shape children’s plans. This is translating into more child-focused looked-after children’s reviews. When practice issues are raised, these are becoming increasingly effective in tackling weaker practice, but this is not consistent. If actions from reviews have not progressed, IROs do not always escalate this for managers to address.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The frequency and quality of supervision are inconsistent. Leaders recognise this, and dedicated supervision training has commenced. Some supervision is regular and reflective and is helping social workers to improve children’s lives. Weaker supervision is failing to drive children’s plans forward, and some sessions are cut and pasted from one session to the next. While actions for next steps are identified, these are mostly task focused. If actions have not been completed, challenge is largely absent, and this is not securing timely permanence for these children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Leaders have made sustained progress in stabilising the workforce. There are increasing numbers of permanent staff, and a strong focus on recruitment and retention. Workforce development is also a key priority for Tameside children’s services. The use of agency staff remains necessary to maintain service continuity; however, this use is reducing and some agency staff are converting to permanent posts. Since the last monitoring visit, several service manager posts have now been filled, bringing an additional layer of permanent leadership.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers, IROs and frontline managers are very positive about working for Tameside. Some have moved from other local authorities because of the positive experiences of their colleagues. Social workers report that leaders are accessible and visible, and they described a tangible difference in the workplace culture since the strategic director of children’s services took up post. Workers told inspectors that leaders know them, and their contribution is now valued. Social workers have manageable workloads, and for those new to the service, this is gradually increased at an appropriate pace, with effective oversight by managers.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Yours sincerely Lisa Summers His Majesty’s Inspector

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