Setting

Tara Geere Director of Starting Well Havering Town Hall Main Road Romford RM1 3BB

p.1

Monitoring visit to Havering children’s services

p.1

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Havering children’s services on 3 and 4 June 2026. This was the fifth monitoring visit since the last inspection in December 2023, when the effectiveness of services was judged to be inadequate. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Naintara Khosla and Mark Scanlon.

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

Inspectors reviewed the progress made in the following areas of concern identified at the last inspection:

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

◼ the experiences of children in care, including disabled children

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

◼ the timeliness of care planning, including permanence and children’s reunification home to parents.

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

◼ the role and effectiveness of the Independent Reviewing Officer in care planning for children

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

◼ the sufficiency and range of care arrangements for children

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

◼ supervision and management decision-making for children in care

p.1

Areas covered by the visit

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

p.1

Headline findings

This is Ofsted’s fifth monitoring visit to Havering and repeats the focus on children in care of a previous visit in March 2025, at which it was found that much remained to Ofsted

p.1

Headline findings

Store Street Manchester M1 2WD T 0300 123 1231 Textphone 0161 618 8524 enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk www.gov.uk/ofsted do to ensure that children in care receive a consistently good service. This visit found tangible improvement that is making a positive difference for children. However, further improvement and consistency of practice are needed in a number of areas.

p.1

Headline findings

Early permanence planning and initial child in care reviews are not consistently ensuring sufficient quality to inform complex care planning needs for all children from the earliest opportunity or to help them to secure appropriate permanent homes as soon as possible. When not moderated, audits are often weak and, when learning is identified, this is not routinely used to strengthen planning for individual children or to inform service development at a strategic level. Supervision sessions for staff are now much more regular and of improving quality but are not consistently supporting the timely progression of children’s care plans.

p.2

Headline findings

Disabled children benefit from a consistently effective and prompt service that understands and responds to their multifaceted health and care planning needs well. Return home interviews are offered to almost all children in a timely manner, and the take-up rate is high. Interviews provide detailed insights into the reasons children in care go missing. This valuable information is used to strengthen work with some, but not all, children, and is not aggregated to inform service development at a strategic level. Strengthened oversight from the independent reviewing officer (IRO) service is improving the quality of long-term care planning and is helping children’s needs to be better met. Alongside the very positive impact of IROs, the virtual school acts as a catalyst to ensure that the support for the education of children in care is consistently strong. Work to strengthen sufficiency, so that available provision better

p.2

Headline findings

matches local need, in particular the recruitment of foster carers, is positive.

p.2

Headline findings

Corporate and ongoing political commitment have supported investment into children’s services, and the very new political leadership is committed to continued financial support that underpins the progress being made and the continued focus on developing services to Havering children.

p.2

Findings and evaluation of progress

Children benefit from regularly updated assessments that are typically strong; they provide insight and understanding of children’s individual circumstances so that their needs and risks are understood well. In addition, assessments explore important family relationships and consider children’s heritage and communities well. Family placements are routinely considered, and children live with relatives and in communities that are familiar to them when this is achievable and in their best interests.

p.2

Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children live in caring, sensitive foster homes or family placements which meet their needs well, although some children wait longer than they should for these arrangements to be confirmed. When children live in children’s homes or out of the local authority area, they are visited regularly by their social workers, who undertake creative direct work to understand children’s experiences. Improvements in recruitment and retention are steadily reducing social workers’ workloads, allowing children to experience greater continuity of relationships. With fewer changes of worker and more manageable caseloads, social workers have the time to visit children more regularly and build trusting, meaningful relationships.

p.2

Findings and evaluation of progress

A core priority of the local authority's improvement plan is retaining social workers for longer, ensuring vulnerable children experience consistent, trusting relationships with adults throughout their childhoods. However, there is more to do to ensure that all children are consistently able to benefit from having social workers who are able to meet with them at a frequency that matches their developing needs and circumstances.

p.3

Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers build effective relationships with children, including disabled children, with regular, purposeful visits. Disabled children benefit from social workers who use a range of communication tools, for example picture exchange communication system and British sign language, to capture their wishes and views very well. Social workers are attuned to and advocate for children who have additional specialist health needs. They secure assessments for neurodiversity, arrange speech and language therapy and obtain special education resources to ensure children’s health needs are met well. Permanence planning for disabled children is considered early and is progressed at a pace that promptly responds to children’s attachment and developmental milestones.

p.3

Findings and evaluation of progress

Information gleaned from visits assists in better understanding risk and placement options so children, including unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, live with carers who sensitively provide homes to meet children’s heritage, cultural and religious identity needs.

p.3

Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers know their children very well, are interested in where they live and routinely consider attendance at nursery and school so that children’s achievements are considered and integrated into care plans. Children benefit from structured transition plans when school changes are imminent. Social workers and the virtual school practitioners work together promoting regular attendance and use trauma- informed approaches to reduce suspensions and permanent exclusions. Personal education plans proactively support children’s inclusion, recognise children’s disabilities and special educational needs so children are helped to achieve as well as they can. The timely and consistent completion of personal education plans promotes a focus on achievement, and participation events celebrate the achievements of children in care.

p.3

Findings and evaluation of progress

Independent reviewing officers routinely keep in regular contact with children and advocate effectively on their behalf. Children in permanent homes benefit from consistently stronger support than those who have more recently come into care and are not yet in their matched permanent homes. IROs meaningful relationships with some children and carers promotes stability and supports carers to nurture children’s development and to maintain care arrangements that align with children’s needs. There are currently no children living in unregistered children’s homes. When children have previously lived in such illegal homes, social workers, IROs and senior leaders provided enhanced oversight and scrutiny for these children.

p.3

Findings and evaluation of progress

Effective leadership action is increasing the sufficiency of homes for children in care, and the fostering recruitment campaign is highly visible across the borough, widening placement options, and offering children greater short- and long-term stability. In addition to fostering and children’s homes, residential family centre arrangements are sought to support parents and children to remain together while relevant assessments are completed. These arrangements help to de-escalate risks effectively and contribute positively to overall placement sufficiency.

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

When children enter care, placement planning meetings are held, and for most children, their needs are discussed, including their culture and diversity. However, this practice is not fully embedded, and some children’s records do not consistently capture the information and decisions needed to guide day-to-day care.

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

Carers are supported with regular social work visits, and they engage well in decisions about children. Carers regularly attend children in care review meetings, support family time and strengthen children’s sense of belonging and stability when careful long-term matching is secured. Some children and carers in both short- and long-term placements do not benefit from timely decision-making, resulting in instability and limiting children’s ability to form secure attachments.

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

Most children experience some delay in permanence planning, and for a small number of children, this is significant. Too many children do not experience stability in their primary attachments and living arrangements from the earliest opportunity. Too many children who enter care do not benefit from detailed pathways for settling in their permanent home from the earliest opportunity. For a number of children, alternative care arrangements are not consistently evaluated as soon as possible to help children understand permanence placement options and decision-making about their childhood living arrangements. Children and carers are still uncertain about permanent care arrangements until final court reports are completed. There is little evidence of early permanence, and for some children, adoption discussions do not take place, and children are not assisted to live with their permanent carers without delay. IROs are increasingly alert to permanence considerations and are beginning to

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

show, in more recent practice, earlier consideration of children’s long-term care needs. Social workers for disabled children are progressing plans effectively. Combined with effective management oversight, this means timely decisions are made to prevent drift and delay.

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

Children receive sensitively written letters from their IRO. This provides a record of their journey in care and outlines the key decisions that have helped to shape children’s subsequent experiences. However, life-story work is not routinely available to help children of all ages understand decisions about living in care. Together and apart assessments consider children’s relationships and how effectively homes meet their individual needs well, and this supports children to live with their brothers or sisters. Family time arrangements are carefully considered and reviewed, helping children have relationships with the people who are important to them.

p.4

Findings and evaluation of progress

Return home interviews for children missing from care are offered to almost all children in a timely way, and children use these opportunities very well. Consequently, return home interviews highlight push and pull factors, consider peer relationships, and the locations children frequent effectively. Children benefit from a consistent adult who seeks to understand why they are going missing and takes time to help children think about exploitation concerns. Some children who are away from home and whose whereabouts are unknown are not being categorised as missing and do not always have risks shared with partner agencies. These children receive a differentiated service because missing procedures are not instigated. Consequently, professionals miss opportunities to better understand children’s vulnerabilities and the reasons for their missing episodes, and to respond promptly to risks.

p.5

Findings and evaluation of progress

The virtual school makes a significant positive difference for Havering’s children in care. The virtual school is grounded in achieving inclusion, and in recognising disabilities and special educational needs (SEN), so that children, regardless of their attainment capabilities, are engaged in education. The virtual school pro vid es opportunities for celebration and participation, adding to the overall positive experiences of children in care.

p.5

Findings and evaluation of progress

The local authority has strengthened its performance management since the time of the last inspection and the last monitoring visit which looked at children in care in Havering. Performance data is now more consistently reliable and is being better used to allow senior leaders to understand the quality and effectiveness of services. When audits are stronger, collaborative, and moderated, social workers engage in practice discussions and children’s experiences are better understood. However, audit recommendations do not form part of supervision and so are not used to help social workers to better understand and plan to meet children’s needs.

p.5

Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

p.5