Setting

Róisín Madden Strategic Director of Children’s Services (DCS) London Borough of Harrow Forward Drive Harrow HA3 8FL

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Monitoring visit to Harrow children’s services

This letter summarises the findings of the monitoring visit to Harrow children’s services on 24 and 25 June 2026. This was the third monitoring visit since the local authority was judged inadequate in January 2025. His Majesty’s Inspectors for this visit were Jenny-ellen Scotland and Gemma McNevin.

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Areas covered by the visit

This monitoring visit focused on the experiences and progress of disabled children who are supported through the Children and Young Adults with Disabilities Service (CYADS). Inspectors focused on:

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Disabled children who are receiving support through early help and statutory assessments.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Disabled children who are receiving support through child in need and child protection plans.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Disabled children in care and disabled children receiving a short-break service.

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Areas covered by the visit

◼ Disabled children transitioning to adult services.

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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. Inspectors spoke with practitioners, managers and leaders. They also looked at local authority performance management and quality assurance information and children’s case records.

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Headline findings

Disabled children benefit from committed practitioners who build positive relationships with them and work collaboratively with partner agencies to meet their individual support needs. While children receive timely support when concerns are identified, social work practice does not consistently capture a comprehensive 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 understanding of children’s lived experiences or translate into clear, child-centred planning that promotes longer-term progress.

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Headline findings

Since the inspection in January 2025, the leadership team has become more stable and developed a clear understanding of the service’s strengths and the areas requiring improvement. Leaders have an accurate understanding of the practice and organisational issues that affect the quality of support provided to children and their families. They are implementing well-considered plans to strengthen practice, redesign the service and improve experiences for disabled children and their families.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Disabled children in Harrow with moderate, severe or profound disabilities, or complex health conditions, are currently supported by social workers in the 0–18 service, which is one of two teams within the CYADS, which sits under the directorate of adult social care. The service currently supports 71 children who are subject to child in need or child protection plans, or are children in care, alongside a further 70 children receiving support packages who do not require a social worker and are supported through a virtual team.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Prior to this visit, leaders undertook a comprehensive review of the service, identifying a number of strengths alongside areas requiring improvement. As a result, a decision has been made to transfer the 0–18 service to the children’s services directorate. This will enable staff to benefit from the directorate’s quality assurance framework, social work academy and leadership with specialist expertise in children’s services. Children and families will also benefit from a service that is better aligned to the Families First Partnership programme.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Disabled children and their families receive support from early help practitioners, who take time to understand their needs and build effective relationships. However, capacity pressures within the service mean that some children experience delays in receiving support and do not always receive the right help at the right time. In addition, lengthy waiting times for CAMHS assessments delay the identification of need and access to appropriate interventions, resulting in some children and families waiting longer than they should for the support they require.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

When a new referral about a child is accepted and transferred to the 0–18 service, social workers complete timely assessments. Children are seen promptly as part of this process. The quality and impact of assessments and plans are still developing. Current assessments and plans focus primarily on meeting children’s specific support needs and do not consistently consider their wider developmental needs, parents’ capacity to meet those needs, or the wider family and environmental factors influencing children’s lived experiences and outcomes.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Disabled children requiring ongoing support, including children in care, remain allocated to the same social worker, providing continuity and the opportunity to build relationships over time. The quality of relationship-based practice is variable and is not consistently resulting in a rich understanding of most children’s lived experiences. Visits are often focused on meeting practical support needs, with social workers relying predominantly on observations and parent/carers’ accounts. There is limited evidence of purposeful direct work that helps children communicate their wishes, feelings and everyday experiences.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

There is a noticeable gap in current practice regarding the consideration of brothers and sisters when practitioners are working with a disabled child. The focus of intervention remains almost entirely on the child with the disability. As a result, brothers and sisters are not routinely seen, consulted, or included in assessments and professional discussions. This limits practitioners’ understanding of the wider family context and reduces opportunities to identify and respond to the needs of all children within the family. When siblings require statutory support in their own right, responsibility for the children sits with different social workers in separate teams. While practitioners work collaboratively, this arrangement risks fragmented planning, duplication and the loss of important information, reducing opportunities for a coordinated approach to supporting the whole family for some children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Very few children supported by the disabled children’s team are subject to child protection plans. While this visit did not identify any children living in harmful situations, the limitations of most current assessments mean that practitioners may not always have a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of children’s wider safeguarding needs. In addition, social workers have not received recent training in key safeguarding themes, including neglect, domestic abuse, parental substance misuse and parental mental ill health. This may reduce practitioners’ ability to recognise and respond effectively to emerging risks.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

For some children who have been open to the service for an extended period, assessments and plans are not up to date. As a result, decisions about support and intervention are not always informed by a current, comprehensive assessment of the child’s needs and circumstances. Leaders recognise that the current care planning documentation is overly lengthy and does not support clear, focused and child- centred planning. This reduces the clarity of plans for families and partner agencies and limits their effectiveness as working documents.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Disabled children benefit from coordinated multi-agency working, with partner agencies informing assessments, planning and reviews. The co-location of occupational therapists enhances timely, joined-up support for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

For some disabled children who are receiving a community package of support, assessments and reviews of their needs have not been consistently taking place in a timely way to determine whether they continue to receive the right level of support. Prior to this visit, leaders had identified this issue and had already begun addressing it. At the time of the visit, a small number of children who have not been visited within expected timescales have been allocated to social workers for review. Many disabled children enter care in crisis situations, meaning there is limited opportunity to plan their move into care. Permanence planning is not routinely considered early enough, and for some very young children who are living in residential children’s homes there is insufficient exploration of family-based alternatives. As a result, some children experience unnecessary instability, and may miss opportunities to grow up in family settings that could provide lifelong

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Findings and evaluation of progress

relationships and support beyond childhood.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Disabled children in care benefit from developing positive relationships with their independent reviewing officers, who visit them in their homes. Although most reviews continue to be held virtually, children benefit from high-quality, child-friendly summaries of their reviews. However, care plans are not always updated promptly to reflect children’s current circumstances, needs and the decisions made at the review. This reduces the effectiveness of care plans as working documents to support effective planning for children.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Transition planning into adulthood is not consistently initiated early enough. Although the transition service responds promptly once referrals are received, referrals are not always made in sufficient time to allow effective preparation. As a result, transition plans are not always sufficiently developed or embedded before children reach adulthood, limiting opportunities for a well-planned transition to adult services.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers value the support they receive from their senior practitioners and team manager, who are visible, accessible and provide stability and consistency. Supervision takes place regularly but is largely focused on immediate case management. This limits opportunities for reflection, professional curiosity and critical analysis. As a result, supervision is not consistently used to identify drift, to challenge practice, or to set clear actions that are likely to secure measurable improvement.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers benefit from a well-established learning culture, with access to regular training and development opportunities, including motivational interviewing. Workers speak positively about the availability of weekly learning sessions and describe learning as being prioritised and well supported by the service. They recognise how this has strengthened their knowledge and skills and supported improvements in their practice.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

The newly improved audit tool is well designed and supports a thorough evaluation of children’s experiences, with the section on cultural identity providing particularly strong guidance for auditors. As the tool becomes embedded, there is some variability in its application, and stronger links are needed between audit findings and actions to improve outcomes for children. Leaders use learning from quality assurance and audit activity to inform their understanding of the service and shape improvements for disabled children and their families. Political leaders and the managing director remain committed to improving children’s services. They have a clear understanding of the improvement priorities and continue to invest in the service to support sustainable change.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Since the last visit in February 2026, the director of children’s social care has been permanently appointed to the role of strategic director of children’s services (DCS), with recruitment underway for a permanent director of children’s social care. The DCS is working collaboratively with senior leaders in adult social care and the assistant director for quality assurance to bring stability and a clear, improvement- focused approach to the service. This visit has found that the DCS and senior leaders have a good understanding of the areas requiring improvement and have already begun implementing actions to address them. Workers expressed confidence in their leaders and were positive about opportunities to contribute to the design and implementation of service improvements. This collaborative approach is helping to build ownership of the improvement journey across the workforce.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

Social workers spoke with warmth and passion about the children they are working with and shared a genuine pride in the progress children have made. They were positive about the future of the disabled children’s service and welcomed its planned integration into children’s services. Social workers described the opportunities this would provide to further develop their practice through enhanced professional support and development, while delivering a service that is more closely aligned with the Families First Partnership programme.

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Findings and evaluation of progress

I am copying this letter to the Department for Education.

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