Peterborough City Council child exploitation response found ineffective

Children were left at risk by a council whose response to exploitation and harm was "not effective", inspectors said.

Ofsted said Peterborough City Council's children's services had known of the "shortfall for too long without taking effective action".

But the inspectors said the new interim director "quickly identified some significant, systemic practice concerns" within children's services.

The council accepted the findings and said: "We will and must do better."

Ofsted has written to Elaine Redding, the interim director in post since last November, following its focused visit in March for "front door" services, which receives contacts and referrals.

Ofsted found the service's "Responses to exploitation of children and to extra-familial harm are not effective."

Inspector Tracey Ledder said: "The current arrangements do not ensure that all children who are vulnerable to exploitation and abuse are effectively identified and protected by services which are delivered in a coordinated and informed way.

"This is compounded by a lack of joint and integrated working and collaboration, which hinders agencies from understanding and responding to risk.

"As a result, some children are left in situations of risk."

Ms Ledder said the new interim senior leadership team was "getting to grips with some of the many shortfalls in practice that they have identified".

She said some early improvements could be seen, but added "senior leaders continue to identify further areas of practice that need improvement" and "change does not always happen quickly enough."

The inspector said the change was being done "in a child-focused way that staff understand", while staff were optimistic about the future and morale was high.

Ms Redding said: "Since the end of last year, I have looked forensically at every area of our service and how we work with our partners in health, education, police and the voluntary sector. This allowed the council to proactively identify where practice is good and where there needs to be rapid improvement.

"Therefore, nothing in this letter from Ofsted has come as a surprise, a point noted by inspectors.

"With our partners, we will focus on these critical areas for improvement in the coming months to improve this service, partnership working and the overall support we offer children, young people and families in the city as quickly as possible.

"We are committed to improving children's services and offering the best services possible to our children and families. We will and must do better."

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