Greatest challenge in improving children's services is recruitment, says council
Solihull Council's been under heavy scrutiny since the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes in 2020.
A senior officer at Solihull Council has stressed the biggest challenge to the progress of improving children’s services remains recruiting new staff.
The authority has been under heavy scrutiny ever since the murder of Arthur Labinjo-Hughes.
The six-year-old boy was tortured by Thomas Hughes and Emma Tustin, before being murdered by Tustin in Shirley in June 2020. She was sentenced to a minimum of 29 years for murder while Hughes was jailed for 21 years for manslaughter.
An Ofsted report in January 2023 said children in Solihull were not getting the help they needed while inspectors had “identified serious and widespread failings across all service areas.”
Ofsted’s most recent monitoring visit to Solihull’s Children’s Services in January found social work practice had improved and there had been progress.
The council has been working closely with partners Birmingham Children’s Trust and Sir Alan Wood, the Department for Education (DofE) commissioner, in improving children’s services.
On Monday, (September 9), Beate Wagner, the director of children’s services, in providing an update on progress answered questions from members during the latest meeting of the authority’s audit committee.
David Page, an independent member of the committee, asked what the “gaps and weaknesses” were in the council’s improvement journey.
The director replied: “Our greatest challenge at this present time is to continue to work on the recruitment of staff because we haven’t made as much progress in terms of permanent staff as we would like to see.
“We are not unusual in the region, we are very much like everybody else.
“We have greater impact because we have more vacancies so if we aren’t able to recruit experienced staff, that will lead to a greater impact.”
The update report from officers highlighted that 40 per cent of Solihull Council’s social workers were currently agency staff, officers saying this “generates a cost pressure”.
Officers said: “Like many local authorities across the country we struggle to recruit sufficient permanent qualified social workers.
“We are mitigating this through our own recruitment approaches and an ongoing recruitment campaign. We aim to become an employer of choice.”
Councillor Richard Long asked what the target figure of agency staff would be.
The director replied: “I would like to see us around 15 per cent, that would be my target.
“I couldn’t give you a date we realistically are going to achieve that.
“We do talk to our agency staff regularly about opportunities to join us.
“But it is very much work in progress.”
It was reported in July Carol Douch, assistant director improvement of children’s services, had warned councillors progress could slow if the authority is not able to recruit new staff.
She said: “The biggest risk for us is if we are not able to recruit suitable qualified and experienced staff in order to continue with the improvement plan.
“We expect our next monitoring visit to be in the autumn.
“After that a decision will then be made if they visit again before the full inspection in the autumn of next year.”