Children's services should be taken away from Devon control

County 'letting children down' claim Lib Dems

Devon’s opposition Liberal Democrats are calling for central government to take over the running of the county council’s underperforming children’s services.

The suggestion, to be debated at a full council meeting next week, comes after the Conservative-controlled authority was recently hit with animprovement notice for its services for children with special education needs and disabilities (SEND).

Four areas of “significant concern” were identified by an inspector in December 2018 following a joint visit by Ofsted and the Care Quality Commission, but a revisit this May found progress had “not been made” in fixing any of them.

The notice does not apply to Plymouth and Torbay councils which both run their own children’s services.

A separate Ofsted report published this summer also revealed that, despite some signs of improvement to the county council’s ‘inadequate’ children’s services department, progress has been too slow.

Devon’s director of children’s services Melissa Caslake recently left her role after just over 18 months, with former deputy Lisa Bursill temporarily taking over her job.

At a cabinet meeting in July, Ms Caslake strongly criticised the previous quality of the county’s SEND provision, saying it had “let down the children of Devon over the past four years since that [2018] inspection.”

Cllr Julian Brazil, leader of the county council’s opposition Lib Dem group, says Ms Caslake’s departure is one of the reasons why his party has now “run out of patience” with a Conservative administration who he believes have “let down children across the county,” adding: “It cannot be allowed to go on.”

In a statement, he said: “We’re calling on the government to appoint independent commissioners to take over running children’s services.

“The county council has spectacularly failed to get to grips with the problems for some 13 years and there are no signs now that things will get better any time soon.”

Cllr Brazil added: “Our view is that children’s life chances have been immeasurably harmed by the council’s failure to get to grips with reforming the service and doing right by children who are in the care of the council, considered vulnerable or have special needs.

But council leader John Hart (Conservative, Bickleigh & Wembury) has hit back, saying in a statement: “It’s very easy to sit on the side lines and snipe but it would be good if the opposition came up with some constructive ideas.

“Our priority has always been to look after the most vulnerable children and adults in our county and we have committed budget increases of well above inflation over the last few years to support our children’s services.

“We are determined to improve our help for children and families and we have just appointed a new interim director of children’s services to lead this work.

“We are already working closely with the Department for Education on rapidly implementing our improvement plan.

“There is a national funding crisis within special needs education and we have consistently lobbied ministers and civil servants about the problem which we hope will be resolved very soon.”

The Lib Dem motion to next week’s meeting states: “The county council recognises that it is the children which must now come first and calls on the secretary of state to immediately appoint commissioners to take over the running of the county council’s children’s services functions and to do all that is necessary to improve services, raise standards, protect children and young people and achieve at least an Ofsted ‘good’ rating.”

Councillors will discuss the motion when they meet at County Hall on Thursday 8 December.