Council fights unreleased Ofsted report

Authority still rated inadequate

Devon County Council is challenging a report drafted by the education watchdog after its latest visit, it has been claimed.

Ofsted, which is known for school inspection reports but also assesses children’s services departments in councils, visited County Hall in October, but  still hasn’t published its findings.

The council has remained silent on the delay publicly, but one councillor now claims Ofsted’s report into the children’s services department has not been published because Devon is contesting it.

Cllr Frank Letch (Liberal Democrat, Crediton), said: “It is being challenged by the council, and has not been finalised,” he said.

“It hasn’t been published and accepted by Devon County Council’s children’s services department.”

Cllr Letch said he did not know exactly why the watchdog’s report is being contested, or who is leading the challenge to it.

“All I do know is that it is being questioned,” he added.

Cllr Letch, who chairs Mid Devon District Council, also told members there that the report is being challenged.

Speaking at Mid Devon’s full council meeting earlier this month, he told councillors the report is “being challenged and so was not yet publishable”.

“When that process is finished, it will be published, but it has been kicked into the long grass,” he told the Mid Devon meeting.

“We’re hoping something will happen in the new year but no date has been given.”

Devon’s children’s services department has been in so-called ‘special measures’ since 2020 when it was rated inadequate.

In a monitoring visit in March, Ofsted said it did not find any decisions that had “left children at unassessed risk of significant harm”, but noted “substantial improvements still need to be made to build on these foundations”.

“When risks to children require further social work assessment, too many children are not seen on their own because parents’ refusals to allow social work visits to their children are too readily accepted in situations where children may be at risk,” the report from March’s visit added.

“Too often, this focus on adults rather than children leaves children without a voice. For this and other key elements of practice, management oversight still lacks clarity and purpose.”

Devon County Council did not respond to a request for comment.