The County Council is proudly, and rightly, celebrating the fact that it’s got some money to improve its Children’s Services.
It says in a recent press release:
‘Cambridgeshire County Council has been named as a ‘trailblazing authority’ in the national roll out of an innovative approach to children’s social care– backed by a share of an £84m Department for Education (DfE) funding package.’
To read this press release you’d think it was a consequence of CCC being in some way an already exceptional performer. Sadly that’s not the case because, as previously reported (click here), its Children’s Services were recently rated ‘requires improvement’ by OfStEd.
This money is coming from the Strengthening families, protecting children (SFPC) programme and in its guidance on the web-site gov.uk says:
‘Local authorities are eligible to join the programme if they have:
- an Ofsted rating of ‘requires improvement to be good’
- high rates of looked after children compared to their local authority statistical neighbour median over for the last 3 years, and/or rising rates of looked after children in each of the last 3 years’
So it’s absolutely super that CCC has got funding from the Government to help it to improve its Children’s Services. It needs all the help, financial as well as advice and guidance, because it got a bad rating in its recent OfStEd report. It’s good news but don’t we just need to be a little more humble?
hiopcouncillors 