The Department for Education has today decided that, while the council is ‘still failing to perform to an adequate standard’, Medway Council will be allowed to continue operating its own children’s services. This decision follows Ofsted’s damning ‘Inadequate’ judgement on children’s services and a report from the Commissioner.
Medway Council will be under intense scrutiny from the Commissioner, and a number of other improvement partners, and must show rapid and sustained improvement over the next six months if they are to retain responsibility for Medway’s most vulnerable children.
Conservative backbenchers need to step up to their role and learn how to effectively hold their own administration to account. - Cllr Clive Johnson, Medway Labour & Co-operative Shadow Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People
Cllr Clive Johnson, Medway Labour & Co-operative Shadow Portfolio Holder for Children and Young People said, ‘Even though the Ofsted outcome highlighted the shocking incompetence of the Conservative administration, this is likely to be the best outcome for Medway’s children and young people, and for the people of Medway. It would have been much worse for our children’s services to be taken over by another provider.
‘The council is now on probation for six months, under intense scrutiny and needs to show significant and rapid improvement. The Council Leader and the Portfolio Holder’s credibility is on the line. The Labour & Co-operative Group will give them nowhere to hide because the future of Medway’s young people is too important to be continually at risk from the administration’s history of failure.
‘Having sat on Children and Young People’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee for over four years I look forward to the prospect of robust scrutiny and powerful challenge. Conservative backbenchers need to step up to their role and learn how to effectively hold their own administration to account.
‘I know the Labour & Co-operative Group will continue our forensic approach in ensuring that our most vulnerable young people get the outcomes they rightfully deserve.’
Until we see the end of austerity and the restoration of local council budgets, it will be very difficult to see drastic improvements in children’s services in Medway. - Cllr Vince Maple, Leader of the Medway Labour Group
Cllr Vince Maple, Leader of the Medway Labour Group said, ‘Medway Council should never have been in this position to start with; while there have undoubtedly been failures in leadership and management, the fact is that Medway’s children’s services is just the latest victim of a decade of austerity and cuts to local services.
‘Until we see the end of austerity and the restoration of local council budgets, it will be very difficult to see drastic improvements in children’s services in Medway. In the meantime Medway’s children and the hardworking staff at Medway Council are bearing the brunt of underfunding.’
The report can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/report-into-childrens-social-care-services-in-medway-council
