Concern over child services

The report looks at Suffolk County Council

Government inspectors have highlighted concerns over Suffolk County Council's child protection service.

A Social Services Inspectorate (SSI) report, following up a critical inspection in November 2002, found that the council had made "considerable efforts" to improve children's services.

But inspectors found that in some areas performance was still "patchy".

The SSI is particularly concerned at the lack of communication between the council's social service's child protection, education and the health service.

But a Suffolk County Council spokesman said a number of initiatives were addressing these issues.

There has to now be further improvements to get uniformly excellent quality across the county Tony Lewis, portfolio holder for children and young people for Suffolk County Council

For example social workers are being put into some schools in the county, so they can work more closely with teachers - for instance in identifying children at risk.

The council is also working with the National Health Service in the region to bring in a uniform database, so any health visitor concerns about children can be passed on to social services.

In the SSI report lead inspector Stephen Roe said: "In our case sample, we found no cases where children were judged to be at immediate risk of significant harm as a result of failure by the council."

'Dramatic improvement'

But, he added: "We identified a number of further improvements that were needed to strengthen the operation of inter-agency child protection processes."

Tony Lewis, portfolio holder for children and young people for Suffolk County Council, said: "This inspection report identifies a situation very much as we see it.

"I offer my thanks for the enormous efforts of our staff. We have invested a combination of people and pounds, and have achieved a dramatic improvement in a short space of time.

"There has to now be further improvements to get uniformly excellent quality across the county."

Council leader, Bryony Rudkin said: "The key is sustaining the improvement to ensure quality."