OFSTED catches council out

12.09.36pm GMT Fri 6th Nov 2009

At the beginning of October Tory-run Hertfordshire County Council had a surprise OFSTED inspection. These inspections were started in the light of the horrific death of Baby Peter. The report lists areas which the Council is good at, those it needs to improve and those that require urgent action.

In total there are 5 areas that were meeting minimum standards, 7 that required improvements and 2 which require urgent action - both in the most serious areas. OFSTED found that the call centre was handling calls and having assistants signing off reported cases of abuse rather than trained social work managers - a practice we have criticised the council for in the past. The other was that cases dating back as far as March 2009 had not had proper case reviews.

Sal Brinton, Liberal Democrat Prospective MP for Watford said: 'Members of the public calling the call centre to report possible child abuse have been given a substandard service. They are not being given the respect and care that they deserve when they have been making that very hard call to report suspected abuse. This has been rightly critisised by OFSTED and has failed every child in

Hertfordshire.'