Rachel Dickinson, director of children’s and adults’ services at Barnsley council, talks to Community Care about the ‘good’ judgment the service recently received from Ofsted.

The council was praised for its good quality assessments, its approach to permanence and “excellent” workforce stability enabling children to “benefit from being able to develop consistent relationships with social workers”.

Dickinson explains how the service has retained its workforce and the importance of co-allocation and supervision, how the service has developed its strategy in its response to risks posed by child sexual and criminal exploitation and what it intends to do next to stabilise outstanding practice across the board.

The full list of questions, posed by Community Care associate editor Sarah Dennis, is:

1)What do you think have been the core strengths of Barnsley’s children’s services since the previous inspection and do you feel these were reflected in Ofsted’s reporting?

2)Ofsted noted that the service’s self-assessment was ‘realistic’ and ‘demonstrates ambition to ‘do even better’. How does the senior leadership ensure that understanding of its services and can you tell us of some of the ambition laid out within the assessment?

3)How has the council managed to implement the development of good quality assessments and how is this measured through both the council’s point of view and that of Ofsted?

4)Can you describe to us the strategies and procedures around indications of risks from child sexual or criminal exploitation?

5)How has the council invested to ensure what Ofsted terms the ‘excellent’ workforce stability and the relationships built between social workers and their children and families?

6)What is the current vacancy and agency rate at the council?

7)How has the council and its social workers maintained a good service with regards to permanence and promotion and exploration of permanence options?

8)How have strategic and operational partnerships been matured and what would you say are the core strengths of this approach as noted by Ofsted?

9)What are the next steps to improving audit and learnings from audits, and what are the priorities for the improvement points noted by Ofsted?

10)And finally what are the next stages in Barnsley’s journey?