| Following the finding by Ofsted in September that Croydon’s children services were inadequate, Croydon’s Labour Council was told that it needed to take a number of steps to improve the quality of services and that they must co-operate with the Children’s Services Commissioner appointed to oversee this.
I have this afternoon received the Government Commissioner’s three month update and it is very disappointing to see that the Commissioner has had to report to the Secretary of State that ‘the Council is still failing to perform to an adequate standard’ (Point 4 of the Statutory Direction issued to Croydon Council dated 25th January 2018). Sadly the current Council leadership has been deemed incapable of fixing the problem and the Council has therefore been directed to work with Camden Council, which has a ‘good’ Ofsted rating, to develop a plan to sort out the very serious management failures. I very much hope that Croydon Council will find Camden’s expertise and support helpful in making significant progress with really getting to grips with the service failures and that the next report will have much more positive news. Clearly Croydon Labour is continuing to fail despite record increases in Government funding for children’s services and this really underscores the importance of removing Labour from the Town Hall this May and ushering in a new era of Conservative competence.
Links with further information can be found here – https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/direction-issued-to-london-borough-of-croydon https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/direction-issued-to-london-borough-of-croydon-council |
