Government intervention in children's services must be sensitive to the 'bruising' impact on staff of working in an 'inadequate' authority, in order to succeed.
That was among the findings of a Department for Education-commissioned study on the effectiveness of DfE intervention in 'inadequate' councils and sector-led improvement in 'requires improvement' authorities, published last week.
Between 2019-21, researchers analysed the impact of DfE intervention in 24 authorities after they were rated inadequate by Ofsted, through interviews with leaders, managers, social workers, partners and government-appointed advisers, and an analysis of outcomes.
'Chaotic and stressful' working environments
It found that staff described working environments, prior to an 'inadequate' inspection, "as chaotic and stressful, with high caseloads, and reliance on agency staff to cover unfilled vacancies".This was sometimes accompanied by leadership teams who had masked performance problems or were unreceptive to staff concerns, and improvement consultants or managers who joined the authority claiming to have the answers but quickly moved on.
Interviewees described the impact of the inspection judgment as "shocking" and "devastating", both because of the 'inadequate' label and a feeling that Ofsted had not acknowledged improvements made, resulting in a further dip in staff morale.
Researchers said: "This finding is important, not only because of the emotional effect on staff, but because it also risked demotivating those responsible for laying the foundations for improvement and therefore slowing down progress."
Senior management departures
A further challenge was the hiatus between the inspection judgment and DfE intervention, during which time senior managers often left, yet the service had to continue delivering, often with a reduced frontline workforce.The introduction of interim managers or consultants to replace departing senior managers "rarely proved to be a positive experience", with staff finding it difficult to trust them or feeling demoralised by the extra scrutiny they were placed under.
While the report found this "period of turbulence was problematic as it risked making the service worse", it said it also reduced the willingness of some staff to engage with the commissioners or improvement advisers appointed by the DfE to intervene in the service.
