About the Ofsted visit
Ofsted are the formal Government regulator of education resources (including schools) and children’s social care across all local authority areas. Ofsted aims to improve lives by raising standards in education and children’s social care. For details about Ofsted – GOV.UK.
Ofsted conducted an inspection of Children’s Services in Buckinghamshire Council at the end of January and beginning of February 2025.
Ofsted inspectors focused on the experiences of children and young people receiving help, protection, and care from Buckinghamshire Council.
The Care Ambassadors helped Ofsted with their inspection. In February 2025 the Care Ambassadors met with Ofsted inspectors and shared their experiences of being in care in Buckinghamshire and their work with We Do Care.
Ofsted also met with staff, partners, children and young people, care leavers, parents and carers, adopters and foster carers.
What did Ofsted find?
What is going well?
Leader of Buckinghamshire Council, Martin Tett said: “We are pleased to hear that the experience and progress of our children in care is good, and they feel settled and safe where they live.
Ofsted has also identified that since 2022, we have made progress in a number of areas including the positive and open approach of the workforce; the success of the transformation programme, and the timely response to children’s needs. They also highlighted that we have made improvements in assessments; the effectiveness of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) service, where we handle concerns expressed about young people; and how we provide support for children missing full-time education. Stable relationships with social workers are now in place and there is strong support from the virtual school (an additional resource which supports children in care with their education). We were particularly pleased to see positive recognition given to the work of the MASH (the multi-agency safeguarding hub) in providing a swift response to children at risk of harm.
Our fostering and adoption service have received particularly positive feedback around the diligent work on early permanence for children that have recently entered care and that our fostering placements are quickly matched and approved. Both services have seen an increase in people coming forward to either foster or adopt. ”
Key findings and recommendations
The inspection revealed several key findings and recommendations:
- The impact of leaders on social work practice with children and families: Requires improvement to be good.
- The experiences and progress of children who need help and protection: Requires improvement to be good.
- The experiences and progress of children in care: Good.
- The experiences and progress of care leavers: Requires improvement to be good.
- Overall effectiveness: Requires improvement to be good.
Councillor Tett acknowledged the need for further improvements, stating, “We know we still need to improve in several areas, and we are fully committed to making these changes. Our focus will be on enhancing management oversight, improving service quality for children at risk from neglect, refining transition planning for disabled children, addressing pathway plans for care leavers, providing better support for care leavers aged 21+, and increasing the engagement of children and young people in the corporate parenting board.”
The Council is working on a detailed improvement plan to tackle these issues.
Ofsted’s reports
Ofsted have written a letter for children and young people to explain their findings.
Read Ofsted’s Letter to Children and Young People [PDF 249KB]
You can also read Ofsted’s full report.