CHILDREN’S service staff have been praised for the ‘dramatic’ upturn in standards that have been reported over the past 18 months.

Last year saw Anglesey Council implement a Children’s Services Improvement Panel to help recruit more staff and improve its offering for some of the island’s most vulnerable youngsters.

The move followed publication of a damning Care Inspectorate Wales (CIW) inspection in March 2017, which revealed that care and support for vulnerable children on Anglesey “must be improved”, with the council lacking enough staff to deal with several issues.

It also found that, while Anglesey council was responsive when a child might be at risk, “referral information received from partners was poor”.

But a follow-up inspection carried out in October of this year and published on Monday, December 10, noted “significant improvement”.

It found staff morale is now high, with “passion and commitment at all levels to deliver excellent services for children.”

Safeguarding responses were also found to be “mostly timely and proportionate”, but inspectors also found room for improvement in collation and recording of evidence and analysis of risk.

The council was also urged to do more to find suitable placements for children, especially those with complex needs.

Members of Anglesey’s Corporate Scrutiny Committee, meeting in Llangefni this morning, praised head of service Fôn Roberts and his staff, for the improvements.

Twenty one action points had been identified as being in the worst possible ‘red’ category when the Service Improvement Plan was put into action in February 2017.

But almost two years on, 13 have now been upgraded to the best ‘green’ category with six in ‘yellow’ and two still listed as the second worst ‘amber’ category.

According to the report presented to committee members, its expected that all action points that were raised by CIW can progress to ‘green’ status by end of March 2019.

But the improvements have come at a cost, with the need to tackle several ‘legacy’ cases that were not adequately investigated in the past, meaning that the service is expected to over spend its budget by over £2m by the end of the current financial year.

Several new members of staff were also taken on meaning the authority now only has one vacant social worker post which needs filling.

This follows a decision last May to approve the release of £250,000 from the council’s reserves in order to fund agency staff to cover shortfalls in the service until recently appointed staff were fully qualified.

The report noted a gradual trend towards less dependence on costly agency staff, which can cost the authority £39 an hour.  

Anglesey’s head of children’s services, Fôn Roberts, said, “The service has come a long way in a relatively short space of time.

“We still face challenges in terms of the increase in the number of children becoming looked after on Anglesey, which means an increase in the workload for teams. However, we are now in a much better position to meet these challenges and will continue to work with CIW to achieve excellent services for our children.”

Cllr Lewis Davies said, “I’d like to thank the staff for all their hard work and honesty.

“The officers are so thorough and transparent now that they are telling us where there’s room for improvement.”

According to CIW, it will continue to monitor progress through its on-going engagement activity with the local authority.