Oxfordshire complacent in face of criticism of support for children and young people

8.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 28th May 2008

The recent review of provision for children and young people in Oxfordshire made some stinging criticisms of local services, and led to Oxfordshire County Council losing a star in the Audit Commission assessment.

Despite the reduction in rating, the Conservative Oxfordshire Council Cabinet at its meeting last week dismissed these with statements that all is now on course to improvements.

The main failures identified were:

• in the operation of the Oxfordshire Safeguarding Board - meant to ensure our children and young people are kept safe

• in the development of the new multi-agency 'locality' teams, and particularly in the support for children with learning disabilities or difficulties

• lack of progress in implementing the new 14-19 strategy - which should broaden the education available for this age group to include more work-based learning and wider curriculum opportunities

• attainment at KS4, GCSE below that of similar authorities

• variable access to education and leisure opportunities, hampered by the lack of a countywide transport strategy

Cllr Jean Fooks, Liberal Democrat shadow cabinet member for children, young people and families, said:

"I am appalled at the complacency shown by the Tory administration. They cut support for children with special needs in their budget last year and removed a post to implement the 14-19 strategy.

"We found funds to remove those cuts and to put in extra support in schools and for foster carers, but they rejected our budget proposals. Only this year have the Tories introduced family link workers in schools and realized the need to provide better support for our vulnerable children and families."

The Joint Area Review highlighted the need for more social workers to enable intervention and support to be provided earlier, when it can avoid the need for more expensive support later when the child is already losing out on education.

Jean added:

"The slow improvement in GCSE results could well be linked to the lack of provision of the wider curriculum which should result from the 14-19 strategy. Not funding that 14-19 development post looks to have been a very misjudged saving."

The Children's Services Scrutiny Committee will now be looking at both the JAR and the Action Plan - though this is only because Liberal Democrats asked for it to be on the agenda.