Political row – despite Ofsted praise

THE director of children’s services at Warrington Borough Council, Kath O’Dwyer, and her team, have won unstinting praise from councillors of all parties for the way they have turned around their department in just two years.
It is now “performing well” with significant improvements on the situation two years ago when it was judged to be “inadequate”, according to education watchdog Ofsted – and councillors are delighted.
But Liberal Democrat leader Cllr Ian Marks has accused executive member for children’s services Cllr Colin Froggatt of “trying to rewrite history” by claiming all the credit for the current Labour administration.
He said: “He seems to be more interested in scoring political points than in praising the excellent work of council officers.”
At a meeting of the council’s executive board, Cllr Froggatt praised Ms O’Dwyer and the children’s services team for the “remarkable” improvements achieved since 2009 when Ofsted issued a damning report on the service.
From an inadequate service, Warrington had moved just one small step from being judged “excellent.”
Out of 154 local authorities, only 28 were said to be better than Warrington, said Cllr Froggatt.
He stressed that the improvement had been achieved under a Labour administration.
One Ofsted official had said he could not believe his eyes when he saw the improvements that had been achieved.
Under the previous administration, children’s services had performed poorly but progress had been rapid since Labour took over, said Cllr Froggatt.
But after the meeting, Cllr Marks said: “From listening to Cllr Froggatt you would think that nothing happened until Labour took over in May to put right the shortcomings identified by Ofsted in 2009. Nothing could be further from the truth and if he really thinks this, he is trying to rewrite history.
“Once the weaknesses were identified, the previous Lib Dem/Conservative administration took immediate action to put things right.
“We appointed Kath O’Dwyer as the new executive director in June 2009. Within hours of starting work in September, she had taken decisive action with certain members of staff.
“Kath came with first-class credentials in social care and is extremely well regarded by government officers. In September we appointed an independent chairman to strengthen the leadership of the safeguarding board which was charged with preparing and carrying out an improvement action plan.
“The then deputy leader of the council, Cllr Keith Bland, was appointed to this board to show our high-level political commitment to sorting things out.
“Funding the service was a top priority and an extra £2.3 million was immediately made available to support the improvement plan.
“The new arrangements significantly increased the number of front-line staff, improved their training and put in place much better monitoring procedures. In December 2010, the government acknowledged that Warrington had taken immediate steps to improve the service.
“I am delighted that we have now received an improved rating as a result of the excellent work carried out by Kath and her team over the last two years. Our school performance has remained at a consistently high level and it was just the social care side that let us down. It is very satisfying that the decisive action we took over two years ago has come to fruition.”
Pictured: Kath O’Dwyer (right) and Cllrs Froggatt and Marks (left).

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