Cllr Mike Prendergast Calls for Action at Sefton Social Services

Sefton Council have been heavily criticised following the latest Ofsted report on the current state of children’s social services in Sefton, delivered earlier this year.

At a recent meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Committee for Children’s social services in Sefton, Conservative councillor, Mike Prendergast, was highly critical of the significant failures in the provision of services to the most vulnerable people in the borough.

Cllr Prendergast, said, ‘Since 2016 The children’s social services department at Sefton Council has been graded as requiring improvement. The latest report from Ofsted makes numerous references to poor management and supervision with the term ‘drift and delay’ being used throughout the report.

The fact that there has been no sign of improvement in a 5 year period is, quite frankly, scandalous and questions have to be asked of the senior management and political leadership, who are ultimately responsible for this department.

I do not doubt for a second the hard work and integrity of those working on the front line providing the services but there have clearly been major failings in the quality of management and supervision.

We need to see improvement quickly, the most vulnerable children in Sefton cannot be left for another five years with a failing department.’