The Joint Area Review Inspection

An inspection called the 'Joint Area Review' took place over two weeks in October 2007 and looked at the Council's support for children and young people in Wandsworth. The inspectors visited Wandsworth to see how all children and young people in Wandsworth are doing and particularly checked on the work being offered to children and young people who might need extra support.

The inspectors also looked at the services delivered to children and young people by other organisations outside of the Council including health services and schools. Along with the Joint Area Review the Council's Youth Service was inspected at the same time.

The report from the inspectors

In February 2008 we received the results of the inspection in a report. The report included what we are doing well in Wandsworth and also looked at how we can improve what we do to help children and young people:

• Be healthy
• Stay safe
• Enjoy and achieve at home and at school
• Make a positive contribution to the community
• Achieve economic well being when you leave school to go into work, training or further study.

The inspectors met with a lot of people including children and young people and parents and carers to find out what it is like growing up in Wandsworth. They visited places where children and young people go to play and learn, including schools, playgrounds youth clubs and colleges. The inspectors also wanted to check how well all the different agencies working with children and young people in Wandsworth worked together. They wanted to find out how we help children and young people to make choices and decisions to ensure they stay safe, well and reach their full potential.

What did the inspectors find?

Overall the inspectors found that children have a good time growing up in Wandsworth and they were impressed by the way the people in Wandsworth work together to improve things for children and young people. The report said that -

• Overall local services for children and young people are outstanding.
• The arrangements to make sure that children and young people are safe are outstanding.
• The support and services we offer to children and young people with learning difficulties and disabilities are outstanding.
• The support and services we offer to children and young people looked after by the Council are outstanding. Children looked after are, are cared for by the Council, usually by foster carers, if they are unable to live with their parents or other friends and family.
• We work well with schools to ensure that boys in years 10 and 11 do better in Wandsworth at GCSE than boys do in other parts of the country.
• The Youth Service is good and works well with other organisations.
• Our prospects for making services even better than they are now are outstanding.

A copy of the Joint Area Review and Enhanced Youth Inspection reports from Ofsted (Office for Standards in Education) can be downloaded from the related downloads area.

So what happens now?

Although the inspectors were very positive about many of services being delivered they did find a few areas where they thought that services could be improved. This included making sure that children, young people and parents and carers, are involved in sharing their ideas and making decisions about the services that they use or might want to use. This is something that we will be working on over the next few months.

Our Children and Young People's Plan
All of the new developments for children and young people over the next year and beyond are included in our Children and Young Peoples Plan.