Doncaster MBC’s children’s services have been declared good by Ofsted - four years after the council was threatened with losing control over the entire service.
In 2013, an independent report recommended the council should hand over its children’s services to a not-for-profit trust though it was eventually allowed to create its own trust.
Now Ofsted has said that Doncaster Children's Services Trust (DCST) is ‘highly effective in developing a culture for good social work to flourish’, that adoption services are good, support for care leavers is good and the council and trust were working very well together.
Ofsted added: ‘The voice of the child is impressively an absolutely integral part of individual casework and planning of service delivery.’
Chief executive of the trust, Paul Moffat, said he was ‘tremendously proud’ of the achievement.
Former president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services, Alan Wood, added: ‘This is such good news.
‘When they started the service was awful, but the trust has transformed [social work] in [Doncaster].
‘They have proved all those who said it was the wrong thing to do were wrong!
'Well done DCST you are an example for others to follow.’