Bosses at Tameside Council have stated children in the borough are safe after a children’s services leader said she had ‘lost confidence in the system’.

According to the Children’s Services Scrutiny Panel, the comment allegedly made at their last meeting by Allison Parkinson, director of Children’s Services, led them to believe the safety of children in care was in question. Following what was regarded as a ‘misunderstanding’, Coun Bill Fairfoull, deputy executive leader (children and families) and Sandra Stewart, chief executive, joined the director of children’s services to set the record straight with the panel upon request from Ofsted.

Allison Parkinson, clarifying what she had said previously, told the panel at Tameside One on October 4: “It’s impossible to say that all children in all areas are safe at one time. I wouldn’t shy away from honesty.

“I did not say or mean that the system is not safe – the systems have strengthened. They’ve made system changes, they (the changes) didn’t work how they should have in the first place, but modifications have been made to this.

“I am saying to you that children in our system are safe and the system is working to make sure our children are safe. We all have a duty of safeguarding.”

Sandra Stewart told the panel how diagnostic tests had been run on the system earlier in 2023 which found systems were not as good as they should be, but changes have been implemented to make sure working practice has improved. She highlighted the ‘significant challenge’ in the sector having double the number of children coming into the system – which has increased the workload for the depleted team.

Ofsted requested the panel receive clarification on children’s safety in the borough – where councillors heard that the system had undergone scrutiny and checks from independent former Ofsted workers to ensure safety. The meeting heard how performance levels in the service have improved, with visits to children increasing from 70 pc to 95 pc – now they want to make sure the quality of visits is of the required standard.

Tameside Council were criticised by Ofsted during their last inspection back in April 2022 for the delay in children having their needs for help and protection assessed. The key finding in that 2022 report suggested the workforce was the problem – with capacity not being able to cope with the number of assessments for children.

“At the previous focused visit, in May 2021, political and corporate leaders agreed an increased level of financial support to address capacity issues in the workforce,” the report, published in June 2022 said. “However, this has not been implemented at pace. An additional social work team was not established until 10 months later.

“This is now contributing to some early improvements. However, at the time of this visit, the impact on improving children’s lives is not evident. Within the last 10 weeks, the new DCS has secured additional funding to increase capacity in the leadership team, and recruitment was progressing at the time of the visit.”

An improvement plan for the service will be put before the scrutiny panel at their next meeting, Tameside One heard.