Last week saw two very significant announcements at West Sussex County Council, both independently recognising major improvements in two key services that involve keeping people safe, those being Children’s Services and Fire & Rescue.  These are the two services at the County Council that in 2019 had been found to require improvements through official inspections.      

It was announced by the Department for Education that Children’s Services in West Sussex will remain under the control of the County Council for at least another year, in light of the major progress that has been made this year.

This had followed the Council previously receiving a statutory direction to place its services for Children and Families into a separate Children’s Trust following an inadequate Ofsted report in 2019 and a subsequent report by a children’s commissioner appointed by the DfE to look at the Council’s work.  While some sought to make political capital out of a disappointing report, the County Council got on and worked hard to turn things around and the progress made is very welcome indeed.

I was pleased to see that In a letter to the County Council Leader about this decision, the Children’s Minister Vicky Ford wrote: “I am encouraged that there is now a new political leadership in respect of children’s services, supported by strong senior executive appointments, including a new director of children’s services.  This has undoubtedly been strengthened by the wider work the Council is undertaking to reform the corporate Council.”

Major improvements have also been independently recognised in the West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service.  A year ago, an independent advisory panel was set up to help with the improvements, bringing in outside independent experts.  This was chaired by the Chief Executive of the Kent Fire Authority.        

The panel chairman wrote to the County Council Leader saying that the panel was no longer needed, such was the significant progress that the Fire Service had made.  I was very pleased to see that she wrote that the service had made “significant steps to improve” and that it was “moving in the right direction in capable hands.”

Councillor Duncan Crow, Leader of Crawley Borough Council Conservative Group

16th December 2020