Cheshire East Council has apologised to care leavers after an Ofsted inspection said too many young people are leaving local authority care without the correct help and support.

The government watchdog judged the council's children's services to be inadequate following an inspection which took place in February and March this year.

The report, which was published last week, said improvements in some areas of practice had been made since the last inspection in 2019.

It rated three of the four of the areas inspected as 'requires improvement to be good'.

But Ofsted found the quality of practice and the experience and progress of children and young people is too variable, and for care leavers it is inadequate.

This resulted in an overall rating of inadequate.

A report due to be considered at next month's meeting of Cheshire East's children and families committee states: "We have apologised to care leavers who have not received the service that they deserve and are committed to improve this at pace."

The report lists a number of improvements the council has already put in place to address concerns since the inspection.

These include:

• Contacting all 209 care leavers aged 21-25 who were not receiving a service to ensure they were aware of the support available to them and to offer them an allocated worker.
• Reviewing the 21 plus offer to care leavers so it is now an opt-out offer rather than opt-in. The council says it will contact all young adults by phone on a quarterly basis to check if they want or need support.
• A dedicated mandatory training plan for the care leavers service targeted around the inspection findings.
• A new management structure for the care leavers service, ensuring frontline staff are supervised by qualified social workers.
• Opening two care leaver hubs in July 2024 at the Lifestyle Centre in Crewe and Macclesfield Youth Hub. The council says these will provide safe spaces for care leavers to access support and advice.

Cheshire East is now developing a new improvement plan in response to all the inspection findings.

Progress against the plan will be scrutinised monthly by the independently chaired improvement board.

At next month's committee meeting councillors will be asked to agree to hold a task and finish workshop for the children and families committee on July 2 to review and scrutinise the draft improvement plan.

They will also be asked to agree to the onward referral of the improvement plan for approval at full council on July 17.

Other recommendations to be voted on include agreeing on regular updates to the committee on the progress and impact measured against the agreed improvement plan.

The meeting will take place at 2pm on Monday, June 3 at the council's Westfields HQ at Sandbach.

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