TUESDAY marked a proud day for Warrington Borough Council after its children’s services received an overall ‘good’ Ofsted rating.

But there will be no letting up when it comes to the efforts of the team, as focus switches to achieving an ‘outstanding’ rating in the future.

The council’s children’s services have received an overall ‘good’ Ofsted rating – with two of the four judgement areas being considered ‘outstanding’.

The Ofsted report, published on Tuesday, has left the children’s services team very pleased.

Speaking on Tuesday, the council’s director of children services Amanda Perraton said: “We’re very fortunate in Warrington, we’ve got a political leadership who understand the need to invest in services and that’s helped us go from strength to strength since our last judgement in 2019, where we were found to be good.

“We’re really delighted to have two outstanding features now and to maintain our overall good.

“I always say that it takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a whole corporate council system and our partnership to run an effective children’s service, and I think this outcome shines a light on the real strength of our council, our teams, our frontline social workers, our frontline early help workers, right the way through to the relationships that we have with our partners, which are built on a really solid foundation of support and challenge to one another.

“So, the next stop for Warrington is outstanding overall.”

Council leader Cllr Hans Mundry also shared his views.

He said: "I think it is excellent. We have a small, dedicated team and obviously we are a low funded council – we are a high performing, low resource council."

Cllr Mundry hailed the staff for their ‘extra effort, over and above what they need to do’ to make sure the council delivers the services that are needed.

“So to be good, on the verge of excellent, for a service which is so lowly resourced is a massive achievement for us,” he said.

“It goes down to the hard work and dedication for the staff involved on that team.”

Sharon Cooper, assistant director for children’s services, and strategic lead for children in care and care leavers, was full of praise for the team.

She said: “I’m really pleased that Warrington got good overall, and children in care services received an outstanding rating.

“I think it just shows the dedication, passion, resilience of our children in care social workers, family support workers et cetera.

“We’re really child centred in Warrington and we treat our children in care as if they are our own children and I think that’s really reflected in today’s report, which is brilliant.

“I think Warrington is a very innovative authority and we continue to grow our own provision in-house, where we feel we can offer high-quality services to children in care.

“Moving forward, we’re planning on opening more children’s homes in the area and also looking at the quality of our work and continuing to improve our services all the time.”