More than eighteen months after Harrow’s children’s services were judged “inadequate” and placed under a government improvement notice, Ofsted’s third monitoring visit has identified another series of serious weaknesses, this time in services for disabled children. Rather than demonstrating sustained recovery, the latest findings reinforce a troubling pattern: as inspectors examine different parts of the service, further systemic weaknesses continue to emerge.
The latest visit focused on the experiences and progress of disabled children supported through the Children and Young Adults with Disabilities Service (CYADS). Inspectors found that social work practice does not consistently develop a comprehensive understanding of children’s lived experiences, while assessments and care plans often fail to consider wider developmental needs, parental capacity and family circumstances. Relationship-based practice is inconsistent, brothers and sisters are not routinely involved in assessments, and some children have outdated assessments and care plans.
Ofsted also raised significant safeguarding concerns. Inspectors found that current assessments may not provide practitioners with a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of disabled children’s wider safeguarding needs. They also reported that social workers have not received recent training in key safeguarding areas, including neglect, domestic abuse, parental substance misuse and parental mental ill health, potentially limiting their ability to identify emerging risks.
Further concerns include delays in reviewing support packages, disabled children entering care in crisis rather than through planned intervention, inconsistent transition planning into adulthood, management supervision that focuses more on case management than critical analysis, and continuing pressures affecting early help and access to mental health services.
For the Harrow Monitoring Group, the latest findings reinforce concerns it has raised since the original January 2025 inspection. Following Ofsted’s second monitoring visit, the Group argued that the weaknesses identified were symptoms of wider systemic failings rather than isolated problems. The latest report appears to strengthen that conclusion.
A key question now arises. Why do further weaknesses continue to emerge after three Ofsted monitoring visits, a government improvement notice and repeated assurances that improvement is underway? Successive inspections have identified concerns about assessment, care planning, safeguarding and management oversight across different parts of the service, suggesting that the underlying causes have yet to be fully addressed.
The latest findings also prompt questions about the effectiveness of Harrow’s internal quality assurance arrangements. Parliament established the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) system to provide independent oversight of children’s care planning and to challenge poor practice where necessary. Although this monitoring visit did not specifically examine the IRO service, the repeated emergence of significant weaknesses raises legitimate questions about whether existing internal assurance mechanisms are identifying and addressing systemic problems before they are exposed through external inspection.
Disabled children are among the most vulnerable members of the community. They deserve services built on comprehensive assessment, effective safeguarding and strong professional oversight. After three monitoring visits, the challenge for Harrow Council is no longer simply to respond to individual inspection findings, but to demonstrate that it has addressed the systemic weaknesses that continue to undermine the quality of care provided to children and families.
[i] Harrow Monitoring Group letter to Director of Children’s Services
[ii] Ofsted monitoring visit report
The latest visit focused on the experiences and progress of disabled children supported through the Children and Young Adults with Disabilities Service (CYADS). Inspectors found that social work practice does not consistently develop a comprehensive understanding of children’s lived experiences, while assessments and care plans often fail to consider wider developmental needs, parental capacity and family circumstances. Relationship-based practice is inconsistent, brothers and sisters are not routinely involved in assessments, and some children have outdated assessments and care plans.
Ofsted also raised significant safeguarding concerns. Inspectors found that current assessments may not provide practitioners with a sufficiently comprehensive understanding of disabled children’s wider safeguarding needs. They also reported that social workers have not received recent training in key safeguarding areas, including neglect, domestic abuse, parental substance misuse and parental mental ill health, potentially limiting their ability to identify emerging risks.
Further concerns include delays in reviewing support packages, disabled children entering care in crisis rather than through planned intervention, inconsistent transition planning into adulthood, management supervision that focuses more on case management than critical analysis, and continuing pressures affecting early help and access to mental health services.
For the Harrow Monitoring Group, the latest findings reinforce concerns it has raised since the original January 2025 inspection. Following Ofsted’s second monitoring visit, the Group argued that the weaknesses identified were symptoms of wider systemic failings rather than isolated problems. The latest report appears to strengthen that conclusion.
A key question now arises. Why do further weaknesses continue to emerge after three Ofsted monitoring visits, a government improvement notice and repeated assurances that improvement is underway? Successive inspections have identified concerns about assessment, care planning, safeguarding and management oversight across different parts of the service, suggesting that the underlying causes have yet to be fully addressed.
The latest findings also prompt questions about the effectiveness of Harrow’s internal quality assurance arrangements. Parliament established the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) system to provide independent oversight of children’s care planning and to challenge poor practice where necessary. Although this monitoring visit did not specifically examine the IRO service, the repeated emergence of significant weaknesses raises legitimate questions about whether existing internal assurance mechanisms are identifying and addressing systemic problems before they are exposed through external inspection.
Disabled children are among the most vulnerable members of the community. They deserve services built on comprehensive assessment, effective safeguarding and strong professional oversight. After three monitoring visits, the challenge for Harrow Council is no longer simply to respond to individual inspection findings, but to demonstrate that it has addressed the systemic weaknesses that continue to undermine the quality of care provided to children and families.
[i] Harrow Monitoring Group letter to Director of Children’s Services
[ii] Ofsted monitoring visit report