Cabinet has accepted funding to help improve children’s services standards in other parts of the country.
North Tyneside Council, together with South Tyneside Council, has been named the North East’s first Partners in Practice (PiP), along with eight others nationally.
It comes after North Tyneside was placed among the top ten of children’s services departments nationally in March 2017 following an Ofsted inspection.
The authority was given an overall judgement of ‘Good’ with ‘Outstanding’ features for its services to safeguard children.
The Department for Education’s (DfE) PiP programme sees the best performing local authorities work with Government to drive up standards in children’s social care.
North and South Tyneside councils have formed an alliance aimed at working with other local authorities whose children’s services are under-performing or at risk of failing in order to drive up standards.
At a meeting on Monday (30 July) North Tyneside Council’s Cabinet rubber-stamped DfE funding of £1.6m – to be shared with South Tyneside Council – to carry out improvement work with local authorities judged by Ofsted as ‘Requiring Improvement’.
Cllr Peter Earley, cabinet member for Children, Young People and Learning, said: “I am delighted that we have accepted this funding to help other local authorities as part of our alliance with our colleagues in South Tyneside.
“Our Partners in Practice status, in addition to a range of recent external endorsements from both the Care Quality Commission and Ofsted, is further recognition that this council delivers high quality services that give children and young people in the borough choices and opportunities in their lives.”
ENDS