COUNCILLORS have been assured that Dorset County Council is already working on a number of areas highlighted as concerning in its provision for children in care.

As reported in the Echo, a number of areas the authority could improve its service in the face of growing numbers of children coming into care and continued overspends of its budgets had been flagged up in the report.

Members of the council’s children’s services overview committee considered the report, from the South West Audit Partnership, which was instigated by the authority as a result of growing pressures on the service.

It highlighted that there was an insufficient budget available to meet the cost of placements, the right intervention was not taking place early enough and children remained in care placements longer than necessary.

Lead auditor Rosie Darkin said the audit process had taken around six months and the auditors had spoken to about 60 members of staff as well as taking detailed information about children in the care of the authority.

She told the committee: “What your professional officers told us is that the service needs better risk assessments and more comprehensive case notes to identify those children and young people who need to come into care at an earlier stage and those children who need to remain at home with support.”

Mrs Darkin added that the evidence had also shown that there would always be a need to place some children into residential accommodation. She added that it was clear that if the service continued in the same way with the same budget it would inevitably continue to overspend.

Mrs Darkin said her team had also spoken to one young person who identified the need to change the perception of the council’s service.

She said: “This person’s peers think social services, if you have any problems, will come and take you away and they are all paedophiles.”

Mrs Darkin said the young person also asked why nobody from the service ever came into schools to talk to children like other services, such as the fire service and police.

Director for children’s services, Sara Tough, said that work had already began on a number of areas identified in the action plan from the audit and members would be informed as the process developed. She added that the audit had been welcomed by the council’s staff and actually endorsed a lot of changes the service was already working towards.

She said: “It’s been a very welcome report for the service as it gives us the ideal information that we felt we needed in order to inform the change programme that we are building at the moment.”

Councillors also backed a proposal to work with officers to raise awareness of the service in schools and address the perceptions of young people.