A follow-up visit from Ofsted has resulted in praise for a local authority and its work towards improvements in children’s services - but also fears recruitment problems could undermine them.

Medway Council has made changes since the 2023 “good” rating, says the education watchdog in a letter following a targeted visit, but staff turnover has “hindered progress”.

Inspectors said there was positive work in the authority’s approach to the service but changes still needed time to embed.

The visit, conducted in April, was to look specifically at the authority’s performance in relation to children in need or the subject of a child protection plan.

The inspectors said improvements had been made to the support given to children, particularly to 16 or 17 year olds at risk of homelessness, and there was a focus on developing the response to disabled children and teenagers at risk of exploitation.

However, concerns were raised that the positive steps made were on shaky ground because of ever-increasing demands for the service and the high turnover of staff and retention struggles.

Inconsistency of the service was also raised as an issue, with inspectors saying quality and impact of assessments, plans, interventions, management oversight and supervision could vary widely.

But Ofsted also recognised the leaders of the service understood the issues it was facing and the key areas for development.

Cllr Adam Price (Lab), the council’s portfolio holder for children’s services, said: “Children’s services in Medway have been on a significant improvement journey in recent years, and we welcome this latest feedback from Ofsted.

“I would like to thank our staff, leadership team and partners for their hard work and support as we continue on this journey.

“Children matter in Medway, and our ambition is to ensure every single child has the support they need to get the best possible start to life.

“We know there is always more work to do and this latest feedback from Ofsted reflects the hard work we have undertaken, but just as importantly highlights the areas we need to continue to work on.

“We remain committed to working hard to make sure children in Medway remain at the heart of everything we do.”

The letter said children were seen regularly by their social workers, who knew them well, and most visits provided opportunities to explore and share their experiences, hopes and worries.

It also said families had access to a wide variety of services, including one-to-one practical parenting support and family activities, and specialist services helped parents understand the effect of their behaviours on their children.

The letter also said the council’s service acted in a timely and appropriate way when concerns escalate and responded effectively when children did not improve within a time frame.

However, delays within the system were also raised by the inspectors, who said decisions and actions do not routinely happen at pace and that some choices for delays did not appropriately consider the knock-on impacts for other family members.

The high turnover of staff was of greatest concern to the inspectors, who said it had the capacity to totally undo any improvements the services achieved.

The letter said: “Recent turnover of staff threatens to undermine the tenuous progress made.

“The stability and experience of the workforce continue to be the most significant and stubborn challenges and barriers to progress.

“This has meant that some social workers have higher caseloads than senior leaders would like and these higher workloads are contributing to the variability in the quality of practice.

“Leaders have an appropriate focus on recruitment and retention in an attempt to address this. They have had some success with this, although progress has been slow.”

Cllr Mark Joy (Con), shadow cabinet member for children’s services and education said: “My thanks to the brilliant teams across children’s services who deliver the ‘good’ children’s services for our children and young people every day.

“The Ofsted report released today makes clear that there continues to be good progress made within children’s services, but it remains fragile given the continued challenges around permanence within the service.

“I remain committed to being a constructive opposition and working on a cross-party basis where appropriate with the portfolio holder through the overview and scrutiny committee and the corporate parenting board.”

The council achieved a ”good” rating for its children’s services in September 2023, after being rated as “inadequate” in 2019.

The inspection was not a full review of the authority’s service, but rather a target examination on the specific aspect of children in need or the subject of a child protection plan.

It did not provide a rating of the services examined, but instead commented on its findings and the state of improvements made since the last inspection.