Children’s Services is top of the agenda for my column this week.
It has been a big focus for us at Solihull Council for the last few years. We have never ignored the need to deliver good quality services in all the other areas we manage – social care for adults, maintaining roads and keeping streets and parks clean amongst many, many, other things. But we needed to improve Children’s Services. That was no secret, and we never shied away from it. I took over as Lead Member a couple of years ago, and I have seen first-hand the huge amount of hard work that has gone into re-organising, recruiting, training, and making the changes we needed, to put children at the heart of what we do.
Our work is far from over, and as the needs of children in our borough continue to develop we must always make sure that our services meet those needs. We have been making steady progress. Ofsted’s letter following their final monitoring visit in April, shows that all the hard work is having an impact.
I’m not going to reproduce their findings in full, you can read the letter (and I encourage you to), but I do want to highlight something that stood out to me. They were looking at what are called our ‘Front Door’ services – where people first come into contact with our staff and our support. The inspectors noted that “the response to children who need help and support is now timely and child focused and that children and families’ experiences have improved considerably”. I was proud to read that, particularly the words “child focused”. It’s what we have been striving to achieve, and we will continue to do that as we move forward with the next steps of our improvement journey.
There was a big story in the news this week about the government investing money in transport services outside London. There is still a need for a bit more detail on the plans, but the relevant bit for us is that the West Midlands Metro tram extension is going to be at least heading in the right direction for Solihull.
The news that funding has been confirmed to extend the line out as far as the proposed new Blues ground and sports quarter is good for us, as it paves the way for the next phase of the plan, bringing much-needed improvements to connectivity between North Solihull, Birmingham Airport and the UK Central Hub. This will link our residents to jobs, healthcare and transport. I want to see, and we need to see, those plans developed at pace, to make sure that the opportunity is not lost. I’ll be pushing for this and making sure that the people of North Solihull get to share in the benefits of this investment.
Finally, on Saturday evening the Mayor and I attended a celebration of Aesthetics 25th birthday. They’re a hair salon in Solihull and I mention this because it’s great to see small businesses thriving like they are. We are very lucky to have so many in the borough, and I’m a proud champion of our small business community. They’re the backbone of Solihull in many ways and battling really tough conditions in recent years to stay open and keep our high streets bustling. They deserve a little recognition for their hard work, so congratulations to them and thank you to all our small businesses for helping to make our borough a great place.
Thanks for reading.
Councillor Karen Grinsell, Leader of Solihull Council.