Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, which children's services departments have (a) been judged as inadequate by Ofsted and (b) had outside commissioners take over responsibility for those services from local authorities in each of the last five years.

Since December 2010, Ofsted has inspected local authorities under the following frameworks: Safeguarding and Looked after Children; local authority arrangements for the protection of children; local authority arrangements for children looked after; local authority adoption agencies; and single inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, looked after children and care leavers, including a review of the Local Safeguarding Childrens Boards (LSCB).

During this period, the following local authorities have been rated as ‘inadequate’:

Barnsley, Bexley, Birmingham, Blackpool, Buckinghamshire, Calderdale, Cambridgeshire, Cheshire East, Cheshire West and Chester, Cornwall, Coventry, Cumbria, Darlington, Devon, Doncaster, Herefordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Kingston upon Thames, Knowsley, Lambeth, Lancashire, Leicester City, Manchester, Medway, Norfolk, Northamptonshire, Peterborough, Rochdale, Rotherham, Salford, Sandwell, Slough, Somerset, Sunderland, Surrey, Sutton, Torbay, Walsall, Waltham Forest, West Berkshire, West Sussex and Wiltshire.

Commissioners have been appointed in Birmingham, Doncaster, Rotherham, Slough, and Sunderland. Depending on the needs in each Council, commissioners have played a range of roles, including establishing chidren’s social care Trusts; exercising executive control over services; and ensuring effective improvement plans are in place.