The Medway Conservative Group welcomes the recent Ofsted focused visit, undertaken under the ILACs framework, which took place in November 2025, recognising the continued good work initiated by the previous Conservative administration that resulted in a ‘Good’ overall grading in July 2023.
The latest visit focused on key areas including the quality of matching, placement and decision-making, arrangements for children in care who are at risk of exploitation, responses to children missing from care, and the experiences and progress of children living in unregistered provision.
We are pleased to see recognition of the following key findings:
- Strong leadership: Corporate, political, and senior leadership are aligned, visible, and focused on continually improving services for children in care.
- Child-centred practice: Visits are child-focused, with records written in warm, age-appropriate language that reflects the child’s voice.
- Timely decisions: Children enter care at the right time, when necessary and in their best interests, with effective management oversight regarding these decisions.
- Trusted relationships: Children benefit from strong, trusting relationships with social workers who know them well.
- Oversight from Independent Reviewing Officers: They provide high-quality, personalised support and direction that children value, and children speak about the long-lasting relationships they have with their IROs.
- Investment in homes: Significant investment has been made to expand the number of council-run children’s homes and increase the sufficiency of children’s homes, making a positive difference in Medway.
- Commitment to quality: There are clear and sustained efforts to avoid unregistered placements. When they are used, it is alongside robust management oversight and comprehensive quality assurance processes, with social workers visiting children at least weekly.
- Support for missing children: Children are supported to understand the risks associated with going missing from care. Additional resources ensure return home interviews are offered to all children, including those placed outside the area.
- Learning culture: A strong learning culture and efforts to strengthen the permanent workforce are improving consistency and practice.
The letter also acknowledges areas for improvement, including:
- Improving consistency in meeting the needs of children placed outside Medway, particularly access to specialist health services. Some children placed outside Medway continue to have poorly met needs because of restricted access to certain services.
- Increasing the consistent use of risk assessment tools for children at risk of going missing or exploitation. Inspectors noted that for a significant minority, they are not being used, which limits social workers’ understanding of risk and their ability to intervene effectively.
Despite these challenges, Ofsted noted that senior leaders maintain a clear line of sight to practice and have strong quality assurance processes in place.
Cllr Mark Joy, Shadow Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and Education, said:
“We welcome this latest feedback from Ofsted, which confirms we are continuing to make good progress with our Children’s Services. This shows that children matter in Medway.
This progress is only possible thanks to the dedication of our team, and recognition should be given to the whole team.
While we remain on an improvement journey, it is reassuring that areas requiring attention were already identified by Children's Services Leadership team, who had an improvement plan in place to get these areas to the same high standards.
We are also pleased to see recognition of the strong partnership between our Children’s Services team and Kent Police, showing how two organisations with strong leadership can work together in the best interests of children and young people.
However, I remain deeply disappointed—but not surprised—by the continued poor performance on Initial Health Assessments by NHS Kent and Medway Integrated Care Board. Despite repeated assurances, improvements have not been delivered, and this failure continues to let down the children of Medway.”
