Children's services inspection 2025

Islington’s Children’s Services offers a huge range of support to families and children and young people from birth to the age of 21, or 25 for young people with a special educational need or disability.

Ofsted’s inspectors assessed Islington Council’s Children’s Services over two weeks in December 2024.

They judged the services to be ‘outstanding’, for the second time in a row, with inspectors finding “children’s experiences are at the heart of the local authority’s thinking” and that its work is “transforming children’s lives”.

The judgement makes Islington one of only four boroughs in London to hold the top rating under the current inspection framework for both its Children’s Services and Youth Justice Service. The full report is available on the Ofsted website.

Key findings

Ofsted looked at young people’s experiences of the wide range of help, protection and care the council provides, and the work it’s doing to improve these services. It found them to be ‘Outstanding’ in all four areas of focus.  

• Experiences and progress of children who need help and protection  
• Those in care 
• Those who have left care 
• The impact leaders have on social work practice with children and families.  

The difference the service has made

Highlights from the report’s findings include:  

• an “exceptionally wide range of effective early help services and support” that makes a “tangible difference to children’s and families’ lives” 
• social workers have manageable caseloads and their recommendations “are well articulated and result in children receiving the right help at the right time”  
  the service supports parents of at-risk children to improve their lives so many can safely remain at home 
• children at risk of exploitation, or who go missing, get “exceptionally comprehensive and well-coordinated help” to reduce risk to them 
• children in care receive “an exceptionally high level of support”, including with issues such as trauma, poor mental health or substance misuse, and most “make very significant progress” 
• unaccompanied asylum-seeking children in care are very well supported by “impressive social workers and an array of community resources” 
  foster carers receive comprehensive support and training from “a stable and experienced staff team” 
• care leavers receive “exceptional support from skilled and caring personal advisers” 
• the “impressive” House Project and Next Steps programme, which support care leavers to live independently, have “made a real difference to young people’s lives”
• training and work opportunities have been offered to care leavers – with 10 taking apprenticeships with the council.

Continued improvement

Lead inspector Sarah Canto found that several areas had “gone from strength to strength” since the last inspection in 2020, when Islington was also judged ‘outstanding’.  

This includes the experiences and progress of children in care, increased mental health support and the response to children who are missing or at risk of exploitation.

Recommendations

The report made just one recommendation: to improve the consistency of seeking children’s and families views in the auditing process. The service has already updated its practices to ensure this happens.

Serving our young people

Islington’s Youth Justice Service earned a score of 34 out of 36 in summer 2024, the best result in London and the third-highest in all of England and Wales.