County Council Conservatives happy that arrangements for the protection of children in Surrey meets “minimum requirements”

Councillor Fiona White (Guildford West), the Deputy Leader of Surrey County Council Liberal Democrats has condemned the Conservative leadership at County Hall for having no ambition to improve arrangements for the protection of children in Surrey.

A recent Ofsted report gave Surrey a rating of "Adequate" for the arrangements for looked after children, a score that Ofsted describes as "a service that meets minimum requirements."

Liberal Democrats at the meeting of Full Council today called on the Conservative administration to support a call for Surrey County Council to: "Aspire to improve the service as soon as possible to attain a rating of 'Good' as a first step to progressing to 'Outstanding'."

Fiona White said: "Surrey's staff perform an incredible job under very difficult circumstances with stretched resources. The Liberal Democrats have called on the Conservative administration to show some ambition to improve services for the protection of children. When the Leader of the Council took office he said that his number one priority is the protection of children and that he wanted Surrey to be the best. In refusing to accept our proposal today he has made it clear that in his view 'a service that meets minimum requirements' is the limit of his ambitions and that 'adequate' is good enough for Surrey's Conservative administration."

Link to the Ofsted report (pdf)