A GROUP representing families affected by failings at Herefordshire Council’s children’s services says unresolved questions about it will continue surfacing, despite recent positive official verdicts on it.

Last month the Department for Education ended its formal intervention in the department, which was sparked by a highly critical Ofsted assessment four-years-ago and a damning High Court judgment a year before.

Earlier this year, Ofsted reevaluated Herefordshire’s children’s services as ‘good’, with ‘outstanding’ leadership.

And now a report by children’s services commissioner Deborah McMillan, appointed by the Government to oversee improvements at the department, has concluded it “has demonstrated sustained, embedded, and measurable improvement”.

“I am happy to recommend that the Statutory Direction is revoked and the formal intervention in Herefordshire children’s social care be brought to an end,” her report to the Secretary of State concluded.

But on the website of Families’ Alliance for Change, which represents families with poor experiences of the council department, spokesperson Hannah Currie said that while the council was afforded years to improve, it did not grant this in turn to the families in which it intervened.

Council social workers’ actions could be ‘swift’, with decisions made in short timescales ‘that can permanently alter lives’, even those of parents “coping with trauma, poverty, mental ill health or domestic abuse”, she said.

“There has never been a comprehensive independent review of the decisions taken by an inadequate children’s services department to determine whether those were proportionate, lawful and in the best interests of each child,” Ms Currie wrote.

Herefordshire Council’s cabinet member for children and young people Cllr Ivan Powell said: “We know our work does not stop here.

“We remain focused on implementing new national reforms, in line with our vision to support vulnerable children and young people and ensure every child in Herefordshire has the opportunity to thrive.”