THE “improvement journey” of children’s services in St Helens will take a minimum of 12 months, the borough’s top care chief has said.

Ofsted has carried out a focused visit on children’s services this week, just three months after its damning verdict from its previous visit.

The watchdog found in July that services had declined since its 2014 inspection, which concluded that services for children required improvement to be good.

A damning letter published in August said the local authority had to take “swift and decisive action” in three priority areas in order to address the weaknesses found during the focused visit.

On Wednesday, Professor Sarah O’Brien, the council’s strategic director of people services and chief accountable officer for St Helens CCG, provided an update on the latest visit.

She told the CCG’s governing body that Ofsted do not expect to see a “massive” improvement since the last visit and said the “improvement journey” would take a minimum of 12 months.

Prof O’Brien said: “They (Ofsted) know it’s a journey.

“I think what they need is reassurance. I presume what they are looking for is reassurance.

“They could have come back in and if nothing’s happened since they came in then you would be concerned, wouldn’t you?

“I am confident they will see that things are happening, but I think that’s probably the test.”

Prof O’Brien said that following July’s focused visit, the local authority has acted as though it is in intervention.

She said an improvement board was set up with an independent chairman and have met three times.

Prof O’Brien said a “robust action plan” has already been submitted to Ofsted, with the final version to be sent by December 3.

She added that extra staff have been “urgently” brought into the fold provide the expertise the service needed.

The CCG chief also said it was important the three statutory partners for social services – police, health and the local authority – all put children at the centre of everything they do.

Prof O’Brien said: “Our adolescents are a big challenge in St Helens and I think sometimes we forget when you’re 13, 14, 15, 16 –you’re still a child.

“And a lot of the behaviour isn’t about poor behaviour it’s about other underlying issues that are going on.

“I think it’s a whole borough response, this. It’s a challenge for the whole borough and we’ve really, really got to put children right back at the centre.”

Lisa Ellis, chief nurse for the CCG, said Ofsted found in its July visit that there was “little understanding” of the threshold of need, across the board.

Ms Ellis said the three statutory partners have now come together with “equal representation”.

She said in the past there has been an “over reliance” on the local authority, with partners often playing a “passive role”.

She said: “Now, actually it’s absolutely clear that there’s three key partners and we all have equal accountability and responsibility with this.”

Despite the short length of time since the previous visit, Prof O’Brien said she is “confident” Ofsted will not discover any unknown issues.

Prof O’Brien said: “I would be surprised in these two days if they find anything I don’t now know and know what needs to be done.

“In fact, I’m confident that they won’t find anything that I now know about and what we now need to do, which I hope sends a good message to Ofsted.”