Inspectors also said that their policies were not consistently understood or applied. The inspectors ruling is a blow to the reputation of Birmingham’s children Social Services, who have lost any credibility they may have once had or thought they had. Social Services bosses in Birmingham children services do not seem to have clarified what was expected of unqualified referral officers whom they used.

Unqualified referral officers were expected to  follow up enquiries and phone calls, but did not appear to even know their basic duties.

The finding makes a mockery of Birmingham’s Children services because it show them to be incapable and unprofessional. One has to pity any of the genuine capable professionals amongst them, they must be in the lowest pecking order if they are there.

Inspectors said that despite the number of contacts increasing, many did not lead to referrals.  “Decisions are being made on the basis of incomplete information and there is an over-reliance on unqualified workers to signpost the process contacts. This results in missed opportunities to correctly identify needs and ensure that there is the right response,” inspectors stated.

The report also pointed to an improvement in  permanent staff  and reduction in vacancy rates . That’s good news but cannot be taken to be an automatic indication of improvement. A lot more still needs to be done because Birmingham social children services has been failing on an epic scale.

“Senior leaders and politicians have worked hard, invested considerable resources and reconfigured services to ensure that there is a strengthened focus on improvement, and this inspection has found some significant improvements in a range of services as a result,” the  inspectors said.

“However, key areas of service provision are continuing to fail children and families, and where progress is being made further work is required to ensure that services are of good quality.”

Inspectors said that recent investment into Social services meant that key areas of supervision was improving. “Caseloads are manageable, and social workers are spending more time with children. An increased use of direct work by social workers with some children is starting to improve their outcomes,” inspectors said.

But Ofsted highlighted the need for managerial improvements, the appropriate application of thresholds, and the reduction of the backlog of domestic abuse notifications that need to be carefully assessed. Meaning that several areas of malfunctions still sexist in Birmingham children services.

A number of councilors at Birmingham children services offered words of hope to the eye of media.com, one claiming that the bond between children and social workers had now become stronger, with the standard of social worker staff high and delivery of case workload ”much better”.

Too late mate, should never have been that bad in the first place. How can a children’s social services be so incompetent in their operations and profession to have unqualified referral officers and not train them properly?

What a disgrace of a report to Birmingham children’s services.Even with improvements apparently underway, it be difficult to be able to place full trust in them because of this embarrassing debacle of theirs.