TOP officials at Northumberland County Council have revealed that the county is performing above average in terms of the quality of social care provided to both children and adults.

Figures showed that 85.7 per cent of all Northumberland-based adult social care providers were rated as Good or Outstanding at the end of June 2024, compared to 88.0 per cent at the end of December 2023.

The equivalent figure for national ratings was 83 per cent at the end of June 2024. The children’s services figure (100 per cent) is also significantly higher than the national average of 79 per cent.

Senior performance manager Alan Hartwell said the current position was positive for both sectors.

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He said: “Within children’s services, all of the council’s locally run residential homes are rated good or better which is really positive. The school inspection judgements are the best that they have ever been and the department has an overall judgement of outstanding.

“For adults, the number of providers rated outstanding showed a slight decrease – but it is still above the national average.”

At the same meeting officers said they expect to see changes in the way Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspections are carried out.

It follows Government changes to the education watchdog Ofsted that have seen one-word “headline” judgements scrapped. Similar judgements are provided on care homes by CQC.

Councillor Nick Oliver questioned whether care home providers could expect to see similar changes in the future. He said: “We have heard a lot in the press about changes to the Ofsted regime. Are we expecting a similar thing to happen to the CQC?”

The council’s head of commissioning, Alan Curry, explained that while inspections for individual services could change, the council was unable to provide further detail on what those changes would be at this point. Furthermore, changes to the more recent model of inspecting the council’s social services department were unlikely.

Mr Curry said: “There has been a lot about CQC and their regime is under review. There are probably several parts to it.

“They have recently inspected our adult services which is a new programme, and we think that will continue with some degree of evaluation because it is quite new as an inspection model. We’re expecting that inspection result at any point in time.

“The inspection of our provider services are undergoing some degree of change. We’re hoping to have some degree of clarity on that by the next meeting. There are some changes and some outcomes that will remain the same.”