West Sussex County Council

摘要

West Sussex County Council is on a significant improvement journey, chief executive Becky Shaw explains. When she was appointed by the new political leadership 18 months ago as part of an innovative local improvement partnership with East Sussex, a Department for Education (DfE) commissioned report into the Council had found broad governance failures after an inadequate Ofsted judgement on children's services and significant challenges in the Council's fire & rescue service. Many of those issues have been tackled, so much so, that the DfE has paused plans to put children's services into a separate children's trust. Everyone involved with West Sussex CC understands that there is still a long way to go, but the Council is now unquestionably on the right trajectory. 'We have made so much progress, they have put the plans for a trust off for a year. That's a major step - they've never done that before,' Ms Shaw tells The MJ. The Council's fire & rescue service, which was rated inadequate in how it looks after people, and requires improvement at effectively and efficiently keeping people safe and secure, has seen significant progress in the last year, and the Improvement Board has taken the unprecedented decision to wind itself up because they took the view that their oversight was no longer needed.