IT is heartening to see the Kingfisher Unit – a joint operation between Oxfordshire County Council, the police and the health service – draw praise for the way it tackles child sexual exploitation.
Ofsted has also given the council’s children’s services department an overall good rating in an independent assessment.
It is crucial these services are inspected because while there has clearly been a huge effort to improve in the wake of the scandalous failures by social services and police in Bullfinch, scrutiny must be maintained.
Many of the failings that led to those poor girls being abused by the Bullfinch gang were because of a culture of complacency.
Protecting our children is the basic expectation of these authorities and so while we are glad to see improvements, organisations like Ofsted must continue these inspections to ensure the mistakes of the past remain in the past.
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