The number of betting shops, fast-food restaurants and games arcades should be limited on council estates because they harm families, the head of Ofsted said today.
Sir Michael Wilshaw said the Government should stop a proliferation of these shops in poor areas for the good of the community. Speaking at the launch of Ofsted’s first ever social care report, he said the shops “don’t help families to prosper.”
Sir Michael, previously head of Mossbourne academy in Hackney, added: “I am putting my headteacher hat on. I was concerned when children left the front gates and too often went to the wrong sorts of places which run counter to the culture we tried to introduce.
“If there are too many betting shops and games arcades and fast food outlets it’s counter to the culture and expectation levels I was trying to introduce. This is an issue for government and town planners on how they create communities which send out the right messages to the people who live in them and the poorest in these communities and the most vulnerable.”
Sir Michael also said that too many children are suffering because parents do not take responsibility for raising them well.
He said Mossbourne succeeded because teachers took on the role of parents, but said “compassion should not be about making excuses for irresponsible behaviour”.
Today’s report found that one in seven councils in England are “inadequate” at caring for some of the most vulnerable children in society, with the standard of child protection at 20 councils “unacceptably poor”.
Only one in four local authorities are judged to be “good” at safeguarding children.
Sir Michael said he was shocked by figures in today’s report that show 700,000 children are living with a parent who is dependent on alcohol while 130,000 are living in violent homes.
Sir Michael was also highly critical of Birmingham’s children’s services department, which he said is a “national disgrace”, and has failed seven inspections. Infant mortality rates there are worse than in Cuba he said. He added that government “must act before more children die whose deaths could be avoided”.
Sir Michael warned that children’s services are struggling to improve their performance in the wake of high-profile child deaths.
Read More
The report said: “In a climate of turbulence, increased workloads and intense scrutiny of children’s social care — much of it arising from public anxiety following a catalogue of high-profile child deaths — many areas are struggling to improve performance.”
The report comes as social work is under scrutiny after the deaths of two-year-old Keanu Williams in Birmingham and Hamzah Khan, four, in Bradford.
Ofsted inspectors found that a persistent absence of stable leadership was a feature of most “inadequate” local authorities.
