Shake-up for Southampton City Council social services

Southampton City Council have pledged to carry out a major shake-up of social services after inspectors branded them “inadequate” at a time when four children died in the city.

A damning Ofsted report said the quality of care for vulnerable youngsters failed to meet minimum standards in 2011 when Blake Fowler, Nico Maynard and brothers Jayden and Bradley Adams all died.

Inspectors said children were put at risk “for months and longer because of delays in recognising and responding to potentially abusive circumstances”.

The circumstances of all four deaths have been subject to Serious Case Reviews, investigations into actions of all the agencies involved with the families to see whether more could have been done to protect the children.