‘We were on our knees’: Tributes to director who transformed Wakefield Council's failing child social care services as she retires after 37 years of public service

Councillors of all parties paid tribute to Beate Wagner at a full council meeting as she retired after 37 years of public service.

Ms Wagner was appointed corporate director for Children and Young People after a damning Ofsted report in 2018.The service was rated as inadequate as inspectors said vulnerable children in care had been put at risk.

In January this year, inspectors rated Wakefield’s children’s services as ‘good’ and it’s leadership as ‘outstanding’.

It is thought to be one of the fastest turnarounds by any local authority in the country.It led to Wakefield Council winning the Children’s Services category at this year’s LGC Awards.

Wakefield Mayor, David Jones, who is also chair of the Council’s children and young people scrutiny committee, said: “Without a shadow of a doubt, it has been one of the highlights of my long career to be able to work with somebody who had so much vision, so much energy and, most of all, so much wisdom.

“I think our children’s services in this district are a whole lot better now, as a result of the dedicated service that Beate has put in over the last three years.”

Council Leader Denise Jeffery said: “I want to thank you on behalf of us all.

“We were on our knees and now we have an outstanding service.

“We know that you will be watching us to ensure that we keep going.”

Ms Wagner qualified as a social worker in 1986, initially working with children in care and care leavers.

In the decade before taking over at Wakefield she was a service director at local authorities in Stoke, Calderdale and Warwickshire.

She made the step up to corporate director level when she moved to Wakefield as the Council admitted it was failing vulnerable youngsters.

Describing the challenge, she said: “It was daunting. It was a big task. It was very hard work.

“We had big improvement plans.

“It’s hard to get people to imagine the scale of what we needed to do.

“I can’t remember how many improvement projects – well over 100- it was just really hard work.

“We had to systematically improve every part of the service.

“When you are service director you are responsible for all children, so I got to work with schools, with health, with police, at that more strategic level.

“We went through each part of the service and decided what was working and what was not working and we put a plan in place.

“Wakefield has got something about it that is about partnerships.

“You get a lot of people wanting to work together which isn’t always the case elsewhere.

“Everybody was just so up for it.”

The 2018 Ofsted report said high case loads and poor morale had been endemic across the service.

It was also criticised for having a serious shortage of social workers and an over-reliance on agency staff.

Ms Wagner explained: “We couldn’t cope with the volume of referrals so there was a big investment in the beginning.

“To start with we needed a lot of agency workers because we needed a lot of staff quickly.

“Social workers are very difficult to come by, especially when it is an inadequate authority.

“The council accepted that and invested.

“We had really clear targets to reduce our agency staff. Largely we achieved that.”

Ms Wagner said change was also required at the top of the service.

She continued: “We encouraged elected members and senior leaders to go out and meet the teams.

“Social workers could then say to them ‘this is quite good but this is really frustrating.'”

“We got messages from a layperson’s perspective.

“There was lots of dialogue with everyone who had a stake in it.

“We had to be transparent and open ourselves up to criticism because that helps you improve.

“We listened and I think people started to trust us.”

The 2022 Ofsted report said there had been “sustained improvement” to the quality of social work in Wakefield, from “an extremely low base”.

It said there was “stability” within the department following investment in new staff, and workers are “without exception, very enthusiastic about working for Wakefield.”

The regulator also graded the leadership of children’s services as “outstanding” and said those in charge had worked “tirelessly to continually drive forward improvements.”

Ms Wagner added: “I felt like everyone worked so hard and it has been lovely to be recognised for that.

“We have got much better services for children.

“Families don’t want to lose their children. Families want to be supported.

“There is a lot more investment into early help so that can happen.

“When families do have a social worker they feel that it is effective and that they are being helped.

“We have confidence now in our safeguarding practice.

“We can never on our own prevent serious injury or death, because we cannot live in people’s households.

“But it has made children as safe as they can be.

“Ofsted told us that they think our safeguarding arrangements are really strong, from being weak.

“There is only one other local authority who managed to go from inadequate to outstanding in one cycle.

“We were fairly unique and it was not expected.

“You are expected to go through the process and get to adequate first, and then to good.

“To get to outstanding in once cycle was exceptional and we were really chuffed.”

Ms Wagner is now looking forward to travelling and spending time with family following retirement, saying: “I have done 37 years and that’s quite enough for now.

“I have loved it.

“I love what local government and public services do and how close we can get to people.

“I have loved all my jobs but this has been the best. It has been brilliant.”