Good news rarely causes much interest in our local press. In the age of online news accessed through single line headlines on social media, clickbait is the name of the game and study after study has shown that the best clickbait is something indicating shock, outrage, failure or danger.
BBC Somerset this week have decided to focus on the negative to the utter detriment of all the hard work that has been put in to deliver something that is actually a relatively good news story. The story I refer to is the Ofsted announcement that after a couple of false starts and an incredible amount of hard work over the last two years, Children’s Services in Somerset is no longer rated Inadequate. It is now rated Requires Improvement or RI.
There’s no sugar-coating RI – it means exactly as it says, that further improvement is required. Which is exactly what BBC Somerset have focussed on in their online coverage. As such it’s not inaccurate – and certainly not ‘fake news’ – but it is almost impossible to go from Inadequate to Good in one leap and so the County Council have achieved as much progress as they possibly could have done at this stage. I think they should be congratulated for doing so.
There has been some excellent political leadership in delivering these improvements. More important though are the herculean efforts of the social workers and officers at the council who have had to do so much to turn Child Services around. In the need to generate negative clickbait, their efforts will too easily be overlooked.
I hope readers will forgive me, therefore, if I use my column this week to give them the most enormous pat on the back and to say thank you for everything they’ve done so far. I’ve every confidence that they’ll continue this improvement over the years ahead and achieve a Good grading at the very first opportunity.