To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence had been received from Councillor Frank Cornthwaite, Councillor Rob Williams and Jan Frances (co-opted member families’ representative).

To receive details of members nominated to attend the meeting in place of a member of the committee.

There were no named substitutes.

To receive declarations of interests in respect of Schedule 1, Schedule 2 or Other Interests from members of the committee in respect of items on the agenda.

No declarations of interest were made.

To receive the minutes of the meetings held on 13 June 2024 and 7 May 2024.

The minutes of the previous meetings were received.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meetings held on 7 May and 13 June 2024 be confirmed as a correct record and be signed by the Chairperson.

To receive any written questions from members of the public.

A document containing questions received from members of the public and the responses given, plus supplementary questions and responses given, is attached at Appendix 1 to the minutes.

To receive any written questions from members of the council.

No questions had been received from members of the council.

For the Children and Young people Scrutiny Committee to note and consider the summary of complaints received in relation to children’s services.

The Complaints and Children’s Rights Manager introduced and gave an overview of the report. The key points covered included:

-          The report focused on the municipal year from April 2023 to March 2024

-          It looked at corporate complaints and statutory children’s complaints representations that were made to the local authority.

-          The report showed an increase in complaints, but also an increase in responses and improvement in response times to complaints.

-          The report showed a decrease in escalations to stage a two and stage three of the statutory procedure.

-          An error was corrected to reflect that 77% of complaints were resolved at stage one of the process and not 81% as was shown in the report itself.

-          The report showed the number of referrals that were submitted by the Local Government Ombudsmen in the last year and compared that against data from the previous five years (since children’s complaints were moved into corporate services).

-          The report showed that 56 complaints across the whole council were submitted to the ombudsmen, 12 of those related to children services and 7 of those were fully investigated.

-          The report included a breakdown of the types of complaints received. Clarity was provided on service failure complaints, which in some instances could simply relate to a follow up phone call not being made or email not being, so these were not necessarily major complaints.

-          Common reasons for complaint escalation were included.

-          It was highlighted that there was a persistent increase in complaints, but both the complaints and children’s services were continuing to work on improving with ongoing improvements to the procedure.

-          Responding to complaints within timescales had improved significantly over the last 12 months.

The Chair invited comments and discussion from the committee in relation to the report. The key points of the discussion are detailed below:

1.     The committee enquired about how the service and users would know that complaints being received were actually informing and improving practice.

·       The Complaints and Children’s Rights Manager explained that when a complaint was assigned to an investigating officer they would complete a lessons learned template, which was fed back to and collated by the complaints service. The responsibility of learning from complaints fell to the service area the complaint was made about.

·       When a complaint was escalated to stage two or three of the statutory process, independent investigating officers would make recommendations that would relate to both the complaints service and children’s services, and these recommendations would be taken forward to improve the practice, with any recommended changes being embedded in the practice of social workers, team managers and everybody involved.

·       The Corporate Director Children and Young People emphasised the importance of collating the learning logs, as these helped in developing new practice standards and changes in policy that could be implemented across the service. Learning issues relating to individuals and teams could be addressed via training or management intervention within the service.

·       The Corporate Director Children and Young  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16.

To provide a progress update on the Families Commission report considerations. 

The Corporate Director Children and Young People introduced the report and provided an overview of the background, purpose and output of the Families Commission.

The Director detailed that in September 2023 the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee had discussed the Families Commission report and received an update on progress being made by the service.

The Director explained that Herefordshire Children’s Services had continued to undertake work around the outputs of the Families Commission. Phase 2 of its Improvement Plan included a range of opportunities for children, families and the public to continue to feedback on their experiences of Herefordshire Children’s Services and to engage in the development of the service.

It was explained that the Improvement Board was due to share the Phase 2 Improvement Plan with the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee on 17 September 2024 and Cabinet on 26 September 2024.

The Corporate Director drew the committee’s attention to a specific number of areas covered in the update report detailing ongoing work that would be incorporated into Phase 2 of the improvement plan, including:

-          Early help activity and projects relating to the Community Safety Fund and, My Family, My School, My Community

-          The strategic review of Peopletoo and the locality model.

-          Continuation of the delivery of restorative practice, particularly in relation to new staff and throughout the partnership.

-          Engagement and participation of children, young people, parents and carers

-          The SafeLives review of domestic abuse responses in Herefordshire and domestic abuse training

-          Complaints (which had been covered previous in item 7)

The Chair invited comments and discussion from the committee in relation to the report. The key points discussed are detailed below:

1.    The committee enquired as to what the Safeguarding Partnership was doing to ensure that complaints procedures in every agency across the partnership were: accessible to families, working well and recording findings.

2.    The committee asked if there was a need for a portal on the partnership web page that could provide people with access to the different partner complaints procedures.

·         The Safeguarding Partnerships Business Manager explained there was a complaint tile on the Safeguarding Partnership website, which guided people through to the relevant partner website - where they could access the appropriate complaints procedure.

·         The Safeguarding Partnerships Business Manager referred to the Section 11 Audit Process as contained within the Children Act 2024, which required individual agencies to have robust child safeguarding practices in place. It was explained that partners would respond to an audit, which would then be checked and challenged by the Independent Scrutineer to establish what had been done to address issues in areas that had been identified as being inadequate or needing improvement. This information would then go onto an audit portal where partners were required to detail how they had addressed issues, what lessons had been learned and how processed or culture had changed as a result of a complaint being made.

3.    The committee enquired about the roll-out of restorative and relational  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17.

To consider the draft work programme for the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee for the municipal year 2024/25.

Due to time limitations the committee agreed to refer the work programme item until the next scheduled meeting.

For the Chair to communicate or receive updates on any work and activity relevant to the committee’s remit.

No updates were provided.

Tuesday 17 September 2024, 2pm

Tuesday 17 September 2pm

Questions from members of the public were published as a supplement to the agenda here:

(Public Pack)SUPPLEMENT - Item 5 Questions from members of the public Agenda Supplement for Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, 30/07/2024 14:00 (herefordshire.gov.uk)

Responses to supplementary questions are detailed below:

Supplementary questions from members of the public – Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, 30 July