To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies had been received from Councillor David Davies, Sylvia Cockroft (Archdiocese of Cardiff), Sam Pratley (Hereford Diocese).

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

There had been no named substitutes.

To receive declarations of interests from members of the committee in respect of items on the agenda.

No were no declarations of interest.

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on 30 July 2024.

The minutes of the previous meeting were received.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People highlighted a recommendation the committee had made in its meeting of 30 July 2024 in relation to the Families’ Commission Update:

“The funding available to support development of a child-friendly Herefordshire is distributed as rapidly as possible.”

The cabinet member pointed out that there was no funding aligned to the development of child-friendly Herefordshire and that the conversation in the meeting had been around targeted early help interventions through the Police and Crime Commissioner and council money.

The committee agreed that the recommendation should be removed.

Resolved:

With the above amendment noted, that the minutes of the meeting held on 30 July 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 provided was published as a supplement to the agenda on the Herefordshire Council website. Supplementary questions and responses given, are attached at Appendix 1 to the minutes of this meeting.

To receive any written questions from members of the council.

No questions had been received from members of the council.

To brief the committee on the Quality Assurance Framework for Herefordshire Children’s Services, including the values and principles underpinning this.  Also to describe the means by which quality assurance activity is undertaken, the outcomes from quality assurance activity in the last year and the impact of the quality assurance activity in the Herefordshire Children’s Services improvement journey.

The Head of Service Safeguarding and Review introduced and gave an overview of the report.

The committee heard that quality assurance was at the heart of the Children’s Services Improvement Plan. The QAF (Quality Assurance Framework was made up of three equal and complementary components:

· Hearing the voice of children, young people and parents/carers

· Audit activity

· Key Performance Indicators.

A key part of the quality assurance work being carried out was the multi-agency activity being conducted with the police, health and voluntary sector partners through the Safeguarding Partnership.

The QAF (Quality Assurance Framework) was being updated with a view to the new framework being complete by the end of the September 2024, with a particular emphasis being given to listening to and acting on the voice of children and young people.

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 asked for further details in relation to the changes being implemented in the new framework and why those changes had come about.

o   The Head of Service Safeguarding and Review stressed there was an increased emphasis on feedback from children and young people, there was a whole new stream of activity to collect feedback on a regular basis, which would be monitored on a month-by-month basis.

o   The audit template had been improved to make it more user friendly for practitioners. Going forward, the whole service - rather than individual sections - would be looked at every month.

o   Case grading would be carried out by team managers, but alongside that a peer auditor, who was not part of the operational work, would also carry out an audit (which would include engaging with the child, family and social worker). The outcomes of these two audits would be looked at together and a third senior manager would come in to discuss any differences between the two gradings. This would act as a looped audit, which would enable for immediate learning to be provided for the manager and peer auditor.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People explained that applying this looped audit model across the service would provide much greater opportunity to identify areas where things were being done well and where improvement might be needed.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People pointed out that one historic area of weakness had been in the high level approach the service had taken to providing feedback to the workforce, this hadn’t always been meaningful for staff. The updated framework would provide detailed personal feedback that would allow people to understand when they were doing well, where improvement was needed and what impact the improvements being introduced were having. 

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People explained the greater emphasis being placed on service experience feedback from children and families in relation to: how easily they had been able to contact their social worker, had they being provided with a copy of their plan  ...  view the full minutes text for item 28.

To scrutinise the Herefordshire Children’s Services and Partnership Improvement Plan Phase 2.

The Corporate Director Children and Young People introduced and gave an overview of the Improvement Plan Phase 2 report.

The Phase 2 Improvement Plan had been developed to bring focus, pace and measures to the improvement journey.

The plan set out highlights of what had been achieved in the last two years and importantly introduced a Quality Assurance Framework of measures to enable the service to monitor progress, these were: key performance indicators, service user feedback and audit.

The Children’s Improvement Board, had reviewed its terms of reference and membership and was independently chaired by the Department of Education Commissioner. Meetings were held on a six-weekly basis.

Herefordshire Council continued to have a strong commitment to improving performance in children’s services. Transformation of the service was now in its third year of a three-year programme that began in October 2021. The phase 2 plan covered the period 2024/25 and would be refreshed in July 2025.

The Corporate Director Children and Young People highlighted two Ofsted recommendations listed within the plan:

-        Corporate responsibility for the help and protection of children and those in care and care leavers, so this is prioritised and embedded across the council and partnerships.

-        The sufficiency and stability of staff across the workforce, including sufficient numbers of Foster Carers, so children receive a timely response to having their needs identified and met across the service.

and described the actions and activities being undertaken as part of the plan to implement these recommendations and monitor progress.

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 what the director expected Ofsted’s reaction to the plan to be.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People explained that the plan had been shown to the lead Ofsted inspector, the reaction to it had been positive and the inspector had commented that it read like a more focused plan in terms of being able to demonstrate actions that had and were being taken by the service. Feedback from staff and partners had also been positive.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People stated that the directorate was prepared for the next Ofsted visit and would be showcasing the new practice that was in place.

2. The committee enquired about an action regarding engaging with Herefordshire families to review and update the safeguarding levels of intervention, and asked how the service would move away from the risk averse response to intervention that it had been criticised for in the past.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People explained that six engagement sessions had been booked in market towns, the sessions were being publicised by children’s centres, GP surgeries, social workers and the safeguarding website. Take up for the first session had been disappointingly low and it had had to be cancelled.

o   The Corporate Director Children and Young People was keen to increase promotion of the events to ensure that future sessions  ...  view the full minutes text for item 29.

To consider the committee’s work programme.

The committee agreed to invite and include a representative from Rural Media in the discussion around the ‘including children’s voices in council policy’ item scheduled for the 26 November 2024 meeting.

Resolved:

The committee unanimously approved the work programme that had been put before it.

Tuesday 26 November 2024 2pm

Tuesday 26 November 2024, 2pm

Supplementary Questions from members of the public – Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee, 17 September 2024