To approve and endorse the Corporate Parenting strategy.

The cabinet member for young people and children’s wellbeing introduced the report and thanked officers for their hard work in putting the new corporate parenting strategy together. He noted that the strategy was the result of consultation with a wide range of partners and members and that the strategy had been the first item on the agenda of the new children and young people scrutiny committee. He reported that it had been a good meeting with two care leavers in attendance to give an account of their experiences.

The chairman of the corporate parenting panel had asked the cabinet member to pass on her view that the input of the panel and of foster carers had been really helpful in producing the draft strategy.

The cabinet member explained that the strategy set out how the council was going to put its Looked After Children (LAC) at the heart of all that it did. The priorities were straightforward and encapsulated why the council should give LAC the best start in life. He highlighted the foreword to the strategy, which noted that our society could not always predict the challenges that a child may face but how society reacted would be a key measure of how well it was functioning.

The cabinet member stated that one of the most important roles the council could play was to provide the best outcomes for vulnerable and disadvantaged children and there was no greater reward than achieving the best for our children who need our help.

The head of looked after children summarised the report. She noted that one of the challenges was in defining what corporate parenting meant. The strategy was intended to ensure that the quality of care and services that LAC received were of a standard that would be good enough if these were our own children.

The head of LAC noted that LAC and care leavers did not achieve as well as their peers in many situations and that they faced many inequalities. The council would seek to remove barriers and give LAC and care leavers opportunities.

The strategy was a refresh of the previous strategy and had been developed in consultation with the corporate parenting panel, officers, members, foster carers and young people themselves. The goal was to challenge the council in how it fulfilled its responsibilities as a corporate parent and to improve outcomes for children and young people. The strategy set out 7 priorities which led onto an action plan with specific areas to be changed, improved and developed. These were informed by the needs analysis which was attached as an appendix to the report.

The cabinet member for financial management and ICT asked how the council would go about reducing the number of LAC to a level below the national average.

The assistant director safeguarding and early help responded that the council had put a series of appropriate steps into place to seek to reduce the number of LAC to a figure more in line with statistical neighbours, which would reflect the lower deprivation in Herefordshire and that this would result in a figure below the national average. The council needed to ensure that the children it looked after were only those who met the criteria and were at risk of harm if they remained with their families. It also needed to make plans for LAC to return to their families if safe for them to do so or explore options for longer term arrangements such as special guardianship orders which did not require the council to be so fully involved.

The assistant director reported that a new process had been implemented in September 2016 for admissions into the LAC system. The new LAC rate on a quarterly basis was now one of the lowest in the region. What the council had been struggling to do was ensure that those children currently looked after needed to remain in the council’s care. Work was ongoing to develop Herefordshire’s approach for LAC.

Group leaders were asked to make comments on behalf of their group.

The leader of the It’s Our County! group welcomed the report. He noted that priority 5 of the strategy highlighted that there were no mental health services commissioned for children under the age of 10 beyond universal services. The group leader asked why this was not addressed in the section on ‘what we will improve’ and whether the universal service was sufficient and adequate for the need. He requested that the action plan explicitly state that both mental and physical health needs of LAC would be met.

The head of LAC responded that this need was an issue for the CCG and had also been identified within the Herefordshire children and young people’s plan. It was being looked at across multi agency partners. She acknowledged that the action plan did not set out that the council would use its influence within partnership arrangements to encourage those services to be improved. The head of LAC agreed to amend the action plan to reference both mental and physical health needs of LAC.

The group leader stated that there was also a gap in priority 8 where a shortage of affordable housing was identified and the corresponding section on what we will improve identified increasing supported housing. He queried whether the additional supported housing would meet the affordable housing need.

The head of LAC responded that the young people’s accommodation strategy would seek to address the needs of care leavers. The council recognised that there were not enough available options for young people. Some of those young people need supported accommodation, some just need independent accommodation that they can afford. The council was looking at options for shared housing which would address affordability and also provide social support by living with others.

The group leader queried the action to provide training on mental health issues to social care staff but not to LAC themselves. The head of LAC explained that this action was about developing the skills of the council’s workforce and again related to action that the council could take itself rather than action that partner agencies might take.

The cabinet member for young people and children’s wellbeing commented that the reference to health needs should always be read as being both physical and mental health needs.

The assistant director safeguarding and early help stated that once approved, the strategy would be considered by the governance board of the CCG and that he expected them to focus on those areas for improvement that were within their gift.

The leader of the It’s Our County! group proposed that the strategy and action plan be amended for the avoidance of misunderstanding to clarify the role of partners and to explicitly refer to both physical and mental health needs.

The amendment was unanimously supported

The representative of the Herefordshire Independents group asked if the council could ensure that the use of the pupil premium delivered outcomes for LAC.

The head of LAC explained that every LAC had a personal education plan which was reviewed termly. The use of pupil premium was considered as part of that review and monitored through the virtual school. Schools were challenged on the appropriate use of the pupil premium.

The representative of the Herefordshire Independents spoke about the challenges faced in supporting unaccompanied asylum seekers, particularly in meeting their cultural and social needs. The cabinet member responded that Herefordshire had risen to the challenge to take its share of these vulnerable children who had come from very difficult circumstances. Work was ongoing to address issues.

The chairman of the children and young people’s scrutiny committee confirmed that the strategy had been considered by the committee and thanked officers for their work. She reported that the committee had welcomed the strategy and had put forward a number of recommendations which the cabinet member was aware of. She highlighted the need for all members of the council to understand their role as a corporate parent and stated that she would like to see mandatory training for all members. The scrutiny chairman also requested that all reports on key decisions should include explicit reference in the equality section to the potential impact on LAC.

The scrutiny chairman reported that the committee would review the action plan in 12 months’ time and noted that there were no baseline figures in the action plan at present. She asked that baseline figures be provided to the committee as and when they were available so that there would be something to compare to when the action plan was reviewed.

The leader of the council responded that he could not see any reason why these figures should not be provided to the scrutiny committee when they were available.

The scrutiny chair was asked to provide details of her proposals on training for councillors on corporate parenting responsibilities in writing to the cabinet member for young people and children’s wellbeing and copied to the leader of the council. The cabinet member noted that corporate parenting training sessions would be held on the 6 and 10 October and that these were intended for all members and he encouraged all members to attend.

It was resolved that:

(a)  the Corporate Parenting strategy and action plan at appendix A, as amended, are approved.