To review progress against the improvement plan produced in response to the Ofsted Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) inspection judgement of June 2018 and the subsequent Safeguarding and Family Support division improvement plan.

The committee considered a report from the assistant director children’s safeguarding quality and improvement (ADCSQ&I) providing the quarterly review of performance and progress against the safeguarding and family support improvement plan 2020/2021.

The Chairperson explained that the report focused on those elements which required improvement however it should be noted that a number of improvements had been achieved by social workers, particularly in respect of visits, during the pandemic.

The ADCSQ&I introduced the report and outlined the following:

·         A briefing paper had been provided to chart the journey in Herefordshire (from inadequate to requires improvement).

·         The scorecard demonstrated sustained improvement over the course of the last 12 months.

·         Sustained and significant improvement had been achieved and there was now a focus on providing a quality service to children and young people. An assessment of the impact of the work of children’s services on children and their families needed to be undertaken. More audit work was required and 12 months previously 48% of audits had been adjudged inadequate but progress had reduced the figure to 11%.

·         Further work was required around listening and responding systematically to children and families to ensure that a regular feedback process formed part of the work of children’s services. Children and families would be given the opportunity to judge the work of children’s services on a scale. Children and families stories and experience would be listened to in order to improve the delivery of services in the future.

·         Collaborative auditing was also being undertaken where auditors shadow a social worker who explains the processes and work to deliver services.

·         A further improvement consisted of clarity over what good practice consisted of and key to this was the signs of safety approach. On the cover of the improvement plan there were three key questions:what’s going well; what are we worried about and; and what SMART actions were to be taken forward over the next quarter.     

The following points were raised in the debate:

·         The presentation of the report had improved with a focus on what the service was doing well, what not doing so well and what needed to be monitored.

·         Within the report was the issue of recruitment of social workers and it was recognised that recruitment was also a concern in other areas of the council. The increase in working from home arrangements might help to increase recruitment rates but it remained an issue for the authority. It was proposed that a working group of members look into the issue of recruitment in the county across all directorates at the council. The ADCSQ&I explained that he was working with a team to investigate recruitment and would welcome input from members. Three recruitment and retention summits had taken place and it was acknowledged that improvements were required to processes to develop recruitment campaigns. Work had been required to define the core offer which had been condensed onto a single sheet of paper and was now felt to be a strong offer. Herefordshire was an attractive place to work and offered the possibility to engage with community and environment. Recently 17 newly qualified social workers had been appointed.

·         Within the key areas of concern in the plan was the reduction of the number of children on child protection plans. It was felt that work to reduce the numbers of children on child protection plans had been successful but that the number had now reduced to a level that could be considered concerning. It was an important area to look into to ensure an effective service remained after work had been completed to reduce the number of children on plans.

·         In the improvement plan under priority 1 there were 8 objectives which were at a red status and it was felt there needed to be a conversation about why they were not amber and what was being done to ensure improvement. There appeared to be some inconsistency with the scoring in the self-assessments for those area which had objectives that were currently rated as red. A consistency between the red ratings and self-assessment scores would be welcomed. The assistant director safeguarding and family support (ADS&FS) provided examples of red ratings. Contacts into MASH not being dealt with in 24 hours was the position at the end of June and a number of plans had been put into place to address the issue including establishing the domestic abuse hub which was now operational and an early help hub would be in place by 21 September. There was an attempt in the report to explain what work was being undertaken to address those areas in red and to identify the actions that would be undertaken in the next quarter to make improvements. The ADCSQ&I explained that the targets were more ambitious than statistical neighbours which was not an excuse for amber and red ratings. Performance measures around activity were important but the qualitative measures which demonstrated the impact on children and families were considered significant and there was an attempt to focus on the right areas to bring improvements.

·         It was queried how many of the red ratings were close to being amber and that it was the role of the committee to seek to encourage the service to improve the measures from red to amber and eventually green. The 8 red ratings of 11 was not a position the service would wish to occupy and it was queried how the committee could help officers to achieve improvement. The ADS&FS explained that the service had an understanding of what was required to achieve improvement in the objectives. It was confirmed that better performance information would assist with understanding the ratings; the performance team were being asked to provide more data regarding performance and reporting was still a relatively recent initiative that was not understood by all. The performance management team at the council was receiving a number of extra requests for performance data. For example domestic abuse of children against parents and carers was data that was being requested to facilitate an application for recently available funding streams for training to ensure family support workers to assist families where it is happening. More risks to families and children were being identified and in order to support accurate report further resources were required in the performance team. The director children and families (DCF) explained that some of the work in the improvement plan involved multi-agency engagement for example around section 47 inquiries resulting in no further action which was currently a red status but which was not solely within the power of the council to improve.He emphasised the importance of the council working with other organisations in the system to achieve improvement and ensure a system-wide understanding of working with children. This was part of the signs of safety work involving partner engagement including a safeguarding summit and a workshop with partners concerning the understanding of thresholds.

·         It was queried if the committee meetings could be timed to ensure that more relevant and up to date data is considered. The Chairperson explained that the scheduling of meetings was being looked into.    

·         There was reference in the report to updates to Mosaic to inform risk management and it would be helpful for some explanation of this work to assist the understanding of the committee. It was requested that a briefing on this work be provided at a future performance challenge session. The ADCSQ&I explained that following the introduction of the single practice approach of signs of safety there was a significant project in progress to make changes to the Mosaic system to support the approach in the initiative and ensure that forms were more practice-friendly. There was close work with social workers to ensure the system was more child-friendly and to investigate how social workers could spend less time completing forms and more time with children and families. It was known nationally that 70-80% of social workers time could be spent on a computer and it was a challenge to ensure that any change to Mosaic made it friendlier to the social worker to reduce repetition and bureaucracy.

·         The domestic abuse hub was welcomed particularly due to concerns about the increase in domestic abuse during the pandemic and impact on children. The work of the West Mercia Rape and Sexual Abuse Support Centre (WMRSASC) was raised and it was hoped that cabinet would consider additional funding for the organisation. The ADS&FS explained that the domestic abuse hub had been in existence for some time, there was an enhanced approach during lockdown which has now been eased. The new proposal for the domestic abuse hub was approved by the safeguarding partnership during the summer and a multi-agency domestic abuse hub was now fully operational including safeguarding, early help, police, education, health and Women’s Aid who take part in daily conversations concerning all domestic abuse notifications received from the police and graded as level 2 or 3 threshold of risk.

·         The Education, Health and Care (EHC) assessments were raised. Nationally it was recognised there was an issue with a large number of parents appealing the outcome of an assessments who had their appeal upheld. This was a concern as a number of parents might lack the resources to go to appeal and an update on the situation in Herefordshire was requested concerning the number of appeals received and the percentage of appeals upheld. The DCF explained that a written response would be provided. The Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice and Support Service (SENDIASS) service which was run through Worcestershire CC was in place to support parents of children with special education needs to ensure their children received the help and support they required; detail of this independent advocacy service would form part of the briefing note. The assistant director education, development and skills (ADED&S) provided detail of the level of families who were requesting an education, health and care plan which had almost doubled since 2011; 600 to 1,100 per annum. 

·         It was noted that there were no children on child protection plans who had been the victim of physical or sexual abuse and in previous data there had been very few. It was recognised that it was not possible to say children had not been the victim of these abuses if it had not been recorded. The majority of children on child protection plans had suffered emotional abuse. It was questioned if the data was correct or if those children suffering physical and sexual abuse were not being identified. The ADS&FS explained that a review was being undertaken in order to understand the data and why it was happening. The report was due to be concluded at the beginning of October. The ADCSQ&I explained that it was a situation which the service wanted to examine and a report would be forthcoming.  

·         It was noted that currently the majority of looked after children were between the ages of 10 and 15+ and newly looked after children tended to be 0-4. It was queried whether looked after children between 10 and 15+ had been in care for a significant period of time and if their age made reunification with families or securing special guardianship orders (SGO) more difficult. The ADS&FS explained that currently there were 40 cases that were lodged with the court and legal services to discharge care orders through SGOs or due to children returning to the care of their parents. The majority of very young children entering the care system were babies or infants where there had been a period of pre-proceedings before the council obtained an interim care order. Adoption would be the most likely exit from the care system in these cases but there may be a backlog in final hearings for adoption orders due to the current priorities of the courts. It was important to review the impact on the figures when adoption orders could be put before the courts to remove children from the care system. It was acknowledged that the longer a child spent in care, the more difficult it was to place them back with their family which highlighted the importance of looked after children maintaining contact with family members to ensure that if circumstances change the ECHO service can facilitate work to reunify children with their family.

The cabinet member children and families explained that it was encouraging to hear that there had been improvement but there was no room for complacency. There were still a number of areas that required improvement but there was a coherent plan to make progress. The new presentation of the plan was helpful and it was welcomed.

Councillor Carole Gandy proposed and Councillor Graham Andrews seconded the recommendations which were carried unanimously.

RESOLVED: That the committee:

·         Recommends that the executive considers the possibility of a working group to examine the issue of recruitment in Herefordshire, to include a focus on the recruitment of social workers and to engage with projects currently in progress; and

·         Requires that meeting dates are reviewed to ensure more up to date performance data is presented to meetings of the committee.