To receive apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence had been received from Anna Eccleston (Parent Governor Primary Co-opted Member) and Sam Pratley (Diocese of Herefordshire Co-opted Member).

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

No named substitutes.

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

No declarations of interest were made.

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on 14 November 2023.

The minutes of the previous meeting were received.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 14 November 2023 be confirmed as a correct record and signed by the Chairperson.

To receive any written questions from members of the public.

A document containing a question received from a member of the public and the response given, plus a supplementary question and the response, is attached at Appendix 1 to the minutes.

To receive any written questions from members of the council.

No questions had been received from councillors.

For the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee to consider the 2022/23 annual report of the Herefordshire Safeguarding Children’s Partnership (HSCP).

The Independent Scrutineer took the report as read and gave a brief overview including the following considerations.

·         It was noted that the report covered 2022/23 and was ten months out of date.

·         Significant progress had been made in many areas since the publication of the report. The Quality and Effectiveness Subgroup was used as an example, as its use of performance data, and analysis of partnership participation had greatly improved over the last ten months.

·         It was noted that there was still a lot to do, but the Independent Scrutineer believed there were refreshing signs of commitment from partners to improve things. 

Following the presentation the report was opened up to the Committee, the principle points of the discussion are summarised below.

1.    In response to a question from the Committee the Independent Scrutineer explained that evidencing the positive impact of what the partnership does for children was still a challenge, but that this was true of similar partnerships in other areas.

2.    The partnership now reports to the Improvement Board and has an agreement with the board that the partnership will deliver on the neglect strategy, continued improvements in the mash, adopting a get safe model and the implementation of the partnership wide trauma informed approach.

3.    There had been a challenge finalising the neglect strategy, but good progress had been made with the interim programme, and the final strategy would be available for scrutiny as soon as it was complete.

4.    The Family Approach was progressing well across the partnership and was tied in with the roll out of restorative practice training. The Independent Scrutineer stated that they had seen clear evidence of agencies working together for the benefit of families.

5.    The Committee heard that since the report had been published the Audit Subgroup had been combined with the Quality and Effectiveness Subgroup. There had been an improvement in the focus on multi-agency audits and the timescales for audits and annual plans.

6.    The Quality and Effectiveness Subgroup had reported back on six cases where child abuse was suspected, the group had looked at those cases, conducted a multi-agency audit and received learning recommendations back, which were now part of an action plan that would be followed through.

7.    The Independent Scrutineer stated that there were aspects of partnership work that could be taken as a specific focus and tracked through for the year. Regular updates on multi-agency audits could be provide for the Committee if it wished.

8.    In accordance with ‘Working Together 2023’, the next report has to be available by September 2024.

9.    The Committee raised concerns about individual partner members being too busy to engage with assessing how they’re working together as a partnership. It was felt that communication and coordination should be at the heart of the partnership and not sliding away because people were ‘too busy being busy’.

10.  The Independent Scrutineer acknowledged an issue in relation to capacity challenge for the partners, because the same pool of people were tasked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 181.

To consider the recently published progress report on Children’s Services in Herefordshire, produced by the DfE appointed Commissioner, Eleanor Brazil.

The Children’s Commissioner introduced the report and gave an overview of the main themes contained within. The key considerations included:

·       An acknowledgment from the Commissioner that there had been clear improvements in some aspects of the service, but there were still areas were a significant amount of work needed to be done. The need to implement improvements at pace was emphasised.

·       The Commissioner drew the Committee’s attention to section 14 of the cover report which detailed six areas where evidence of progress would be expected to be seen at the next review.

·       The Committee was advised to consider the work being carried out by the Improvement Board and align its work programme accordingly to avoid duplication of work. It was suggested it might be useful to obtain officer feedback regarding parent and children’s satisfaction and involvement in service developments. It was also suggested that the Committee might wish to focus its attention on areas not being directly looked at by the Improvement Board, such as the development of locality arrangements and multi-agency working.

·       It was noted that the Families Commission report published in June 2023, had raised issues about the approach taken in supporting families and helping them to understand better ways of caring for their children. The report had provided clear evidence and views from families that their experience with the service was not as positive as it should have been.

·       It was explained that the partnership with Leeds Council had been developed shortly after the review. It was an 18 month programme funded by the Department for Education, with a primary aim of improving the quality of practice and addressing the culture of working with families.

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Following the presentation the report was opened up to the Committee, the principle points of the discussion are summarised below.

1.     In response to a question from the Committee it was explained that Leeds Council had longstanding locality arrangements, which were commonly referred to as ‘The right help, at the right time, in the right place’. It was suggested by the Children’s Commissioner that it might be useful if the Leeds partners delivered a presentation about how they deliver locally based multi-agency support to families.

2.     The Corporate Director Children and Young People acknowledged potential issues around language and how services were described, especially in relation to early help. The Director clarified to the Committee that early help was not typically carried out by social workers, and that early help and prevention should be being conducted by a wide range of statutory, community, voluntary and faith agencies, with a view to preventing a higher level of need being reached where a social worker would be required.

3.     It was explained that children’s services did run targeted early help services when there was a particular level of need and that this would ideally remove the requirement for social care intervention.

4.     The Committee heard that there was an opportunity to strengthen and coordinate relationships between the Council and multi-agency partners by using  ...  view the full minutes text for item 182.

To provide the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee with the findings and recommendations of Scrutiny Management Board’s task and finish group tasked with scrutinising the current expenditure and future budget of the children and young people directorate.

[Papers to follow].

The report was introduced by the Chair of the Task and Finish Group, who provided the Committee with an overview of the findings and recommendations of the group. The key considerations included:

·       The group had met once in person and twice online.

·       The group had been provided with a number of documents - some in confidence - that provided information about oversight in relation to how the delivery of services in the directorate was being undertaken on a monthly basis.

·       Cost consequences of decisions that were made on care packages were often monitored on a weekly basis.

·       The level of detail that had gone into providing monthly reports to Cabinet, which Cabinet had scrutinised collectively in terms of maintaining oversight on in-year delivery.

·       The group had looked at in-year delivery, as well as budget proposals, in order to gain an understanding of the trajectory/journey of the service in terms of delivering on the improvement plan.

·       The group had sought evidence and assurance on progress being made in-year to support and underpin the balance and content of the budget in terms of service area budgets, but also areas of savings and identified pressures.

·       It was noted that the directorate had overspent considerably over the last two years and that this had posed a significant risk to the Council and resulted in savings being imposed in other areas. The group had been keen to obtain assurance that the directorate would get it right this year

·       The group had produced seven recommendations (a-g) covering the range of different areas that had been investigated.

Following the presentation the report was opened up to the Committee, the principle points of the discussion are summarised below.

1.     The Committee acknowledged that progress had been made to improve the understanding of costs associated with service delivery, but expressed concern that the savings targeted for this year had not been delivered as of yet.

2.     The quarter 2 performance report and monthly cabinet reports going up to October 2023 had not provided assurance that tangible savings relating to reduced costs of looked after children and the staff mix between permanent employees and agency staff were starting to be delivered.

3.     The committee raised concerns about spiralling costs within the care service system and felt that it would be useful to look at the national situation to determine whether the system was dysfunctional and what could be done about it.

4.     The Corporate Director echoed the highlighted problems with the system and explained that information and recommendations had been put to the government by various stakeholders. This was not a market the Council had direct control over, although it had built good relations with providers to ensure that costs had been kept lower than the national average, whilst making sure children’s needs were being met.

5.     A discussion took place in relation to each of the recommendations made within the report. The Statutory Scrutiny Officer suggested that six of the seven recommendation had been discharged during the course of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 183.

To consider the work programme for the committee.

The Committee agreed to hold a work programming session for the coming year.

Tuesday 12 March 2024 2.00pm

Tuesday 12 March 2024         2.00 pm