To consider the findings of the Scrutiny Review of the Transition from Leaving Care to Adult Life.

The Committee received the Scrutiny Review of the Transition from Leaving Care to Adult Life.  Councillor Pemberton reported that the purpose of the exercise was to review the Council’s approach to transition issues for looked after children with support needs from childhood to adult life and to investigate how improvements could be made to the transition process. The Review group had comprised Councillors H Davies, G Lucas, and RV Stockton. She was very grateful for the input from Mr R Kelly who had provided a different focus for the Committee. Councillors PA Andrews and WLS Bowen had supported the Review in their roles as Chairman and Vice-Chairman of the Adult Social Care and Strategic Housing Scrutiny Committee.  She believed that this purpose had been achieved, and that while it had been a worthwhile exercise, she did believe that a Review was only as good as the changes that were made as a result of it.

The most satisfying part of the process has been the visit to Centre 18 to talk to the young people who used the facility.  She added that should intended to write to those who had attended this session in order to let them know what changes the Council planned to make.  A vote of thanks was recorded for the Committee Manager (Scrutiny) for his conscientious help in taking forward the Review.

In the ensuing discussion, the following principle points were made:

·         A Member asked that a bullet point at item 4 of the report should be altered to read “independent living”, rather than “interdependent living”.

·         In reply to a Member’s concern regarding recommendation (j) in the report, the Head of Safeguarding and Vulnerable said that Ofsted had been approached for the figures of care leavers placed in the County by other local authorities, but that they had not provided an adequate response to the Council’s requests for information. 

·         That the nearest Emergency Duty Team for looked after children in care was in Worcester.  Consideration should be given to the provision of a team in Hereford.  The Interim Director of Adult Social Care added that the contract with the Worcestershire Emergency Duty Team had been renewed this year for a period of one year whilst the Council considered the out of hours contract with the PCT.  Work was underway on this, and recommendations would be brought before the Committee within the next few months.

·         That, should the concept of a Virtual Head Teacher be taken up, care should be exercised in order to ensure that the pastoral and educational responsibilities of the role should be met.

RESOLVED:

That                (a)        the Committee agreed that the recommendations of the Review Group, set out in section 20 of the report, should be submitted to Cabinet;

(b)       the Executive’s response to the Review, including an action plan, should be reported to the first available meeting of the Committee after the Executive had approved its response;

and;

 (c)       a further report on progress with respect to the Review should be made after six months with consideration then being given to the need for any further reports to be made.