To reflect on progress following receipt of the non-statutory Improvement Notice in May 2021 and consider areas of work for further scrutiny activity, reflecting priority actions.

The Director for Children and Families introduced the report the purpose of which was to provide an opportunity for Members to reflect on progress following receipt of the non-statutory improvement notice in May 2021 and to consider areas of work for further scrutiny activity, reflecting priority actions. 

During discussion the following principal points were noted:

·         Demand was increasing significantly in the service and this was placing pressure on teams and capacity, leading to an impact on caseloads and on performance, in some areas. Demand was driven by a number of factors including changes and improvements that the Council was making themselves, the impact of national events and cases that came to the national attention, the impact of Covid and the emergence of legacy unmet need.

·         The pressure was particularly acute in assessment teams where caseloads continued to be too high despite initiatives put in place by service leaders.

·         Additional supervisory capacity to support effective case management had been added and two additional, temporary teams had been recruited to divert some pressure in the short term.

·         Officers were currently working on a refreshed and revised version of the Improvement Plan and would share a working draft with the Committee and bring forward a more formal report in due course.

·         As a service, the term children in our care was used more often and preferred, as it re-enforced the corporate parenting duty that the Council had. Other terms such as looked after children were used in a more legal sense. Children and young people had been asked which one they preferred and had not expressed a particular preference.

·          An external review of the SEND provision would come to a later meeting of the Committee.

·         The Framework referred to in the report was the new performance and information management framework. Historically the service had relied on excel spreadsheets that gave a snap shot of a particular time and date and which invariably, by the time that it had gone through its processes, was out of date. The service was now moving to an on-line system which took data from Mosaic and other systems. It refreshed overnight so was as close to real time data as it could be and would allow mangers to interrogate that data and drill down to team and child level. The system was in its infancy but it was hoped that it would eventually capture all service areas and become increasingly dynamic.

·         In the last 9 months the service had introduced 5 additional social work teams which was a huge increase. This was all extra capacity to address the upsurge in demand and although staffed primarily by temporary staff there were plans within the service to address this and make the teams permanent.

·         On the back of the high court judgement the legal team had been expanded and there was an excellent working relationship between them and senior managers.

·         Naturally, the service’s aim was to keep more families together but where they had gone to court recent feedback had been that judges agreed with the rationale and decisions behind such action.

·         The service had received a £1.7m grant from the Department of Education (DfE) to speed up some of the improvement work. The DfE did not yet know whether there was more money in the pot as they had not yet received their devolved budget but there could be opportunities for additional funding in the future.

·         In terms of general performance the Council was one of the best local authorities in the region at providing timely educational health and care plans, and statements.

·         Children that came in through the MASH (Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub) needing an assessment were seen by a social worker within 5 working days of the referral.

·         There were many more pathways available in schools to refer in to mental health services.

·         It was important that anyone applying for a job with the Service knew what the philosophy of management was and how relationships were managed within the social work team.

The following recommendations were proposed and seconded and carried unanimously.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

The Committee recommended that:

a)    An overview of the amended improvement plan be presented at a forthcoming workshop, focussing on the framework activities for performance and management;

b)    A report on the outcomes of the external peer review of SEND provision be allocated to a forthcoming meeting, as soon as available;

c)    A report giving detail of the access of social workers to legal advice and support when undertaking casework be provided to the Committee at a future meeting and

d)    In future the report reflects how relationships are positively managed with staff in line with management philosophies and that these are more widely advertised as a unique selling point in recruitment strategies. 

 ACTION:

1.    The Director for Children’s Services would provide the Committee with the data on how long it took to get a statement of education need.