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 primary schools as early help hubs. This was a model that had already been employed and had worked well for autism hubs.

5.     The Corporate Director explained that it was in the interests of children and families in Herefordshire that the service and its partners strengthened early help arrangements so that families got the right help at the right time. Ideally, families would be able to either go online or go into the their local school, health centre, library or other setting and obtain information about parenting support or any other issues that might be impacting their families. This would eliminate or reduce the need for matters to be escalated to a point where the involvement of statutory services was required.

6.     The Corporate Director explained to the Committee that starting in April 2024, the service was looking to allocate new referrals by postcode, so that social workers in assessment teams would be working with a cluster of families in a particular area. There would be a transitional element to this and where social workers had already built strong relations with families they would strive to avoid disrupting those exiting relationships by waiting until intervention had concluded.

7.     It was stressed that social workers would largely continue to be based at Plough Lane, with workloads and cases that were postcode allocated, then for several days a week workers could potentially hot desk at a school or health centre within their allocated area.

8.     The Children’s Commissioner was keen to see arrangements put in place that would be easily accessed and well understood by both families and agencies. Ideally there would be a mechanism for determining the most suitable professional/agency to support families.

9.     There was a need to ensure that that children’s social care was well aligned with the arrangements of other agencies, such as the police and health partners, who had shown a willingness and readiness to be involved in new locality arrangements and multi-agency working. Milestones and timetables to monitor how partners were being engaged needed to be maintained. 

10.  The committee heard that the service was keen to build trust with families and consult in relation to parent and children satisfaction with the service. Once a clear set of proposals for the service was in place then these would be shared widely and people would be asked for their input and feedback via surveys and other activities.

11.  It was explained that websites containing service information were available across the partnership. The Council was looking to make its own website more accessible, but would not consider one over-arching site, as this would be too difficult to resource, update and maintain.

12.  Social media platforms were increasingly being used to disseminate information and the Council was continuously learning from families about how they accessed and would like to access information.

13.  The Committee heard that the majority of complaints relating to children’s services fell within the statutory children’s complaints process as laid down by legislation. This was a 3 stage process with recourse to the ombudsman. The number of complaint shad been decreasing and number of compliments going up, with more cases being resolved at stage 1 and 2 of the process than before.

14.  The Corporate Director offered to bring a report by the complaints team to the Committee if it wished to see it.

15.  The Committee head that he six areas identified in the report at section 14 where evidence of progress would be expected replaced and ran alongside existing measures on the dashboard.

16.  The Committee questioned how it might be possible to acknowledge work being carried out by the Improvement Board publicly. The Corporate Director suggested that it might be useful for the Chair, Vice Chair, Chair of Improvement Board, Corporate Director CYP and Scrutiny Officer to meet up and discuss the best approach to take in regards to the matter.

Resolved: The Committee voted unanimously to approve the following actions:

Action: For the Committee to consider, as part of its work programme, which areas it will focus on over the next six months and be mindful of, but avoid duplication of work being carried out by the Improvement Board. The Committee should also pick up on areas that aren’t being covered off by the Improvement Board, such as locality arrangements and multi-agency support for families.

Action: Chair, Vice Chair, Chair of Improvement Board, Corporate Director CYP and Scrutiny Officer to meet to discuss how the work of the Improvement Board could be made more visible and accessible to the public and other members of the Council.

Action: The Committee to hold a work programme meeting to discuss how to approach subjects such as the complaints procedure including: how complaints/compliments are registered and scrutiny of the annual complaints report.