Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary question

Question to

PQ 1

Ms. Hannah Currie

Hereford

Given the issues raised historically about inaccurate and false data being processed and shared with third parties and in the past few days Paul Walker has written personally to me to apologise for again incorrect processing of personal information in just the past 10 days. Do you not think it is time to accept that the case of ‘BT & GT (Children : twins – adoption)’was not an isolated incident of a "deliberate act to mislead" and either support a call for a public inquiry or agree that the time and resources need to be made available for the independent reviews the families were promised?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Cabinet Member Children and Young People

As reported to scrutiny in the Families Commission update report “alongside the work of the service to address the key consideration coming from the panel report, there have been further follow up meetings with families who attended the Commission to further address questions that related directly to the families. For those families where additional questions were raised by the chair of the independent panel directly to the local authority, further meetings were offered to families by the Leader of the Council, The Lead Member for Children’s Services, the Chief Executive of Herefordshire Council and the Corporate Director for Children and Young people. A number of families attended further meetings represented by the Service Director for Improvement, the Leader of the Council and the Lead Member for Children’s Services. Each meeting clarified a number of issues, concerns and ‘bottom lines’ which were subsequently followed up to resolve relevant matters for individual families”

This work has been an independent review and the experiences of those families has been heard and have or are being addressed on an individual basis as necessary.

As a council, we are committed to delivering the best for our children and families and this commitment is set out as a priority in our Council Plan. The inspection by OFSTED of Children’s Services in June 22 has provided a comprehensive review of concerns relating to practice that requires improvement. We have accepted the findings of that inspection and this has been the basis for the children’s improvement plan. A phase two of this plan was agreed at the Improvement Board on 17^th July 24. Herefordshire children services improvement remains under the scrutiny of Ofsted through regular monitoring visits and the DfE through the Commissioner with additional support from Leeds as a sector led improvement partner and the scrutiny of the multi-agency improvement board. The decision for any public inquiry rests with the secretary of state and not with the LA, our priority is to ensure our financial and staffing resources are focused on making the improvement required.

Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary question

Question to

PQ 2

Mr. James McGeown

Weobley

Thank you for most useful answer, you state:

“Parental views should be recorded within an assessment or written as a separate document and placed on file and referenced within the case file to ensure they are linked to the appropriate assessment.”

This is exactly what I wanted and have been trying to achieve through my understanding of your “Children’s Representations and Complaints” procedure.

Since 20^th June I have submitted nine formal complaints.

All on different dates.

All raising new issues.

All Royal Mail, Plough Lane, delivery confirmation.

Not a single acknowledgement and reference have I received.

I have now followed your suggestion:

“If you would like to provide detail to the DCS” and have sent “Tina Russell DCS”, package of everything including “Notice of Intent” to seek help from Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.

Will this ensure everything’s reviewed?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Corporate Director Children and Young People

A written response from the Corporate Director Children and Young People was sent directly to Mr and Mrs McGeown addressing the issues raised in this question.

Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary question

Question to

PQ3

Mrs. Megan McGeown

Weobley

I believe you have misunderstood the question.

It is about inappropriate use of MARF which was why NFA recording commenced October 2018.

Therefore you have not answered the question:

“Is it still an ongoing intention and desire of Herefordshire Council to reduce the number of inappropriate referrals and NFA’s”?

If yes and in 2023 alone there were 884 not progressed, including a significant number of loving families of good standing who didn’t want interference in their lives from Local Authority.

To help reduce this number would it be a good idea to formally make Social Workers of all ranks aware of:

“Right Help Right Time” guidance from “Herefordshire Safeguarding Children Partnership”.

This contains statutory guidance for Local Authority intervention and based on experience there appears some lack of knowledge of its existence or understanding of its contents?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Cabinet Member Children and Young People

There will always be a number of “contacts” received in MASH that need social work oversight to make a decision based on what that appropriate pathway to a service that best meets the child’s needs is. We support all members of the public to refer any concern they have for the welfare or protection of a child through to MASH. Our partners understand that where they make referrals into MASH, parental consent must be sought, unless the referred concern relates to a child protection issue. We do not seek to get involved in families lives where they do not want us to and we balance this with ensuring we are acting on our legal duty to investigate concerns regarding significant harm that are reported to us.

We are continuing our work with partners to ensure they have the knowledge, and a system that supports them, to send requests for support services direct to services so families can receive the right help in a timely way. Importantly this will also reduce any unnecessary workload within the MASH system. We have recently developed the process between Early Help and MASH for professionals and we are in the process of developing a “locality model” for our children services, so we can promote closer connectivity with the early help offer and between partners working as a multi-agency team alongside children, young people and their families.

The Herefordshire Children Safeguarding Partnership is leading work to implement the new Working Together 2023 and we are now delivering against our Improvement plan Phase 2. Within that work, we are developing our “Think Family” approach, providing training to partners on Restorative Practice and are rolling out multi-agency training to ensure, as a multi-agency group, we understand how best “restorative practice” works in practice with children and families. All these activities will give us opportunities to ensure our staff and our partners are well cited on our threshold guidance “Right Help Right Time”

Question

Number

Questioner

Supplementary question

Question to

PQ 4

Ms. Maggie Steel

Hereford

My question is this, how will you engage with the public, so that you can properly scrutinize what officers are writing and distinguish between what is written to assuade you and what is really happening on the ground?

Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee

Response by Cabinet Member Children and Young People

The Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee recognise the vital importance of hearing the voices of children, families and members of the public.

It is important to note that the cabinet member(s), officers and multi-agency partners who present their reports to scrutiny are also engaged, in various ways, with members of the public and those who have been, or continue to use the Childrens Services.  Scrutiny takes how children, young people and families have been engaged and how their experiences have influenced work into account as it scrutinises presentations made. It is not appropriate in many instances to require members of the public to explain their own very personal circumstances during committee proceedings

It is important to contextualise, the principal role of scrutiny is to influence the policies and decisions made by the council and other organisations involved within local multi-agency working.  Scrutiny is a formal meeting convened in public toenable locally elected members to transact local authority business with the object of scrutinising and reachingdecisions – or formulating recommendations as a basis for those decisions for how it believe services can be improved.