Agenda item

To update the Committee on the Improvement Plan

Officers updated the Committee Members with the progress of the improvement plan. They highlighted that the Improvement Plan had been signed off by Cabinet and had been submitted to Ofsted. The Department of Education had appointed a Commissioner who had completed and submitted a report to the Minister commenting on both the quality of the plan and he Council’s capacity to improve the service. A decision on both these issues by the Minister would be published in the New Year.

Officers had been assertive in strengthening Children’s Services. The service had received strong corporate support that was led well by the Chief Executive and elected Members. The Committee learned that a £3 million investment had been made into the core services, including the recruitment of social work surge teams to deal with high demand and additional business support teams to reduce the amount of time spent on administrative duties by social workers.

Officers pointed out that there were still a number of challenges that would take time to progress. The idea behind the Improvement Plan Programme was to follow the journey of a child from the referral stage through to conclusion. The report indicated the strengths of corporate parenting panel, which had regular reviews on the considerable pressure that the service was experiencing.

The Committee learned that following changes in management, the service was implementing a new structure with temporary arrangements that had been put in place. The officers highlighted that the need of the service was to focus on the children that used the service, and to ascertain that the service was fully resourced to provide a better outcome. The new structure was scheduled to be implemented in the new financial year.

The Committee learned that there had been a forty percent increase in referrals following the inspection. With high cases loads entering from the front door service, the service had put in place additional temporary capacity to address the pressure.

The Committee was further informed of the challenges in the service including a stronger focus on transparency and improvement. They heard how the service had established new key performance indicators to better reflect the delivery of good outcomes for children and these had been developed in partnership with the Independent Chair of the Improvement Panel.

The Committee learned that recruiting permanent social workers in Children’s Services was a significant challenge. Officers were confident that good social workers who had worked in Croydon for a long period of time would build relationships, support, and would also invest in training and self-development. Officers shared that the service needed to improve on its stability in senior leadership and frontline workers which would restore relationships with families and key agencies. Officers informed the Committee that the Service was working with the Director of Human Resources to develop a “Total Rewards” scheme to attract and retain high quality permanent staff.

Children’s Services had also wanted to refresh and strengthen connections with universities to develop great students and Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (ASYE) social workers.

The Committee learned that systems of support had been put in place for the health and wellbeing of social workers. Emotional resilience support work with human resources had also been put in place to support social workers.

The Committee learned that further work was in progress to gain trust from staff as the service improved. Officers had received a high level of staff engagement in open sessions and sprint sessions which had positively contributed to the work of the Improvement Board. Further opportunities for staff to have their voice heard had been established through the creation of a suggestion box for all staff to use and an email discussion forum.

Officers shared the idea of the career pathway for social workers to progress through the system to become practitioners. A new proposed role of the Principle Social Worker would see a number of consultant practitioners, and this role would be to support practice development. The Committee learned that the role of consultant practitioners would be to provide support reflecting on cases. This role had been received well by staff as colleagues share their difficulty in similar and complex cases and receiving support to better manage their case. Officers shared that as social work teams are revising the line manager to staff ratio from 9:1 to 6:1, the work of a consultant practitioner would be part of a regular routine. There was an opportunity to share cases. The Committee learned that cases are managed by the unit manager, and the reflective casework would be supported by the consultant practitioner. The response from social worker team was supported, and there would be lots of opportunities from this move.

The Committee acknowledged the amount of development work with staff that was being delivered. They welcomed the idea of the suggestion box for staff to be candid without pressure of line management or senior management, and the level of support provided.

The Committee was updated on the pulse survey and work satisfaction, and learned that the pulse survey is circulated quarterly. Following the recent distribution of the survey to all staff, a high response had been fed back pending detailed analysis. It was clear that responses were challenging. The pulse survey was a way to understand staff satisfaction. The service had also heard more on staff satisfaction from staff reference groups. Staff had been spoken to in open door sessions and sprint sessions. Officers shared that there was a consensus from staff of dissatisfaction, and the service had proposed to address the interventions needed to make the service better for staff to contribute to better working and feeling valued.

The Chair noted the low percentage figure of the pulse survey and was concerned at the level of response to the survey as it had fallen below the initial baseline. The Committee would want to see a better response percentage from the next pulse survey to better understand staff satisfaction in the service.

The Committee learned of the ASYEs in Children’s Services and heard that of the twenty-four that had started in the first cohort, all but one ASYE social worker had remained in Croydon. All the twenty-three ASYE’s were now fully qualified and had committed to working in Croydon. Commitment in staffing was also retained by locum staff as many of the locum staff had been working in Croydon for two or more years consistently. The Committee learned that newly qualified social workers that completed their essential training were restricted in the number of caseloads that they could manage to balance their workforce.

The Committee learned that the service was prioritising the management of caseload numbers for staff. They learned that child protection services had the highest pressure and additional resources had been put in place. There had also been an increase in the number of care proceeding cases where the number had reached over one hundred, and two additional solicitors had been recruited to support the service on these cases.

The Committee learned that financially Children’s Services would need to improve over time for the service to have a benchmark. They heard that £3 million pounds had been invested for additional support and business support staff to meet the demands within the service. The Local Government Association report shared challenges around mental health, homelessness and housing provision and schools that had put pressure on the wider system. Croydon Children’s Services had responded to the pressure and services from across the Council had responded with support, however, there was generally a wider funding issue impacting families, as such Children’s Services had been allocated £10 million pounds to invest into developing a better service.

The Committee learned of the IT and software systems used by the frontline social workers, and heard that significant development had been put in place such as scanning documents directly onto the case management system. The system used was widely used across England. An active operational group for ICT was also arranged. The service was aiming for a higher success rate for ICT which included training and workshop to support staff.

The Committee learned of partnership working and the importance of working with other bodies i.e. the Croydon Commissioning Group (CCG) and the police in particular. They heard that the progress in partnership working with the Police and CCG over the last year included sitting on the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) which had a number of other partners involved. They heard that statutory partners such as the police and CCG amongst others had focused their priorities on outcomes for children. They heard that the focus on children and young people was around issues on vulnerable adolescence. Children’s Services also had the Children’s safeguarding board sit on the LSP Board alongside other partners with children being the core focus. Children’s Services would be developing strategic level and assist on operational level in delivering enhanced Early Help service. The new Chair had been very clear and forceful in terms of determination in moving the system forward and working together with partners. This had added additional momentum in partnership working. Partners also would be creating robust professional challenge to develop better partnership. Officers shared that good outcomes cannot be delivered by one agency alone and needed to be a whole partnership working collectively. Officers noted that on the operational level Children’s service had started to build relationships and understanding with key officers and organisations and needed to provide a clear message of the service provided by Children’s Services and Early Help to key partners.

The Chair thanked the officers for the in-depth answers to questions asked, as the purpose is to challenge the Improvement Plan. The Committee proposed for more information on the progress of the key performance indicators and IT systems over the coming months. The Committee was keen to invite the borough Commander to attend the Scrutiny and Overview meeting on 6 March to ask of his role in the Children’s Services Improvement plan and partnership working.