Agenda item

To update the Committee on the Improvement Plan

The Executive Director of People and the Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social care were in attendance to provide an update on the progress of the Children’s Improvement Plan.

The Committee were provided with an update on ongoing activities since the last meeting, including partnership monitoring meetings with the Police and NHS, where discussions had taken place to assess the direction and pace of travel. There had also been also been mandatory training for managers and social workers on the Strengthening Families model that was due to be adopted across the whole service from April 2018. Good feedback on the training was received by those that had attended.

The Committee further learned that a detailed review of the Early Help service had taken place and they were currently working on developing the Early Help strategy with a view to implementing it later in the year. Officers had also explored the proportion of social worker tasks that could be undertaken by the early help team.

As part of the Quality Assurance framework, quarterly spotlight meetings had taken place with unit managers to ensure accountability was maintained and challenges were understood, in order to be clear on what was happening across frontline services. Important work around contextual safeguarding and how better multiagency partnerships could work to keep children safe was also ongoing.

The recording systems in the department were now aligned to the new model of working. Additionally, the Children’s services budget had been increased with £10.9m invested and agreed as the base budget for 2018/19.

The department continued to face many challenges, with high demand for assessment and pressures from high caseloads remaining prevalent. The service had also experience a considerable increase in complex needs cases. Caseload in the assessment team remained high with better stability seen in caseloads in care planning teams.

The Multi Agency Support Hub (MASH) team became the single point of contact as of 5 March 2018 and Ofsted acknowledged that this was the stronger part of the service. Early Help staff were being deployed to assist with some of the administrative tasks where possible.

There had been notable improvements in fostering reviews and pathway plans for care leavers had been consistently completed on time. There had also been improvements in the management of casework and outcomes for care leavers were satisfactory.

In recruitment and retention, 41% of the workforce were agency staff, however there had been a rise in social worker conversions to permanent contracts due to the effects of stability in leadership. A payments total rewards scheme was due to be launched in April 2018 to attract permanent staff which included a career development scheme. A recruitment package was in the process of being finalised to make Croydon financially attractive to prospective employees.

A Member questioned what short term measures were being put in place to support social workers and their caseloads whilst longer term solutions were being sought? Officers advised that this remained a key challenge and that the average caseload was 35 cases and they were working closely with agencies to recruit good social workers. A review had been taken on the possibility to buy in contractors but there was no assurance that this would be the safest option, a view that was supported by the commissioner. Additional service managers had been brought in to realise the aspects of the Ofsted challenge of ensuring that the thresholds for assessments had been accurately applied in each case. Officers proposed a future meeting of Scrutiny to specifically look at recruitment and retention.

The Committee further learned that the Director’s Network had been in discussion and signed an agreement on capping agency rates but not all London boroughs had honoured the agreement. Nationally, work was underway on various schemes such as the return to social work scheme. There was also the possibility of introducing an apprenticeship later in the year and a range of different routes were being explored to encourage more people into the profession.

In response to a Member question about the emerging picture from the Return Home Interview (RHI) data, officers stated that it was still too early to produce conclusive data on trends relating to missing children. The team was working to interpret some of the intelligence and had been working closely with the police on identifying groups and trends.

Members enquired about the quantity of foster carers in the borough. Officers confirmed that fostering recruitment had been outsourced due to the current contract concluding. There was a need for more foster carers as there had been a rise in the number of LAC children profiles with more local children coming into care. The team had also worked to move from 50% to 90% of cases receiving supervision and it was anticipated that they would be close to this target within 3 months.

A Member queried what had been done to improve child protection indicators which had seen some improvement recently but still required improvements around the adequacy of visits and time frame for reviews. Officers advised that this was being reviewed on a weekly basis with social workers to determine what needed to be done to improve figures. There would be a reviewer in place to manage long term child in need cases.

The Chair asked for an explanation about what in hindsight was considered wrong with the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) and what had subsequently changed. The Committee was informed that whilst the partnership seemed well organised, its effectiveness had been questioned, the line of sight was not clear and there had been duplication of work. They had since looked at what key Boards needed additional support and how this could be best achieved. A Working Group had been established to identify further improvements and how Sub-Boards could add value to the key issues identified, but more was still to be done in regards to growth and how to create a collaborative agenda.

In response to the Chair’s question on what difference this would make to the improvement plan, officers stated that that the LSP would focus on one priority at a time and had made a decision that its first priority would be tackling youth violence.  The LSP board sought to reinforce collaborative work across all services in the borough.

In response to the Chair’s query on the progression of change and review of the Croydon Safeguarding Children Board (CSCB), officers advised that they had been working with the Chair of the Board to establish the responsibilities of the key statutory partners. A consultation on changes to be made had just been published and it was anticipated that the full statutory guidance would be available by April 2018

The Chair thanked officers for their responses to questions.

Conclusions

i. Further information was required on the effectiveness and reality of the partnerships as their objectives were currently difficult to grasp.

ii. The Safeguarding boards to attend and present at future Scrutiny meetings.