Agenda item

For the Sub-Committee to receive the Early Help, Children’s Social Care and Education Dashboard.

The Sub-Committee considered a report set out on pages 221 to 226 of the agenda, which provided the Early Help, Children’s Social Care and Education Dashboard, and updated additional ‘Red’ indicators reviewed at the previous meeting.

On M37, the Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that this was a persistent ‘Red’ which was monitored closely at both the Director of Children’s Services monthly performance meetings and Children's Social Care Leadership performance meetings. The Sub-Committee heard that there was consideration of whether the target of 22% was set at the correct value with ongoing challenge from the Performance Analyst. The Chair queried the timeline and actions for improvement and heard that a firm prediction was difficult as it was predicated on individual children and the risks in each instance determined when a case could be closed. The Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that they would be looking for the indicator to improve over the next year as work progressed with Islington Partners in Practice and as cases took time to close.

The Vice-Chair asked how a new target would be determined and the Director of Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that current data indicated that performance was at 23% but that they would like to see this sustained before any conclusions could be drawn as individual children on child protection plans sat behind this number. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) were not considered when decisions were made about whether a child needed to be on a child protection plan, and that safeguarding was always the first priority.

The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that benchmarking data could take a long time to produce and that statistical neighbours used for comparison could have different demographics and funding to Croydon. The Sub-Committee heard that ideally children should not be on a child protection plan for over a year, but that this did happen, and the actions being taken during the plan was the most important thing to consider. The Director of Children’s Social Care stated that where children were on a second plan, it needed to be considered whether this was as a result of a recurrence of previous concerns, or whether things had changed significantly (if the previous plan had been years previous). The Safeguarding Quality Assurance Team looked at each of these cases monthly and wrote a detailed report to Children’s Social Care to provide insights and to help practitioners consider whether initial plans had been sufficient in their actions and length.

The Chair asked about the risks of longer child protection plans, and the Director of Children’s Social Care responded that the quality of challenge in reviews was vital, as was multi-agency work and challenge from the Safeguarding Quality Assurance Team. The Chair asked, for children who were on a child protection plan for a second time, if reviews of the initial plan were showing the correct work had been done in the first instance. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that there had been a cohort of children where the work during the initial plan had not been done as effectively as it could have been, but that this was not the case for children who were made subject to a child protection plan more recently. Members heard that there were currently over 600 children on child protection plans, and that this was higher than neighbouring boroughs; children on a child protection plan required a visit every 10 days, and children on a child in need plan required a visit every 20 days. The Chair asked if the frequency of visits was being met, and the Sub-Committee heard that work was underway to improve performance on child in need plans.

The Chair queried indicator W1a, and the Director of Children’s Social Care explained that higher caseloads were a result of increased demand, even against the provision of additional capacity. Members heard that demand had increased as a result of housing insecurity, post-COVID impact on family functioning, and economic downturn; these factors negatively affected parent and child mental health and exacerbated cases of domestic violence. In Croydon there was a high proportion of temporary housing, with other boroughs placing families into Croydon, which had led to greater demand in Croydon than in other boroughs for child in need services.

The Corporate Director of CYPE explained that these were complex issues but assured the Sub-Committee that all of the figures were monitored rigorously through a number of performance meetings, but that the numbers were also informed by various national issues and the availability of funding. The Chair acknowledged this, but raised concerns at the number of caseloads given the complexities involved for every child. The Director of Children’s Social Care responded that overall average caseloads for June 2024 had reduced to 22.7 following a provision of additional resource.  This area is closely monitored

The Sub-Committee asked if it would be feasible to include persistent absence data to the Dashboard and the Director of Education stated that this would be possible.

Recommendations

1. The Sub-Committee recommended that persistent absences from education be added as an indicator to the Early Help, Children's Social Care and Education Dashboard.

Conclusions

1. The Sub-Committee agreed that work on M37 to consider whether the target was set at the right value was helpful and noted the information provided to Members on how the value for statistical neighbours was set.

2. The Sub-Committee concluded that they would like to review the inclusion of M37 in future Early Help, Children's Social Care and Education Dashboards to determine whether this was helpful and reflected useful information about what was happening in Children’s Social Care.