Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Bob Banks, June Griffiths, Bryan Albutt and John Campion (Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families).

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Head of Legal and Democratic Services in writing or by e-mail indicating the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case XX xxx).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 22 May 2015 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Director of Children's Services had been invited to the meeting to discuss the recent Children's Safeguarding Peer Review.

By way of introduction, she reminded Members that this was the Authority's second peer review, the previous one having been held in 2011.  Peer reviews were part of ongoing sector-led improvement with the public sector looking to help itself to drive improvement and not waiting for outside regulation, eg Ofsted, to report.

Members were aware that in recent years Children's Services had gone through a substantial programme of change.  The Peer Review had provided a validation of the service's own view of where things were going well and other areas where there was still further work to do.  The Peer Review had been facilitated by the Local Government Association (LGA) and the team had comprised experienced people from across the country and included members with a focus on health and education as well as social care, allowing a whole system approach to assess how well partners were working together.

LGA safeguarding reviews focused on 5 key themes and, in addition, the County Council had identified key areas for the reviewers to focus on, as outlined in the agenda papers.  The team had spent one week in Worcestershire and in that time had met more than 200 people.  Discussions were held in confidence to allow the team to hear what needed to be said in order for the Authority to improve.

The review had concluded that the Council was clear in its commitment to improve and acknowledged that it still faced significant challenges.  Although areas of good practice were identified, other areas were not yet where they should be.  With reference to recruitment and retention, although the majority of staff were now permanent, it was still a young workforce with many newly qualified staff.  However, the staff had demonstrated that they had the will and capability to make improvements.  They now needed to be clear on the necessary standards and what was expected of them.

The peer team had suggested the following priorities:

·         A 'back to basics' safeguarding improvement plan

·         Resolving the future direction for the 'Front Door'

·         Implementing a detailed financial recovery plan

·         Reviewing and defining the role of Early Help

The Chairman of the Panel suggested that, as a next step, Panel Members could work in pairs - as mini task groups - to further consider these priorities, as it was not possible to do this detailed scrutiny in formal Panel meetings.

In the ensuing discussion, the following main points were made:

·         Concern was expressed about access to CAMHS.  It was suggested that it was not acceptable for service users to have to wait 18 weeks for an appointment as this was a very long time in the life of a child.

·         It was further suggested that, although the Safeguarding Board had an education sub-group, schools still felt that they were often out of the loop in relation to safeguarding issues.

·         With reference to child sexual exploitation in the County,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 202.

The Independent Chair of the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Board (WSCB) and the Director of Children's Services had been invited to the meeting to discuss WSCB's Child Sexual Exploitation Strategy 2015-17 Action Plan.

The Independent Chair of the WSCB introduced the item by reminding Members that, at its previous meeting, the Panel had received an update on the Board's strategic approach to CSE.  A detailed action plan had now been developed and would be considered by Cabinet in July.  The action plan was very detailed and had 7 key areas of action, as outlined on page 43 of the agenda report.  The Board's strategic CSE group would oversee the implementation of the action plan, which should be seen as a starting point which could be adapted over time.  The detailed nature of the action plan served to demonstrate the complexity of CSE.  With reference to the involvement of schools, groups of head teachers would be taking responsibility for this and training of teachers had already started.

Panel Members were given the opportunity to ask questions and the following main points were made:

·         One Member, who was Chair of Wyre Forest Local Children's Trust, was concerned to note that there was no reference to LCTs in the action plan.  She suggested that this was 'missing a trick' in that the LCTs brought together all relevant organisations locally and should be a key group in each area.  She also suggested that it would be helpful to know who the head teachers are on the relevant group and which schools they were from.  She suggested that, if a local head teacher was a member of the group, the LCT might want to invite him or her to a meeting to discuss the issues.  Action at a local level was very important and some schools were already implementing their own programme of awareness raising.

·         In response, Members were reminded that there was a District Council representative on the strategic group who had been very active.  The Board's role was to coordinate work in the County.  The Head teachers on the group were all members of the Board and they would feed back to their school pyramids and colleagues across the county.

·         The Action Plan would be presented to the WSCB next week and, once approved, it would be sent to all local areas.  The Board would welcome feedback from all LCTs, although it was noticed that the LCTs across the County were quite variable.

·         Similarly, the action being taken in schools was quite variable.  Some schools in the County understood the issues, but the Board needed to be sure that all schools were following a similar training programme, in order to get a consistent approach.  It was suggested that the Local Authority could issue a standardised policy and procedure for all schools to follow.  In response, the Director of Children's Services suggested that the Local Authority's role was more about raising awareness and providing models of good practice for individual schools to adapt.  Although the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 203.

The Head of Provider Services and Transformation was invited to the meeting to provide an update on the key areas of the Looked After Children and Care Leavers' Commissioning Strategy.

In introducing the item, the following main points were made:

·         In the last five years the number of looked after children had increased from 580 to 680.  The total figure masked a high level of attrition, 272 young people had left the care system and there had been 312 new entrants.

·         The Council had recognised these demand pressures and agreed additional investment.  Progress had also been made after one year of the three year Looked After Children's and Care Leavers' Commissioning Strategy.

·         One of the strategy's key actions was to further develop a good in house service. The County Council currently had 32 residential beds across eight  children's homes and all were either good or outstanding.  This was something that the Authority was very proud of.  However, it did not mean that the service was standing still.

·         The Authority was looking to develop a short beaks service which would be halfway between a young person being at home and being taken into care.  There had in the past been a lack of options for children in this situation, resulting in them being taken into care when this may not have been necessary.

·         70% of looked after children were in foster care, a figure which compared favourably with other authorities.  However, the Authority did use a high level of external foster agencies, something that it was now trying to remedy by recruiting more in-house foster carers.  This was due to both cost and care issues.  It was confirmed that the campaign was exceeding its target milestones with 32 new carers either approved or in training this year.

·         A question was asked about whether the new in-house foster carers were recruited from independent foster agencies (IFAs) or completely new to fostering.  It was confirmed that carers for 7 children had already been brought back to the in-house service from IFAs and carers of a further 8 children were in the process of coming in-house.  The Authority's offer of support to foster carers had greatly improved.  This was partly in relation to finance but also supervision, training and other support.  It was confirmed that the foster care recruitment campaign was going well.

·         In relation to adoption, historically, the Authority had a low base of performance but was now increasing its number of adopters and the speed of adoptions.  88% of adopted children were now adopted within 18 months.

·         Members were reminded that the care leavers' service was currently being outsourced as this was felt to be the best option for this service.  A short list of potential providers was in discussion with the Authority on this.  Cabinet had recently approved a new initiative to provide supported living accommodation for care leavers and the service was in the process of making offers on a number of suitable properties.  It was hoped that this would  ...  view the full minutes text for item 204.

The Strategic Commissioner – Early Help and Partnerships and the Lead Commissioner: Children and Families and Public Health had been invited to the meeting to update the Panel on the re-design of Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and the Paediatric Speech and Language Therapy Service (SALT).

In the ensuing discussion, the following main points were made:

·         The intention was to engage the Panel in the re-design of the CAMHS and SALT services in the wider context of the prevention and intervention strategy, with the aim of reducing demand on services.

·         Officers were currently in the middle of needs assessments which involved analysing a wealth of data, benchmarking, and workshops with young people.  Data included admissions, case studies and tracking of individual children, including those seen by early help providers.  This would be completed by August 2015.

·         There was currently a high level of concern about access to CAMHS, so much so that some high schools were now employing their own counsellors.  The slow pace of referral was a cause for concern.  School budgets were increasingly under pressure and school-based services were also under threat.  There appeared to be an increasing need for these services and the issues around access were causing distress for children and their families.  It was suggested that the service was as near to crisis without calling it a crisis.  In response, it was acknowledged that there were a number of challenges currently facing CAMHS all of which were in the scope of the proposed service re-design, but it was too early to say how they would be tackled as there was a need to get further under the skin of the issues.

·         A question was asked about how schools were being involved in the needs assessments and whether school governors were aware of the process.  Members were informed that an electronic survey had been sent to all schools and many responses had already been received.  A CAMHS stakeholder group had also been set up with membership including representatives of schools.

·         It was suggested that part of the role of scrutiny was to ensure the message was getting through.  Members could support this as County Councillors and also as school governors.  There was only so much that officers could do.  This was a shared responsibility and officers needed wider support to spread the word.  It was suggested that there was a need to ensure that all County Councillors were aware that this was going on.

·         It was suggested that early help providers should also be involved and an example was given of the Wychavon early help provider funding a counsellor at Droitwich High School.  The Director of Children's Services reminded Members that the onus was on schools to promote the health and well-being of their pupils.  Some schools were recognising this and were using pupil premium funds to support this work.  This was not just the responsibility of one agency.  It required all to be involved in a joined up approach.

·         A question was asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 205.