Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Derek Benson, Independent Chairman, Worcestershire Safeguarding Children's Board.

Councillor Banks – Independent Chair of Orchard and Spring Vale Children's Centre, Evesham

Councillor Duffy – Independent Chair of WANDS Children's Centre, Droitwich

Councillor Oborski – Chair of Wyre Forest Local Children's Trust, Education Trustee for Comberton Primary School, Vice-Chairman of the King Charles 1 School (Academy) Governing Body, Member of the Safeguarding Improvement Board

Councillor Thomas - School Governor at Stourport on Severn Primary School

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 10 March 2017).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

None.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 27 January 2017 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

The Director of Children, Families and Communities, Assistant Director for Families, Communities and Partnerships and Lead Commissioner were in attendance at the meeting to discuss the progress on Optimising the Use of Children's Centre Buildings.

During 2016, this issue had been discussed on a number of occasions by the Panel and two call-ins had been considered by the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB).

Although the Cabinet Member decision of 13 September 2016 was subject to one of the Call-ins, it was agreed by the OSPB that the decision should be accepted but with the qualification that the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel be requested to work with the Cabinet Member with Responsibility throughout the implementation of the decision to ensure continued Scrutiny and Quality Assurance and to report any concerns to OSPB.

Following this, work has been undertaken to ensure the smooth transfer of Children's Centre buildings and to ensure the necessary support for this process and the sustainability of universal stay and play provision across the county. In addition, progress had been made in developing and embedding new early help services and pathways across the 0-19 Public Health Nursing Service and Parenting and Targeted Family Support Services.  This was integral to  the Safeguarding Improvement Plan and also included supporting and challenging the whole workforce in playing their full part in identifying risk and managing need at the earliest stage. 

32 Children's Centres buildings were within the scope of the project, 18 were part of the consultation on future use of buildings, 2 were not part of the consultation but lease arrangements needed to be updated and a further 12 were not part of the consultation but required existing leases to be reviewed and updated.

Current providers were contracted to the end of March 2019 and renewal of leases of the 12 centres which were continuing as Parenting and Family Support providers (previously Early Help providers) were currently being aligned where appropriate to this date. This work was nearly complete for South Worcestershire (Action for Children) and in Bromsgrove (Redditch Borough Council).  It was expected that all other areas would be completed by the end of March 2017.

In terms of the transfer of centres to schools/other providers, as the lease negotiation process was lengthy, officers had worked with the Place Partnership Ltd to put in place Tenancy at Will arrangements to ensure legal occupation of buildings by the agreed new occupiers.  In a small number of cases, this has not yet taken place due to the future use of the building still needing to be agreed.  However, in all cases continued delivery had been possible by effective partnership working between teams within the County Council, Place Partnership, providers and schools. 

To support new occupiers, a one off sum of £30k had been made available on a need-by-need basis to support the sustainability of the universal stay and play sessions. Some of the £30k had been allocated following requests from providers and schools. To date a request  ...  view the full minutes text for item 271.

The Director of Children, Families and Communities (DCS) and the Assistant Director (Safeguarding Services) attended the meeting to update the Panel on the Children's Social Care Service Improvement Plan.

At its last meeting, the Panel discussed the findings of the Ofsted Report - Inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers; and Review of the effectiveness of the Local Safeguarding Children Board' published on 24 January.

The overall judgement for Worcestershire was 'inadequate'. This was a very disappointing judgement for Worcestershire's children and young people, as well as for the committed and hardworking staff within the service.  The Panel were advised at their previous meeting that plans were already in place to deliver service improvement prior to the Inspection and this work had continued and been further strengthened to form an Improvement Plan to cover all recommendations from Ofsted.

Following the last meeting, the Panel were invited to a briefing on the Service Improvement Plan (SIP) on 14 February 2017, which was well attended and covered an overview of the 8 work-streams within the SIP.

In addition, there had been a number of notable meetings/events which had taken place relating directly to the SIP.

·       On 17 February 2017, a small delegation from Worcestershire County Council (WCC) including the Chief Executive and DCS visited Nottinghamshire County Council to discuss their development from an inadequate judgement in 2009 to Ofsted judging them to be good in 2015. This proved to be a helpful sharing of learning, and was very informative in developing Worcestershire's plan to be as comprehensive as it needed to be to improve its practice.  A key message from the visit was that it takes time to generate long term sustainable improvement, but holding your nerve and sticking with the programme was really important.

·       Other headline messages included ensuring that children remained central to the improvement.  Useful information, advice and guidance was also provided around practice improvements, use of ICT, legal support, communications approaches and making effective use of data.  Peer learning would continue to be a feature of the Improvement Plan, developing networks with other Local Authorities and recognising and mirroring best practice where appropriate.  Peer learning visits to both Leeds City Council and Devon County Council were planned for March 2017.

·       On 27 February, Ofsted hosted an 'Action Planning Day' at County Hall, led by Jenny Turnross, Her Majesty's Inspector (HMI) and Chris Sands, Senior HMI from Ofsted and attended by senior officers across WCC and a number of partners including some headteachers.  The agenda for the day covered themes from the Inspection and some guidance on key issues to consider in future work – these included neglect, assessment, care leavers, thresholds and leadership.  During the day, Ofsted reinforced key messages from the Inspection about thresholds not being understood by everyone, the workforce challenge of recruiting and retaining staff and the impact of policies and procedures on practice.  It was a very informative day and a number of key  ...  view the full minutes text for item 272.