Agenda item

The Assistant Director for Safeguarding was invited to the meeting to update the Panel on progress of the Back to Basics Safeguarding Improvement Plan since the Local Government Association (LGA) Safeguarding Peer Review in April 2015.

In November 2014, the County Council - as part of its desire to be a learning organisation - invited the LGA to help facilitate a Peer Review on its approach to safeguarding children.  The Peer Review took place in April 2015. 

The Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel considered the outcomes of the Peer Review at its meeting on 25 June 2015 and were informed that the LGA team had identified the following four priorities:

·     A 'back to basics' Safeguarding Improvement Plan

·     Resolving the future direction for the 'Front Door'

·     Implementing a detailed financial recovery plan

·     Review and defining the role of Early Help

The Panel agreed that they would undertake further scrutiny work to consider the Directorate's response to these priorities and met with the Assistant Director Safeguarding Services and Strategic Lead Quality and Improvement on 5 August 2015.

It was recognised that much of the ongoing improvement work and work initiated in response to the Peer Review was still at an early stage and that it would take time before improvements would be seen.  Therefore, it was agreed that the Scrutiny Panel would receive an update in six months' time on the progress made.

The Safeguarding Improvement Plan implemented in May 2015 had been monitored monthly by the Safeguarding Improvement Board.  The Plan was subsequently refreshed in January 2016 and was considered by the Safeguarding Improvement Board in February 2016.   The refreshed Plan took into account the progress achieved to date and was aligned to the three strategic priorities for Children's Social Care:

·       Getting the 'gateway' into Children's Social Care right;

·       Securing safety and permanence for children at the earliest opportunity;

·       Building a confident and capable workforce.

As a result, the performance indicators that accompanied the Safeguarding Improvement Plan were revised so that they were directly relevant to the Plan and were signed off in March 2016 by the Children, Families and Communities' Directorate Leadership Team and Safeguarding Improvement Board. Progress on performance was monitored through monthly corrective action reports which were compiled monthly by the Team and Group Managers for performance clinics that are held in each of the locality safeguarding areas.  These were then reported to the Assistant Director for Safeguarding and on to Safeguarding Improvement Board.   

Evidence from other local authorities who had embarked on improvement journeys similar to Worcestershire (e.g. Walsall and Herefordshire) suggested that improvement began with compliance. There had therefore been a focus on the compliance-based practice standards:

·       Assessments in timescale

·       Timeliness of visits

·       Timeliness of Section 47 Enquiries

·       Timeliness of Initial Child Protection Conferences (ICPC)

·       Timeliness of response to complaints

Performance had improved evidenced by March 2016 data except for the percentage of Initial Child Protection Conferences completed in timescale.  Performance for this indicator fluctuated between May 2015 and March 2016 between c. 40% and 75% and the Directorate were trying to understand the reasons for this through the corrective action reporting process in order to ensure long term and sustained improvement. As a result of the fluctuating performance an instruction had been issued to all Team Managers that the decision as to whether an Initial Child Protection Conference was required must be made no later that day five of a Section 47 Enquiry and a revised Framework workflow had been put in place to support this and was being monitored closely by Team and Group Managers. Furthermore there had been some investment in information technology solutions to maximise participation and combat venue pressures.

From January 2016, the focus had been on quality of practice through case file auditing and a series of mock inspections.  Further work to improve quality of practice would include ongoing robust auditing of cases, further mock inspections, safeguarding alerts and learning from complaints.

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families explained how there had been a monumental shift in basic social work practice with significant improvements and a more confident workforce.  Retaining high quality social workers was the next focus and would cement the improvements made to date.

During the discussion, the following main points were made:

·       At the present time 83% of the workforce was permanent out of a target of 100%.

·       It was disappointing that the KPI relating to the timeliness of initial Child Protection Conferences was only 40% and the Panel would wish to see this information broken down by district areas to allow for a deeper analysis to further understand the reasons.

·       In response to the concern that there may be people who were asking for help from social care but didn't meet the threshold for help, the Panel were reassured that although social care intervention may not be appropriate, help would always be offered.  Approximately 1/3 of all contacts made to social care didn't meet the threshold.

·       Ideally, the Council were aiming to offer better support to families in need of help which would result in less LAC and better outcomes for the children.

·       The threshold's for Safeguarding were being re-drafted and were going to be approved by the Worcestershire Safeguarding Children's Board on 16 May 2016 but would be sent to the Panel for information.

The Chairman of the Panel thanked the Cabinet Member and Officer for coming to the meeting and was very pleased to see the improvements which had been outlined during the discussion.  The Panel requested a further update in 6 months' time.