Agenda item

To accommodate the availability of the Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families, the Chairman agreed to alter the order of the agenda items.  Agenda item 7 (Worcestershire Children First) would be taken next, followed by Agenda item 6 (Children's Social Care Service – Ofsted Monitoring Visit Feedback).

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and the Assistant Director of Families, Communities and Partnerships had been invited to the meeting to update the Panel on developments relating to Worcestershire Children's First (WCF), an Alternative Delivery Model (ADM) for Children's Services.

By way of introduction, the Assistant Director of Families, Communities and Partnerships made the following points:

·       The original statutory direction to set up an ADM had focused on Children's Social Care.

·       In March 2018 Cabinet had decided to develop a wholly owned council Company as the chosen delivery model.

·       Since April 2018, the programme had entered the implementation phase with an agreed go live date of October 2019.

·       Cabinet had met the day before to note the proposal to broaden the scope of services and responsibility to be transferred to WCF to include education services and the commissioning of community health services (subject to agreement from Worcestershire's Clinical Commissioning Groups).

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

·       With reference to the commissioning of community health services, the Chairman suggested that this should be considered by the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee.

·       In response to a question about the future role of scrutiny, Members were informed that further detailed work would now be needed.  The context had changed and there was an opportunity to bring together services to improve outcomes for the most vulnerable children.  This brought together the wider improvement agenda including children's social care, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) and broader education provision.  Although the economies of scale would allow a more efficient use of resources, this was a secondary consideration.  The main driver was to do the best for children and young people.

·       It was confirmed that WCF would still launch on 1 October 2019, with a phased in shadow period from 1 April 2019.

·       The programme plan was likely to include the same workstreams but with increased volumes of work.

·       It was confirmed that no appointment had been made following the recent recruitment process for a Chairman of WCF.  The recruitment would now be repeated and it was confirmed that the revised specification was likely to make reference to the increased scope.  It was confirmed that this was a DfE appointed role.  The function of Director of Children's Services would move to the new Company and would be a dual role of Chief Executive and DCS.

·       Although certain reserved matters would remain with WCC as outlined in the appendix to the Cabinet report, WCF would have operational independence on a day-to-day basis.

·       It was confirmed that there would be regular reporting to Scrutiny of performance information as the Council would remain accountable for performance.  It was important to remember that this was a partnership arrangement rather than outsourcing.  The Council would still set the policy and the business plan, and the Children and Young People Plan would still be signed off by Council.

·       Given the wider scope of the functions and services transferring to WCF, an additional post would be required of Director of Resources.  It was suggested that given the expertise in other public sector organisations locally, this could be a shared post.  In response, the Assistant Director informed Members that, initially at least, this would need to be a stand-alone role to allow a focus on the newly set up Company.

·       The Cabinet Member reminded the Panel that the move to an ADM had been as a result of direction from the DfE.  Looking at the experience of other authorities across the country, carrying on as before did not always lead to improvement.  By setting up a wholly-owned Council Company, the Authority was able to keep the service as close as possible.  Once the Council was out of direction, it would be able to close the Company if it wished.

·       A Member commented that the opportunity to bring all services together, including health, was attractive.  The Cabinet Member reminded the Panel that there was already a good degree of integration with health services.  It was clear that the ADM had to happen and it would be better not to fragment the system, but rather maintain the integrated system we already had.

·       It was confirmed that the communities element of the current Directorate would not move to WCF.  This would be looked at as part of the wider redesign of County Council services.

·       In relation to potential disputes between the County Council and WCF, it was suggested that this would come down to relationships.  The role of the Director of Children's Services would be key as they would remain part of the County Council but also be Chief Executive of WCF.  The contract with the Company would also contain a section on dispute resolution.  Members welcomed the suggestion from the Assistant Director that the Scrutiny Panel could review the contract before it was signed.

·       The Chairman asked a question about what would happen if the Company failed a future Ofsted inspection.  The Cabinet Member reminded Members that there were big differences between Worcestershire and other local authorities that had gone down this route.  There were 2 parallel strands of work: firstly, improving services and secondly, the development of the Company.  The ambition was to hand over a good service.

·       Concern was expressed that, having made lots of progress in improving the service, staff may decide to leave rather than move to the Company.  Working for the local authority was very important to some social care staff.  The Assistant Director reassured the Panel that the aim was to take staff along as the plans for the Company were developed.  She recognised the reasons why many people chose to work in the public sector and reassured Members that WCF would not be a profit-making Company.  There would be no change to staff terms and conditions and day-to-day practice would not change.

·       A question was asked about where Pupil Referral Units (PRUs) would fit within the Company.  The Panel was reminded that unlike schools they were not run by governing bodies.  In response, it was suggested that PRUs would have the same status as maintained schools.  The Assistant Director agreed to provide the Panel with further information on this.

·       Following the decision to widen the scope of WCF, there was further work to do on the financial case, including transition costs.

·       The Chairman of the Panel expressed concern about the delivery of the contract with Babcock Prime.  In her experience, there was a level of dissatisfaction from schools about Babcock and many were not opting to use their services.  In response to a question about who would be responsible for the re-negotiation of the contract, the Assistant Director confirmed that this was still under discussion.  The current contract was due to run until 2020.  She confirmed that the Director of Children's Services would retain responsibility and accountability.  The new contract would need to be agreed by Council, thus maintaining control and influence.

·       It was confirmed that the WCF would be limited by guarantee, meaning that the Directors would not be held personally responsible.

·       Concern was expressed that the Council may set KPIs for WCF which the Company may feel could not be achieved on the available budget, leading to a request for additional funding.  It was confirmed that KPIs would be jointly produced and would be based on what was currently in place.

·       It was confirmed that final decisions would be made in spring 2019, ahead of a shadow Company being set up in April 2019.

·       Members agreed that they would like to invite the DfE Commissioner to attend a meeting of the Panel in January to discuss the development of the ADM.

·       It was confirmed that Cabinet would be making budgetary decisions.  In response to a question about VAT exemption, it was confirmed that the Council and the DfE were working on the assumption that there would be no VAT implications.  This would also be built into the contract.

·       Although some finance, HR and performance staff would move to WCF, other support services would remain with the County Council and be 'bought back' by the Company.

·       It was confirmed that staff would be TUPE'd from the County Council to WCF and the costs of IT licensing would be built into the Company's costs.

·       The representative of Healthwatch expressed concern about the impact of the County Council's financial situation on the setting up of WCF.  She asked for reassurance that there would be sufficient money available to cover the services included.  The Assistant Director confirmed that she had not had a conversation about savings targets.  It was recognised that the scope included many demand-led services and the decision to increase the scope would have implications for the budget.