Agenda and minutes

Apologies were received from Councillor Jo Monk, Panel Member, Councillor Andy Roberts, Cabinet Member with Responsibility and Tina Russell, Chief Executive of Worcestershire Children First.

None.

Members of the public wishing to take part should notify the Assistant Director for Legal and Governance 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 21 September 2021).  Enquiries can be made through the telephone number/e-mail address below.

The Chairman reported that two members of the public had asked to speak at the meeting. A summary is shown below of the key points raised by the participants:

David Hall

·         Mr Hall referred to the Worcestershire Children First (WCF) complaints system and his dissatisfaction at the length of time complaints took to be investigated. He added that others that he knew experienced similar delays.

·         He highlighted that figures relating to cases upheld by the Local Government Ombudsman (88% for Worcestershire, compared to an average of 71% for other authorities) indicated the unfairness of complaints procedures which were stacked against the complainant.

·         Mr Hall explained to the Panel that he did not feel that he was being heard or listened to by the Chief Executive of WCF in respect of his grievances about the complaints’ procedure.

·         He questioned whether there was a plan to address this situation?

The Chairman thanked Mr Hall for his contribution and advised him that he would receive a written response to the points he had raised.

Sally Laver

·         Ms Laver referred to an issue concerning the County’s Home to School Transport provision, specifically that recent legislative changes had affected the eligibility of Year 5 children being allocated a seat on coach services from Stoke Prior to Aston Fields Middle school (whether paying or not). This was causing significant disruption to a number of parents, who were now having to take time off work to take their children to school, as walking to school was not a safe or practical option. 

·         The Panel was informed by Ms Laver that when parents applied for school places in September 2020, they had not been informed that if they didn’t choose their closest school, they wouldn’t be eligible for school transport, hence they felt they had been misled from the start of this process.

·         Ms Laver referred to a 58-seater school coach, which passed through their village every day, with a less than 20% occupancy rate.  She asked what the current allowed occupancy rate was and when the level might be raised to enable the remaining 10 pupils to use the service too?

The Chairman thanked Ms Laver for her contribution and advised her that she would receive a written response to the points she had raised.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meeting held on 16 July 2021 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

Attending for this item were:

Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust

Sue Harris, Executive Director of Strategy and Partnerships

Sally-Anne Osborne, Associate Director for Children, Young People & Families

Sue Hetherington, Clinical Project Manager

Worcestershire County Council

Karen May, Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Health and Well-Being

Dr Kathryn Cobain, Director of Public Health

Liz Altay, Public Health Consultant

Worcestershire Children First

Sarah Wilkins, Director for Education and Early Help

The Chairman welcomed representatives from the Herefordshire and Worcestershire Health and Care NHS Trust to the meeting to provide an update on the latest developments in relation to 0-19 Prevention and Early Intervention Service (Starting Well).

The Cabinet Member for Health and Well-being reported that a meeting had recently taken place with Dame Andrea Leadsom focusing on the importance of enhancing and enabling positive outcomes for 0–2-year-olds via the use of family hubs. She advised that new funding had recently been announced by the Department of Education to support the continued development of this programme.

The Public Health Consultant reminded the Panel of the background to the establishment of the Starting Well service, which had commenced in April 2020. With the restrictions of COVID-19, the implementation of the service had taken longer than planned as there had been the need to adapt and flex to deliver the services differently. An interim report was presented to the Panel in November 2020 and since then robust recovery plans continued to be implemented across the whole partnership.

The Clinical Project Manager led the meeting through a presentation providing an overview of the Starting Well Service including:

·         The broad composition of the Starting Well teams in each District area which were led by a Public Health Nurse Team Leader alongside a Community and Parenting Manager.

·         The flexible and proactive approach to the delivery of services during the pandemic to ensure that need continued to be met.

·         Working with partners to support the needs of each district, as outlined in their district profile, and linked to health outcomes.

·         The development of the Starting Well website which parents could use to self-refer and which included links to other relevant agencies offering support.

·         The Healthy Child Programme which used evidence-based assessments to determine health, well-being, and development of a child, following which appropriate support was delivered through universal services, overseen by specialist public health nurses.

·         The importance of partnership working with Action for Children, Barnardo’s and Redditch Borough Council which provided shared expertise to enhance the service able to be offered to families. Details were provided of initiatives aimed at young people who identified as transgender, offering them and their parents effective means of communication and support networks.

·         The delivery of health visiting services during the pandemic had largely been via virtual platforms but was also backed up by the telephone advisory service and bookable appointments at the family hub. Face to face contacts were now increasing and were once again the usual way of engaging with families. Having listened to feedback from service users, however,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 494.

The Cabinet Member for Education provided a brief introduction to the early help report. The Director of Education and Early Help then explained that due to the broad range of the continuum of early help services in the County, a joint report had been produced involving colleagues in Worcestershire Children First and the County Council (both Communities and Public Health). Full details of each service area were included in the report.

The Director advised that the report set out the significant progress being made on developing the provision and collaboration of early help services across Worcestershire. The importance of the ‘working together’ guidance was critical for promoting the welfare of children.  Partners working closely together for instance through the use of family hubs ensured that access to help and support was readily available at the earliest opportunity.

Details were provided on the recently established WCF Early Help Family Support service which was located within Children’s social care and which provided family support workers to families where there was level 2 or level 3 need.

The Panel was also informed of the evolving role of Here2Help which now offered advice and support on a range of services. Plans to ensure that the children’s centres buildings continued to be used for the wider early help, early education and care and family hub offer were also highlighted.

The Panel was provided with a copy of an Early Help booklet which had recently been launched and was available on the website and in print for partners to distribute.

Members asked a range of questions, which were responded to as follows:

·         A Member commented that the recent Ofsted letter was very encouraging but queried the reference to ‘most’ children rather than every child being reached by the service. The Assistant Director, Family Front Door and Partnerships explained that they were continually addressing the potential barriers for people to access support, to improve accessibility, for instance, through the use of language. There was a multi-agency approach in place to ensure that help and support was provided, and all parties were encouraging families to come forward to seek support at an early stage.

·         In response to a question about the lack of access to early help facilities in rural areas, particularly South Worcestershire, the Director commented that it was an ongoing challenge to ensure that residents in rural areas had access to the early help offer. Rural schools were used as a key place for information to be available and/or disseminated. She highlighted that the vast majority of the children’s centres continued to have a role in early childhood, so these were another source of information, particularly for younger children’s needs and also that the family hubs were being more connected.

·         The role of Here2Help in relation to the current financial struggle of families was raised. The Assistant Director for Communities advised that additional resources had been made available to support free school meals in the holidays. There had also been grants available through the Act on  ...  view the full minutes text for item 495.

The Panel was updated on performance information relating to Quarter 1 (April to June 2021) and financial information for Quarter 1. Members were also provided with the Ofsted letter following their inspection visit to the Family Front Door in July.

Budget Monitoring 2021/22

The Director of Resources highlighted the following points:

·         The Designated Schools Grant year-end position at Period 3 was a forecast overspend of £5.7m. The forecast deficit on the DSG for the end of 2021/22 was £15.7m and for 2022/23, £19.7m. The Director explained that this Council was working with others to seek urgent Government action on this situation.

·         For the High Needs Block allocation, owing to some extra Government funding, the variance on overspend had been slightly reduced. 

·         The Society of County Treasurers had written to the Chancellor to lobby for the Government to take urgent action in the Spending Review to address the national £1.3bn special education needs deficit position which was predicted by the end of 2022/23.

·         Over half of the WCF annual Budget related to ‘demand led’ budgets of placements and Home to School Transport, upon which there was considerable pressure.

·         In response to a query about what was suggested by the ‘prompt action’ that might be required on the placements budget, the Director explained that an end-to-end audit was being carried out, in addition to closely monitoring the situation. In terms of the £1.9m risk reserve, this was available should it prove necessary. In the previous 3 years it had not been necessary to make use of this.

·         The Director highlighted that the Annual General Meeting of Worcestershire Children First was being held on 30 September.

Children’s Social Care

The Assistant Director (Family Front Door and Partnerships) introduced the performance information and made the following key points:

·         The demand on the FFD and the conversion rate were areas of concern. There were still big challenges ahead, but the Ofsted letter had provided welcome reassurance that timely decisions were being made.

·         Through care (Looked after Children and Care Leavers) – there was significant pressure on finding the right placements for young people.

·         The data on children missing from home during the pandemic indicated that the figures had stayed low during this period. The situation was being looked at in detail to ensure that cases were being reported accurately.

Members raised a few questions:

·         In response to a question about whether 2020/21 figures would be relevant to make comparisons with going forward, the Assistant Director suggested that it would depend on what was being measured. There was also the question as to whether this was the ‘new norm’?

·         A question was raised about the situation where vulnerable children had been kept on the Child Protection register during the pandemic for their protection. The Assistant Director advised that this situation had changed in September 2020, when each family situation had been assessed and reviewed. Assurance was given that only those children who had needed to remain on a Child Protection Plan had done so.

Education and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 496.

The Panel reviewed its current Work Programme. The Chairman highlighted that the current organisation of Education within the County (2 tier/3 tier) had been added to the November Panel meeting and the Update on GETSAFE had been moved to the January meeting. 

Home to School Transport – It was agreed that the impact of the legislative change on Home to School Transport would be added to the Work Programme. The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Education (CMR) advised that this issue was currently under review and that the CMR for Highways and Transport would be bringing a report to Cabinet on this subject. The timely input from Scrutiny in this process would be welcomed.

Following discussion, it was agreed that that two Panel Members (Cllrs Chamber and Ross) would meet with the CMR to gather information on the legislative changes and the impact on local residents. The findings would then be reported to the Panel members.

Alternative Provision/Review of Exclusions – It was agreed that the Review of Exclusions, referred to earlier in the meeting, would be combined with the ‘Alternative Provision’ item already included on the Work Programme. The Chairman and Vice-Chairman would identify the most suitable Panel meeting for this item to be included on the Work Programme.

Carer’s Strategy - The Chairman informed Members that the Adult Care and Well-Being Panel was considering this Strategy at its meeting on 29 September. Members of this Panel were welcome to attend and participate for this item.