Agenda and minutes

The Panel began the meeting by holding a minute’s silence in memory of Councillor Andy Roberts.

The Chairman welcomed Councillor Steve Mackay who was attending in his new role as Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and thanked him for his work previously as Panel Chairman.

Apologies had been received from Councillors Kyle Daisley, David Ross, Jo Monk and Karen May (Cabinet Member for Health and Well Being).

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 both the nature and content of their proposed participation no later than 9.00am on the working day before the meeting (in this case 26 September 2023).  Further details are available on the Council's website.  Enquiries can also be made through the telephone number/e-mail address listed in this agenda and on the website.

None.

(previously circulated)

The Minutes of the Meetings held on 6 and 7 July 2023 were agreed as a correct record and signed by the Chairman.

At the request of the Director of Children’s Services, the Chairman agreed to alter the agenda order to take Item 6 before Item 5.

By way of introduction, the Interim Director of Resources (Worcestershire Children First) made the following main points:

·         At period 4, the County Council’s (WCC) outturn forecast for 2023/24 was for a net overspend of £18.2m (after mitigations), a significant figure on a £400m budget.

·         The Worcestershire Children First (WCF) forecast overspend of £22m had had a significant impact on this figure and was mainly due to overspends in the demand led services of Placements & Provision for Looked After Children and Home to School Transport. Together these two areas made up 60% of WCF expenditure. It was acknowledged that these were ‘high risk’ areas and, at the time of budget setting, a £2m risk reserve had been included to mitigate potential overspends. However budgetary pressures had been in excess of what had been expected and this reserve would not be enough.  It was acknowledged that, at this stage in the financial year, the forecast overspend could come down, although experience suggested that this was not likely to be the case.

·         The budget for social care placements was forecast to overspend by £16.3m due to increases in both the number of placements (up by 11% since this time last year) and the cost of placements (with average placement costs having increased by 19% since budget setting).

·         The 581k underspend in the resources budget was mainly due to more favourable interest rates.

·         With reference to All Age Disability, staffing was broadly on budget but an overspend of £271k was forecast for Placements and Packages.

·         Youth Offending Services were run via a contract and would spend to budget.

·         Although the WCF budget had seen an overspend last year, the previous three years had been underspent and, historically, the budget had been managed well. This was a particularly difficult time and services were taking action (as set out in the agenda report) to reduce the projected overspend.

·         Officers were conscious that the use of reserves was not a sustainable approach going forward and there was a need to challenge every penny of spend in order to reduce the forecast overspend.

·         The Panel was reminded that the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) was held by the Council rather than within WCF. The year-end forecast position was an overspend of £8.1m. This was not included in the overall WCC overspend as it related to the High Needs Block and would be added to the cumulative deficit in this area which would stand at £28.4m by the end of 2023/24. This would sit as a negative unusable reserve on the balance sheet due to a temporary statutory override to ringfence DSG deficits from Councils’ wider financial position in their statutory accounts. This was an issue for local authorities nationally.

·         The Council was one of 55 local authorities involved in the Department for Education’s (DfE) Delivering Best Value in SEND support programme which was looking at  ...  view the full minutes text for item 601.

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and the Director of Children’s Services had been invited to the meeting to discuss the cost pressures associated with Children’s Social Care Placements.

Following a discussion with the Leader of the Council about the role of scrutiny in the 2024/25 budget setting process, the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB) had asked relevant Overview and Scrutiny Panels to scrutinise cost pressures, trends and national best practice, and offer some possible solutions around particular issues, one of which was Children’s Social Care Placements.

The Director of Children’s Services introduced the report and made the following main points:

·         The Worcestershire Children First (WCF) Business Plan contained eight priorities one of which was to ‘Ensure looked after children have high quality, stable placements and timely outcomes for permanency’.  This reflected the importance that had been given to this issue when the Business Plan was issued in March 2023.

·         The cost of placements was not a driver for making this issue a priority.  The main driver was about supporting families, protecting children and bringing them into care when necessary, regardless of the cost.  It was important to be aware of the cost and ensure best value but this was not a driver for decisions about placements and what was best for the child.

·         The number of children in need was still growing and the impact of covid was still being seen in, for example, school attendance and children’s mental health. The economic climate was also having an impact on families.

·         The Supporting Families First (SFF) multi-disciplinary team worked with families in crisis to support them and to remind them that the best place for the child was with their family. Quarter 1 outcome data from SFF showed that of the 221 children’s cases closed, 76% of children had remained with their family. This was a very positive outcome and had been recognised as a strength by Ofsted.

·         Although there was a rising number of children coming into care, it was important to note that numbers in Worcestershire were reflective of regional averages and reflective of a cohort of authorities which were assessed by Ofsted as ‘good’. Some authorities which had lower rates had been identified by Ofsted as ‘requiring improvement’ or ‘inadequate’.  WCF no longer failed to protect children and could be seen to support parents and manage risk.

·         In Worcestershire, rates of children leaving care were lower than comparator authorities, something that was being looked into in detail as part of an intensive piece of work to look at data over five years.  The service was confident that children were not being rushed home or delayed inappropriately. The most important thing was to ensure the child was safe and WCF was confident in its practice.  The number of children coming into care and staying long term was relatively small with an average of ten per year.

·         During the pandemic, permanency work had been halted which had reduced the number of children leaving care.  At  ...  view the full minutes text for item 602.

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families and the Director of Children’s Services had been invited to the meeting to update the Panel on the Outcome of the Ofsted Inspection of Worcestershire Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) carried out in May 2023.

The Chairman of the Panel reminded Members that in 2016 the local authority had been judged by Ofsted to be ‘inadequate’ and, following statutory direction from the Department for Education (DfE), Worcestershire Children First (WCF) had been set up as a wholly-owned Council company.  WCF had taken over operational responsibility for the delivery of children’s services in October 2019 and, in the four years since, services had been transformed.  The Chairman wished to record the Panel’s thanks to the staff of WCF and to the Director of Children’s Services/ Chief Executive of WCF and her team.

In introducing the report, the Director of Children’s Services made the following main points:

·         WCF had been pleased with the outcome of the most recent Ofsted inspection and reminded the Panel that this was the first time for 15 years that services in Worcestershire had been rated as ‘good’.  It was now important that this was sustained.  WCF had received good support from the County Council.

·         The setting up of the Company (WCF) had not been the driver for change.  The main driver had been the leadership team and the support provided through additional investment.

·         Although WCF was pleased with the overall outcome, there was some disappointment that the experiences and progress of children in care had been judged as ‘requires improvement to be good’.  This was linked to the rise in workloads and the increased number of children coming into care.

·         It was pleasing to get recognition that the right thresholds of need were being applied with the right decisions being made at each stage.

·         The importance of a solid workforce was noted.  Feed back from staff was that they felt supported and liked working for WCF.

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

·         A Member of the Panel echoed the Chairman’s opening remarks and welcomed the results of the Ofsted inspection.  With reference to the issues raised in paragraph 25 of the Ofsted report, he asked why the children referred to had experienced what was described as not being the same level of service as other children in care.  In response, the Director of Children’s Services reminded the Panel that the recruitment of qualified social workers had been challenging and the use of agency social workers had sometimes led to a higher than ideal level of turnover for some children.  As numbers of children in care were rising, it was decided to allocate experienced social workers to supervise a ‘pod’ of family support workers to work with some carefully selected children in stable placements.  This was felt to be a good innovative way of working in light of the recruitment challenge.  Ofsted challenged this approach and the inspectors’ view was  ...  view the full minutes text for item 603.

The Panel considered its 2023/24 work programme.

At the request of the Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board, the Chairman invited the Panel to put forward suggestions for the next scrutiny task group.  All suggestions would be considered by OSPB on 19 October.