Agenda item

The Cabinet Member with Responsibility for Children and Families introduced the report and explained that various services which supported children, young people and young adults were spread across four service areas and it was proposed that the services be moved together to enable a strengthened, integrated service. The staff in the Young Adults Team would be transferring from Adult Social Care to Worcestershire Children First under TUPE.

There was a need for change to improve the experience for young people and minimise disruption for them; the development was not a cost saving exercise. It was acknowledged that there had been some concerns at the Scrutiny session that the Young Adult Team would be diluted but efforts would be made to ensure that did not happen and that disruption was minimised. The change was not part of the SEND improvement journey, but rather was due to the responsibility the County Council had to integrate and improve services generally.

The Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care explained that the changes were being made in order to smooth the transition for individuals from Children’s services to adults and that they did not intend to lose the good work done by the Young Adult Team. There would be more focus on management within the single integrated system and benefits had been seen in many other authorities who had already carried out a similar change. The public participation at Scrutiny had been welcomed and the Children and Families Scrutiny panel had agreed to the proposals.

Various questions were asked by Members outside the Cabinet;

·       It was queried whether this decision could be paused until the next Cabinet. Stakeholders had a number of concerns and it was felt that the documents did not show how the actions would improve services,

·       It was pointed out that the SEND Ofsted inspection had said there had been a lack of engagement with the SEND service and it was felt that there had been a lack of engagement with stakeholders over the proposed plan.

·       One questioner felt that Cabinet did not have the full story that Scrutiny had had and was concerned at the amount of opposition to the plans.

·       It was queried whether a new Director was the best use of resources; and it was pointed out that the Equality Impact Assessment was not as good as it should be; and that co-production should have been the aim

The Chairman responded that Worcestershire was ‘behind the curve’ in this area and that the quality of SEND services should not be conflated with improving integration of services for young people. There was no logic in having a fragmented service, but assurance was given that the Legal duties in this area would remain with the County Council as Worcestershire Children First was a wholly owned Council Company.

It was pointed out that this was the first stage of integration and co-production would take place but needed time to be developed. Concerns had been raised at Scrutiny but it was not right to delay improvements. With regard to the additional spend, assurance was given that most of the money had gone on front line staff and one additional manager to ensure adults were represented in Worcestershire Children First.

RESOLVED that Cabinet:

(a)  Approved the development of an All Age Disability Service (0-25);

(b)  Approved the transfer of staff resource in the Young Adult’s team (TUPE) to be hosted by WCF as part of an All Age Disability Service (0-25) - Integrating SEND Team, Children with a Disability Team and Young Adults Team, to improve the customer experience and drive better short and long term outcomes;

(c)  Noted that the budget for provision and care packages remains in People Services but will be operationally managed by the new All Age Disability (0-25) service;

(d)  Delegated authority to the Strategic Director of Commercial and Change and AD for Legal and Governance in consultation with the Strategic Director for People, Director of Children’s Services and Chief Finance Officer to amend the contract with WCF and performance reporting as needed to deliver the above;

(e)  Delegated authority to Worcestershire Children First to exercise, on the Council’s behalf, the functions of Part 1 of the Care Act 2014 in respect of children and young people up to age 25 years with the exceptions set out in paragraph 26 of the report pursuant to s79 of the Care Act.