Agenda item

Tina Russell updated Board members about the Inspection of Children’s Services. In January 2016 the Authority was found to be ‘Overall Inadequate’; however, by July 2019 the ‘considerable progress in improving the quality of services’ was recognised and there was a strengthened workforce and Senior Leaders and elected Members were ambitious and committed to the well-being, safety and outcomes for children in the County.

Headlines from the inspection were:

·       Children were brought into care where necessary;

·       Assessments were timely and comprehensive

·       The majority of children were settled in placements and moved into permanency in a timely way.

·       Reviews were well chaired by IROs

·       Supervisors understood the needs of the children and worked well with foster carers and adoption agencies

·       Personal Advisors built positive relationships with young people and encouraged them to achieve in education and employment

·       Each young person had their own care plan but the needs of sibling groups were considered

·       Long term stability had improved and consolidation meetings were held to provide support and challenge rather than an automatic acceptance of a placement breakdown

Tina went through the areas that inspectors had identified could be worked on to move us to a “good” service.

Tina told the Board that Inspectors noted that “in some cases, a small minority” of the plans and assessments and quality wasn’t there yet for all children, all the time and getting consistency was a key area for continued service improvement.

Plans for our Edge of Care were explained and Inspectors said plans looked good but they could not make a judgement on them as they were not yet in place.

Assessments by the Homeless Intervention team needed to be more fully evidenced and although there were favourable comments regarding the consolidation meetings they were told that young people could be asked how things could be done better.

There was a commitment to continuous improvement by providing support and guidance to allow a young person to gain independence and transition to adulthood; work would continue with the Districts and housing providers to increase the availability of suitable accommodation and work was needed to engage with health services to improve the mental health services for children in care to get them recognised as the most vulnerable and allow them to become priorities.

The Service Business Plan was explained; it showed areas for improvement, projects and areas of innovation which all relied on the four key pillars of Senior Leaders, workforce and culture, Worcestershire Safeguarding Children Partnership and Inspections.

It was explained that Worcestershire would no longer have inspection visits every 12 weeks but they would have focussed inspections and there was a strong possibility that they would receive a Joint Targeted Area Inspection which would specifically look at Children’s emotional health and well-being. A Task and Finish Group had been set up to prepare for a possible inspection.

It was commented that:

·       mental health should be a priority but it would rely on joint working with partners

·       it appeared that some of the targets in the KPIs were not being achieved – it was explained that progress had been made and the targets set were very high to drive best practice

·       The issue of Children’s emotional health and well-being was also being considered by the Children’s and Families Scrutiny Panel, the Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and the Health and Well-being Board.

RESOLVED that the Corporate Parenting Board noted this update following the Ofsted Inspection Visit.