Agenda item

The Board was asked to consider and approve the draft scrutiny report on the Relationship Between the Family Front Door (FFD) and Schools.

The Overview and Scrutiny Performance Board (OSPB) agreed to set up a Task Group at its meeting on 26 September 2018 led by Councillor Jane Potter, Vice Chairman of the Children and Families Overview and Scrutiny Panel.

The terms of reference for the scrutiny exercise were ‘to investigate how the Service is currently working, taking into account the relationship between the County Council and School partners, and the progress made since the Ofsted Inspection and subsequent monitoring visits’.

Cllrs Potter, Hotham and Jenkins (members of the Scrutiny Task Group) attended the meeting. 

Cllr Potter introduced the report and in doing so highlighted:

·         The significant improvements that had been made by Children’s Services in the last three years, since the Ofsted Inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children looked after and care leavers; and Review of the effectiveness of the Local Safeguarding Children Board.

·         The Task Group’s concerns around communication issues with schools and parental consent.

·         That 30 questionnaires were received from a range of schools, colleges and academies (including first, primary, middle, high, short stay, independent schools and a further education college). The Members of the Task Group Members visited 15 schools.

·         The Safeguarding Advisor – Education role was welcomed by schools and was a significant support to them.

Cllr Hotham also concurred that Safeguarding Advisor – Education was invaluable to schools and mentioned the role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL’s) Champions Scheme, which was proving to be a helpful support to schools and would be good to expand. The Community Social Workers and Family Support Workers were also a valuable support to those schools that worked with them. In addition, Cllr Jenkins made the point that some schools rarely contacted the FFD and when they did, they were less certain of the process than those schools in frequent contact and referring regularly.

Cllr Potter thanked the members of the Task Group and Officers for their support and contribution to the work of the Task Group.

During the discussion, the following main points were made:

·         It was suggested that the report was excellent, and the recommendations should be endorsed.

·         A concern was expressed that if a family refused to give parental consent for a referral to be made to the FFD, the pathway was not clear.  It was suggested that these children were most vulnerable, and it was important to find a way to help them.

·         A member emphasised paragraph 20 of the Report, which highlighted the difficulty that schools sometimes faced in getting through to the FFD on the telephone at the start or end of the day as recognisable from her experience of her local school.

·         Concern was expressed about the response rate from schools to the questionnaire sent to them and it was suggested that maybe the low response rate indicated that they were disengaging. Despite the low response rate however, it was suggested that the recommendations were excellent, and all schools would benefit from them.

·         Recommendation 8 relating to awareness training for members on the FFD and early help was welcomed by members. Cllr Potter also mentioned that she thought that members would benefit from visiting the FFD.

·         In response to a member’s suggestion that schools may be reluctant to make referrals to the FFD because they may feel that they were failing, Cllr Potter advised that this was not something that the Task Group had picked up on.  Schools did however suggest that on occasions, the history relating to a case wasn’t always considered by the FFD, as each case considered on its own merits.  This was something that concerned schools.

·         It was suggested that timescales and target for the implementation of the recommendations adopted by the CMR would be helpful.

In Summary, it was agreed that OSPB fully endorsed the Scrutiny Report on the Relationship Between the Family Front Door and Schools and that the Report should be passed to Cabinet for consideration at its meeting on 24 October 2019.  It was suggested that it would be helpful if any recommendations adopted by the CMR could be given targets and timescales for implementation.  The Board also wished to emphasise the importance of aspiring to engage and reach all schools.