Issue - meetings

The Mayor and Lead Member for Children’s Social Care, Adult Social Care and Public Health and the Executive Director of Children’s Services submitted a report for the Executive’s consideration.

The purpose of the report was to provide an overview of the work undertaken from February 2021 to July 2021 in line with the Children’s Services Improvement Plan 2020/21 and 2021/22.

The most significant events to report were a focussed visit from Ofsted on 26 and 27 May 2021 and a visit from the Commissioner during the week commencing 12 July.

Following Middlesbrough’s focussed visit, a selection of key points were made by Ofsted, which included:

·         Leaders appropriately prioritised recruitment and the development of the workforce strategy.

·         Workers were persistent and built good relationships with children, so interventions were more effective.

·         Staff reported feeling supported, liked working for Middlesbrough and understood the vision for change.

·         Caseloads were reducing but remained too high for some social workers.

·         The quality of practice was variable and did not meet leader’s expectations.

·         Some children experienced too many changes of social worker. Children told inspectors that they would have liked a social worker who stayed with them for a long time.

·         There was a significant focus on Children Missing Education.

·         A minority of Looked after Children were on reduced timetables or had no education for too long.

Following the visit, the inspectors had made two recommendations, in addition to those made at the time of the 2019 inspection, namely:

·         To improve management oversight and actions to ensure that vulnerable children and children in care, including those with special needs and/or disabilities (SEND), receive their full educational entitlement

·         To improve the understanding of identity and the diverse needs of children and their families to inform assessment, planning and support.

With regard to the visit from the Commissioner, the Commissioner had stated that “considerable progress has been made and there is evidence of real impact” and a recommendation would be put forward that “no further direct engagement of an appointed commissioner is required and continued monitoring and support to improvement is afforded by the Improvement Adviser and the core DfE team”. It was planned that the recommendation would be presented to the Minister on 8 September, for a decision to be made by 15 September 2021.

Further information on the feedback received from Ofsted, and the Commissioner, was detailed at paragraphs 5 to 13 of the submitted report.

ORDERED

That the overview of the strategic and operational work, undertaken between February 2021 and July 2021 in line with the Children’s Services Improvement Action Plan 2020/21 and 2021/22, be noted.

REASON

To ensure Executive Members were fully appraised of the work to improve outcomes for vulnerable children in Middlesbrough and were able to hold officers to account when progress was not made as planned.