Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest made by Members at this point in the meeting.

 

 

The minutes of the previous meeting of the Children and Young People’s Social Care and Services Scrutiny Panel held on 12 October 2020 were submitted and approved as a correct record.

 

** SUSPENSION OF COUNCIL PROCEDURE RULE NO. 5 - ORDER OF BUSINESS

 

AGREED: In accordance with Council Procedure Rule No. 5, the Scrutiny Panel agreed to vary the order of business to consider the agenda items in the following order: 5, 6, 4.

 

The Executive Director of Children’s Services will provide an update on the recent Ofsted visit to the Multi Agency Children’s Hub (MACH).

S Butcher, Executive Director of Children’s Services, and R Farnham, Director of Children’s Care, were in attendance at the meeting to provide the Panel with an update on the recent Ofsted monitoring visit to the Multi-Agency Children’s Hub (MACH).

 

The Panel was advised that two Ofsted Inspectors had carried out a ‘virtual’ monitoring visit over a two-day period on 23-24 September 2020.

 

During the monitoring visit, the inspectors focussed on progress made by the MACH, the ‘front door’ of Children’s Services, particularly:-

 

·         The quality and screening of referrals.

·         The identification of, and response to, risk.

·         The understanding by partner agencies of threshold decisions for social work support.

·         The quality of initial assessment and planning.

 

A significant amount of evidence was provided before and during the visit and Inspectors held case discussions with frontline staff and held interviews with Members and Officers involved in the improvement programme.

 

The findings of the visit were provided immediately at the end of the second day and summarised in a subsequent letter, dated 16 October 2020.  The letter would not be published on the Ofsted website, however, a copy had been circulated to all Members and partners.

 

In summary, the overall findings stated that the Local Authority had made some progress in the following areas:-

 

·         Social Work practice in the ‘front door’ of the Service.

·         The immediate response to 16-17 year old homeless young people.

·         Performance monitoring including a new quality assurance framework.

·         Improving strategic oversight of services for children and young people.

 

The Executive Director stated that Leaders acknowledged that there was still significant work to do in improving the quality of practice for children and young people in other areas of the Service.

 

In terms of leadership, the Panel was advised that the Inspectors found:-

 

·         Continuing commitment from the Chief Executive and Lead Member.

·         Determination and vision for improving the quality of interventions making a difference for children and families.

·         Senior leaders had a realistic understanding of the endemic weakness in practice informing an appropriately focussed Improvement Plan.

 

In terms of the MACH, Inspectors found:-

 

·         Substantially improved practice in the quality of referrals, screening, decision-making and management oversight.

·         An exponential increase in demand due to a necessary change in the application of thresholds for service and a lack of throughput for children’s cases.

·         Most contacts by partner agencies were converted to referrals for a social work service, demonstrating an improved understanding of thresholds by referring agencies.

 

In relation to the Assessment Teams, the Inspectors found:-

 

·         The quality of some children’s assessments had improved but most were not completed within a timeframe that supported the child’s identified needs.

·         Risk was better understood.

·         The child’s voice was heard through direct work, however, children’s voices and their lived experience was not consistently seen in all casework.

·         Children’s diversity needs and identity were narrowly understood.

·         There had been a rigorous approach to safety planning for children during the Covid-19 pandemic, in particular a multi-agency approach to children living with domestic abuse during lockdown.

 

In brief,  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20/17

The Panel is asked to discuss and consider the possible Terms of Reference for its review of Sufficiency and Permanency (Perceptions of Children in Care).

Proposed Draft Terms of Reference for the current review topic of ‘Sufficiency and Permanency (Perceptions of Children in Care)’ were shared with the Panel at the meeting for consideration and comment.

 

During discussion, it was suggested that Term of Reference 1) be amended to include placement types.

 

The Democratic Services Officer agreed to make the amendment and to circulate to the Panel following the meeting, for further comment. 

 

The proposed Terms of Reference were as follows:-

 

1.     To examine the numbers and profile of Middlesbrough’s Children Looked After population and placement types and how we compare both nationally and to statistical neighbours.

 

2.     To establish a profile of Middlesbrough’s foster carers, including current recruitment and retention initiatives and to examine the availability of placements for Children Looked After in Middlesbrough.

 

3.     To investigate the issues around permanency, including adoption, and to examine any initiatives and areas of best practice.

 

4.     To challenge people’s perceptions of children in care and to create a better understanding of Children Looked After for everyone involved in the process.

AGREED as follows:-

 

1.     That the suggested amendment be made to the proposed Terms of Reference and that they be circulated to Panel Members for final comment.

 

That the Chair be given authority to finalise and approve the Terms of Reference, as set out above, once all comments had been received.

The Executive Director of Children’s Services will be in attendance to provide the Panel with further information in relation to Children Looked After.

P Jemson, Head of Children Looked After and Corporate Parenting, and P Rudd, Head of Futures for Families and Residential Care Service Manager, were welcomed to the meeting.  They had been invited to attend alongside the Executive Director and Director of Children’s Care to provide the Panel with information in relation to placement stability and placement breakdowns.  This followed on from the profile of Middlesbrough’s Children Looked After provided at the Panel’s previous meeting.

 

In terms of placement type and provision, it was reported that 73% of Children Looked After in Middlesbrough lived in a foster placement, this included connected persons (kinship care) placements.  This had increased from 69% the previous year.  The presentation included a table highlighting the placement types.  There were currently 343 placements (52%) with in-house carers.  This had increased from 42% the previous year and 125 private placements.

 

The Panel was informed that recently published data showed that 51% of Middlesbrough children were placed outside of the town, however, to provide context, from October 2020 only 18% of Middlesbrough children were currently placed more than 20 miles away from Middlesbrough, meaning that 82% of children were placed within 20 miles of Middlesbrough.

 

In relation to placement stability, this was higher than the national average and statistical neighbours and it was highlighted that 64% (123) of children that had been looked after for two and a half years or more had remained in the same placement for two or more years.  Whilst placement moves were sometimes due to a placement breaking down, there were positive reasons for a placement move such as a child being moved to an adoptive placement. 

 

Within the last 12 months: 469 of Middlesbrough’s Children Looked After were in their first and only placement; 147 children had experienced two placement moves; 49 had three placements; seven children had four placements; eight children had five placements; three children had six placements and no children had seven or more.

 

There had been a slight decrease in the number of Children Looked After and, as of today, there were a total of 680 (a reduction of nine since the Panel’s previous meeting).

 

The Panel was provided with data on placement breakdowns from the period April to October 2020 and the placement type.  In October, two in-house foster placements had broken down and two independent (external) foster placements had broken down.  There had been two external residential placements breakdowns during November.  It was noted that there had been only one connected persons placement breakdown during the period April to October.

 

The Panel was informed that work to prevent placement breakdowns and improve placement stability included:-

 

·         Corporate Parenting Strategy

·         Innovate Social Work Team

·         Futures for Families

·         LCS transformation to support improved Social Work practice and performance reporting

·         Returning children to placements in Middlesbrough

·         Data analysis – understanding the reasons why placements have ended

·         Introduction of placement disruption procedure

·         Support offer to fragile placements

 

The Chair commented that he was keen for all Elected Members to be provided with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20/19

The Chair will provide a verbal update on business conducted at the meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 5 November 2020.

A verbal update was provided in relation to the business conducted at the Overview and Scrutiny Board meeting held on 5 November 2020, namely:-

 

·         Executive forward work programme.

·         Middlesbrough Council Covid-19 Response – Chief Exec & Dir of Public Health.

·         Executive Member update – Deputy Mayor and Lead Member for Children’s Social Care (Councillor High)

·         OSB Membership

·         Final Report – Adult Social Care & Services Scrutiny Panel – Physical Activity for older people (65+)

·         Final Report – Children & Young People’s Learning Scrutiny Panel – Addressing Poverty Issues and the impact on learning.

·         Final Report – Economic Development, Environment & Infrastructure Scrutiny Panel – Teesside Crematorium

·         Scrutiny Panel Chairs Updates.

AGREED that the information provided be noted.

The next meeting of the Children and Young People’s Social Care and Services Scrutiny Panel was scheduled for Monday, 7 December 2020 at 4.00pm.