Agenda item

The Director of Children's Services will provide feedback from the recent Ofsted monitoring visit.

The Director of Children's services provided feedback to the Board following the recent Ofsted monitoring visit.

 

The Director first outlined that Children's Services now had a new logo- Middlesbrough Children Matter, which was a positive step and would provide focus.

 

The Board were made aware that this was the first virtual inspection , which had been carefully planned and carried out of 2 days. Prior to the inspection, the Council had provided documents and evidence  for the Inspectors.

 

During the visit, the inspectors reviewed the progress made at the 'front door' of the service, with a focus on:

·         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,

·         and the quality of initial assessment and planning

A  range of evidence was considered, including electronic case records, case discussions with social workers, the elected member for children’s services and senior leaders, and management and performance reports provided by the local authority.

 

Overall findings

 

Ofsted outlined that the local authority has made some progress in improving certain areas. The word some is used by Ofsted as a mean of evidence progress. The areas of improvement were as follow:

·         the social work practice in their ‘front door’ service

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

·         performance monitoring including a new quality assurance framework

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

The Board were made aware that in terms of the multi-agency Children's Hub (MACH), Middlesbrough had a joint MACH with Redcar and Cleveland, however from the first inspection, it was evident that Middlesbrough did not have sufficient oversight of the service and therefore it was decided to disaggregate, which has been great progress.

 

Despite the progress the Director outlined that it was pointed out that  leaders know that there is significant work to do in improving the quality of practice for children and young people in other areas of the service which remains not good enough.

 

The Director outlined some of the strengths of findings:

 

Leadership

 

·         The Director of Children's Services has demonstrated a determination and vision for improving the quality of interventions that will make a difference for children and their families.

·         There is a continuing commitment from the Chief Executive and lead member both of whom are fully engaged in the improvement work.

·         Senior leaders have a realistic understanding of the endemic weakness in social work practice informing an appropriately focused improvement plan.

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

·         Manager oversight has also improved some areas of social work practice, but this is not consistent. The supervision of social workers is not always regular or effective.

·         Caseloads are too high and are affecting social workers’ ability to provide a timely service for children and their families. The Director outlined that the service was embarking on a significant piece of work to address this and look at resources.

·         Safeguarding partners represented on the improvement board are increasingly engaged and showing increasing ownership of their part in the improvement of children’s services.

·         A model of quality assurance, ‘Audit for Excellence’, is starting to provide a robust practice of auditing linked to individual and team performance. Combined with the improved performance monitoring there is a collective ownership of performance and prompt identification of gaps in practice. This is informing team and wider service improvements.

·         It was also noted that we have scrutiny  and challenge from our members, which is a positive step.

Middlesbrough Multi Agency Children's Hub (MACH)

 

·         This visit found substantially improved practice in the Middlesbrough MACH in the quality of referrals and screening, and the decision-making and manager oversight.

·         Screening takes account of the child and family’s history, and of the multi-agency information forming a balanced analysis of risk.

·         Management oversight at this early stage provides direction and guidance for the social worker in how to screen the contact.

·         Workers seek consent appropriately, and it is clearly recorded including when consent is needed to be overridden.

·         Most contacts by partner agencies are converted to a referral for a social work service. This demonstrates that there is an improved understanding of thresholds by referring agencies.

·         When children are identified as needing an immediate response, strategy meetings are held promptly, and in most cases, all safeguarding partners are represented.

·         Strategy meetings explore risk.

·         Lack of safety planning at the point of the Strategy meeting is a missed opportunity to ensure that partners understood their role and the actions necessary to keep children safe.

·         Young people aged16-17-years old who present as homeless, are now screened effectively to establish their needs, risks and vulnerabilities, with appropriate progression to a referral for an assessment.

Assessment Team
 

·         The quality of some children’s assessments has improved since the last inspection.

·         Most assessments are not completed within a timeframe which supports the child's identified needs.

·         Risk is better understood through a recognised risk methodology

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

·         Children’s identity and diversity needs are narrowly understood

·         Children’s plans are not consistently effective in outlining the plan of intervention and a contingency for when children’s circumstances are not improved.

·         Often the initial plan developed from the assessment is brief. Better plans identify the area of need and provide clear timescales in which to see improvement and a contingency plan if this is not achieved.

·         There has been a rigorous approach to safety planning for children during to the COVID-19 pandemic, with the service completed 2,700 safety plans for the most vulnerable children in Middlesbrough.

In terms of next steps, the Director advised that they were continue to be under scrutiny , although one aspect  which would be constantly under review would be the recruitment and retention of social workers.

 

·         The Commissioner would undertake a  6 month review between 9th , 10th and 11th November  which would be a series of focus groups, meetings with leaders and thematic meetings.

·         Ofsted’s next steps;  there will be an assurance visit, which will look at the whole of children's services.

·         Focus on improvement – Ofsted will undertake a full inspection between October 2020 and March 2021. This will include 3 inspectors for a 3 day inspection.

·         Regional self assessment

The Chair thanked the Director for her presentation and commended the service for their improvements.

 

A board member questioned what the caseloads for social workers was currently and whether sickness levels of social workers had increased.

 

In response, the Director outlined that on occasion caseloads have been 30, however this was just a number and did not take into account the complexity of cases. The Director of Children's Care advised that sickness levels for social workers had increased slightly, however sickness across the whole of the Council had increased. Covid-19 and work related stress have been a factor , however further details of sickness would be brought back to a future meeting of the Board.

 

Another board member also commended social workers who have remained on the front line to conduct 1:1 sessions with families whilst putting their own lives at risk.

 

With this, the Chair asked the Directors to pass on the Board's thanks and gratitude to the social workers, for their continued dedicated during this time.

 

AGREED:

 

1.     That the update on the monitoring visit be noted

2.     That the Board received sickness level information in relation to social workers at a future meeting