The Analytics Manager will provide the Board with the performance scorecards.
Minutes:
The Director of Children’s
Care was in attendance and provided the Board with information relating to the
Corporate Parenting Board scorecard.
The Director advised that the scorecard was in place
for the Corporate Parenting Board to see how our performance was progressing
and have the opportunity to challenge anything where you saw wasn’t meeting
target.
The main points to note were as follows:
DEMAND
·
There has been an 22.3% reduction in overall numbers of children looked
after since August 2020
·
Since the height of 702 looked after children during September
2020, there has been a reduction of 157 looked after children.
·
136 children and young people have ceased to be looked after in the last
6 months.
·
The number of children in Connected Carers placements has dropped from
210 in Sep 2020 to 112 July 2021 (47% reduction).
·
Since Jan 2021 there has been 54 Connected Carers placements commence and
114 cease.
·
The number of children placed with parents has dropped from 99 in
September 2020 to 58 in August 2021 (41% reduction).
·
Since Jan 2021 there has been 17 Placement with Parents commence and 51
cease.
·
There is an increased number of children in
Fostering to Adopt placements.
·
In September 2020 the data evidences that for every child ceasing to be
looked after, 1.9 children started to become looked after. This means that more children were becoming
looked after than ceasing and the looked after population continued to
increase.
·
There has been a month on month reduction in this throughout the year
until March 2021 when improvements resulted in less children becoming looked
after than those ceasing.
·
This progress has continued. In
June 2021 for every child ceasing to be looked after 0.6 children became looked
after. This has remained static for the
last 3 months.
Permanency
Placements with Parents
– the most recent
forecasting model demonstrates a reduction in the number of children subject to
care proceedings and placed with a parent.
In September 2020 there were 99 children living at home and subject to a
Care Order. This has reduced to 59
children in September 2021. This is
40.4% reduction.
SGOs/CAO- In July 2020 there was a height of 212
children cared for by family or friends in connected carer placements. This has reduced through improvement work to
support children to achieve permanence.
In August 2021 this reduced to 122 children. (42.4% reduction). 75 Special Guardianship Orders have been
granted in the last 12 months.
This has been achieved through increased management oversight within
Legal Gateway Panel, Permanency Monitoring Group, an investment in a
commissioned service and a drive on performance management.
·
There is a 56% increase of number of adoption orders in the year 20/21
(25) compared to 2019/2020 (16).
·
In this year to date 13 Adoption Orders have been secured. There are
currently a further 33 children progressing to adoption with Placement Orders.
·
The local authority is on track to increase the number of children
subject to adoption orders significantly in this financial year.
·
The graph evidences a significant reduction in the number of days between
children entering care to being placed in an adoptive placement. This has reduced from 641 days in January to
364 in July 2021.
·
The 20/21 adoption score card evidences that the in the 12 months leading
up to 31 March 2021 the average number of days between Placement Orders and
Adoption Order has reduced to 189 days.
The 3 year average is 323 days.
Placements
·
There has been an increase in the number of children placed outside
of a 20 mile radius of Middlesbrough. 13
children moved to placements out of Middlesbrough in August.
·
When considering placement moves it is important to consider what kind of
placement the child is moving to.
·
Positively, of the 13 – 3 children were placed in
adoptive placements and 3 children placed with family in connected carers
arrangements.
·
6 children were placed in foster care – of which 5
placements were in house foster placements and 1 in an external residential
placement. The YP that moved to a
residential placement moved from an unregulated placement to a regulated
placement following a nationwide search for a local regulated provision.
·
There has been consistent improvements since November 2020 regarding the
number of children who have experienced a single placement in the last 12
months.
·
This has remained stable at just below 70% of the looked after population
since May 2021.
·
In the same period last year 17.3% of the looked after population had
experienced 3 or more placement moves.
This has reduced to 5.4% of the looked after population in August 2021
and evidences significant improvements to this indicator.
·
There is also evidence that there has been a stable reduction in the
number of children experiencing placement endings.
Quality and Impact
Of the 177 care
experienced young people:-
•
73 young people are in full time education
training or employment
•
16 YP are in part time employment education or
training
•
17 YP are NEET due to disability or illness
•
16 YP are NEET due to pregnancy or parenting
•
55 YP are NEET for other reasons
This would amount to 50.3% of the care leaving
population being engaged in either full or part time education training and
employment and 49.7% NEET. A
stable 70% of post 16 children in Education, Employment or training (EET) and
40% of care leavers are EET. We have a Board in place who is supported by a
number of partners, including social workers and community learning and we look
at specific cases as to why they cannot attend EET. There is a specific NEET
group with has a specific action plan. There are such complexities which often
help it difficult to engage. Community learning help our young people through
EYI and routes to work. There are also opportunities for care experienced young
people to apply for council positions, and whilst it is early days, we hope
that big differences will be seen.
The Director was thanked for her presentation.
AGREED- That the date be noted.