Agenda item

A report of the Director of Legal and Governance Services was presented to provide the latest update with regards to progress made in Legal Services, following the Ofsted report of the Inspection of Children’s Social Care Services in 2019.

Following on from the decrease in case levels reported to the Committee in April 2021, case levels had continued to fall, with care cases currently at around 70, which was half the number of cases at this time last year.  There were a number of contributory factors, including changes to gateway panel, a more effective use of the Public Law Outline (PLO) process, and Court increasing hearings further to the covid issues, meaning more cases had concluded.

In terms of the resources to meet the ongoing demand, there had been some changes to the team since the last update, following the completion of the Legal Services’ Review, which came into effect on 1 October 2021.  An additional Legal Assistant post had been recruited, with the successful candidate taking up that post on 8 November 2021.  Two additional solicitor posts were created which were currently being advertised.  Historically these posts had been difficult to recruit to, however, given the success of the last recruitment campaign it was hoped that the suitable candidates would be attracted to the posts.  One interview had taken place but unfortunately the candidate was not suitable.  It was important to get the right person for the post and more time was available to make sure that the best appointments were made.  It was suggested that it would be useful to have a copy of the Legal Services’ Structure available online.

The Review had also introduced the role of Senior Lawyer to lead the Children’s Team and be the specialist lawyer and first point of contact for the team and for the client department.  This appointment provided the Head of Legal (People) with additional time to be involved in the strategic discussions and projects that supported the improvement journey.

By way of general team update, two permanent Solicitors took up their posts in March and April 2021.  The appointment to these roles had been a great success, and the feedback from both our internal and external partners, had been unanimously positive.   The Designated Family Judge for Teesside had stated that there had been a ‘huge difference with the new lawyers’, namely being more responsive to issues, filing orders within timescales, and that she was pleased with the improvements made to date.  Further feedback received yesterday indicated that there had been huge improvements in presentation, communication and the conduct of cases in Court.  In relation to Children’s Services there was more confidence in case planning and this was being done in a timely manner and where issues were encountered, solutions were forthcoming.

The Court Progression Manager (CPM) had been in post for five months. This post was in the Legal Services Children’s Team and acted as the lead officer, liaising between Legal Services and Children’s Services, to ensure the timely progression of cases in family court proceedings.  This role was a key part of the contribution to the improvement journey.  The current postholder was also a qualified Social Worker.  The first three months in this new post were spent building internal and external relationships and gaining an understanding of what the issues were that prevented timely progression. This led to some joint objectives being developed between Children’s Services and Legal, looking at both moving cases through proceedings and the outcomes, and the quality of evidence being drafted.  A performance scorecard to track the improvements had been developed and was shared on a monthly basis with Children’s Services.  This new role had been recognised both internally and externally as a great addition to the team, particularly with Cafcass, and with the Designated Family Judge.

As previously reported, Legal Services had been through a procurement process in order to ensure best value for the outsourcing of some cases to local Childrens’ Solicitors firm for the 21/22 financial year.  This was based on the high levels of care cases at that time.  It was not the intention that this outsourcing would continue long term, and was twin-tracked with other projects to consider how the service could be better resourced to meet demands.  The intention was that there would be up to 100 cases outsourced as part of the procurement project.  This came into effect in April 2021, and in the first six months, a total of 13 cases had been outsourced, with none since July 2021. This was due to the positive impact of other strategies, including the reduction of care cases.  It was clarified that whilst this was not a budget saving, pressure on the Legal Services budget would be reduced as fewer cases had been outsourced. 

Since the last report, Legal Services had continued to contribute to the improvement journey for Children’s Services in a number of ways, both strategically and operationally.  Monthly audits continued as part of the 1:1 sessions between the team members and managers.  This had seen an improvement in practice, for example, making sure that the legal planning meetings were taking place approximately two to three weeks before final evidence was due in a case, which identified any issues at the earliest opportunity.  There had been a huge improvement the way Legal Services worked collaboratively with Children’s Service.  Monitoring and tracking of Proceedings had improved and the Service was proactive rather than reactive when any issues occurred.

Further to the ‘Care Order at home’ work that was completed, the Head of Legal Services had been one of the leads in another project undertaken by a subsidiary of the Local Family Justice Boards, which was tasked at looking at a response into the ‘Born Into Care’ Paper, published by the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory.  The report provided evidence over the period 2012-2020 in relation to the number of newborn babies and infants in care proceedings in England and Wales, as well as the frequency of urgent hearings in those cases.  The North East region was identified as being an outlier in terms of care proceedings being issued within the first 7 days of a child being born.  Working Groups were held across a number of Local Authorities and their partner agencies to look at the reasons for the trends that emerged from the paper, and practice in this area could be improved.  Audits were conducted across some sample cases, and subsequently reviewed by Cafcass, to consider whether, with the benefit of hindsight, the action taken at the time was the correct plan.  The feedback had been extremely positive and the leads would feed back to the Local Family Justice Board, and local Children’s Services, about the learning points.

Work had continued on the response to the March 2021 Public Law Working Group report ‘Recommendations to achieve best practice in the child protection and family justice systems’.  Some immediate changes had been made, with the longer term actions now being put into an action plan so that progress could be monitored.  This evidenced the improved working relationship between Childrens’ and Legal Services and collaborative working to resolve the challenges.

AGREED that the information provided was received and noted.