Agenda item

The Director of Children’s Care and the Analytics Manager will present the performance scorecard to the Board.

The Head of Looked after Children and Corporate Parenting was in attendance and provided the Board with information relating to the Corporate Parenting Board scorecard.

 

The Head of Service 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.

 

At the last meeting, the Board had asked for further information on demographics of our children looked after, which the Board was as follows:

 

·        Gender -54% of the current looked after population are male with 1% of these young boys being Unaccompanied Asylum Seekers. 45% of the looked after population are female.

·        Ethnicity - The highest percentage of the children in our care are of a White British ethnicity (81%).

·        8% of children are of mixed ethnicity and 7% are Black or Black British.

The Board were advised that the most common reason for a child to become looked after was due to abuse or neglect.  97 children have become looked after in the last 6 months to protect them from this cause.  This was only a slight increase from 2020/2021 however remains significantly higher than our statistical neighbours and the England average. 

 

Further main points to note were as follows:

 

Demand

·        In January 2021 there were 617 children looked after in the authority. 

·        There has been a rapid reduction over the year demonstrating an increase of 17% over the last 12 months and an overall 27% reduction since the height of 702 children in September 2020.  For every 0.6 children entering care, one child exits care.  This ratio has been maintained for 6 months

Children supported to become not looked after

 

Future for Families have supported 50 young people on the edge of care since they went live.

Of the 50, 37 (74%) of these did not become looked after.

 

•        21 were supported on a child in need level (57%)

•        11 remain supported on a child in need level

•        10 (47%) no longer require a child in need plan and are no longer supported by the LA

•        16 were subject to child protection procedures (43%)

•        10 remain supported on a child protection level

•        4 (25%) have stepped down and receive child in need support

•        2 (13%) no longer require any service from Children’s Social Care  

Demand – Caseloads

 

•        Caseloads have consistently reduced since December 2020 and throughout the improvement journey. 

•        Whilst the average per service area varies slightly, the average caseloads across Children’s social care is currently 16.7.  This will support the service to drive improvements in the quality of practice.

 

 

 

 

Permanency

 

•        Children Placed with Parents - The number of children placed with a parent and subject to a Care Order has reduced significantly since January 2021.  There are currently 47 children placed with a parent.  This is a 52% overall reduction since the height on 99 children in September 2020. 

•        Connected Carers – There are currently 114 children looked after and placed with a Connected Carer.  This has reduced from a height of 212 in 2020 (46%).

•        Adoption - The average number of days from entering care to being placed in an adoptive placement has reduced from a height of 558 days in 2019/20 to 382 days in October 2021.  (Adoption Score Care data for Q2)

 

Placement Stability

 

•        Less than 5% of the looked after population have experienced a placement breakdown in the last 12 months. 

 

•        In January 2021, 123 looked after children had experienced three or more placements over the last twelve months.  This amounted to 20% of the looked after population.

 

•        This has reduced to 36 children in December 2021.  This equates to 7% of the current looked after population. We are currently below all external benchmarks, and are also below our outturn for 2020/21.

 

 

 

Finally the Head of Service outlined some of the quality and impacts:

 

Visits

94% of looked after children have been seen within the last 6 weeks.  This was a 5% decrease from last month.  This has been consistently high at over 90% since May.

 

Supervision/Management Oversight

94% of looked after children have had a supervision within the month of December 2021.

This is a 5% decrease from last month.  This has been consistently high at over 90% since May 2021.

 

Personal Education Plans

Performance in relation to PEPs remains high at 99% of children having a recorded PEP within the last 6 months.  This performance has remained consistently high and has not dropped below 93% for the last 12 months.

 

Health Assessments

90.8% of health checks have been conducted and recorded within the last 12 months.  This does not take in to account those older children who have refused a medical assessment.

Performance has been consistently high at over 90% for the last 12 months.

Dental checks – 66.1% of children have had a dental check in the last 12 months. 

 

The Head of Service was thanked for her presentation. 

 

AGREED

·        That the information be noted