Agenda item

Report by Executive Director of Children Young People and Learning.

The report updates the Committee on the developments and progress made in the Children First programme since its last update in June 2021, with a focus on workforce including the Social Worker Pay Offer and the Management Assessment programme.

23.1     The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Cllr Russell, introduced the item reporting that she was pleased the Committee were reviewing the workforce area.  She reported that work had resulted in the County Council being a more stable place for employment and the new Social Worker offer, which replaced the interim package, had gained a 98% take up by eligible staff.  This showed a strong commitment from staff to the improvement journey.

23.2     The Children First Transformation Director, Mr Clark, led the Committee through the headlines in the report and then members of the Committee asked questions and a summary of those questions and answers follows:

·       The extensive staff engagement had been with all staff to ensure all needs were met, staff were supported through training and supervision sessions and the service offer improved.  All staff were being trained in motivational interviewing and the broad range of training opportunities were constantly updated.

·       The staff survey had been right across the workforce and had received a higher response rate than ever before.  There were some areas of improvement raised, such as technology not working consistently, less face-to-face peer support and feelings of isolation, many of which related to the pandemic arrangements. Each team has a representative on the Recovery Group and who feeds back ideas and top tips to their team. The next survey was programmed for January 2022 and information from that could be shared with the Committee.

·       All Members would receive an update on the Early Help Redesign proposal progress so they can keep residents updated.  The health service is looking to retain about 10 centres separately from the County Council.  Libraries are retaining many health provisions and voluntary and community groups. Work is underway looking at the most sensible use of the non-retainedEarly Help centres with asset plans for each centre being collated and reviewed.

·       Progression for Social Workers to either management or higher performing social work roles is still possible.  The removed limits on the higher end social worker level means they can provide mentoring to less experienced members of staff to provide consistency and encourage quality assurance.

·       Delayering of the structure and improvements to the scheme of delegation now meant that decision making was improved and quicker.

·       Caseloads had been stabilised through performance monitoring of case work through monthly analysis and by the Commissioner at the monthly Improvement Board.  Recent comments by Ofsted suggested caseloads appeared to be about the right level.  The difficulty with caseloads comes more from complexity rather than numbers.

·       Customer Feedback is collected through a range of methods and is something the service want to develop particularly as part of the family safeguarding model.  Ofsted use several different ways to form a judgement including speaking to individual children, parents, carers and partners. Children’s homes are normally inspected twice a year.  The Assistant Director – Corporate Parenting explained that the Corporate Parenting Panel (CPP) has key groups engaged with it, including the Children in Care Council (CiCC) and the Care Leaver’s Advisory Board (CLAB).  The young people can feed back on their experiences through CiCC, CLAB, CPP and via an annual survey.  There are also a series of CPP sub-groups, one of which is managed and co-chaired by the Chair of CLAB which the information/actions raised were collated and feedback through a “You said, we did” action plan approach.  Action: The Assistant Director – Corporate Parenting agreed to share an example of the action plan with Committee members.

·       A close eye is kept on re-referral numbers.  There are regular audits to check the threshold for referrals is correct.  In addition to internal monthly checking, referral rates are reported to the Improvement Board and Commissioner. Numbers regularly fluctuate and if a spike was sustained it would be investigated with particular attention paid to re-referrals. Action: The Children First Transformation Director agreed to share a more detailed report with Committee members on this subject outside of the meeting.

·       Child Protection Performance was an area of focus for improvement, recognising that the number of statutory visits being completed on time was only 81.7%.  A lot of activity was in train including establishing a quality assurance framework and monitoring by the Commissioner and partners in practice.

·       Work was under way at simplifying IT systems across the children’s service.  Work is being done to integrate the early help system and to look to the market to find a provider to help.  Work was underway with IT Services to develop electronic workbooks, which it is hoped would reduce bureaucracy for social workers and allow more time working directly with families.

·       To Embed Quality Standards underperforming staff were supported and mentored to help improvement.  The new job descriptions in the Social Worker offer had helped to clarify what was expected of those staff including continuing professional development and re-registration every three years.  The Improvement Board oversees all aspects of performance.  This an ongoing iterative process of supporting staff and also challenging them appropriately.

23.3     Resolved – That the Committee:

1.   Welcomes the excellent work of the service in workforce development and would welcome a further report in Summer 2022 to provide an update on the progress and impact of the management and workforce development changes as they become further embedded.  The Committee would like this to include the outcomes of any further Staff Surveys, workforce data such as staff turnover, caseloads, agency staffing and the impact the changes are having on the social worker practice for children and young people. 

2.   Recognise that further work is being progressed on Child Protection as part of the improvement journey, and would like to continue to be updated on child protection performance as part of the Children First Improvement Updates to provide assurance that improvements are being made. 

3.   Would welcome an update on the work on the simplification of the IT systems for children and young people directorate to support the workforce and enhance offers to children and young people as part of a future Children First Improvement Update report. 

4.   Asks the Cabinet Member to keep the Committee updated on the progress of work with partners and services who currently work from buildings where early help are withdrawing, to provide some assurance that the impact on the level of services available to children and families is minimal.

Cllr Russell and Mr Lozzi left the meeting at 12.15pm