Agenda item

Children First Improvement Update

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 November.

Minutes:

41.1     The Committee considered a report by the Executive Director for Children, Young People and Learning which updated the Committee on the developments and progress made in the Children First Programme since its last update in November.

 

41.2     The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Cllr Russell, confirmed that she had been pleased to report to County Council in December the Minister for Children’s decision to issue a new statutory direction to pause the setting up a Children’s Trust for one year.  The milestones included in the Children’s Commissioner’s report to the DfE, accompanied by the most recent Ofsted report in October 2020 further endorsed an overall positive direction of travel on the improvement journey.  With phase one of the improvement journey completed and a broadly stabilised service in place it was now time to commence the next phase of the service redesign, moving at a vastly accelerated pace, consolidating and building on the foundation blocks achieved in 2020 to provide a new service delivering on the expectation of what good looks like.

 

41.3     The Executive Director of Children, Young People and Learning, Mrs Butler, highlighted the Ofsted inspection, which was very clear about progress made, the decision to delay the work on the establishment of a Children’s Trust and highlighted that the current lockdown would inevitably impact on some of the improvement activity.

 

41.4     The Children’s First Transformation Director introduced the report, highlighting the following key areas:

 

·       There was clear evidence that the service is making progress and is on a trajectory for improvement;

·       The Ofsted report acknowledged that the service response to the Covid-19 pandemic had been an effective one;

·       Leadership and plans were correct and appropriate, but that the pace of change needed to increase;

·       It is important to maintain excellent levels of engagement with staff to ensure they understand the programme of improvement and can fully participate in it;

·       A management assessment and development programme was progressing in January 2021.

 

41.5     A summary of responses to Committee members’ questions and comments is as follows:

 

·       The Children First Board, a sub group of the Health and Wellbeing Board, is made up of  members at a strategic level, however there are clear escalation routes from the tactical groups to ensure that views from the front line are fed into the Board which can make decisions and hold their organisations to account.

·       Each area of concern outlined by Ofsted, is referred to as a practice area and each area has its own action plan.  Future Ofsted monitoring visits will focus on specific practice areas, for which the County Council will be able to produce a clear set of actions and demonstrate how things have progressed since the previous visit.

·       The Improvement Plan which had been set against the first Ofsted inspection report had been updated against progress made including any input from the Commissioner.  The Improvement Plan could be brought to the meeting if required.

·       The service is good at hearing the voice of the child, however there are plans to improve how the voice of all children is recorded.

·       Referral rates to end of 2020 were lower than in 2019.  This was primarily due to the closure of schools in Spring 2020 as schools are the main source of referrals.  Work is continuing across the service and with partners to ensure that the County Council picks up referrals for vulnerable children.  The re-referral within a 12-month period rate for the County is in line with the national average.  Samples of re-referrals are regularly audited to check for poor practice patterns as well as being inspected by Ofsted.  The service thresholds have been endorsed by Ofsted and the Commissioner.

·       The Integrated Front Door brings together early help services and the Multi- Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) to provide a more effective triage at that front door for all levels of concerns. 

·       The Virtual School works with Children Looked After and is dedicated to ensuring educational plans are tailored to achieve the best educational outcomes for each child.  School attendance figures are reviewed monthly.  Action: The Director of Education and Skills was asked to provide a written update on how the Virtual School managed particular issues with children during the lockdown.

 

41.6     The Committee welcomed the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People’s offer to present a 2020-21 year-end report on the number of referrals, child protection plans and children entering care since the start of the pandemic to a future committee meeting as outlined in the response to recommendations.  The Committee also reiterated the importance of Partnership working in the improvement journey and welcomed the that partnership arrangements, initiatives and the assessment of their impact would form part of future update reports.

 

41.7     The Committee were also pleased to hear that the Corporate Parenting Panel (CPP) received updates on work with health partners, however they reiterated their concern about the timeliness of initial health assessments for children looked after and would welcome an update from CPP at a future meeting on the progress being made.

 

41.8     Resolved - That the Committee:

  1. Thanks the service for the huge progress made on its improvement journey, as demonstrated by the recent Ofsted visit and pause in the set-up of the Trust.
  2. Recognises the importance of partnership working to the improvement journey and will forward this to the Business Planning Group to explore a future item on the effectiveness of partnership working. 
  3. Welcomes the update on demand trends as set out in Appendix 1 and request that this information is included in subsequent improvement update reports to Committee.   

4.   Asks the Corporate Parenting Panel to monitor the improvement of Health Assessments for Children Looked After and provide feedback to the Committee on its progress at a future meeting. 

Supporting documents: