Issue - meetings

Scrutiny of Children’s Social Care

Witnesses:

Mary Lewis, Cabinet Member for Children, Young People and Families

Jacquie Burke, Director for Family Resilience & Safeguarding, Children’s Services

Lesley Hunt, Service Manager, Children’s Services

Key points raised during the discussion:

1.    The Director provided an update on progress since their last appearance at the Committee. The critical activity was the implementation of the Directorate wide restructure. Levels of need were reviewed leading to the creation of a new social work document (Effective Family Resilience). The service had trained close to 2,000 people across the public sector in Surrey using this document in preparation for the new Single Point of Access (SPA). Ofsted visited and published positive report; the council met all of its commitments. Staffing issues persist but there were plans in place to resolve these.

2.    The level 2 early help offer had been recommissioned, the key difference was that the service commissioned on an outcomes basis and had implemented robust contract management.

3.    Four permanent Assistant Directors have been recruited to lead the quadrant that social care teams are organised into across the county. They had responsibility for creating effective relationships and would hold regular family resilience network meetings involving statutory partners and providers.

4.    The Committee returned to the issue of recruitment and were advised that this was not purely a Surrey problem. The appointment of a new Assistant Director from Hampshire County Council was positive. The Director further explained that council office space was often in the wrong places to visit families from. As a result, north east practitioners have relocated to a building in Walton-on-Thames. There have been improvements to line management, caseload sizes and supervision.

5.    The Director thought that there were many former social workers who would be keen to return to the profession so had created a return to social work programme. The service also aimed to persuade agency workers to become permanent staff, implement an overseas recruitment programme and would work with Community Care to promote its successes.

6.    Members asked about developing our own workforce. The Director confirmed this was happening with many Family Support Workers retraining to become social workers. Apprenticeships were also being used. The Cabinet Member reminded the Committee of the existence of the council’s Children’s Workforce Academy.

7.    The Director advised that nearly 800 case audits had been done and practice improvements were noticeable. Audits show good direct work, management oversight, preparation for court and in court work. The inadequate cases were tracked to ensure lessons were learned. The Director admitted that plans are not as good as expected though not unsafe. A review of the case management system was underway as another mitigation measure.

8.    A Member asked about the usage of services in Surrey Heath and the problems of travelling to different premises. The Service Manager confirmed the service was in the process of moving and provision of universal services had ended in the area. The service were in the process of transforming the Old Dean centre, they will  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5