Agenda item

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 monitor need and referrals and work to ensure community support was delivered via outreach and not in the Old Dean Centre.

9.    Local issues in Mole Valley were also raised. The Service Manager had expected these complaints owing to the larger percentage cut to funding in this area. Historically Mole Valley had a significantly larger proportion of funding.

10.  Some of the concerns raised came from the new provider, Dorking Nursery School, that felt there had been a disproportionate reduction. The service has a strong rationale for this and need to direct the council’s resources to those most in need. The Committee were told that the council would work with Guildford Diocese on the future of Trinity School building.

11.  Responding to a question on ensuring consistency and continuity of care in the new service model the witnesses explained that the Assistant Directors have a lead area of responsibility e.g. targeted youth services, safeguarding and assessment. Those staff will drive service plans, performance and quality. The change in model would remove the delays seen in the MASH.

12.  The range of providers in the new service would work to a consistent specification for the providers. The service had worked with the original children centres advisors to create this specification. The witnesses were confident that the service could support and challenge providers. The reduction of providers from 55 to 15 meant that a more manageable and consistent service was possible. No redundancies had been made and the service had tried to retain talent as much as possible.

13.  The Cabinet Member responded to a question regarding the ceasing of local early help advisory boards. The service was changing at pace which was unusual for the council. We have been told by the Children’s Commissioner and Ofsted that too much funding was allocated to buildings and governance and not enough on making people safe.

14.  The Committee sought assurance that the expected lowering of activity was based on evidence that demand was reducing and not as a result of people being missed. The Director was mindful of this but confirmed that numbers coming into the system were being reduced. It was reported that we previously had an open door. Partners sent cases to the council when families’ needs did not meet statutory thresholds.

15.  There was not enough partnership work being done during the assessment process. Effective Family Resilience document sets out clear levels of need. The biggest reduction was in Police contacts. Partners would now request support rather than make a referral.

16.  The Committee noted Ofsted’s reference to addressing risk in the referral system The service was making support available quicker and supporting partners with advice and guidance.

17.  The Chairman queried the impact on the service’s budget position of the new model. The Director advised that the premise of the Family Resilience model is that children stay with families as long as possible. Recruiting staff to work with parents to help. This change to practice will impact the budget. Furthermore, the Placement Panel looks at the cost and location of placements and was committed to placing more children in county.

Further information to be provided:

·         The number of audits judged inadequate from the 800 audits to be supplied to the Committee

Recommendations:

1.    That the Committee’s Performance Sub-Group monitors the quality of social work practice, service user experience and the performance of the new Family Resilience model via its regular scrutiny of the Children’s Service compendium and feeds back to the Committee as appropriate e.g. future agenda item