Minutes:
Witnesses:
Clare Curran, Cabinet Member for Children and Families
Rachael Wardell, Executive Director – Children, Families and Learning
Tina Benjamin, Director – Corporate Parenting
The Select Committee received a written and verbal briefing on the progress of the Children’s Improvement Programme, and put questions to the Cabinet Member and officers, utilising the format and approach of the Select Committee item as a further element of the induction session.
Key points raised during the discussion:
1. The Cabinet Member introduced the Report, which provided an update on the improvement of Surrey’s Children’s Services; the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the improvement programme; the delivery of frontline services; a recap of the 2018 Ofsted judgement and subsequent monitoring visits; the intervention of the Children’s Commissioner; the continuing transformation of services for children and young people with additional needs; and the Council’s collaboration with health partners to support children and young people who have emotional wellbeing and mental health needs. The Cabinet Member asked that the Select Committee note the findings of the recent Ofsted report which acknowledged the Council’s swift response to the COVID-19 pandemic and that significant progress had been made regarding the Service’s improvement journey. Despite the positive feedback received, the Directorate was not complacent and priority action plans were in place in key areas: strengthening practice in services for children with disabilities and recognising and responding to instances where children are suffering from neglect. The improvement programme was being driven by a focus on improving outcomes for children and families and was being undertaken in collaboration with all relevant partners. The Cabinet Member highlighted the regular updates she provided to Cabinet and that the programme was subject to additional scrutiny by the Surrey Safeguarding Children Partnership.
2. A Member noted that limited funding meant that schools were having to make the decision to spend money on catch-up learning or mental health support for children in response to the increase in pupils’ mental health needs and asked how the Council identified and supported such schools, particularly those with a significant proportion of disadvantaged children. The Executive Director explained that the Education Service worked closely with Surrey schools, advising, but not directing, them on how they should use their resources and connecting them to external programmes and funding opportunities. There was no additional funding available from the Council to support such schools. The Service was seeking to generate a programme of low-cost or no-cost programmes for families; and children and families could be connected to a range of support via the Early Help Hub. The Area Schools Officers and the Schools Relationships Team facilitated communication between the Council and schools. Universal services were provided to all children and young people, regardless of the type of school they attended.
3. A Member asked what was discussed and what feedback was received at the June 2021 ‘Annual Engagement Meeting’ with Ofsted and for the next steps. The Executive Director explained that the team and inspectors discussed and reflected on the recent focused visit report, schools, education and SEND. Ofsted had indicated that it would return for a social care inspection under the Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) Framework before the end of March 2022. A new framework for inspecting services for children with additional needs and SEND provision was being developed and was expected to be implemented in 2022, and the Executive Director anticipated that SEND services in Surrey would be inspected before the end of 2022.
4. The Member asked whether children’s social work caseloads were manageable and if the Service analysed caseloads by quadrant and social work type. The Director – Corporate Parenting responded that caseloads were dynamic and subject to variances in the quadrants and practice areas and affected by connected external matters, such as backlogs within the court system. The bulk of the pressure was currently in the Family Safeguarding Team, but pressure areas varied frequently due to staff vacancies and sickness. Nevertheless, staff reported that their caseloads were still manageable. A significant number of staff were to join the Service in 2021, which would provide additional capacity.
5. A Member sought assurance that issues regarding management oversight and case planning which persisted in the Children with Disabilities (CWD) Service would be addressed, noting that an assistant director had been appointed to the Service and there was an action plan in place for improvement. The Director – Corporate Parenting responded that the appointment of an assistant director provided greater operational and strategic oversight and the assistant director was leading an immediate review of the service. There had also been a recruitment drive in the Quality Assurance Service to support the CWD Service and reviews of every child were underway to ensure that every child was safe and had an appropriate plan in place. The Director stated that the Committee could be assured of the immediate safety of children whilst the implementation of the improvement plan would take a bit longer.
6. The Director explained that care packages for CWD were often delivered by external providers and there were associated commissioning challenges, particularly in respect of staffing, which impacted social work teams. The quality and sustainability of care was monitored through commissioning arrangements and the Council was working with the market regarding service expectations and outcomes.
7. It was expected that the No Wrong Door (NWD) Service would begin operating in shadow form at the beginning of the year and become fully operational from April; a Member asked how implementation was progressing, what had been causing delays and how children and young people had been involved in the co-design of aspects of the Service. The Director explained that the Service had been operational since February and an options appraisal of current children’s homes had been undertaken; delays were due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children and young people had been sensitively relocated from the Cheyne Walk in the east of county to create capacity within the children’s home’s staff team and the Service in partnership with North Yorkshire County Council had provided training to the staff regarding the purpose of the model and how to undertake outreach work. A staff consultation was underway regarding changes to their terms and conditions resulting from the introduction of the NWD model. A site was yet to be identified in the west of Surrey. The advice received from North Yorkshire County Council was to not rush the implementation of No Wrong Door; the Director was confident that implementation was progressing at satisfactory pace given the COVID-19 pandemic and associated challenges.
8. Neglect was the most common category of harm for children subject to Child Protection plans in Surrey; a Member asked whether this was also the case in neighbouring authorities or nationally. The Executive Director responded that the way in which neglect was recorded in different local authorities varied, thus direct comparisons were difficult. The latest national data indicated that the main reasons for children to be on child protection plans were domestic abuse in the family, adult mental health difficulties in the family, neglect, and emotional abuse. Domestic abuse and adult mental health issues often manifested as neglect or emotional abuse of children.
9. The same Member asked how the Graded Care Profile 2.0 differed from the current practice model and asked why it was preferable, noting his concern regarding frequent waves of process improvement. The Executive Director acknowledged that rolling through numerous practice models and frameworks and could be risky for practice. Since being in post, the Executive Director had not disrupted the models that were already in place and was committed to the Family Safeguarding Model, the positive impact of which was evidenced by thorough research. The Graded Care Profile sat within and complemented the way in which the Service was already working and helpfully established a common language around neglect. The Executive Director explained that sometimes people making referrals to social care were unable to articulate their concerns regarding a child due to the ambiguity of neglect. The Profile, which has very clear specifications regarding what good-enough, commendable and substandard parenting look like, made pursuing and responding to those referrals easier, and enabled social workers to engage confidently with families regarding parenting by providing an effective framework for conversations and also enabled partners to make referrals confidently. The Director added that the Profile provided a common language, a better understanding of thresholds, and a benchmark for everyone to work from.
10. A benefit of the Single View of a Child project was that it would enable professionals to readily access a breadth of information relating to service users. A Member asked how the system would work in practice and what safeguards were to be implemented to ensure information was only accessed for legitimate purposes. The Executive Director responded that sharing children and young people’s information was undertaken with the consent of families, unless there were safeguarding concerns, and the basis on which information was obtained and shared was made clear to families by fair processing notices. Access to children’s records was restricted to Disclosure and Barring Service-checked children’s workers with a legitimate reason for accessing them. Structural elements enabled the Service to exclude specific users from accessing individual records and created audit trails of record access. Training was provided to all users to ensure they clearly understood information governance rules. The Single View of the Child was also built into the Service’s own systems and work was underway to create an interface with the Surrey Care Record to enable the sharing of agreed information between the Service and health partners, subject to the same safeguards. The Cabinet Member added that a key benefit of the Single View of the Child system was that it would reduce the number of times children and young people would have to tell their story – which they frequently criticised in the feedback collected by children’s services.
11. A Member asked for an explanation of employment pathway provision and whether post-16 education provision and supported internship opportunities were within or outside of Surrey. The Executive Director explained that the statutory participation age requires that children stay in education or some form of employment with training until the age of 18 years. Employment-based access to training was a good alternative for those who prefer not to remain in school until the age of 18, setting them on a positive pathway into adulthood. The Service endeavoured to keep young people in educational or vocational provision within the county, however some young people commuted a short distance to out-of-county provision to pursue opportunities better suited to them.
Resolved:
1. That the Director of Corporate Parenting share the findings of the review of the Children with Disabilities Service with the Chairman of the Select Committee for circulation to Committee members.
2. That the Director of Family Resilience and Safeguarding share the findings of the review of the Family Safeguarding Model with the Chairman of the Select Committee for circulation to Committee members.
3. That the Cabinet Member for Children and Families provide an update on the Children’s Improvement Programme at the Select Committee’s first meeting of 2022.