Decision details

The Chair welcomed John Readman, Interim Executive Director of Education and Children's Services; Debbie Duffell, Head of Children and Family Wellbeing Service; Grant Murdoch, Subject Matter Expert (Children) Programme Office; Victoria Gent, Head of Service Children's Social Care – East; Halima Sadia, Social Worker; Lisa Sowden, Children Social Care Team Manager - East; and Wenda Tyrer, WPEH Team Leader, Children and Family Wellbeing Service – Lancaster District; to the meeting.

The report presented highlighted the key findings of a range of inspections that had taken place in Children's Services in the last year. It gave an overview of strengths and areas of developments. It also delineated governance structures and plans in place to support effective improvement going forward.

Since February 2017 there had been 13 different external inspections or reviews of Children's Services. There had been 4 monitoring visits by Ofsted, 2 looking at services for children looked after, 1 at Children in Need and 1 looking at the multi-agency safeguarding hub arrangements.

The Committee was informed that from April 2017 to February 2018 the Children and Family Wellbeing Service had supported 5,087 families made up of around 15,417 children and young people. Children's Social Care dealt with 1,908 Children in Need, 1,314 children subject to a child protection plan, and 1,949 Children Looked After. Also there was around 90 children open to the leaving care service. Other key service areas were the Fostering Adoption Residential Service, the Youth Offending Service, and the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Service.

Regarding rural areas Members Were informed that the Children and Family Wellbeing resources were deployed around all districts in the County including the rural areas. There was also an outreach model for rural areas. The Team also worked very closely with colleagues in Children's Social Care and was looking to integrate those resources.

It was reported that there were ongoing challenges around recruitment and retention of social workers. Campaigns were in place around recruitment and was definitely improving. It was confirmed that a robust recruitment and retention strategy was in place in Children's Social Care. Regarding retention of children's social workers, the average length of retention fluctuated across the County. It was highlighted that there was a number of support mechanisms in place for retention of staff and advanced practitioners in place to work alongside staff on more complex issues.

After feedback from Ofsted the Committee was informed that police referrals were still very high. The Police were working closely with LCC around their part in child protection.

On the Improvement Plan it was noted that one of the areas, 'to develop and implement a delivery plan for the Residential Strategy and edge of care response', was delayed in its progress due to delays in building works. At its March meeting Cabinet approved additional capital investment to complete the building works.

Members were informed that the next Ofsted inspection would be a four week full inspection potentially sometime between May 2018 and July 2018.

It was acknowledged that the quality of work had improved and this was having a positive impact on the children. Also work with Education had improved greatly.

Resolved: That the;

  i.  Report presented be noted

  ii.  A quarterly briefing note on improvement activity and impact be received.