Agenda and minutes

County Councillors C Dereli, A Schofield and K Snape replaced County Councillors T Burns, J Shedwick and C Pritchard respectively for this meeting.

None were received.

Members are asked to consider any Pecuniary and Non-Pecuniary Interests they may have to disclose to the meeting in relation to matters under consideration on the Agenda.

None were disclosed.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting held on 11 October 2013 be confirmed and signed by the Chair.

The Chair welcomed Paul Hussey, Working Together With Families Co-Ordinator, and, Janette Buckland, Working Together With Families Area Co-Ordinator (North), to the meeting.

The report presented to the Committee was an update regarding implementation of the Working Together With Families approach across Lancashire. The report identified progress to date challenges encountered and associated risks and mitigating actions.

The Working Together With Families (WTWF) strategic work programme was now in its second year and was aimed at increasing the resourcefulness and resilience of families in Lancashire. The emphasis was on working with families, helping them to take greater control over changing their circumstances and improving outcomes for their children and young people.

The work formed part of a wider 'Lancashire Improving Futures Programme' which under the joint leadership of the Lancashire Children and Young People's Trust (LCYPT) and Children's Safeguarding Board (LSCB), was working on a number of developments including the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH); the creation of multi-agency delivery hubs; further development of integrated working across all districts including bringing together the Early Support and WTWF work streams and a workforce development programme to support the change process.

From March 2012, Lancashire's targets under the national Troubled Families Unit (TFU) work led by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) had been included in this programme.

Councillors were invited to ask questions and raise any comments in relation to the report, a summary of which is provided below:

·  Members enquired who would be on the Children's Trust. They were informed that the Children's Trust had a core membership including the Lancashire County Council's Children and Young People's Service, a District Support Lead who represented Children and Young People Services on the Children's Trust, representatives from the Lancashire Care Foundation Trust, representatives from housing providers, youth offending teams, and the police. All of the key statutory services were represented on the Children's Trust.

·  It was suggested that some organisations from the third sector such as Homestart, could be involved as well. The Committee were informed that liaising with third sector voluntary organisations was crucial to Working Together with Families. There were a number of voluntary organisations involved in the District Local Management Group activities.

·  Members felt there was a plethora of organistions and groups involved as well as a lot of meetings. They asked if this worked well and if there was any whistleblowing and if there was any need for early intervention by social workers or the police. It was felt partnerships worked best when everyone came together with a shared aim and task. The feedback on the Working Together With Families approach had been positive with all the organisations working together with a shared aim.

·  The families that the WTWF team focussed on were very complex had a great range of difficulties and because of this they were often very suspicious of statutory services and do not engage well with them. Voluntary community services are vital to the WTWF team in engaging with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

The chair welcomed Tony Morrissey, Head of Safeguarding Inspection and Audit, and, Sally Allen, Directorate Safeguarding Manager, to the meeting

In January 2013 the Scrutiny Committee had received a progress report in relation to the Safeguarding and Looked After Children Inspection Action Plan. The Ofsted Inspection report made several references to the valuable role played by IROs in Lancashire, highlighting that child protection conferences and children looked after reviews were effectively chaired and that the IROs were well managed. The report also gave recognition to the contribution made by IROs overall to shape and improve services at both a strategic and individual child level. However, at that time the Scrutiny Committee was advised of the challenges faced by the local authority in relation to the recruitment and retention of IROs, which impacted on IRO caseloads and capacity

The report now presented to the Committee provided a response from the Children and Young People Directorate in relation to the actions taken to improve the recruitment and retention of Independent reviewing Officers (IROs).

The IRO had a critical and unique role, having independent oversight of the child's case, with responsibility for ensuring that the child's interests were protected throughout the care planning process. The appointment of an IRO for children looked after was made a legal requirement under Section 118 of the adoption and Children Act 2012. The role and responsibilities of the IRO were set out in statutory guidance IROs had two distinct functions:

·  Chairing the child's review, and

·  Monitoring the child's case on an ongoing basis

As part of the monitoring funcyion, the IRO also had a duty to monitor the performance of the local authority's function as a corporate parent and to identify any areas of poor practice. The IRO should recognise and report on good practice. The IRO manager was required under the statutory guidance to produce an annual report including this information.

At September 2013 the number of children looked after had increased to 1,548, whilst the number of children subject to a child protection plan had increased to 946. There had been an 83% increase in child protection plans from March 2012 to September 2013.

Despite the increase in workload, performance had been maintained at a high level. The IROs were in a unique position, independent from service delivery and with oversight of practice across Children's Social Care. However, in the past there hasd been an over emphasis on their role in relation to compliance and performance timescales. Development work within the IRO Service had focussed on the IRO responsibilities within the IRO Handbook and the importance of the IRO challenge role. There was evidence that IROs were challenging practice and used the problem resolution process to escalate concerns to Team and Senior Managers. However, rising caseloads were impacting on some aspects of their quality assurance role, particularly in undertaking mid-point reviews checks, to monitor the progression of review recommendations. Lower caseloads would enable this to occur in all cases. In line with the statutory  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

A report was presented to Members summarising the work to be undertaken by the Scrutiny Committee in the coming months, including an update of task group work.

County Councillors Winlow and Barnes had held a meeting with Ian Watson, Head of Cultural Services. Following this meeting he was asked for a report back on the executive response to the Arts Development Report for the Scrutiny Committee meeting on 17 January.

Resolved: That the report be noted.

An item of urgent business may only be considered under this heading where, by reason of special circumstances to be recorded in the Minutes, the Chair of the meeting is of the opinion that the item should be considered at the meeting as a matter of urgency. Wherever possible, the Chief Executive should be given advance warning of any Member's intention to raise a matter under this heading.

There were no items of Urgent Business

The next meeting of the Scrutiny Committee will be held on Friday 6 December 2013 at 10:30am at the County Hall, Preston.

It was noted that the next meeting of the Committee will be held on Friday 6 December 2013 at 10:30am at County Hall, Preston.