Decision details

The Board were asked to consider the content of the Annual Report and identify any areas it may wish to comment on and any action it may wish to take.

Jane Booth highlighted to the Board that the Annual Report provides information about services and their effectiveness.  The LSCB shares the concerns set out in the Ofsted report.  The LSCB is working as part of the Improvement Board to ensure an effective response and has seen evidence of plans to restructure services, reduce caseloads of social workers and improve quality assurance.  However, these things will take time to show an impact and at the end of 2015-16 it was not possible to identify significant improvement in practice.  In addition the LSCB is particularly concerned about the quality and availability of appropriate Child and Adolescent Mental Health services where the resource allocation is too low and progress towards improved services too slow.

The report sets out the priorities of the LSCB and the areas identified for future work.

It was raised as to whether there had been an increase or decrease in Serious Case Reviews (SCR) and Jane stated that there had been a significant increase in SCRs in the last 15 months where eight had been received, compared to a general figure of four or five a year.  There was a query about the availability of this information by Districts are notified on an individual basis when a SCR does arise.  However it was noted that the majority of SCRs were in the North, but this is not on trend.

Jane reported that there is a link in with the workstream around CAMHS and the report to the LSCB every three months.  The findings are then reported back to executive forums.  Jane is concerned that the whole system is not being considered.

It was noted that there appears to be a lack of early help in schools and some schools are unaware of what services are accessible.  Jane commented that a piece of work is being carried out in Fylde and Wyre, looking at new ways of working.

The LSCB regularly reports to the Local Children's Partnership Boards and any concerns by district are raised there, together with child sexual exploitation (CSE) concerns.  It was highlighted that CSE figures had increased, however this was felt to be good as it is high profile in the media and the local Authority is putting more time and resources into this area of work.  The challenge however, is around on-line safeguarding and keeping up to date with technology.  An on-line guide for schools has been published as this is the biggest concern for schools.

Resolved:  That the Board considered the content of the Annual Report provided comment, with no further actions are identified.