The Corporate Director of Children’s Services, Rory Patterson, presented the report which provided an update to the revised Children’s Social Care Development Plan 2018 – 19. In March 2016, Thurrock had been rated by Ofsted to ‘Require Improvement’ which was how the Development Plan came to be. It was based on eight priority action areas for the service.

The plan was progressing effectively and was adjusted where needed to ensure the plan would remain on track. Some improvements included recruitment and retention which provided for a more stable workforce that was positive and committed to Thurrock. Challenges such as inconsistency in social work practice were being resolved with Signs of Safety training and were being rolled out to all staff. The aim was to provide a more consistent framework of intervention and improve assessment quality. To improve the service, the team looked closely at data and audited cases on a monthly basis. Feedback from social care workers were also taken into consideration.

The Development Board had been meeting on a monthly basis and continued to do so to ensure that recommendations and areas of improvement were implemented.

Councillor Redsell sought clarification on how quickly children (who were taken into emergency crisis situations) were reunited with their families. The Corporate Director replied that the service worked with the families to resolve issues and also looked at the extended family members to see who was able to look after the child. This helped to reduce the number of children coming into care. How quickly children went back to their families depended on the rehabilitation of the parents. Councillor Redsell went on to query the number of 60 agency staff back in May 2018 which had now been reduced to 39. The Corporate Director gave reassurances that this was due to the steady recruitment of permanent staff due to the popular AYSE scheme. It needed additional work as newly qualified social workers were unable to hold a big amount of casework at once.

Referring to foster care placements, Councillor Okunade felt the timescale of 8 months was too long and asked whether there was a process to fast track this. There was a risk in losing foster carers as they would turn to private placements as it was quicker. Agreeing with this, the Corporate Director stated the service looked at appropriate ways to speed up the process but the important checks still needed to be completed. Adding to this, Councillor Anderson sought clarification on the types of checks to ensure foster carers were of standard. The Corporate Director confirmed this was through regulations, checks and through the fostering panel which the service had oversight of.

Referring to the report, the Parent Governor Representative stated seeing no weaknesses reported. She asked where the trouble spots were and what the Committee could do to help. The Corporate Director mentioned quality, practises, assurances and recruitment of permanent staff being the weaknesses. To overcome quality assurance, the service looked at data and had set up workshops to raise standards. Staff were supported through good management and through quality audits, it helped the service to identify which areas needed improvement.

Pointing out the low number of children suitable for adoption, the Vice Chair queried the amount as he had thought it would be more in the 50’s. The Corporate Director answered the average amount was 20 and agreed that the service was underperforming in this area. There were fewer young children who were easier to adopt and look after but the service was confident the number would increase to 15. Potential adopters were also reluctant to adopt as birth parents were able to appeal at any point of the process until adoption.

The Committee further discussed the process of adoption and the timescale which was dependent on the complexity of the case. Children in foster care were not always considered for adoption and this was the reason for an in-house team to look into this although the main focus was the timescale for adoption. The Chair voiced his disappointment that this had not been brought forward since 2015. The Committee went on to comment on the 7 children suitable for adoption which some Members felt needed more context on why they were suitable. The Parent Governor also felt it would be useful to have the figures of the number of available adopting parents.

Going through the report, the Chair sought clarification from the Corporate Director on a range of issues. He also stated that a copy of the self-evaluation from the service would have been useful and that the data provided should be correct at the time of the agenda’s publication. The Corporate Director gave assurances that the average caseload per social worker was 18 – 20 which had been the same amount at the time of the Ofsted inspection. He went on to confirm that:

·         There were no unallocated child protection cases.

·         The service was actively recruiting in to unfilled staff posts.

·         Data was analysed through monthly meetings and soon, regular meetings with managers to ensure they were able to use that data correctly to improve the service.

·         Quality assurance checks would show the accurate use of data.

Discussing further on the use of data, the Committee sought reassurance on the accuracy of gathered data as it could be quite impersonal. Data was uploaded by social workers and gathered by another team. Where any information was incorrectly input, the data team would cleanse it and work with social workers and administrative staff to correct this. The Corporate Director reassured the Committee that the data was looked at alongside quality audits and feedback loops so the service did not rely on just data alone.

The Committee was unable to agree on all the recommendations of the report as not all the Members had seen the Development Plan. The Chair requested that a hard copy be made available to the Committee.

RESOLVED:

1.1  That the Children’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee considered the progress and direction of travel for children’s social care in completing the required actions from the Development Plan.

UNRESOLVED:

1.2  That the Children’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee received assurance that the Development Plan will deliver the required improvements.