Agenda item

TO FOLLOW – This report will not be published until Friday 7^th July. Members of the Panel will receive it as soon as possible after publication.

The Chair on behalf of the Panel congratulated all concerned on receiving a very positive report.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care commented that when this current process of inspections began in 2013 we were informed that the bar had been raised so it was very pleasing to receive such good feedback.

He said that the headlines are that the Local Authority’s Children’s Services were found to be Good overall, which immediately places us in the top 30% in the country. He added that in the South West, only Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly have reached that threshold under the current inspection regime (with all but 2 authorities having now had their inspections published).

He informed the Panel that the LSCB were also graded as ‘Good’ and is only the second in the South West to achieve that standard.

The Chair asked how these levels of achievement would be maintained.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that the best way will be to retain all of the good staff within the Council and to support them as much as possible.

The Chair asked for the Panel to receive a progress report every six months on the suggestions made within the report that would make the service even better.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that this could indeed be added to the workplan and that the action plan and governance arrangements will be shared.

Councillor Michelle O’Doherty commented that she realised that the number of private fostering arrangements is small, but asked can we be assured at this present time that services are now in place to ensure children currently in these circumstances have their needs robustly assessed and both children and carers are being supported.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that they could be assured of this and that there is a member of staff identified to take the lead on this, there is an action plan in place and the LSCB are monitoring the delivery of this.

Councillor Liz Hardman noted that the Ofsted report referred to a number of young people, aged between 16-18, not engaged in education, training or employment. She said that whereas the numbers again are small and many of these young people are in complex and challenging situations, we are seen as not being pro-active enough .She asked which organisation will be charged with improving this situation and what plans are currently in place to deal with these young people.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that the group of young people at risk of NEET that the inspectors took particular interest in were care-leavers at risk of NEET. Therefore the young peoples “Moving On” team will be primarily responsible to working with this group. He added that in response to the recommendations of the inspection a “Development Board” will take issues forward and they will monitor the progress of this work by the Leaving-Care-Moving On team. He added that the wider work with NEETS outside of the care system will continue to be led by the Youth Connect team. 

Councillor Liz Hardman asked to what extent do you think the current level of performance can be maintained given the scale of funding cuts to Children’s Services.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that this is going to be a challenge as stated in the report staff are at their capacity and there is limited resilience. He said that the Council are committed to maintaining the performance and to striving for further improvements in all areas but it is not going to be easy especially as we have reached the peak in terms of the number of children on Child Protection plans.

Councillor Sally Davis commented that although our Children Looked After do better at school than nationally, the number of fixed term exclusions has risen for these children in B&NES.  She asked what the current figures were and what were the reasons.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that progress on this issue will also be monitored by the Development Board. He said there remain a variety of reasons for these exclusions, but broad themes continue to centre around such concerns as persistent absence, bullying or threatening behaviour. He added it should also be noted that these are small cohorts. 

The Chair stated that it is worrying that Risk Management Plans are consistently not in place, again for a small minority of care leavers when their needs escalate. She asked if the Panel can be assured that as a matter of urgency, that support is now in place for these young people.

The Divisional Director for Safeguarding & Social Care replied that we will continue to work with young people to ensure both the number and quality of Risk Management plans are appropriate. He explained that where plans were not in place this was often due to problems in meeting with the young person, or at the point of the case transferring into the Care-Leaving team. He added that there is a wider challenge about how we improve the transfer of cases to reduce drift which the Development Board will need to monitor, and this particular aspect of the challenge will need to be part of this area of improvement.