Agenda item

The Children’s Health and Wellbeing Panel review the annual report so as to ensure members are appraised on the care provided to children for whom the Local Authority are responsible.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding began by acknowledging that there had been some real challenges within the service between 2023 and 2024.

She said that she was really passionate about our children in care and making sure that they have a really good quality IRO service and that they are able to build really safe and secure relationships with their IRO. 

She wished to acknowledge that during this period there was the sudden death of one of our children in care who was 17, approaching 18 years old. She added that there was a Child Safeguarding Practice Review report done as a result of the child's death.

She stated that there were two key, core areas for the IRO service to think about and that was about how we escalate and challenge some of our colleagues across Health, Education and Children's Social Care when an Independent Reviewing Officer isn't satisfied that the areas of a child's care planning is progressing adequately that they are following a robust escalation process.

She explained that within the report there is reference to a Dispute Resolution Protocol which was a recommendation of the IRO handbook which has not been updated since 2010 and that she thought many IRO managers and the IRO themselves would advocate that that does need to be looked at in more detail and revised.

She said that there was a real challenge in the IRO service because your remit is to ensure that care planning for children in care is progressing, but equally you have to take on board some of the challenges that we may face within services. She added that nationally they were seeing significant changes in terms of being able to access services from the Social Work practice.

She said that one of the areas that they have reflected upon as a service is what are the barriers to IROs in making formal escalations and challenges and then trying to find that balance around working with colleagues in a respectful and courteous way whilst also championing for our children in care and what they need.

She stated that they had relaunched the Dispute Resolution Protocol in September to be able to generate a greater sense of what the themes and challenges were for our children in care that IROs were identifying. She added that they were then looking with colleagues within Children's Social Care about how we can take some of those themes forward, learn from them and have strengthened our reporting and how we collect that data.

She informed the Panel that there were 359 Children in the service at the end of 2023 / 2024 which was quite a significant number of children for a service that has only 6.4 full-time equivalent members of staff. She said that children can be placed locally within B&NES, but could also live in other areas of the country, such as London and Birmingham for example.

She explained that this presents a significant challenge as a small Local Authority and that when there is any disruption in service delivery it is difficult as they do not have any kind of flex in the system to step in and cover. She added that sadly for some children in this reporting period they did not have their Child in Care Review within the time frame that we ideally would want them to.

She stated though that the IROs do know their children incredibly well and was impressed by how they could bring to life the children they work with and were able to tell me with real confidence that these were the children that I need to know about as Head of Service.

She acknowledged that there are areas within the report that they need to improve upon and that the Child in Care Review timing was not in line with what the Panel would have seen from previous reports. She gave them some assurances as in Quarter 1 of this financial year those figures were up to 92% and then 98% for Quarter 2.

She said that they have begun to think about how they can support children to claim their Child in Care Reviews and take more of a lead and ownership to realize that they are their meetings, to try and take that formal lens off it for them and to get greater participation.

She said that a working group had been implemented from July and they were looking to explore the various means in which we can obtain feedback - the use of QR codes, speaking to young people via telephone calls across the service and a mystery shopper which has been successful in some other areas. She added that she hoped that this would give some feedback around actually what our children in care, their carers and families are saying about the IRO service and capture the significant difference that an IRO can make for a child in care.

Councillor Liz Hardman commented on the figure of 29% of Children in Care Reviews completed within the statutory time of 20 working days and said that this was particularly low. She acknowledged though that there had been a huge amount of staff sickness which obviously had a big impact on capacity.

She asked for clarification regarding the Dispute Resolution Protocol and who is the dispute between, is it between what a Social Worker is saying about the child and what the IRO officer is saying or is it between an officer and the parents / carers.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that a review can take place in three stages, it is important that they are carried out and that many are completed by day 20. She added that she hoped that the improvements mentioned earlier would continue to be seen in the coming year.

She explained that the Dispute Resolution Protocol was a process to discuss any differences of opinion or views. She gave an example of where you might have a sibling group who are unfortunately not able to reside with their family and also because of the size of that sibling group they may have to be placed with different carers. She said that when looking at the care plan and considering what is being proposed in terms of where those children live longer term, how they see one another, how does their relationship get promoted, the  IRO may talk to a Social Worker and if they're not in agreement then they will access the Dispute Resolution Protocol and escalate up to the Line Manager, the Team Manager, the Head of Service, the Assistant Director and then the Director of Children’s Services (DCS), so there are five stages to the process.

She added that in her six years in this role she believed that only one had ever gone to DCS level because they have always managed to resolve for the best outcomes of the children.

Councillor Onkar Saini asked how the revised Dispute Resolution Protocol was being monitored for effectiveness and what improvements have been observed since its implementation.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that the Protocol was launched on the 27th of September and so they were really in the early days and months of its work. She added that this was something they would be monitoring and would be able to get a greater sense of how successful it has been by the end of next year, in terms of its impact on the outcome for children and could bring that back or feedback to Councillor May or the Director of Children’s Services.

Councillor Saini asked what current mechanisms are in place to gather feedback from children, families and carers about the IRO service and how is this being used to drive improvements.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that they do not have a formal process in place and that over the years they have written to children individually to seek their feedback, sent a consultation form after every Child in Care Review to get their feedback and they have also done the same to carers and families, even providing a self-addressed envelope. She added that in one year they received about 17 responses from over 500 Child in Care Reviews and so this was not overly representative.

She said they were aiming to provide a platform which is accessible and much more readily available for when someone might want to give feedback, and that one idea is to include a QR code that might take them to a short questionnaire that goes out on invites or review records so they can provide feedback about the IRO service or other services working with children.

Councillor Saini asked what measures are being taken to ensure the IRO service maintain a full complement of staff to avoid disruption and what steps are being implemented to improve the timeliness of Children in Care Reviews and ensure they are held within statutory timeframes.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that there is a commitment to the IRO service in B&NES in terms of absences and specifically if we have any anticipated a longer-term absence there would be a much earlier identification of interim measures and that we would look to either recruit agency IROs or locum. She added that they would also consider some fixed term contracts if required. She said that they were able to secure some additional funding for a post to provide extra capacity, but this would not continue into the next financial year. She explained that she does work closely with the Director of Education & Safeguarding and the Director of Children's Services to talk about any potential challenges.

Councillor David Harding referred to the number of Children in Care that are placed outside of the Local Authority area (57%) and asked what is being done to reduce this.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that this was a national challenge and that there is lots of work being done to recruit Foster Carers within B&NES. She added that quite a few of the unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people when they first arrive in the UK are placed for example by Kent and they might place them in London and then they don't want to come to B&NES. She added that work was done last year, and we saw a number of our unaccompanied young people returning closer to the local area, in Bristol, and this way they can begin to feel connected to B&NES and relationships are easier to build and navigate.

Councillor Harding asked if she was optimistic that this strategy was going to work.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that she felt that central Government needs to offer some support to Local authorities to address this issue. She added that we are asking people to care for some of our most vulnerable children and they need to do that with systems around them. She said she was hopeful rather than optimistic.

Kevin Burnett referred to staff absenteeism and whether that might be a flag for anything else, in terms of pressure within the service.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that staff absenteeism was not related to work related stress it was personal issues that could not have been anticipated. She added that IROs have significant amounts of management access, they can contact me whenever and they have monthly 1-2-1 supervision where we do professional and personal development.

Kevin Burnett said that the numbers of children placed outside of the area was a large proportion and asked if the majority of these were unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that in terms of children out of area it is a real challenge because what B&NES Children's Services are really successful at is keeping children with their families and that is the best outcome if a child is placed with family members even if they live outside of B&NES. She added that what the report does not currently do is give enough breakdown of where those children our placed.

She explained that some unaccompanied asylum-seeking young people are placed in other areas of the country before even coming to B&NES, but as their corporate parents we've also got children with complex needs who have come into care of our Disabled Children's Team and we are working with their families to identify the best place for them. She added that B&NES do not have any residential settings within our area so any children that require residential care or really skilled complex care are going to be placed outside of B&NES so that the child’s needs can be met.

Councillor Lesley Mansell referred to the transition of children into Adult Services and this remaining an area for improvement and asked for more detail on what is in place to improve that.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that the transition to Adult Social Care is a challenge and is something that both Adult Social Care and Children's Social Care are actively talking about and how to improve transition planning. She added that she had recently begun to undertake a piece of work as an independent person of the Council to look at a particular transition for a child and to look at any learning for all children as part of that and how we can think about practices, the different legislation and the different narratives used.

Councillor Mansell commented that it was welcome to see the improvement in terms of the voice of the child but asked what more can be done.

The Head of Service for Children's Quality Assurance and Safeguarding replied that part of the IRO role is to obtain the views and feelings of young people and that there is a strong advocacy service in B&NES provided by Off The Record. She said that they work closely with them to talk about what barriers there are.

She added that not every Child in Care wants an advocate and that the best thing to have is a good relationship between the child, their social worker and their carer to have a system around them that they can openly talk.

She said that she felt confident that in the Child in Care Review records you would be able to see the voice of the child, their aspirations, what we have celebrated and areas for them that we might need to improve or strengthen.

The Panel RESOLVED to:

i)  Note the challenges that have been identified within this reporting period, which has led to some children having changes in their IRO, with some children having had contact with two – three IRO’s in this reporting period. There have also been periods where child in care reviews have not occurred within the statutory timeframes. Since the end of this reporting period, please note that the service has returned to having a full complement of staff and the substantive head of service has returned to the service, these factors have led to children receiving a much more consistent service and an improvement in the timeliness of child in care reviews, with 98% on time by Q2 of 2024-2025.

ii)  Promote the role of the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) for the children in the care of the Local Authority. Recognising the value that IRO’s offer to children in care, the relationship at times being one of the most long standing and providing consistency for the child. IRO’s seek to form positive relationships with the children in which they are allocated, empowering them to participate in their child in care reviews and share they wishes and feelings.