Agenda and draft minutes

Resolved: That Wendy Griggs be elected Vice Chairperson for 2024/25.

A Member must declare any disclosable pecuniary interest where it relates to any matter being considered at the meeting. A declaration of a disclosable pecuniary interest should indicate the interest and the agenda item to which it relates. A Member is not permitted to participate in this agenda item by law and should immediately leave the meeting before the start of any debate.

If the Member leaves the Chamber in respect of a declaration, he or she should ensure that the Chairperson is aware of this before he or she leaves to enable their exit from the meeting to be recorded in the minutes in accordance with Standing Order 37.

None.

Minutes of the meeting of 22 February 2024, to approve as a correct record.

Resolved: That the minutes of the meeting of 22 February 2024 be approved as a correct record.

Report of the Director, Children’s Services.

The report, presented by the Director, Children’s Services, summarised the comprehensive Self-Evaluation of Children’s Services to support preparation for the Ofsted inspection of services for children in need of help and protection, children in care and care leavers.

In discussion, the following comments and requests for clarification were made by Members (officer replies in italics):

• How achievable were the six priorities in the workforce strategy? – There was a detailed action plan that sat underneath the six priorities to ensure that progress was being tracked. The new Principal Social Worker would be in post within the next six weeks and would provide leadership around workforce development. There had also been an improvement in social media presence, and the service had benchmarked remuneration to that of our neighbouring local authorities.
• Regarding the statistics for missing children, how did we compare to our geographic neighbours and where did missing children go? – We were comparable with our neighbours, but there were some concerns about our ‘return home’ interviews once the children had been located, as these only had a 60% return rate. There were a variety of reasons that children went missing. These could range from the more serious, like exploitation by adults, to the more mundane such as returning home later than expected – all of which had to be recorded. Continuity for young people was needed and a new model to implement this was being worked on.
• What factors had contributed to the former workforce instability? – There had been senior leadership turnover from May 2023, with a lot of agency social workers and team managers. Leadership and social worker recruitment and retention had been (and was still being) worked on. The Human Resources dashboard was being monitored so that conversations about retention could be held with staff who were planning to leave. Exit interviews (as well as meetings with staff who were not leaving) were being held to determine the work factors that would help staff decide to stay in post. There were also whole-staff events to promote retention. Progress had been made as there was now a stable leadership team and an increase in the number of permanent social workers.
• The reasons given for leaving in social worker exit interviews – These followed the same pattern as the national picture – workload pressure, bureaucracy, administrative tasks, life changes that required more predictable hours. This churn had reduced over the last 12 months in North Somerset.
• What methods were being used to recruit more experienced social workers? – The pattern nationally was that social workers left the profession after three to five years, and our overseas recruitment was targeting those who had a minimum of three years of experience. Children’s Services was also offering a range of different opportunities for experienced workers to join, and it was acknowledged that more could be done to encourage the existing workforce of family workers and/or business support colleagues into the service through apprenticeships as these colleagues could bring a wealth of different  ...  view the full minutes text for item CAY4

Report of the Assistant Director – Children’s Services.

The Assistant Director – Children’s Services presented the report which gave an overview of Key Performance Indicators for children’s services and evaluated performance across the key priorities of the draft children’s safeguarding and support delivery plan and across educational partnerships.

Following the presentation, the following points were raised by Members:

• How changes across the course of an academic year affected the numbers of young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET)
• That planning for matching the career aspirations of young people to the available opportunities was needed, with a focus on apprenticeships and supported internships in addition to more traditional academic pathways.
• That Ofsted was aware of any young people in unregistered provision, why they were in that provision and the steps that the Council was taking to meet their needs.
• That there was a typographical error on page 4 of the report – there had been a decrease in the number of untimely (i.e. those made after the 20-week statutory deadline) EHCPs, not in the total.
• That the next Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) Ofsted visit was anticipated to be within the next 12 months.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that the Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Assistant Director - Education Partnerships.

The report, which was presented by the Assistant Director – Education Partnerships, provided an overview on Children’s Services work to support the good attendance at school and the prevention, support and challenge of exclusions from school. It also gave an overview of the legislative framework which governs the work in this area and the approach to supporting children when excluded from school.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Directorate Governance and Complaints Manager.

The report, which went into detail on the annual reports for 2022/23 and 2023/24, was presented by the Directorate Governance and Complaints Manager and considered compliments, complaints and representations received by Children’s Services for 1 April 2022 to 31 March 2023 and 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Both reports provided an analysis on outcomes, trends and learning from complaints.

In discussion, the following points were raised:

• That the ‘Local resolution’ procedure was being modified so that educational complaints could also have an opportunity to be resolved before the first formal stage
• The Directorate Governance and Complaints Manager was now based in Corporate Services, a move which was intended to provide confidence in the impartiality of the process, and to prevent challenges due to this.
• That complaints and comments to the service always increased when there was a change in office-holders and senior leadership, due to people hoping for a re-adjudication and a potentially different outcome to their complaints.
• It was important to note that not all compliments to services were passed on to the Directorate Governance and Complaints Manager, and also that some compliments which should have been recorded were not always recognised as such.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

The Chairperson called for an adjournment after this item.

Panel adjourned: 11:50 a.m.

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Panel reconvened: 12:03 p.m.

Report of the Consultant in Public Health.

The Consultant in Public Health presented the report which summarised the findings of a recent deep-dive analysis regarding Emergency Department (ED) attendance and hospital admission relating to self-harm among children and young people aged 10-24 years.

Members discussed the following:

• That the more granular data showing of elevated rate of A&E attendance / hospital admission for self-harm could be used to proportionately target resources to an area.
• That links between poor quality housing and mental health were being picked up by the Mental Health Strategy.
• The kinds of self-harm being presented.
• That the SACRE committee was currently discussing the relationship between mental health and faith.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Head of Finance and the Finance Business Partner (Children’s Services).

The Director, Children’s Services presented the report which summarised and discussed the final position of the 2023/24 revenue budget and the in-year budget monitoring position (month 3 – June 24) for the Children’s Services directorate, highlighting key variances, movements and contextual information. The report also provided further information in respect of the delivery and progress against the savings targets for 2024/25.

Members and officers commented as follows:

• That needs were being reassessed using a standardised framework, alternatives to care were being explored, and different ways of looking at care were being investigated to reduce costs.
• Although care should be taken when releasing Children’s Services’ reserves, we were facing the emergency situation that these reserves had been put in place for.
• Although the budget had increased this year, it was still less than the turnout at the end of last year. Understanding the needs of children both now and in the future was the key to reducing the overall turnout at the end of the financial year.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Assistant Director – Children’s Services.

This report, presented by the Assistant Director – Children’s Services, provided a comprehensive overview of the delivery and effectiveness of the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) service for the period of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Assistant Director – Children’s Services.

The Assistant Director – Children’s Services presented the report which provided a summary of the safeguarding concerns raised to and the responses and work of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) during 2023/24.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Director, Children’s Services.

The report, presented by the Director, Children’s Services, provided an overview of Adoption West’s performance data across family finding, adopter recruitment, adoption panels and adoption support services. An important aspect of the report was the focus on the practice of the agency and experience of people who had been involved with Adoption West in the 2023/24 year.

Concluded: that the Panel receive the report and that Members’ feedback be provided to officers in the form of the minutes.

Report of the Policy and Scrutiny Senior Officer.

The Scrutiny and Policy Senior Officer presented the Work Plan for September and invited any amendments or additions from the Panel.

The Executive Member responded to the recommendations from the Panel on the topic of recruitment and retention of children’s social workers. Work on implementing the recommendations had started, and a report would come to the next Panel meeting.

The Children’s Services directorate had started a programme of informal scrutiny meetings, each looking at a topic of interest to Members. These would be added to the work plan.

Concluded: that the work plan be received and updated to capture outcomes agreed during the meeting.