Presentation.

The Committee considered a presentation introduced by Deborah Gornik, Director of Children’ Services. The presentation provided Members with an update on the Safeguarding Improvement Journey in respect of the Ofsted report published in September 2016 that had identified the majority of Children’s Social Care services to be inadequate and outlined 19 recommendations for the local authority and 7 for the Local Safeguarding Children Board.

The Director of Children’s Services informed that Work had begun immediately to address such areas through the creation of an Improvement Board and the required Improvement Plan, the Department for Education had appointed a Wirral Improvement Partner to work with the local authority and government had approved the Improvement Plan.

The Committee noted that many actions undertake had created the conditions to support change and improvement, and within three elements of the plan – People, Practice and Performance - 103 actions had been developed – 89 had been delivered, with 14 that remained outstanding but within planned timescales.

The Chair asked the Director Children’s Services about the timescales for the improvement plan, and noted that on average and given the starting point such a journey was expected to take in the region of 2 to 3 years to ensure the basics were in place and that to achieve a ‘good’ rating could take 4 to 5 years.

The Director of Children’s Services informed that within the three elements of the plan the following actions had been addressed:

People

• Leadership, management and social work staffing structures had been reviewed to ensure there was sufficient capacity and capability across the service

• A senior, permanent, leadership team for the Children and Young People’s Department had been recruited to drive forward improvement, integration and model expected behaviours and standards

• An Induction programme for new staff with clear standards and expectations for Children’s Social Care had also recently been launched.

Practice

• Capacity had been increased to undertake strategy discussions and initial child protection investigations in a more timely way.

• Conference calls had been implemented within the ‘integrated front door’ to enable virtual strategy meetings to take place with all relevant professionals.

• A ‘First Response Team’ of Social Workers had been established to undertake all new Section 47 Enquiries and Assessments.

• The Social Workers and Managers practice standards had been issued to ensure clarity for staff on the standards of practice expected in relation to assessments, plans and the management of risk.

• Wirral had also hosted the ‘Right Service, Right Time’ and ‘Early Help’ conferences early 2017.

Performance

• Data quality assurance checks had been implemented to ensure that areas for inaccurate reporting were known and addressed starting with the areas identified by Ofsted. 

• A range of performance information under the Performance Management and Quality Assurance Framework had been developed that included: Daily Headline Reports, Weekly and Monthly Performance Reports and a range of ‘Self-Serve’ reports.

• Joint working through the Children and Young People commissioning with partners across health, education and social care to develop an accurate needs assessment for Wirral had been promoted.

The Director of Children’s Services reported that as part of Phase 2 of the improvement Journey the following actions would be developed: 

• Through strong leadership ‘siloed’ delivery across the department and the districts will be reduced and an integrated offer promoted.

• Synchronising the work of the Improvement Board and that of the department transformation programme, whilst retaining individual core reporting and governance structures.

• Providing strategic support to the Improvement Board and the wider partnership arrangements to take an active role in developing and understanding the impact of improvement activity to ensure that resources are targeted appropriately.

The Chair thanked the Director of Children’s Services for her presentation.

Resolved – That the report be noted.