Presentation.

Mr Paul Boyce, the Director for Children introduced his presentation that provided Members with an update on the Council’s Improvement Plan and a number of actions that had been taken since the last report to the Committee in November. These included a summary of progress to date and work underway to create the right conditions for improvement, and an update on the Ofsted Monitoring Visit that had taken place on 11/12 December 2017.

The Director for Children further informed the Overview and Scrutiny Committee of the clarity of vision required and the focus on improving practice within the Children’s Service i.e. what the Council is trying to do, and why. He added that by ensuring that the right number and quality of practitioners were in place to deliver good and outstanding practice, the Council would eventually become an ‘employer of choice’.

The key messages contained within Mr Boyce’s presentation focused on clarity about lines of accountability and ‘who was doing what’ to support improvement and the child. The presentation also informed of the requirement for a stable and effective access path (front door) that could evidence a consistent application of multi-agency thresholds and decision making which was timely, child focused and of high quality.

The Director for Children expressed his personal view that quality remained the key challenge of the improvement journey and that this would be the primary criteria by which individual casework practices would be measured. He explained that work was underway to ensure staff and managers had the right tools, systems and support available to enable them to produce consistently good practice. This work would also include:

• Proactive communication and engagement with front line practictioners with a step by step approach to the management of change; and

• Robust and reliable quality assurance and performance management that reflected reality, leading to the embedding of a ‘learning culture’.

The Director for Children informed the Overview and Scrutiny Committee that the Ofsted Monitoring Visit had taken place on 11/12 December 2017 and that the findings had been mixed. The focus of the visit was quality of practice in relation to children over the age of 11 who have been looked after for a long time, care planning, PEPs, SDQ, advocacy and independent visiting and the challenge remained on accelerating improvement and doing the basics well, in addition to keeping continued focus on the improvement of quality of practice. Members were further informed that there currently existed a range of service delivery quality and practice, and work continued with staff engagement to assist them with the improvement of standards and maintain a pace of change within a target 8 month timeframe.

Members questioned the Director for Children on some issue detail that included engagement with trade unions and how to tackle those staff that felt uncomfortable with change. Mr Boyce pointed out that a professional level of dialogue was being maintained, a meeting was scheduled with the trade union for the following day and that staff engagement issues were 95% complete. He added that as part of the improvement process the need to provide evidence, detail of reasonable caseloads, and regular supervision all contributed to the aim of creating a learning culture.

A Member commented that 8 months appeared somewhat slow and asked what was being done to accelerate the process, and how the Overview and Scrutiny Committee could be satisfied that the required level of improvement had / would occur. Mr Boyce explained that the timescale was feasible, given the changes required but every effort was being made to ensure the service was ‘connected’ and pushing forward. He further advised that professional development pathways, reality visits and evidence provided in line with LGA guidance would help in this regard. Mr Boyce also explained that statistical evidence e.g. average caseloads could be misleading, when asking the question ‘how many social workers deal with more than 20 cases?’ would be more indicative of the current issues faced.

Members suggested that an Overview and Scrutiny Workshop to better evaluate progress / performance against the improvement plan in the new Municipal Year would be beneficial.

The Director for Children closed his presentation informing that instability in the staffing of key roles had resulted in a stop / start approach to the delivery of change, and that the Service was not in dispute with Ofsted about the pace of change, however he believed that Ofsted were satisfied with the actions being taken by the Council and that those actions will have a positive impact on children under the Council’s care.

The Chair thanked Mr Boyce for his detailed presentation.

Resolved – That the presentation be noted.