Presentation from the Director of Children’s Services

Mr Paul Boyce, the Director for Children introduced a presentation providing Members with an update on the Council’s Improvement Plan and a number of actions that had been taken since the previous report to the Committee in January 2018.  These included a summary of progress to date and work underway to create the right conditions for improvement, together with an update on an Ofsted Monitoring Visit that had taken place on 14-15 March 2018.

The Improvement Plan sought to provide a clear direction with purpose and pace; develop strong and visible leadership at all levels; to wrap the Council around the service and find solutions; to secure a permanent and motivated workforce; and to focus on the child and the child's journey.  In all this work, the focus was to be on getting the basics right.  To deliver the Improvement Plan, five key performance areas have been identified –

·  Create a clear vision and engage staff and partners

·  Recruitment, retention and professional pathways

·  Lines of accountability and proactive decision making

·  Effective Integrated Front Door

·  Is practice improving and are children better off?

With reference to the key performance areas, Mr Boyce highlighted a number of particular matters.  A staff engagement session held on 6 March 2018 that had produced a range of views in feedback.  Indicative of changing culture within the service, he reported on the new working arrangements being introduced, with all social work teams being based at Cheshire Lines and staff being provided with mobile technology to enable remote working while maintaining managerial and team contacts.  With the relocation of staff and the roll out of new technology, service structures were being reviewed to reduce unnecessary tiers of management.  Both caseloads and workflows coming in were stabilizing, and this provided an opportunity for people to do good practice.  While there was evidence to suggest practice was improving, there was still much work to do.

Mr Boyce reported on the Ofsted Monitoring Visit of 14-15 March 2018 that had reviewed the Integrated Front Door or those arrangements to make sure that children got access to the right services as soon as possible.  Feedback indicated a number of key areas were being addressed, including information gathering being coherent, a multi-agency approach to engage with families, safeguarding making timely interventions etc. Overall, the view was that things had improved, but that there still remained work to do.  Issues identified included some evidence of delay and that some follow up responses might not be as consistent as they could be.  However, it was considered to be the most positive visit to date, and a further Visit would be held on 29 May 2018.

The Chair queried how previously reported software issues were being addressed.  The Committee was advised that the system used by the Council was in use across the north west of England, and was to be reviewed: previous implementations or uses of the software might have had impacts on functionality.  With regard to the roll out of mobile technology, it was noted that this appeared to have run, to date, without a hitch.  In response to a query from Councillor Adam Sykes concerning security, it was confirmed that all devices were fully encrypted and the Council was aware of enhanced data protection requirements from May 2018.

With regard to the location of all social work teams at Cheshire Lines, Councillor Chris Meaden queried car parking provision.  In response, it was noted that while this would be the base for approximately 450 staff, it would only have a limited number of staff either permanently located there are or working on the duty system: it was anticipated that desk occupancy would be below 50% at any one time.  If car parking became a big issue there would be a need for consideration.

With regard to current social work buildings, it was advised that many would now not be needed and that some were generally not fit for purpose.  This applied to the Rock Ferry office, but the Pensby office would remain, albeit with management moving to Cheshire Lines.

Councillor Alan Brighouse referred to previous presentations that stressed the need to focus on addressing issues raised by Ofsted as opposed to undertaking departmental restructuring, noting that restructuring was now report in the Director’s presentation as being progressed.  Mr Boyce confirmed that the authority could not re-organise itself out of the problem, but there was a need for some modification and realignment of the social care structure.

With regard to the number of cases held by individual social workers, it was confirmed that a number held more than 20 cases.  However, the throughput and closing of cases was thought to be a factor, and this would be further looked into.

RESOLVED -

That the Director for Children be thanked for his presentation to the Committee.