The Corporate Director for Children Services made a presentation to the Committee on the Children and Young People’s Services’ Improvement Journey.  He provided:

·  A summary of the progress made to date;

·  Performance Headlines; and

·  Details in respect of the All Age Disability Service’s transformation.

The Committee was reminded that there would be another OFSTED Inspection in a matter of months.  In this calendar year there had been three OFSTED monitoring visits and the progress made had been noted.  Social Work practice was making a difference, thresholds were embedded and there was increased resilience.  A two day appraisal by the Department for Education, at the beginning of October 2018, had led to a letter being sent to the Minister for Children on the progress made.  Unfortunately, it was not a letter that would be put in the public domain.  It was a conversation between the Department for Education Adviser and a Minister but the Corporate Director had been informed that it mirrored exactly what he had reported on the progress that had been made so far.

The Corporate Director reported on what was still to be done to bring about improvement in Children’s Services.  He informed that there were challenges around the recruitment of permanent and experienced social workers and there were still too many children in care.

Members asked the Corporate Director a number of questions which were answered accordingly. Matters discussed included the following:

·  Issues identified with staff recruitment had been addressed and there had been massive improvement.  The Council was an organisation that understood the purpose of social work and provided an appropriate environment for social workers to operate within.  The Council was considered an attractive employer to work for and as a result more candidates were applying for jobs.

·  Issues raised at the Youth Parliament held on 6 November 2018 about young people’s services, young people of Wirral’s concerns about homelessness and the Aspiration Project – the aspirations and feelings of Looked After Children.

·  Level of sickness in respect of social workers and the problems caused when a child’s social worker did not turn up at Foster Carer’s first review. The Corporate Director agreed to investigate the situation and report back to Members.

·  Absence Management Strategy – the average was 14 days of sick per annum and the most common cause was stress.  The number of days was reducing.  There was a clear process to follow and was in the process of being embedded.  Patterns of consistent none attendance was being investigated with the help of HR officers. As a consequence some employees were being performance managed and some had left the organisation because of their sickness patterns through dismissal.

·  Arrangements over the Christmas period when some families may struggle.  The Service was retained and well prepared and would be responsive.

·  A significant document had been published and would be debated at the National Conference.  It identified factors that caused significant pressure in the system.

·  Relationships between the Police and the Health Service and what was being done to ensure they were working together in a more positive way. Multi-agency working had been discussed extensively with partners and the response had been extremely positive.  The problem would be resolved by the time of the next OFSTED visit.  There had been a number of meetings to ensure issues were identified and were dealt with appropriately.  There had been a lack of willingness to challenge each other’s organisations.  This had been worked through and an additional command lead had been put in.

·  If the Council did not get the results it wanted from OFSTED it may impact on social worker recruitment and it currently did not have all that it needed. Children’s Services had suffered significant reputational damage by being rated as inadequate twice.  One way to ensure this did not happen again was to recruit experienced staff. Twenty social workers were required and 10 had already been selected for interview so progress was being made.  Children’s Services were doing all it could to avoid the risk of failure.  There was 100 days to go.  There was still a lot to do and there had been some good appointments made in respect of senior roles during the last few months.

·  Apprenticeships created and gifts for Wirral’s Care Leavers.

·  Christmas arrangements and gifts for Wirral’s Looked After Children.

RESOLVED:

That the Corporate Directorfor Children Services be thanked for his informative presentation.