Agenda item

Improvement Journey and Data Tracker Update

Presentation

Minutes:

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 progress;

·  feedback from Ofsted’s Monitoring Visit;

·  details of areas for Improvement;

·  information on the Peer Challenge and Annual Conversation;

·  priorities for the next 12 Months;

·  feedback from a Member visit with Children in Care and Care Leavers;

·  performance details; and

·  workforce information.

 

The Corporate Director reported that Children’s Services was no longer subject to monitoring visits as they had all been completed.  The next Ofsted visit would be an inspection.  It was expected that this would take place in April or May or possibly June 2019. The Corporate Director did not expect intervention at the end of this process and informed he was confident of a good outcome. He also informed that Wirral was a Council requiring improvement and the distance between that and good was considerable.

 

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

 

·  Concerns about the Staying Put Scheme as it was evident that these children were ‘kicked out’ as soon as they were 18 years old. Some foster carers love the job they do but clearly others do it for the money they receive. Some children were being forced to leave after a number of years in care and housing for care leavers needed to be looked at.

·  The robustness of Social Workers Performance Appraisals and monthly supervision. Most had undergone an annual appraisal last year (97%) and received regular supervision.  The Team Managers were now beginning to coach best practice rather than just describing it. The Service was better at tracking performance issues, there was still some work to do but mechanisms were in place that made managing the Service somewhat easier.

·  The forthcoming Workforce Survey which will ask direct questions about what it’s like working in Wirral with anonymity.

·  The quality of first line management, turn over and HR support.

·  Liverpool City Council’s intention to recruit 130 Social Workers. This seemed optimistic as the average life of a social worker was only seven years.  Social Workers in Wirral may apply and be successful.  The problems this may cause if they were seduced into going and the possibility of destabilising the whole of the Liverpool City region as Liverpool was offering higher salaries than most of the other Local Authorities in the City Region. There was a City Region development group which was led by someone from Wirral.  Wirral needed to ask social workers who might be tempted to leave some questions about why they were thinking of doing that and make sure Wirral’s social workers were not seduced into doing something that would not be good for them professionally.

·  The Managers were a stable group and the Head of Practice Improvement has constructed a work programme for Team Managers.  They are being developed rapidly including their skills in effectively managing Teams.  The Corporate Director was working with the Department for Education (DFE) and the Improvement Board on this and the Improvement Board Chair who is a DFE Advisor is going to carry out some mentoring to bring Managers up to the level the Council needs them to be at. There was also a ‘floating Team Manager’ who was very experienced and had come from another Borough who was working specifically with Team Managers in the permanency Service to develop their confidence and their decision-making so that they become more effective and impactful.  Team managers had the most difficult jobs of all.  They were in practice but they also had to manage.  A longer term proposal was to develop a programme for Team Managers.

·  The number children placed outside of the borough was low and an officer who worked part time carried out visits.

·  There was a critical crisis emerging in education around funding.  There were also an increasing number of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in the borough (30%) in the last five years, since the SEN reforms and there had been no additional funding.  Many children with SEN were in main stream schools as there were not enough places in Special Schools.  There was now also a requirement to extend support for those with SEN up to the age of 25 with no additional funding. The Government in its budget had released additional funding to go into the high needs block for 2019/20 which would go some way to closing the gap.  There was within Wirral a potential £2m gap next year in the budget.  There was an ongoing debate on whether Children’s Services had adequate funding which seemed to demonstrate that there was a gap. The resources the Council had for SEN children and young people were being maximised in terms of their needs. The findings of the SEN Review were awaited and the findings would be consulted upon.

·  The discussions Members had with care leavers and how they had liked the Health Passports. They had had a positive impact as had the PAs who young people could talk to on a one to one basis.  This showed the impact that could be made when Children’s Services got it right. As part of the improvement journey Children’s Services had to find ways to compensate the children for the things that had not been done well. It had to focus on the impact of not getting it right for children in the past.

·  The Corporate Director believed that there was a good team in Children’s Services and it was getting stronger.  He was realistic about the outcome of the Inspection.  If it is identified that Children’s Services required improvement it is nowhere good enough but it is not because they are not trying it is because it is hard and they will have to catch up over the next two to three years going forward.

 

 

RESOLVED: That

 

(1)  the Corporate Director be thanked for his informative presentation;

 

(2)  a report be presented to the next meeting of the Committee on the Staying Put Scheme as part of the next Improvement Journey Update; and

 

(3)  Housing for Care Leavers be added to the Work Programme.

Supporting documents: