Agenda and minutes

There were no declarations of interest.

(a)  To agree the minutes of the meeting held on 9 October 2017.

(b)   Matters Arising

The minutes of the meeting held on 9^th October 2017 were agreed and signed as a true record. There were no matters arising.

Report of the Director of Children’s Services

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Children’s Services which outlined recommendations from the Education and Children’s Services Board (2) Task and Finish Group on the Retention of Social Workers.

At their meeting on 29^th June 2017, the Education and Children’s Services Scrutiny Board (2) agreed to establish a task and finish group to consider the issues and details around the retention of social workers arising from an item on the Ofsted report. The task and finish group met four times, as well as holding two focus groups with social workers.

The scoping document, the social work research, the financial information and the workforce strategy and exit interview information were all attached as appendices to the report.

The Cabinet Member expressed concern over the high rate of staff turnover in some areas and the resulting reliance on agency staff and considered options to improve staff retention rates. He considered that more work needed to be done around the retention and recruitment of experienced social workers. 

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People:

1.  Notes the recommendations agreed by the Education and Children’s Scrutiny Board (2).

2.  Requests a report on the implementation of the progression scheme in September 2018, including details of numbers of staff leaving due to the removal of the market supplement and any associated agency costs.

3.  Requests that the Director of Customer and Transformation investigates the potential level of savings that could be made by removing the BSC line management tier of responsibility to enhance the provision of specialist admin support to social work teams. 

Report of the Director of Children’s Services

The Cabinet Member considered a report of the Director of Children’s Services which sought permission, in principle, to the continued running of the local Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) and support team using an outcomes based commissioning model. The Life Chances application was approved in principle in August 2017.

Coventry City Council has operated a Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) and support team since September 2015. This was grant funded until March 2017 and since then has been core funded whilst officers have been exploring future funding models. One option which has been explored with the FDAC National Unit, in order to sustain the delivery over the medium term, was an outcomes based commissioning model. FDAC National Unit have the benefit of a national application to the Life Chances Fund, which provided them with grant funding to support delivery of the service using an Outcomes based Commissioning model, with Bridges Fund Management as the preferred social investor.

Although this is a citywide project, the FDAC Team would only work with a small number of cases (26-34 per annum) and therefore overall impact at ward level was low.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People:

1.  Approves the adoption of an outcomes based commissioning model to fund the continued running of the FDAC and support team to include entering into a contractual arrangement with a special purpose vehicle, which will provide funding for the running of the support team for 4.75 years and the running of post intervention support for a further 2 years. In return, the City Council will agree to make incremental repayments to the special purpose vehicle based on agreed performance milestones, up to a capped amount (to be agreed).

2.  Delegates authority to the Director of Children’s Services, City Solicitor and the Director of Finance and Corporate Services to negotiate and finalise the detailed terms of the all necessary legal agreements in line with the principles set out in this report.

There are no outstanding issues

There were no outstanding issues.

There were no items of other business.