Agenda item

Briefing Note of the Director for Children’s Services

Further to Minute 63/15 the Scrutiny Board considered the briefing note of the Director of Children’s Services, which updated members on progress regarding Quality Assurance and Auditing over the last six months.

The Quality Assurance and Continuous Improvement Framework was revised in December 2015.  It focused specifically on casework services for children provided by children’s social care and early help services with an emphasis on quality assurance that underpined continuous improvement.  The framework had been used to support improved outcomes.  A revised Audit schedule for 2016 was part of the framework which was updated monthly.

Since November 2015 there had been a renewed and relentless focus on improving the quality of practice through the audit and review cycle, which was linked to developing practice through the use of supervision, team meetings, practice improvement forums and manager briefings.  The service had developed a more robust programme of audits to inform continuous practice.

The headlines from the audits were:

1.  Children were seen, and they listened to.

2.  Social Workers were committed and motivated.

3.  There were some examples of good practice.

4.  Early help workers were proactive and tenacious when intervening with families.

5.  There were early signs that practice was becoming less reactive.

6.  Conferences were beginning, through Signs of Safety to consider a more collaborative approach.

7.  Care planning continued to cause concern, with drift and lack of contingency planning.

8.  Neglect and “start again” syndrome was highly visible on a high proportion of cases including those held in early help.

9.  Focus was on assessment, rather than on intervention, impact and outcomes.

10.Looked after Children, had too many moves.

11.Life Story work continued to be inconsistent.

12.Placement sufficiency had a negative impact on the ability of the service to identify appropriate placements for those young people ready for independence.

13.Whilst children were being seen, it was sometimes unclear about the purpose of the visit or nature of the intervention.

14.Recording was still inconsistent

15.Use of chronologies was not routine or properly understood.

16.Supervision was task focused and not reflective.

Through examination of data, the following additional audits were identified as necessary:

1.  Re referrals (% was rising)

2.  Placement Stability (% of children with 3 or more placements increasing)

3.  Use of Police Powers (numbers appeared high in comparison with statistical neighbours)

4.  Thresholds (LSCB audit, following high number of families receiving one visit and No Further Action)

5.  Care Planning (LSCB audit, concern that care plans do not reflect outcomes for children rather they detail actions for parents)

6.  Early Help (re-referral audit identified potential issues with step-up and step-down)

7.  Ofsted preparation audit.

The Scrutiny Board commended the Director of Children’s Services for providing the honest headline list from audits which the Board would like to use as a focus for Scrutiny of improvements, however, they were concerned that progress was slow when time and money had been invested in improvements.

The Scrutiny Board questioned the Director of Children’s Services and the Deputy Cabinet Member for Children and Young People on the following:

·  Communication with staff prior to audits

·  Blockages to getting improvements in place

·  Whether the Audit toolkit was assessing the right things

·  Staff difficulties with the tool kit and judging the impact on the child

·  New restructure plans

·  The list of headlines as a focus for the Board on improvement

The Director of Children’s Services recognised the challenges of progress and explained the national and regional problems local authorities were experiencing with the social work system and the challenges of managing agency workers.  The Director reassured the Board that officers were committed to making improvements and the Scrutiny Board offered support to the Cabinet Members.  The Director was grateful for the establishment of the Recruitment and Retention Task and Finish Group and also agreed that successes be celebrated. 

RESOLVED that the information presented and the progress made to date be noted and the progress on headlines from the audits where improvement was required be reported back on regularly to the Board.  The Board would also write to the Cabinet Member commending the Director for providing the list as a focus for improvement and request the Cabinet Member’s view on these as crucial targets.