Issue - meetings

Report to follow.

Report CS17089

The report provided an update on the progress on the Children’s Services Improvement Areas and sought to obtain approval to spend the phase 3 resources as outlined in a report agreed by the Executive on 14^th September 2016.

The Executive Director of Education, Care and Health Services and Deputy Chief Executive attended the meeting to update on progress since he had taken up his post in December.  Working within the funding envelope agreed by Members in September 2016, he had identified two immediate priorities to ensure the safety of children – developing capacity, working with the Police, to tackle child sexual exploitation and reducing caseloads for social workers. A new placements panel had been put in place, with all cases reviewed by himself and the Interim Social Care Director, and Legal Services was being supported to ensure that cases going to court were better prepared.   

Questioned about being disciplined about closing cases, the Director stated that it was important to move from being risk averse to managing risk well, remembering that care must have a purpose. Asked about the cost to the Council if it was forced to set up a trust to run children’s services, the Director suggested that, based on un-validated information from other authorities, this could potentially be in the region of £8-10m. 

The Leader announced that he was assessing how best to balance portfolio responsibilities. He recognised that the current arrangements placed a large burden on one portfolio holder in particular, and he hoped to communicate changes to Members soon. 

The Executive and Resources PDS Committee had considered the report on 4^th January and had raised concerns about how the £300k for recruitment and retention of social workers from 2017/18 would be funded. Members agreed that these posts would be needed and the Leader asked that this be addressed in the next update. The Chairman of the PDS Committee also warned against spending money in the current budget just because it had been made available.

The report had also been scrutinised by the Care Services PDS Committee on 10^th January 2017; the Committee had supported the recommendations.

RESOLVED that

(1) The Phase 3 additional funding of £141, 000 part year and £795,000 in a full year be drawn down as outlined in Section 6 of the report.

(2) One-off funding of £150k to be met from the Council’s Technology Fund for the purchase of the laptops and other associated hardware for children’s social care staff be agreed as set out in paragraph 3.8 of the report.