Agenda item

All Members of the Council and Co-opted Members of the Education Select Committee and Public Protection and Safety PDS Committee are invited to attend the meeting for consideration of this item.

Report to be published under separate cover.

Report CS17036

The Committee considered a report outlining the findings of the Ofsted Inspection of Children’s Services and a linked Inspection of the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board undertaken from 11^th April to 5^th May 2016, the actions taken immediately to respond to these findings, and the Local Authority’s plans for further improvement.

The Inspection had been undertaken using the latest version of Ofsted’s Framework for Inspection which was substantially different to the previous framework used when the Local Authority’s services were last inspected in 2012, and included intense scrutiny and challenge of individual cases.  The focus of the Inspection had been on the quality of frontline practice and management and the ‘child’s journey’ and experience of services, and had included the auditing of a number of cases as well as observation of direct practice, visits to children’s centres and meetings with parents, carers and young people. 

The Inspection report was published on 27^th June 2016.  Although the Inspection had identified some strengths across Children’s Services, the Local Authority had received an overall judgement of ‘Inadequate’ and the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board was rated with a judgement of ‘Requires Improvement’.  The Chief Executive, Interim Director of Children’s Services and the Lead Member for Children had accepted the findings of the Inspection and a number of immediate actions had been taken to address the identified weaknesses.  These included a recruitment drive to increase social worker and management capacity in key areas, measures to reduce delays in achieving permanence for children looked after including the establishment of the Early Permanence Panel, and a range of actions around thresholds including a review of all open Child in Need and Child Protection cases.  Measures had also been taken to address concerns around systems to monitor children missing from home and placements, ensure suitable accommodation and support was in place for young people post-18 years, and provide appropriate legal support to Children’s Social Care staff.  The Lead Member for Children’s Services had established the multi-agency Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board in June 2016 to oversee the improvement process and support the development of the Improvement Action Plan, which had been grouped into ten themes corresponding to the recommendations of the Ofsted Inspection report and would be submitted to the Department for Education for consideration before 26^th September 2016.  A multi-agency Officer Group had also been established to lead on work streams identified in the improvement plan, as well as to monitor the improvement actions and performance measures and report progress to the Governance Board.

Following the publication of the Ofsted report, the Department for Education had appointed the Commissioner for Children’s Services in Bromley.  The role of the Commissioner was to make recommendations for the immediate improvement of children’s social care and recommend any additional support required to drive the required improvement, review the Local Authority’s leadership and management capacity and capability to drive forward the necessary changes, and to make a recommendation to the Secretary of State as to whether alternative delivery arrangements were the most effective way of securing and sustaining the required improvement.  The Commissioner had been working closely with the Local Authority during Summer 2016 and would provide her report to the Secretary of State by 30^th September 2016.  Ofsted would also carry out an ongoing programme of monitoring activities, including quarterly monitoring visits to report on the progress made by the Local Authority and the first monitoring visit would be in November 2016, which would focus on individual cases as an overall reflection of how the Local Authority was serving young people.

In considering the Ofsted Inspection of Children’s Services the Chairman highlighted that a number of areas had been found to be providing a good quality service and that focus should be maintained in these areas whilst delivering the Improvement Plan for those areas judged as ‘Inadequate’.  Another Member noted that since the new Ofsted Inspection Framework had been introduced in November 2013, of the 106 local authorities inspected, 53 had been judged as ‘Requires Improvement’ and 25 as ‘Inadequate’ and suggested it would be useful to know the previous Ofsted ratings of these local authorities and what similarities they might have to Bromley. 

Councillor Nicholas Bennett JP was concerned that the Inspection had revealed the Local Authority’s scrutiny arrangements to be inadequate.  There was a need to consider how scrutiny could be more robust and challenging, and reassurance should be provided that the recommendations of scrutiny committees would be treated seriously.  The Chief Executive confirmed that the scrutiny arrangements of the Local Authority would be reviewed and that Officers would be working with Members to develop efficient processes to ensure effective scrutiny as well as to review the ‘pyramid’ of managing Council business.  Measures being considered to improve scrutiny included Members having sight of more ‘live’ cases.  The Chairman noted that committees needed to communicate more effectively, and that there should be a clear audit trail of the information shared.  The Chairman was concerned that the Ofsted Inspection appeared not to have recognised that there had been two joint meetings of the Care Services and Education PDS Committees on 7^th May 2013 and 25^th February 2015 to explore the theme of child safeguarding in Bromley. 

With regard to scrutiny committees, a Member was concerned that key ongoing issues such as recruitment and retention had not been routinely brought to Members’ attention.  The Chief Executive reported that audit and quality processes had been identified as a key area for improvement by the Inspection, and that a range measures had been put in place to strengthen this, including the recruitment of a new Assistant Director who would be developing a new Quality Assurance and Audit Framework.  Work was underway to develop a stronger package of information to be provided to Members which would include critical headlines and data on caseloads, drift and delay across a full range of services.  The Chairman noted that there was a need to consider how information which supported scrutiny could best be presented to enable Members and Co-opted Members to undertake independent research and requested that the Chief Executive take this forward.

In considering the corporate parent role, a Member was concerned that some Members did not appear to fully appreciate their responsibilities as a corporate parent, and suggested that a special emphasis should be placed on Member training after the next Council elections to ensure that all new Councillors fully understood this responsibility.  Members generally discussed their role as corporate parents and how the information that could be shared about children in care could be improved.  A Corporate Parent Training session would be provided to Members shortly to assist them in understanding the corporate parent role, and consideration was being given to how Members could develop a better understanding of the quality of case work.  Members requested that information on the findings of case audits due to be considered by the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board as part of the quality audit processes be provided to Members of the Care Services PDS Committee as a briefing paper.  The Chairman requested that thematic reports from quality auditing be presented at future meetings of the Care Services PDS Committee and that this be included in the Committee’s work programme.

In reviewing the Improvement Action Plan, a Member highlighted the issues identified around leadership, management and governance and queried if the level of additional resources requested in the report would be sufficient to deliver the required improvement.  The Chief Executive advised that the report was seeking approval by Full Council to fund posts included in Phase 1 and Phase 2 of improvement works that had already been committed but that where necessary, further funding could be requested.  In response to a question from a Member, the Chief Executive confirmed that work was being undertaken to ensure that social worker practice was safe on the ground in frontline practice and that this was better evidenced at a strategic level through the improvements to the Quality Assurance Systems, and as these measures became embedded, confidence in the system would increase.  A Member underlined the need to increase the pace of change and requested that a column be added to the Improvement Action Plan which reported progress against each measure.  The Interim Director: Children’s Social Care informed Members that initial feedback provided at the Ofsted Action Planning Seminar in July 2016 had been positive around the pace of change and the measures being developed for improvement.

With regard to case management, the Interim Director: Children’s Social Care reported that 40 case audits would be undertaken on a monthly basis until there was evidence that improvement measures had been embedded.  These cases would be followed up after 4-6 weeks by Heads of Service to ensure any required action had been completed, and face-to-face feedback would be provided to social workers who had also received training on using an audit tool.  Some local authorities brought in independent audit teams to consider their casework and the potential benefit of this to the Local Authority would be explored.  A Co-opted Member recognised the benefits of using ‘near misses’ in improving practice and the Interim Director: Children’s Social Care advised that the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board undertook reviews of ‘near miss’ cases to identify learning points. 

A Member noted that the outcome of the Inspection of the Youth Offending Service in January 2015 by HM Inspectorate of Probation had also been poor and that there had been several common themes in the two inspections, including issues with leadership and management.  The Member asked for reassurances that services provided to other vulnerable residents were robust, and the Chief Executive confirmed that following the outcome of the Inspection, all Local Authority Directors and Assistant Directors had been challenged to review their services using best practice, peer group comparisons and other measures including peer review to evidence that their services were being delivered to a high standard.

In response to a question from a Member regarding whether recent changes to foster carer payments had contributed to the outcome of the Inspection, the Chief Executive advised that the remuneration of foster carers had been a ‘live’ issue at the time of the Inspection, but that since the Local Authority had repositioned foster carer payments more in line with neighbouring local authorities, the number of foster carers had remained steady, although work continued to recruit new foster carers.  The need for additional support had been identified through the consultation process with foster carers, and a training programme had now been put in place.  Work was also being undertaken to identify best practice in neighbouring local authorities.  With regard to care leavers, the Interim Director: Children’s Social Care confirmed that Pathway Plans were in progress.  Staff had been provided with training to ensure that clear objectives were set and audits would be completed by managers and Heads of Service to check the quality of the work and that actions were being completed.  No member of staff would undertake an audit of their own cases.

In considering recruitment, a Member queried whether the emphasis would be on newly qualified or experienced social workers.  The Interim Director: Children’s Social Care advised that the Local Authority aimed to recruit experienced staff where possible as newly qualified staff had more limited caseloads and required more support, but that the Local Authority was also committed to developing newly qualified social workers, and recruited up to six social workers through the Step Up to Social Work Scheme per annum in addition to newly qualified social workers recruited through other routes.  The additional social worker posts created since the Inspection had been filled with the exception of one post, and a Court Team had been established which would focus on all Court work with the aim of reducing the caseloads held by practitioners in the Safeguarding and Care Planning Teams.  A Member suggested that an anonymous survey might be useful to identify how social workers felt about their work and common themes for improvement.  The Chief Executive reported that there had been several events at which social work staff could provide feedback including three staff meetings and three staff forums, as well as informal engagement during ‘walkabout’ sessions. 

A Co-opted Member noted the issue under Priority Three for the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board to develop a systematic way to engage with young people.  Partners such as Healthwatch Bromley engaged with young people on a regular basis and could offer assistance in this area.  The Chairman underlined the excellent work of the Living in Care Council in representing children looked after and recommended all Members attend one of their meetings in their role as corporate parents.

RESOLVED that the Council’s Executive be recommended to:

1)  Agree the actions set out in the draft Children’s Services Improvement Plan which would be submitted to Ofsted (subject to any comments received at the meeting);

2)  Request the Constitution Improvement Working Group support the Director of Corporate Services in developing and delivering any necessary constitutional changes required by the Improvement Action Plan;

3)  Recommend to Full Council that funding be approved for the posts included in Phase One and Phase Two which had already been committed and which totalled £949k in 2016/17 with a full year effect of £1,471k as set out in paragraph 6.3 to Report CS17036; and,

4)  Subject to approval by Full Council, agree that the appointment of any posts included in Phase Three (as set out in paragraph 6.3 to Report CS17036) be delegated to the Chief Executive in consultation with the Leader, Portfolio Holder for Resources, Portfolio Holder for Care Services and Director of Finance as previously agreed.

Councillors Kathy Bance MBE, Nicholas Bennett J.P., Kim Botting FRSA, Stephen Carr, David Cartwright QSFM, Ian Dunn, Will Harmer, William Huntington-Thresher, Kate Lymer, Alexa Michael, Tom Philpott, Chris Pierce and Michael Tickner left the meeting following consideration of this item.