Agenda item

Report CS17130

The Committee considered an update on progress in implementing the Children’s Services Improvement Action Plan, including feedback from Ofsted’s second monitoring visit.

The Council’s services for children in need of help and protection and children looked after and the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board had been inspected by Ofsted in Spring 2016. Although the Inspection had identified some strengths, the Local Authority received an overall judgement of ‘Inadequate’ and the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board was rated with a judgement of ‘Requires Improvement’. Following the publication of the Ofsted report, a range of actions had been undertaken to drive the improvement process, including the development of the Improvement Action Plan which was scrutinised and reviewed by the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board on a monthly basis and for which the Council’s Executive had agreed an additional £2.3m of funding.

The first Ofsted monitoring visit had taken between 8^th and 9^th November 2016 during which a number of cases were reviewed and interviews took place with Officers and young people, parents and carers. Ofsted subsequently confirmed that this monitoring visit had found a very limited improvement in practice, and that there was a need to accelerate the improvement process by the next monitoring visit in February 2017.  The Deputy Chief Executive had joined the Local Authority in December 2016 and had delivered a range of actions to increase the pace of improvement, including the introduction of new governance and monitoring arrangements and an improvement audit programme. 

The second Ofsted monitoring visit had taken place between 22^nd and 23^rd February 2017 during which cases were selected from Children’s Social Care’s monthly audit cohort for review and interviews were held with a range of officers and external representatives.  The Inspection Team provided informal feedback at the end of the monitoring visit indicating that good progress was being made in improving practice and pace, and that staff were able to identify areas of change.  Formal feedback from the visit would be provided to the Local Authority on 24^th March 2017 and the third Ofsted monitoring visit would take place between 9^th and 10^th May 2017.

The Interim Director: Children’s Social Care reported that work continued to drive forward improvement across the service.  The Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board had reviewed timescales on delivering the actions within the Improvement Action Plan which found that 93% of the 200 actions identified by the Board had been completed, with the remaining actions which related to children looked after, care leavers and adoption to be taken forward as a priority.  An ongoing programme of monthly and ‘deep dive’ audits was being maintained following the introduction of the quality assurance framework, including a ‘deep dive’ audit on children looked after who were subject to Section 20 and had been supported to return home, and ‘Getting to Good’ seminars had been introduced to provide feedback to social workers, identifying learning points and celebrating good practice.  Three external consultants had been recruited to undertake a programme of live case auditing, and the Bromley Safeguarding Children Board had appointed an external auditor to conduct a review on the themes of neglect and child sexual exploitation that would be reported to the Board in April 2017.

In considering children looked after, the Interim Director: Children’s Social Care confirmed that the Downham Youth Centre would be used as a care leavers’ hub one day each week with a full range of partners brought together to provide information and support.  A new training programme to support care leavers as they moved towards independent living would start in April 2017 and this had been discussed by Members at a recent meeting of Council.  With regard to training for foster carers, the Chairman requested that the Chairman of Bromley Foster Carers Association be consulted on the development of appropriate training provision.

In response to a question from a Member around the induction process for new children’s social care staff, the Interim Director: Children’s Social Care advised that permanent staff joining the Local Authority were given a two week induction in which they were able to learn Bromley’s policies and procedures and familiarise themselves with their case files before taking responsibility for them.  A Member was pleased to note the direction of travel for Children’s Social Care services but highlighted that there was also a need to ensure that Adult Social Care services were fit for purpose and that staff within Adult Social Care services felt valued.

The Chairman underlined the governance role of Councillors and requested that the Portfolio Holder for Education and Children’s Services provide a written introduction to future update reports on children’s services to reflect the work being undertaken by Members.  The Chairman also requested that the Chairman of the Child Sexual Exploitation Working Group be invited to the meeting of Care Services PDS Committee on 23^rd September 2017.

RESOLVED that progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Social Care services be noted.