(A) JIM GAMBLE, CHAIRMAN, BROMLEY SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN’S BOARD
(B) ISOBEL CATTERMOLE, CHAIRMAN, BROMLEY CHILDREN’S SERVICE IMPORVEMENT GOVERNANCE BOARD
(C) ADE ADETOSOYE, DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: EDUCATION CARE AND HEALTH SERVICES, LBB
(D) JANET BAILEY, INTERIM DIRECTOR: CHILREN’S SERVICES, LBB
Minutes:
The Committee had been provided with a range of written evidence in advance of the meeting. This included a report providing an overview of the work of the Bromley Safeguarding Children’s Board, a report setting out the role of the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board, a report setting out the aims and objectives of the ‘Towards Excellence for Children in Bromley’ initiative, a letter setting out the outcome of the third Ofsted Monitoring Visit in relation to Children’s Services in Bromley, and an overview of the Bromley Children’s Service Department. A written submission had also been received from Ravenswood School and this was tabled at the meeting.
In addition to the written evidence contained within the agenda pack provided to the Committee, the following information was also tabled at the meeting:
· A chart detailing the Children’s Service Leadership and Governance Arrangements for Partnership working;
· Terms of Reference for the Safer Bromley Partnership Strategic Group
· The Constitution of the Safer Bromley Partnership
· The Safer Bromley Partnership Strategy 2016-2019
· Bromley Safeguarding Children Board Structure 2017
· Membership of the Safeguarding Children Board (June 2017)
· Youth Offending Service Governance Arrangements
· Membership of the Youth Offending Service Management Board
· Terms of Reference of the Youth Offending Service Management Board
The Chairman was pleased to welcome the following witnesses to the meeting:
Mr Jim Gamble QPM, Independent Chairman of Bromley Safeguarding Children’s Board
Mrs Isobel Cattermole, Independent Chairman of Bromley’s Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board
Mr Ade Adetosoye, Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director of Education, Care and Health Services
Mrs Janet Bailey, Interim Director of Children’s Social Care
Jim Gamble QPM, Independent Chairman of Bromley Safeguarding Children Board
In providing details of his professional background, Mr Gamble explained to the Select Committee that he had been a professional Police Officer in Northern Ireland and during his career had worked in the anti-terrorist intelligence unit in Belfast, before becoming Deputy Chief Constable of the National Crime Squad, which later merged into the Serious Organised Crime Agency.
Throughout his career, Mr Gamble had been involved in combating child sexual exploitation and he was responsible for one of the earliest reviews into Child Sexual Exploitation – Operation Ore.
In 2013, Mr Gamble was appointed as the Independent Chairman of City and Hackney Safeguarding Children Board which in September 2016, became the first Local Safeguarding Children Board in the country to receive an ‘Outstanding’ judgement, following an Ofsted inspection.
Mr Gamble was appointed Independent Chairman of Bromley Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) in January 2017. The Committee heard how Mr Gamble relished the challenge presented by Bromley in terms of implementing improvements to safeguarding practices across the Borough. Mr Gamble highlighted that there was a clear apatite and enthusiasm to learn and improve in Bromley coupled with optimism. The role of Independent Chairman of the Safeguarding Children Board was one of scrutiny, challenge and broader partnership working.
In response to a question from the Chairman of the Select Committee concerning the actions that had been taken since taking up his post in Bromley, Mr Gamble explained that he had immediately tried to deliver three things: grip, pace, and a demonstrable impact. BSCB had moved away from a list of harms to a focus on 4 key issues: i) the context of a child’s life in Bromley, including pathways to harm. The establishment of the Vulnerable Adolescence Working Group was central to this issue. ii) Early help and ensuring that early intervention had a positive impact. iii) Leadership – delivering respectful challenge where it was needed. iv) Health and Wellbeing of the Workforce – oversight and challenge to the support provided by the Council’s leadership, oversight of caseloads and supervision, progressing improvement to the working environment of the staff and ensuring that the working environment was conducive to a happy and productive workforce (which it had not been in January 2017). He highlighted his concern that parts of the building did not reflect the standards he would expect for staff doing such difficult and stressful work.
BSCB had developed its work plan for the year; one of the key priorities was establishing and informing a risk register. Mr Gamble stated that when he arrived at Bromley he was concerned that BSCB had not previously had a risk register. One of the actions that had already been taken was a reconfiguration of BSCB, any sub-groups that did not add anything to the work of BSCB had been removed. BSCB was now seeking to develop the authentic voice of young people. This was being done in collaboration with Bromley Youth Council. A Memorandum of Understanding between BSCB and Bromley Youth Council was being developed and the two groups would work to develop a digital footprint survey that would help to provide a better understanding of how young people in Bromley access technology and use social media. In addition to this a Community Engagement Sub-Group had been created and traditionally under-represented groups formed part of the Membership of the Sub-Group. BSCB was also seeking to increase levels of engagement with schools in the Borough.
Mr Gamble described his role and the role of BSCB as one of collective challenge and strategic support. It was now important that the impact of the improvements that had been delivered to date landed on the street and were felt by vulnerable children and families across the Borough through improved outcomes. The investment that had been committed by the Council’s leadership had to be used to build a better approach to supporting vulnerable groups in the Borough.
Finally, Mr Gamble confirmed that this year’s BSCB Conference would focus on empowering the community to engage and care about vulnerable children and families.
In response to a question from the Chairman surrounding whether additional multi-agency training was required in relation to reporting concerns and thresholds for referrals to Children’s Social Care, Mr Gamble highlighted that as well as those partners with the highest number of referrals, BSCB was also looking at those partners who made no, or very few, referrals. The information provided to partners was being reviewed and it was noticeable that there had been an improving cycle of attendance at multi-agency training events. Significant progress in engaging with schools had been made although there was still more to do.
In relation to a question concerning the differing levels of resource contributed by partners, Mr Gamble reported that good financial support had been received from colleagues within education whilst the same could not be said for some other partners. The Police were active and engaged partners who were willing to commit resource. Mr Gamble advised that the geographic realignment of the Metropolitan Police could have implications for Bromley and the impact of this should be monitored. ‘Resource’ referred to more than simply money, it was about ensuring the right people at the right level were turning up prepared to engage in meetings and discussions. He stressed that all organisations within the partnership were suffering under the blanket of austerity however, it came down to priorities and there was evidence that investment in early intervention delivered savings down the line. It was clear that there was an appetite for change across Bromley.
In terms of how the different sub-groups contributed to the work of BSCB, Mr Gamble explained that in advance of the meeting partners were required to provide a written update. This was circulated to all members of BSCB with the agenda papers. Meetings were conducted on the assumption that all members had read the papers that had been circulated. At the Board meetings a review of the work of the sub-groups was undertaken and a mapping exercise was conducted to ensure that opportunities to collaborate were not missed. Each meeting had a clear focus. Mr Gamble indicated that once the improvement agenda had been satisfied and delivered BSCB may be restructured to adopt a different focus. In order to ensure a clear focus on the child, a Strategic Chairs Group had also been established bringing together BSCB, Health and Wellbeing Board, Safer Bromley Partnership, and the Lead Member for Children’s Services.
Isobel Cattermole, Independent Chairman of Bromley Children’s Service Improvement Board
In providing details of her professional background, Mrs Cattermole explained to the Select Committee that the last 30 years of her career had been spent working in education and children’s social care. Mrs Cattermole had held senior positions in a number of inner London Boroughs and had held the post of Deputy Chief Executive in an Outer London Borough. Mrs Cattermole had also worked in Bristol for a year were she had been involved in addressing issues of historic child sexual exploitation. Mrs Cattermole had been a Bromley resident for over 40 years and stated that she had been saddened to hear the outcome of the Ofsted inspection in June 2016.
In terms of her role as Chairman of the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board which she took up in October 2016, Mrs Cattermole explained that she had been both privileged and excited to be approached to Chair this important partnership board. The role of the Service Improvement Governance Board was to forensically examine actions that were being taken to implement the Service Improvement Plan that had been submitted to Ofsted following the Inspection. It was a challenging and ambitious improvement plan which extended beyond the 18 recommendations from Ofsted.
Since the inspection outcome, which had undoubtedly been damaging for the reputation of the Local Authority, progress had been made at a good pace. It was important for any Local Authority to recognise that such a systematic failure of one of its key services was a Corporate failure. It was pleasing that in Bromley there had been a corporate response and good levels of improvement had been made in a relatively short space of time. It was important to recognise that the Council’s relationship with the Commissioner for Children’s Services in Bromley was pivotal to this improvement. In addition, it was clear that there was good buy-in to the improvement process from partners.
Mrs Cattermole emphasised that Children’s Social Care was very much a demand-led service, social workers did not actively seek their client base. It was also clear that the nature and needs of the local community was continuously changing and the Service had to be able to meet and address these ever evolving challenges going forward.
Positive feedback had been received, both from the DfE and Ofsted during the regular monitoring visits. As the report of the Commissioner for Children’s Services in Bromley had not been published it was not yet clear what the recommendation would be in terms of whether the Local Authority was deemed capable of managing its Children’s Services. Mrs Cattermole however reported that she was encouraged by the progress that had already been made and the determination of the Local Authority and its partners to deliver the necessary improvement.
In response to a question from the Chairman concerning how the Council could be sure that the Corporate Structure was fit for purpose in the future, Mrs Cattermole explained that the only way for the Council to maintain momentum going forward was to realise that the damaging effect of the inspection outcome on both the community and the Council’s partners would come back to haunt the Local Authority if it did not triangulate the improvement that had already been made. It was important to ensure that the level of resource that had recently been put into the Service was sustained, and that robust and challenging scrutiny processes were in place to hold leaders and practitioners to account. The Children’s Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA), conducted in September 2016, and circulated to all Members following the last meeting of the Governance Board on 23June 2017, clearly demonstrated the challenges that the Local Authority was facing over the next 5 to 10 years. The Corporate leadership needed to be sighted on the challenges ahead to be able to challenge officers across the Council. Members needed to ensure that the culture of the organisation was such that in the future they were given an accurate picture in terms of the state of services, whether it be good or bad. The strong advice Mrs Cattermole gave the Committee was that Members needed to ensure that the culture of the organisation was conducive to an open and honest professional relationship between Member and Officers.
The Chairman noted the comments made by Mrs Cattermole concerning the fact that Children’s Social Care was a demand-led service and questioned what the Local Authority could do to address the social problems that were increasing across the Borough leading to an increase in referrals to Children’s Social Care. In response, Mrs Cattermole suggested that for children in need and children who were on the periphery of children’s social care, early intervention strategies were key. There was fairly robust evidence that nationally the demise of Children’s Centres had led to increased demand within Children’s Social Care. Many of the problems that were frequently addressed by social workers started with neglect and parents not knowing or understanding how to safeguard their children. This is why a focus on early intervention was essential. Funding was key to ensuring that services were targeted at the right families and there was a clear role for Members in lobbying the Government to secure sufficient levels of funding for early intervention. Another key area was developing a good relationship with schools in order to support them in their understanding of what safeguarding was and the role they played in safeguarding. Local Councillors needed a clear understanding of the needs and demands of the whole of the community. Mrs Cattermole suggested that it would be helpful to review the allocation of resources on a ward by ward basis. In a diverse borough such as Bromley there needed to be an understanding that wards in the more deprived areas required more of the Council resource than some of the more affluent areas, a holistic approach to the borough needed to be adopted.
In response to a question concerning the ways in which the challenges faced by families had changed Mrs Cattermole explained that there was an increasing number of larger families. There were more vulnerable families who carried with them the associated social issues. Bromley was increasingly becoming more like an inner London Borough but was not receiving the increases in funding to reflect this. It was essential that more data was gathered and analysed in order to highlight the challenges faced by Bromley as a Borough. The information and data within the Children’s JSNA that had been complied by the Director of Public Health was powerful. A detailed analysis of the implications of the data within the JSNA needed to be undertaken in order to inform future service provision and support the Council in making its case for increased funding.
Ade Adetosoye, Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director ECHS
In providing details of his professional background, MrAdetosoye explained to the Select Committee that he had 20 years’ experience of delivering the transformation of Children’s Services across a number of London Boroughs including Waltham Forest and Lambeth. During his tenure at Lambeth, Mr Adetosoye had taken Children’s Services from Inadequate to Outstanding. Whilst he was Director of Children’s Services at the City of London Mr Adetosoye had worked with Mr Gamble through the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board which was the only Safeguarding Children’s Board to be judged by Ofsted as Outstanding.
Mr Adetosoye had been in his post at Bromley since October 2016, but had worked with the Council in the immediate aftermath of the Ofsted inspection whilst he was still at the City of London. Mr Adetosoye had supported Bromley at the start of its transformation journey and had been heavily involved in advising the Council’s leadership in relation to the development of its comprehensive and challenging Children’s Service Improvement Plan. The model that Mr Adetosoye was introducing to Bromley was one of simple transformation centred around improved practice. The transformation journey was centred around the Roadmap to Excellent (reproduced in the agenda papers). This provided the structure to ensure that the right families were supported by the Council at the right time. Currently, improvement focused around three key issues:
· Strong leadership – both political and at officer level;
· Permanent staff – with a focus on recruiting the right staff to Bromley thus creating stability;
· Addressing the culture of the organisation – part of this included the environmental issues mentioned earlier by Mr Gamble.
A great deal of positive work in these areas had been undertaken and the direction of travel was now good. There was a clear political commitment and will to drive change and it was pleasing that in their recent Monitoring Visit the Ofsted Inspectors had recognised that Bromley was now moving in the right direction. Once the Children’s Service Improvement Plan had been fully implemented and the challenge from the Service Improvement Government Board ceased it would be the responsibility of the Council’s internal scrutiny processes and mechanisms to provide robust enquiry and challenge to the Service.
In response to a question from the Chairman surrounding how much time was spent on the different elements of his role as Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director of ECHS (Children’s Services, Education, Adults Social Care, Health, Housing, Corporate Leadership), Mr Adetosoye explained that due to the service transformation that had been required, fulfilling the requirements of the statutory Director of Children’s Services (DCS) had initially been fundamental. In the early days much of his time had been spent addressing the issues within Children’s Social Care. One of the biggest challenges had been getting Corporate buy-in to the Children’s Service agenda and the changes and improvements that were required. For the time being Children’s Services were at the core but as time progressed and the improvements that were being made embedded there would be less of a need for such a strong focus on Children’s Social Care.
Janet Bailey, Director of Children’s Social Care
In providing details of her professional background, Mrs Bailey explained to the Select Committee that she had started her career as a social worker in Bromley 40 years ago. As a resident of the Borough and former employee with fond memories, Mrs Bailey had also been saddened to read about the outcome of the Ofsted Inspection of Bromley Children’s Services. Mrs Bailey had previously worked as a social worker in Bromley for 17 years before moving on to a number of other Local Authorities including LB Lambeth with Mr Adetosoye. Mrs Bailey had supported three other local authorities judged by Ofsted to be inadequate through to their next inspection with positive outcomes. Mrs Bailey explained that she knew what ‘Good’ looked like and made no apologies for judging case audits harshly as this encouraged and facilitated practice improvement. In addition to this, Mrs Bailey had worked with Cafcass and had also had roles within the Courts.
Mrs Bailey explained that when reviewing performance within Children’s Services, her mantra was “Is this good enough for my child?”, if the answer was ‘no’ then it was not good enough for the children in the Local Authority’s care.
Since December 2016, there had been a marked improvement in staff morale and a tangible difference in the way in which staff were working. There had been a shift in culture as well as a clear confidence in the new Heads of Service that had joined Bromley. Three of the new Heads of Service had originally trained at Bromley and all the new managers had a breadth of experience.
Currently levels of staffing were very fluid. 66% of the workforce were permanent staff and the Children’s Service Governance Board had set a very ambitious target of only 10 temporary staff within the Children’s Social Care. There were 15 new social workers currently going through HR new starter processes in addition to 10 newly qualified social workers who were joining Bromley. When interviewees declined job offers feedback was sought to identify any improvements that could be made. The help of an agency had also been enlisted to support the recruitment of permanent staff on a payment on appointment basis. A ‘Locum to Permanent’ event was also being held in order to encourage more locum staff to accept permanent positions. Overall, there were currently 11 vacancies across the Children’s Social Care workforce of 215 established posts and these vacancies needed to be filled by high quality social workers.
The Caseload Promise (of between 11 and 15 cases per social worker) was also an attractive incentive, distinguishing Bromley from other Local Authorities. Feedback that had been received was that for social workers, Bromley was now an attractive place to work. Staff now felt respected and supported in addition to being provided with opportunities for career development.
In response to a question surrounding the stability of funding levels, the Leader of the Council confirmed that the additional funding released by the Executive had gone into the base budget and would continue to be available in future years. The Council had recognised that following the inspection additional financial resources were required but Members were also clear that use of resources had to remain efficient and effective. Increasingly capacity was being built into the workforce whilst maintaining the Caseload Promise. The Council’s leadership were determined to deliver improvements in a timely manner in order to improve outcomes for children in the Borough.
In response to a question concerning whether there was anything more that could be done by Councillors, the Deputy Chief Executive highlighted that a high Member turnout at the Corporate Parenting Fun Day would send a powerful message and would enable Members to directly engage with the children for whom the Local Authority had Corporate Parenting responsibility. Members could also engage with future audits and practice weeks, the next Practice Week would be held in October 2017 and social workers would welcome the involvement of more Members. The realignment of portfolio responsibilities and the changes made to the responsibilities of the Council’s scrutiny committees was a step towards delivering improvements in internal scrutiny processes. In addition to this, a review of the Member training programme was being undertaken and the Commissioner for Children’s Services in Bromley had recommended that the programme of Member training continue.
The Vice-Chairman recognised that concerns identified by the Audit Sub-Committee in relation to the recording of data in the CareFirst system a number of years prior to the Ofsted inspection may have been one of the first indications of failures within the service and suggested that in future a more robust approach be taken when minor deficiencies were identified in services. The Vice-Chairman queried whether the issues with recoding data in CareFirst had now been resolved. In response, the Director of Children’s Social Care reported that a new system was being implemented within Children’s Social Care – Eclipse. This was a more intuitive systems and managers were optimistic that social workers were now being provided with the right tools to carry out their work and would now be able to spend more time with clients and less time competing reports.
The Chairman asked whether BSCB had any plans to investigate drug related issues, specifically the availability of drugs over the internet and delivery of drugs through the post. The Chairman BSCB confirmed that whilst the issue of drugs was being considered there was not a focus on the use of the internet in the supply of drugs. This would be taken away from the meeting as an action point. The Chairman of the Children’s Services Improvement Governance Board reported that there had also be a spate of incidents of drugs being delivered by take away food delivery drivers. The Committee noted that there was clearly work for the Police and Royal Mail to undertake to combat this problem.
The Chairman noted that the reports of the Select Committee in 2016/17 addressed a number of the issues being discussed at the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board. The Chairman sought assurances that the reports and recommendations of the Select Committee would be reviewed and taken on board where relevant.
In drawing the witness session to a conclusion, the Chairman thanked the witnesses for the valuable contribution they had made to the meeting and indicated that the Committee would be happy to receive any further information and recommendations that the witnesses deemed appropriate to support the Committee’s review.