(A) ADE ADETOSOYE, DEPUTY CHIEF EXECUTIVE AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF EDUCATION, CARE AND HEALTH SERVICES
(B) DAVID DARE, HEAD OF SAFEGUARDING AND CARE PLANNING WEST
(C) DAVID BRADSHAW, HEAD OF ECHS FINANCE
Minutes:
The Committee had been provided with a comprehensive report in advance of the meeting. Included within the report was an overview of the Children’s Social Care Budget and data surrounding the families accessing children’s social care and the reasons for referrals into the service. In addition to this, Members had before them the Bromley Safeguarding Children’s Board Neglect Strategy. Following the publication of the agenda supplementary financial information had been circulated to Members.
The Chairman welcomed Mr Ade Adetosoye, Mr Bradshaw and Mr Dare to the meeting. Members of the Committee explored a number of themes and issues with the witnesses.
The Head of ECHS Finance introduced the report and highlighted that the current forecast was a £1.5m overspend in the Children’s Social Care budget (after management action). The supplementary information provided to the Committee provided a further breakdown of the budget and current outturn. The Chairman highlighted that in 2016/17 there had been an injection of funding from the Executive following the Ofsted Inspection.
The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West emphasised that Children’s Social Care was a demand-led Service. The report presented to the Committee had detailed some of the reasons that Bromley children had entered care. There was a range of children accessing statutory services, often with a variety of needs. The Committee noted the national challenges around the availability and access to secure beds. The result of the inadequacy of the market to meet the high demand meant that young people often had to be placed in other, non-secure, provision with a high, and therefore costly, ratio of staff to child. The report before the Committee detailed three case studies of Bromley children looked after. Two of the three young people had been unknown to the Local Authority prior to coming into care.
The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West also emphasised the range of packages that were offered to children with disabilities in order to support them to remain at home. Many of the young people had complex disabilities and this placed an extreme strain on parents. As a result of this parents often required additional support such as, but not limited to, respite care. The costs associated with children with disabilities entering care were high as a result of the complexity of their care needs.
The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West reported that it was difficult to identify why there had been an increase in the numbers of children being referred recently into Bromley. The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning informed Members that within Children’s Social Care the combination of mental health issues, and drug and alcohol dependency amongst parents was known as the “toxic trio”. There were a number of factors that led to children being taken into care. The Local Authority worked with parents in an attempt to keep children within the home environment for as long as possible however, sometimes the Local Authority had to embark on care proceedings to request endorsement from the judiciary to take children into care. There were times also when a child would enter care in a crisis rather than in a planned way through the Court. Every decision for a child that was taken into care was reviewed at the weekly Placement Panel. All external placements were also reviewed at this panel which was attended by colleagues from the CCG and Education as sometimes the cost was shared. The Panel ensured the placement provider was providing value for money.
The Deputy Chief Executive explained that the work of social workers in any local authority was to manage risks. If mistakes were made and children placed at risk of harm a social worker could lose their license to practice. The Deputy Chief Executive reminded the Committee that the post holder of statutory Director of Children’s Services was the only post in local government could receive the sanction of removal by the Minister for State.
Accuracy of Forecasting
The Head of ECHS Finance confirmed that forecasting was robust however, the budget for Children’s Social Care remained volatile as a result of the needs-led nature of the Service which was often outside the control of the Local Authority. The Head of ECHS Finance referred to the recent court judgement concerning a Bromley child who required a secure bed. As no suitable secure placement was available it had been necessary to place the young person in a residential placement outside London with 3:1 care. As a result of this the Local Authority had incurred unplanned costs in the region of £5,000 to £6,000 per week. Costs such as these were often hard to predict and therefore hard to reflect in the budget.
The report provided to Members set out the number of children predicted to access children’s social care until 2022/32 and the expected numbers in each category of placement. It was noted that realistic baseline budgets would result from robust forecasting however, it was necessary to bear in mind at all times that the budget was subject to the unknown and unplanned influences on the Service.
The Chairman noted that for the current 2018/19 financial year there was already a variance in the budget of £2.4m in Fostering and Adoption Resources resulting from a significant increase in expenditure in just one area. On the basis of this significant variance in budget the Chairman questioned the accuracy of forecasting. In response the Head of ECHS Finance reported that forecasts were based on Officers knowledge of past activity and well as their best prediction of future trends. Targets for mitigating management actions were set but if some were not delivered the budget deficit would continue. The 2019/20 budget process that had just started would be reviewing the current position. There had been a spike in children entering care that had not been predicted at the time the budget was set. There was a clearly a need to set challenging targets however, there was also a need to be realistic about the demands being made on the Service.
The Committee noted that Officers budgeted to actuals although this could be problematic when forecasting future demands. Current forecasting enabled growth to be built into the budget using information from the service, although this was set at a point in time each year. Challenges remained and the expectation was that the service mitigated this as far as possible.
Benchmarking with other Local Authorities
The report to the Committee set out details of benchmarking against other Local Authorities. The Head of ECHS Finance urged the Committee to approach the statistics with some caution as differing measurements could lead to different interpretations. The conclusions drawn from the statistics could differ depending on the measurement being considered. With reference to the unit cost for Children’s Social Care at Redbridge, the Head of ECHS Finance provided some context and explained that whilst Redbridge did spend less than Bromley overall they had approximately 50% more children in need and as such the averages were skewed. There was undoubtedly more work to do in terms of unit costs and further investigation was required.
Learning from Best Practice in other Local Authorities in reducing the Unit Cost
The Deputy Chief Executive explained that further work around reducing the unit cost of placements was a key priority. There was a need to reduce reliance on placements outside of London as the cost of this type of placement was unregulated. There was a clear requirement to manage the market differently and place more children within London as the Pan London Agreement set a cap on the cost of placements.
The Deputy Chief Executive explained that there would undoubtedly be growth in the Service but that it was important to manage the growth.
Members of the Committee expressed scepticism around the fact that there appeared to be one Local Authority whose unit cost was £832. It was suggested that this cost was unlikely given the average unit cost was much greater at £11,304. It was agreed that the data would need to be further investigated. Clearly if a local authority had been able to deliver a service that was compliant with regulatory standards for such a low unit cost there were lessons that could be learnt
Developing new ways of working and the future use of Artificial Intelligence
In response to a question from the Vice-Chairman concerning whether there was any change of practice that would result in teenagers who enter the care system late being identified at an earlier stage, the Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West emphasised that one of the key principals was to leave children in their home for as long as possible. Social Workers tried to support parents as much as possible through early intervention services and support packages that were put in place. However, ultimately when parents were unable to cope their children enter the care system.
The Deputy Chief Executive reported that funding had been secured to establish and deliver a Diversion Programme. Through this programme a team of two social workers would provide support.
In response to a question from a Member the Head of ECHS Finance reported that the Local Authority had received the funding from the CCG detailed in the report. The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that discussions with the CCG around additional funding were ongoing. The relationship with the CCG had improved compared to the position 3 or 4 years ago and £1m in funding for placements had been received from the CCG. The position was under review and further discussions would take place with the CCG.
A Member noted that there was an increasing number of children entering care with a similar increase in the complexity of the children entering care because of increasing medical need. The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that he was confident if there was a requirement to approach the CCG for additional funding based on the need profile constructive discussions would take place.
In response to a question concerning the ‘Staying Put’ initiative, the Deputy Chief Executive acknowledged that this was a cost effective way of keeping young people between the ages of 16 and 25 in a stable placement with foster carers they knew. Bromley was exceeding its target for Staying Put and was fulling utilising the available funding.
In relation to alternative options for the placement of children, the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that that there was a Commissioning Plan in place and this set out the delivery of mitigation and savings. One of the features of the Commissioning Plan was a review of High Needs Placements. In addition to this consideration was being given to new initiatives that would manage the risks in a slightly different way, especially the risks around leaving children at home when parents exhibited drug and alcohol dependency. Managing such risks in a different way would impact on the budget position.
A Member expressed concerns around proposals that were under consideration to further involve schools in early intervention work. It was suggested that the principal remit of schools was to education young people. The Member noted that currently a great deal of social care based support was provided to families with primary aged children. Once the children transitioned to secondary school the interventions significantly reduced or stopped and families were left unsupported. It was suggested that Children and Family Centres should focus more support on children who were approaching or going through puberty. It was noted that Children and Family Centres did not currently open during the weekend and this was a time when teenagers could access support if necessary. The Member suggested that this gap needed to be addressed. In response, the Deputy Chief Executive highlighted that Children and Family Centres did run sessions on issues such as gangs and managing challenging behaviour, and these sessions were targeted at families with teenaged children. It was acknowledged that whilst effective programmes were in place there was always more that could be done and Officers would take on board the concerns that had been raised.
Secure Beds
The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West explained that there were two types of secure placement: a secure placement through the criminal justice route which was court placed; and welfare secure. In the case of welfare secure the Local Authority could place a child in a secure bed for their own safety, although this decision had to be endorsed by the court within 72 hours. Welfare secure placements were in a secure house that was well staffed and often in a remote location. The Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West explained that the placement could often be therapeutic however, the Court would only endorse a placement of 12 weeks. This was in reality very little time to influence and turn around a challenging pattern of behaviour. The Committee noted that the mix of children within a secure placement had to be carefully managed. As a result of this all applications went to a central database where they were carefully reviewed. There were often around 30 applications for a single secure bed.
Recruitment of Social Workers
Members noted that the ambition of the Deputy Chief Executive was to reach the target of 90% permanent staff. The intention was to maintain the current 80% permanent staff and increase from this level. A stable, permanent work force would reduce financial pressure and would also provide much needed stability to the children in the care of the Local Authority.
In response to a question, the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that the Local Authority recruited Social Work Assistants to the Service. However, legally Social Work Assistants were prevented from undertaking Child Protection cases and signing off on assessments.
Recruitment of Foster Carers
The Committee noted that the recruitment of foster carers was a key priority for the Service. Foster Carer recruitment had significantly increased from a very low base of 7 and Bromley now had 29 foster carers. Progress was on the right trajectory although there was always more that could be done.
Members noted that the use of Independent Festering Agencies was far more costly than in-house foster carers. By recruiting more in-house foster carers costs could be significantly reduced.
Net Migration and Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children
In response to a question from the Vice-Chairman, the Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West reported that more families had entered the Borough than had left the Borough. The Committee noted that where children were subject to a Child Protection Plan or were considered to be ‘Children in Need’ there was a statutory obligation to notify the new host Local Authority. If a Care Order was in place the responsibility for the child would remain with the family’s previous host Local Authority.
The Committee noted that one of the key issues facing the Local Authority was the inadequacy of the funding for unaccompanied asylum seeking children received from Central Government. Currently the funding that was provided did not even cover the placement costs let alone the costs of the social worker and other costs associated with a child in care. Members also noted that no grant funding was provided for the first 25 unaccompanied asylum seeking children placed in the Borough. These costs had to be met from the already stretched local authority budget. In response to a question from the Vice-Chairman the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that if the child’s application for asylum was successful and once the necessary paperwork was in place the grant would be received until the young person reached the age of 25. If the application was unsuccessful and the child was to be repatriated the grant would cease.
A Member recalled that there had once been a proposal to encourage families who had migrated to the United Kingdom and subsequently settled in Bromley to foster unaccompanied asylum seeking children. No further updates on this proposal had been received and it was suggested that this should once again be investigated.
Commissioning Process
In response to a question the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that the Commissioning Plan was a three to four year plan which was monitored by a departmental delivery board. Key actions and the processes in place were reviewed on a line by line basis. The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that he was confident that the plan would support the delivery of key savings across the Service. Some progress had already been made in delivering savings against the injection of funds into the Service.
The Chairman thanked the Deputy Chief Executive, the Head of ECHS Finance and the Head of Safeguarding and Care Planning West for their input into the review. It was noted that once the report had been drafted and recommendations agreed the report would be presented to Full Council for consideration.