Agenda item

The Deputy Chief Executive and Executive Director for Education, Care and Health Services, Mr Ade Adetosoye, attended the meeting to respond to questions from the Committee. Mr Adetosoye gave a brief introduction with an overview of his first 21 months in post, highlighting the following key achievement and challenges –

• The launch of the ‘Roadmap to Excellent’ and the Transformation Programme; this introduced the Caseload Promise.  Generally the caseload of social workers had been kept below 20 however, the past three weeks had been particularly busy and caseloads had slightly increased.
• 80% of social workers were now permanent staff and the progress that had been made in this area was something to celebrate.
• As a result of additional funding that had been received it had been possible to established a specialist Team for CSE, Missing and Gangs.  In the 2016 Ofsted Inspection the Local Authority’s inability to track its young people at risk in terms of CSE and gangs had been particularly criticised and this new team directly addressed this criticism.
• The outcomes of each of the 7 Monitoring Visits undertaken by Ofsted demonstrated measureable progress within the Service.  The previous week the annual conversation with Ofsted had taken place.
• It was expected that Children’s Services would receive its inspection from Ofsted within the next two months and preparation for the Inspection was ongoing.
• A great deal of progress had been made with the recruitment of social workers and this was something else to celebrate.
• In conclusion, the Deputy Chief Executive stated that he was proud of the way in which the Council had embraced children in care and had taken steps to celebrate the work of children in care.

Challenges included:

• The budget.  LB Bromley was still below the national average and its statistical neighbours in terms of the number of children in care.  This directly impacted on the budget as it was likely that the Local Authority would see further  increases in the number of children taken into care.
• Early intervention.  A key area was to work with schools in relation to early intervention.  There were a number of options to be explored in relation to encouraging schools to do more in respect of early intervention.  The possibility of locating certain early intervention services in schools should also be explored.
• More needed to be done to increase the outcomes for children in care at Key Stage 4 (in respect of achieving 5+ GCSEs).  Currently 25% of pupils achieved 5+ GCSE and steps needed to be taken to increase this.
• More work needed to be done around providing apprenticeship opportunities for Bromley’s children in care.

In conclusion, the Deputy Chief Executive reported that in the past year there had been 3000 referrals into Children’s Social Care, 6000 visits to early intervention centres.  There were currently 2000 children in need, 280 children subject to a Child Protection Plan, 310 children in care, and 63 children monitored through the Local Authority’s MEGA Panel (relating to CSE, Missing and Gangs).  The Deputy Chief Executive stated that he was confident that good foundations for further service improvements were in place.  The progress made by the Service had been measured and validated through the seven Ofsted monitoring visits however, capacity to manage future demand would remain a key issue.

Mr Adetosoye responded to questions, making the following comments –

• The last regulatory visit by the Youth Justice Board had been positive.  The Youth Offending Service was currently in the process of updating the Youth Justice Plan.  A Borough-wide Knife Strategy was being developed in conjunction with the Police.  Recruitment issues within the Youth Offending Service were being addressed.  A further inspection of the Service was expected in two years and the service was making good progress in maintaining its current position in terms of the inspection judgement.  The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that if required he would provide a further update to a future meeting of the Select Committee.
• Following a successful recruitment and interview process for the Director of Education a job offer had been made and accepted.  It was hoped that the new Director of Education would be in post in January 2019.  The Committee extended its thanks to the current Interim Director of Education for her work and the support she had provided to the Committee.
• In relation to Bullers’ Wood; a Public Enquiry of the Appeal would be conducted by the Planning Inspector in the first week of November.  The Enquiry would relate to the second of the three applications and it was expected that it would take place over 4 days.  The Local Authority was also currently working with the School in relation to admissions within the Pan London Agreement.
• Turning to the issue of SEND Reforms; Bromley had been one of the few local authorities to transfer to Education Care and Health Plans (ECHPs) on time.  There was now a need to focus on the quality of the plans.  Officers were also reviewing the capacity of the local estate to support children with more complex needs that required more expensive independent provision.  There was a need to promote amongst parents the excellent schools in Bromley.  There was a clear need to look at different ways of managing the budget.  To this end a bid for a specialist school at Hawes Down had been submitted to the DfE in recognition of the need to increase the capacity to place children locally.  The Deputy Chief Executive stressed that there were no proposals to move children from their current schools and that this was about increasing future capacity.  The Deputy Chief Executive agreed to circulate the description of the new SEND bid and the proposed plan to Members following the meeting.
• In relation to CAMHS; the Deputy Chief Executive stressed the need to review early intervention to reduce the flow into Tier 3 and Tier 4 of the framework.  A number of options were being considered and a bid had been submitted concerning locating CAMHS clinicians in schools.  The outcome of the bid would not be known until mid-November 2018.  Opinions amongst Members on this proposal were divided with some Members seeing value in the proposals whilst others expressed concern about young people being deterred from accessing services provided in Schools due to be possibility of being identified.  The current arrangements provided a more anonymous service that enabled parents to accompany very young children as well as providing services outside of school hours.  The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that both Bromley Y and Oxleas had been involved in the design of the change to service provision and the Chief Executive of Oxleas was one of the signatories to the bid that had been submitted.
• Turning to the issue of the recruitment of foster carers; the Deputy Chief Executive highlighted that foster-to-adopt secured permanency for a child much earlier.  Whilst it may mean that the Local Authority lost a foster carer it was a price worth paying in order to achieve permanency for a young child as the right outcome for the child was secured.  Members stressed the need to retain some home grown foster carers as different skill sets were required for fostering and adoption.  In response to a question, the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that he considered that the regionalisation of Adoption Services was a positive move as it pooled resources and increased choice.  It would be possible to take decisions around permanency at a much earlier stage as well as increasing the capacity for recruitment and delivering economies of scale in the future. 
• In relation to improving the education outcomes for children in care, the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that this was a key priority for the Corporate Parenting Board and the Education Business Partnership.  Work was ongoing to identify opportunities for children in care and Officers were working with Bromley College to identify any support that could be provided.
• Attention had now turned to Social Worker retention following the initial focus on recruitment.  A Retention Strategy was being developed and a good retention package had been put in place.  It was clear that manageable caseloads, in line with the Caseload Promise, would be key to staff retention.  The work of the Council’s Social Workers was also celebrated.  The Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that he was confident that caseloads were reducing, despite the recent increase in referrals into the Service.  In response to a question the Deputy Chief Executive confirmed that the target was to have a 95-99% permanent work force.