Agenda item

The Chairman welcomed the Interim Director of Children’s Social Care and thanked her for the enormous contribution she had made to the transformation of Children’s Services in Bromley.

The Interim Director of Children’s Social Care, Mrs Janet Bailey, attended the meeting to respond to questions from the Committee.  Mrs Bailey gave a brief introduction, reflecting on the previous two years’ of the transformation journey:-

• The Interim Director thanked Members, Partners and Social Workers for the support they had provided to the Children’s Service improvement process over the past two years.
• The “Roadmap to Excellence” had introduced the Caseload Promise and this had realigned work and added capacity.  Social workers now held caseloads of between 12 and 15 children.
• In 2017, there had been only 42% permanent staff in the Service.  This had now increased to between 80% and 85%.  Managers were ambitious to reach a target of 90% and were also committed to “grow your own”.
• Over the last two years the Atlas Team and MEGA (Missing Exploitation and Gang Affiliation) Panel had been introduced in order to mitigate against the risks associated with Child Sexual Exploitation, Missing and Gangs.
• Social workers continued to be audited and dynamic training resulting from the audits had been introduced.
• Over the past 2 years there had been 7 Ofsted Monitoring visits.  Whilst the Local Authority had needed validation from Ofsted the improvements that were being delivered were about providing better services for children in the Borough.
• Over the past two years the culture of the organisation had grown and evolved.  The then Executive Director of ECHS had been clear about the vision and values of the Service.  Through this vision and the emerging values it had been possible to change the culture across the organisation and staff had come to understand that they were respected and valued.  The Senior Leadership Team had been keen to instill a culture of learning.  To this end confidential “Tell Me” surgeries were held for social workers to meet with the Interim Director and the Director and Heads of Service regularly visited individual teams to meet with and provide support to social workers.
• A Care Leavers Forum and Hub had been established and Care Leavers were now provided with support in relation to housing issues.
• The Early Intervention Service continued to provide support to families to enable them to remain within their communities.
• Children accessing services had reported that they felt that they were known by everyone within the Local Authority.
• There was still more to do; Ofsted had made 4 recommendations and a number of actions would arise from these recommendations.  The Council had 70 days from the publication of the report to return its improvement plan to Ofsted.
• In terms of the next steps; further work needed to be completed on the Bromley Relationship Model, the Social Work Academy would be launched, and the ‘Staying Together’ Team would be further developed.  Further consideration would need to be given to professional development for social workers and initiatives such as the bi-annual “Transfer Window” which enabled social workers to transfer to any positions in different teams within the service (subject to service requirements) would be further rolled out.
• The three key challenges remained: the Children’s Social Care Budget, reducing the number of care proceedings, and staff recruitment and retention.

Mrs Bailey responded to questions, making the following comments:-

• Once the Children’s Service Improvement Governance Board had been decommissioned the Service would continue with a Practice Improvement Board.  Whilst the Chairman of the Children’s Service improvement Governance Board had been fantastic at scrutinising and challenging the Service over the past 18-months, Ofsted would expect to see more robust internal scrutiny.  As a result of this there would be a Board but it would not be an external board.
• The turnover of agency staff had slowed and there was 1 locum social worker in the Looked After teams.  The increase in the number of permanent staff had provided stability to the children.  It was notable that a number of the remaining agency staff had been with the Service through the improvement journey and the Interim Director confirmed that she was confident they would stay with the Local Authority.
• Conversations about the facilities for staff were ongoing and this was a priority for the senior leadership team.
• The Department was no longer progressing with the Eclipse case management system.  The Department would go out to tender for an alternative system and a Programme Manager would be brought in.  It was likely that the procurement of a new system would take 18-24 months and then implementation beyond this.

Members requested that the Improvement Plan be presented to the Select Committee following submission to Ofsted.

The Chairman thanked the Interim Director for her update and encouraged Members to attend the Corporate Parenting Celebration of Achievement which was being held from 3pm to 7pm on 22^nd February at The Warren.