Agenda item
Children's safeguarding services in Brent
The committee will receive a presentation on safeguarding services in Brent. It will be split into two parts – Child Protection and Looked After Children and provide members with:
· An overview of the services
· The structure of the services and the models of service delivery
· The numbers of young people that the services are working with
· The pressures faced by safeguarding services
· Performance indicators
· Information on adoption and fostering, in addition to the reports on safeguarding.
Minutes:
Graham Genoni (Assistant Director – Children’s Social Care, Children and Families) and Elzanne Hook (Head of Looked After Children Services, Children and Families) gave a presentation to Members on this item. Graham Genoni began by outlining the Children’s Social Care structure, explaining that it was a comparatively large service area of approximately 450 staff and held a significant budget. One of the key aims was to increase the number of Brent Council foster carers which would also save the council money as it would reduce the need to rely on foster agencies who charged higher fees. Graham Genoni then provided information on the Brent Locality Service which worked with children in need, child protection, children in care and initiated care proceedings. Members heard that the worker allocated at the point of referral would remain with the child throughout their involvement with the service. The service now benefitted from being 100% permanently staffed in contrast to 30% two years ago and other social services units had experienced similar increases in permanent staff. The Children in Care unit consisted of two teams of young children in care and two teams of older children in care and cared for children unable to return to their parents and unaccompanied young people seeking asylum. Children were supported until they were 21 years of age or 24 of they were in full time education and the unit also provided an expert service for court proceedings. The unit was 90% staffed with council employed qualified social workers.
Graham Genoni explained that since the Baby P case in Haringey, social care activity nationally had risen considerably. Brent had experienced a 25% increase in referrals between 2008/09 and 2010/11 compared to 17.3% nationally and a 55% increase in children becoming subjects of child protection plans as of April 2010 compared to a 33% increase nationally. Of the referrals, the council had achieved 88% of initial assessments being completed on time as against a target of 75%, 87% of core assessments completed on time against a 80% target and a national average of 70%, 87% of child protection investigations progressed to conference within timescale against a national average of 66% and a 17% re-referrals rate against a national average of 24%. The figures illustrated that the council was performing well, including in comparison with other London boroughs and that it had improved significantly in the last two years. In terms of child protection plans, there was a high rate of emotional abuse which was linked with domestic violence between partners. The child protection plan figures were similar to the council’s statistical neighbours and although the number had peaked in August 2010 at 271, there were no signs that numbers were falling to any significant extent.
Elzanne Hook then provided Members with details of Looked After Children (LAC) information and advised that the number of LAC had increased to 376 compared to 350 in December 2009 and this was in line with the increase in referrals. The increase in legal proceedings meant rising costs which placed considerable pressure on the budget. Elzanne Hook advised that 9.2% of LAC children had three or more placements in two years against a national average of 10.9% and 11.9% for Brent’s statistical neighbours. This meant that children in the council’s care had more time to build an attachment with their carers. The committee noted that 100% of LAC reviews had been carried out in time, whilst 12% and 9% of children had been placed for adoption in 2008/09 and 2009/10 respectively against a national average of 8%. Elzanne Hook advised that in terms of translational adoptions, there was a shortage of prospective adopters in Brent to meet needs, however efforts would always be made to find adopters in within the child’s birth or extended family in the first instance. Members heard that 44% of LAC were placed in the borough and 55% outside, whilst there had been an increase of children placed with in-house foster carers of 19% in December 2010 compared to December 2009 and a 21% increase in children placed with family and friends in the same years. Encouragingly, 85% of those aged 19 were in education, employment or training as compared to 61% in December 2009 and this was 20% higher than Brent’s statistical neighbours, whilst 23 young people were currently at university.
With the approval of the Chair, Councillor S Choudhary asked officers why emotional abuse of children was high and was this mainly due to parental neglect.
During discussion by the committee, Dr Levison enquired whether streamlining was taking place in respect of working with outside agencies. Ms J Cooper asked whether the number of referrals of children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) was in proportion to those who had no SEN. Mrs Hawra Imame enquired what factors were taken into consideration with regard to finding suitable adopters.
Councillor Hector reported of a foster carer who had informed her of late payments or payments never made due to the correct paperwork not being in place and she enquired whether this remained an issue. Councillor Oladapo enquired whether certain trends and patterns had been identified in respect of emotional abuse of children. In noting the rising number of child protection plans, Councillor Ashraf enquired if there was a specific strategy to address this.
The Chair sought details of the steps taken to achieve 100% permanent staff of qualified social workers in respect of the Brent Locality Service. With regard to the lack of in-house foster carers, the Chair commented that this issue was often raised by the Fostering Panel of which she was a member and she asked that councillors and officers promote the cause of recruiting more foster carers.
In reply to the issues raised, Graham Genoni advised that the effectiveness of working with other agencies and partners varied, with a strong partnership existing with the police and schools which was much more effective than before. Working with health partners was complicated by the structural changes currently taking place in the NHS and the lack of stability in the present situation made effective partnership working more difficult. Graham Genoni stated that the reasons why 100% permanent staff had been achieved in the Brent Locality Service could be attributed to the strength and effectiveness of the local social work model, with the idea of being based in the community they worked in and the reduced commuting times appealing to social workers. Other reasons included financial incentives in certain areas, better publicity of what the council did and its successes, sound support of newly qualified social workers and the current economic situation making permanent employment contracts more desirable. Graham Genoni added that the council had gained a good reputation in child protection arrangements and was informing other local authorities about these. Members heard that the high emotional abuse of children could be explained by the large increase in domestic violence between the child’s parents or through parental neglect and efforts were being made to improve parenting skills. Abuse was also often linked to poverty, poor housing and substances misuse. Graham Genoni acknowledged that the Fostering Service had not always been as effective as it is now in addition the reliance on independent agencies had sometimes impacted upon timely payments to in-house foster carers. However, a detailed improvement programme had since been implemented and in-house foster carers now received better support and the number of such carers was increasing.
Graham Genoni advised that there was likely to be under reporting of referrals in respect of vulnerable children which would include children with SEN, however the Children with Disabilities Team was joining Children’s Social Care which would facilitate a more joined-up and focused approach in addressing this. He advised that there was always an increase in child protection plans after a high profile case such as Baby P and like the rest of the UK, there were no signs of the number of plans falling. There was some debate over what the appropriate care threshold should be and consideration needed to be given as to what the right balance was, whilst cost pressures also needed to be taken into consideration.
Elzanne Hook advised that faith, mother tongue, ethnicity and a whole range of other factors were taken into consideration along with a comprehensive profiling of the child when identifying appropriate adopters.
Supporting documents: