Agenda item
Safeguarding and Looked After Children Inspection Action Plan
- Meeting of Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee, Thursday 11 October 2012 7.00 pm (Item 5.)
- View the background to item 5.
This report identifies the level of progress made by the Brent Social Care against the action plan following the Ofsted and Care Quality Commission Inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children provision in Brent.
Minutes:
Graham Genoni (Assistant Director Social Care Division) presented a report to the committee setting out the progress achieved by Brent Social Care against the action plan which had been developed following the recent Ofsted and Care Quality Commission Inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children (SLAC) provision in Brent. Brent had been awarded an adequate grading overall and a good grading for four service components. The adequate rating meant that there had been no major concerns about the safety of children in Brent, but that it had been felt that some additional aspects could have been improved. 50% of local authorities across the country had achieved and adequate rating, 25% had achieved inadequate and a further 25% had achieved a good or outstanding rating. The committee was advised that a new inspection regime was currently being designed for May 2013 and a new temporary inspection framework had been put in place for the interim period. Under this interim regime, those services which had been awarded inadequate and adequate ratings could be subject to a further inspection. The evolving inspection regime reflected a heightening of the expected service standards and it was recognised that it was becoming increasingly difficult to achieve ratings of adequate and above.
Graham Genoni explained that in preparation for this potential further inspection, the council was working hard to address the issues raised in the recent SLAC inspection and those challenges that would be faced by the service in the immediate future. At present the council was working on its own assessment of its SLAC services and would be writing a report to identify the existing strengths and weaknesses. Independent challenge and support was also being sought from colleagues in other local authorities. The council was in the process of developing its early help services. A council-wide project around early help services had just progressed to the initiation stage and work was also being done to explore how the borough’s children’s centres could be developed as a resource for children of a wider age range. It was envisaged that Children’s Centres could provide a medium through which various preventative services could be delivered to families to provide early-stage support, prior to social care intervention. It was hoped that such actions would help to reduce the number of Looked After Children (LAC) in Brent. Work was also being undertaken to reduce the number of irrelevant referrals being dealt with directly by Brent Social Care via the development of a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub, which would ensure that the most appropriate service acted on each referral. The Council was also seeking to support social workers in accessing greater learning development opportunities and had also recently conducted a survey to better understand the views of Brent’s social workers, particularly in relation to work pressures.
In the subsequent discussion, the committee raised several issues and queries. Councillor Pavey noted that children’s centres were now forming a key focus in the development of early help services and queried why the children’s centres had been subject to significant funding cuts in recent years. He further noted that the government had recently reduced early intervention grant funding by £436m and queried what impact this would have on the provision of early intervention services in Brent. Councillor Cheese sought further information in relation to early help services and sought assurances that children would not be allowed to stay in unsafe family surroundings. Councillor Cheese also advised that monitoring would be essential in ensuring that children whose families were in receipt of early help support services were not at risk of harm and queried whether the council had sufficient resources to enable effective monitoring. Councillor Al-Ebadi sought clarity regarding the responsibilities of the council to Looked After Children following their eighteenth birthday and raised a concern about the impact of the changes to the welfare system on vulnerable young people and, particularly, the removal of housing benefit from those aged under 25 years old. Councillor Mitchell Murray sought details of the percentage of social workers who were permanent members of staff against the percentage of locum staff. Councillor Kansagra queried whether social workers were able to gain any practical experience prior to graduating and sought further information regarding the regular inspection cycle and the possible outcomes that could be awarded to the council. The Chair noted that an independent audit of the council’s decision making regarding Child Protection Plans had recently been conducted and sought details of the outcome. The Chair also raised a concern that the voices of LAC in Brent were not being adequately heard, noting that at present there was no LAC representation on the BYP. The Chair further requested that officers highlight the key differences between the previous and new Children and Young People Plans and explain how these differences addressed the issues raised by the Ofsted inspection.
In response to the queries raised by the committee, Graham Genoni advised that the SLAC inspections usually took place on a three year cycle. There were four possible outcomes; inadequate, adequate, good and outstanding. With the introduction of the new inspection regime it was expected that more and more authorities would be graded as inadequate.
Graham Genoni further explained that the Children’s Centres had suffered following the loss of sure start funding and that budgets had been reduced in response to this loss of central funding; however, the council had worked hard to keep Brent’s Children’s Centres open. The recent reductions to the early intervention grant were indicative of the current tensions between central and local government. Funding from the troubled families initiative would be used to offset the reduced early intervention funding but overall there would be less money for early intervention services than there had previously been. It was envisioned that early intervention services would help to reduce the number of LAC in Brent but children would only be supported to remain at home where it was safe and appropriate for them to do so. Due to the high costs associated with maintaining children in the care system, the council could afford to put a lot of support and monitoring in place for a family without exceeding the level resources that might otherwise have been expended. The Council maintained responsibility for LAC until the age of 18; however in some circumstances had an enduring responsibility of care up to the age of 21, or 24 if the individual was engaged in higher education. The support provided to those care leavers included social worker support, assistance with accommodation and general advice and guidance. Tony Hirsch (Head of Policy and Performance) advised that at the present there was limited information from the government regarding their plans to reduce housing benefit to those aged under 25; however, it was expected that there would be exemptions and it was possible that these may include care leavers.
Graham Genoni informed the committee that Brent no longer operated a course for Trainee Social Workers as it had been considered to be more cost effective to recruit qualified social workers. The Council was acutely aware that newly qualified social workers did not have the broad experience and skills base to draw upon and, in line with the professional framework for social workers, a probationary first year of employment, or ‘assessed supported year in employment’ (ASYE), was obligatory and ensured that the council put effective support in to place for these members of staff. Social workers were able to gain some experience prior to graduating which they obtained by working for local authorities with appropriate supervision. Often those social workers would apply to work for the local authority with which they had their placement. Up until recently, 85-90% of social workers in Brent had been permanent staff, this had recently started to decline and actions were being taken to address this issue. There was a greater number of agency staff concentrated in the LAC team than in the front-line Safeguarding team. The council was seeking to better understand the motivations behind social workers moving between different authorities. It was known that salary was not the only key issue and that workloads could also form a significant determining factor. Brent currently worked with other West London boroughs to promote the benefits of working for West London authorities and to provide a joint training programme for social workers.
Councillor Mitchell Murray advised that competition between the London boroughs to attract social workers was extremely counter-productive for London and that Brent should deliver a strong message to the other boroughs that a joined up approach to the recruitment of social workers should be pursued. Graham Genoni confirmed that he would relay this to colleagues in other authorities.
Turning to the queries raised by the Chair, Graham Genoni explained that the independent audit of the decisions taken to remove children from child protection plans had been conducted and the report had been very positive. It had found that Child Protection Conference decisions were robust and the thresholds had been properly applied. Further information would be forthcoming and would be provided to the committee as an update. With regard to the lack of representation for LAC on the BYP, this would be looked into and addressed. There was a participation worker for LAC, and Care in Action Group (CiAG) meetings were held regularly to look at issues of importance to LAC. These meetings in turn fed into the corporate parenting group. A report could be brought to the Committee on the work of the CiAG.
Anna Janes (Head of Children and Families Policy and Performance) advised that there were some substantial differences between the previous and current Children and Young People plans. A key overriding difference was that the current plan was holistic in intent, focusing on how children could grow and develop in the context of issues affecting the whole family. The Plan referenced and linked in with several other plans and initiatives, including the early intervention and troubled families agendas and the Child Poverty Strategy. It was also applicable to partner agencies that worked with children and families and the council would be holding these agencies to account in terms of their contribution to the priorities set out in the Plan. The new Plan was more streamlined than its predecessor and set out 3 key priorities with 8 outcomes, compared to the 6 key priorities and 42 indicators of the previous plan.
With reference to paragraph 5.1 of the report Ms Points noted that the plans in place to address the high caseloads in Care Planning and Localities included closing some cases down and referring them to emerging services under the troubled families agenda. Ms Points voiced a concern that some of the worst safeguarding cases often had extensive histories of repeated involvement with various services and queried whether closing cases down in this manner would merely lead to worse incidents for these families in the future or would lead to cases becoming lost between services. Graham Genoni explained that Brent tracked when cases entered the system and there was a low level of cases repeatedly entering the social care system; this indicated that decisions taken to close cases appeared to be robust. In introducing a raft of early help services, the council was recognising that not every case required the type of support and intervention provided by a social worker and that in some instances, other professionals would be better suited to assist a family. The handing over of cases between services was always a risk area and the necessary procedures would be applied to ensure continuity between service areas.
The Chair requested a copy of the report of the independent auditors with regard to the council’s Child Protection Plans.
RESOLVED: -
That the progress made against the Children and Young People Action plan be noted.
Supporting documents:
- Scrutiny Report Social Care-July 2012 SLAC update, 19/07/2012 Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee, item 5. PDF 70 KB
- SLAC_Action_Plan 20120618, 19/07/2012 Children and Young People Overview and Scrutiny Committee, item 5. PDF 372 KB