Meeting documents

Apologies were received from David Babb, Michael Moore and Monique Nowers.

To declare any Personal or Dislosable Pecuniary Interests.

There were none.

The Chairman explained the format of the meeting and advised members that although the agenda papers included the Draft Children’s Services Improvement Plan as a pink confidential report, this information was now able to be discussed in public, therefore the meeting would remain open.

The Chairman also introduced Mrs Avril Davies who she proposed should join the Committee’s Improving Children’s Services Inquiry as a co-opted member.  Mrs Davies was very experienced and had been an adviser for the Centre for Public Scrutiny, as well as chairing Task and Finish Groups for Buckinghamshire County Council. 

RESOLVED

The Committee agreed that Mrs Avril Davies should join the Improving Children’s Services Inquiry as a Co-opted member.

To resolve to exclude the press and public as the following items are exempt by virtue of Paragraph 3 of Part 1 of Schedule 12a of the Local Government Act 1972 because it contains information relating to the financial or business affairs of any particular person (including the authority holding that information).

RESOLVED

That the press and public be included for the following items

The purpose of this item is to enable Inquiry Members to discuss any immediate comments/suggestions on the Draft Improvement Plan prior to its consideration by Cabinet on 20 October 2014.

The Chairman invited members to discuss their concerns and key areas for questioning in preparation for the arrival of the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and her senior officers.

The main points of the discussion can be summarised as follows:

·         Concerns were raised about the vulnerability of young people when they leave care.

·         A member expressed concern about the clarity of message and vision needed within the service in order to make improvements and resolve the current situation.

·         They were questions about the leadership of the Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board and how that Board would drive improvements.

·         A member expressed disappointment at the limited time the Committee had to review the Draft Improvement Plan prior to the meeting.

·         Questions would be asked about the quality of social work practice and whether adequate record keeping could be achieved in order to ensure that decision makers could make well-informed decisions.

·         Although it was very sad that Children’s Services had been found to be inadequate, members were reminded that this represented an important opportunity for the Select Committee to be involved.  It would be interesting to see the individual project plans once these had been developed, and for the Select Committee to ask questions about milestones and how progress would be tracked.

·         The stability and quality of the workforce was another key area of concern.  It was very hard to recruit social workers and foster carers at the moment and members were not sure this was adequately addressed in the Draft Improvement Plan.

·         Reassurance would be sought around closed or unallocated cases.

·         Partnership working was another key area identified by Ofsted. How can the local authority ensure that quality information is provided by Health and other partner agencies.  A number of the recent high profile cases too often criticise failures of co-ordination between agencies.

·         A member expressed concern about the fact that other agencies appeared to be referring to Social Care indiscriminately – would the new Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) counter this practice?

·         The importance of Early Help was also identified as a key area.

·         Members were also interested to know how assessments were conducted and how risk and resilience were quantified?

·         Budget would also be an area for questioning – did the £2.7million additional resources mentioned for this financial year include the £1million contingency that had already been released to support immediate post-Ofsted improvements? Had the Improvement Plan been fully costed? To what extent would the delivery of the Improvement Plan also rest on savings achieved through Early Help services and reducing the reliance on agency staff?

·         A member wondered how the Future Shape programme to redesign the County Council, would impact on Children’s Service going forward.

·         Questions about how the Improvement Board would work would be useful and whether members of the Select Committee would be able to be involved in that Board, as this was not clear from the Draft Improvement Plan.

The Chairman thanked members for their thoughts and reminded them that the role of the Select Committee  ...  view the full minutes text for item 5.

The purpose of this item is to enable Members to raise questions on the Draft Improvement Plan, including costing information, prior to the draft Plan going forward to Cabinet for approval.

Contributors

Angela Macpherson - Cabinet Member for Children’s Services

Trevor Boyd – Interim Managing Director for Children’s Social Care and Learning

David Johnston – Interim Service Director for Children’s Safeguarding

David Moran – Interim Finance Director, Children Social Care

The Chairman welcomed Mrs Angela Macpherson, Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Trevor Boyd, Interim Strategic Director for Children and Young People, David Johnston, Service Director – Children and Family Service and David Moran, Interim Finance Director, Children’s Services to the meeting.  The Chairman explained that the Committee wished to write a letter including recommendations in relation to the Draft Improvement Plan, which would be considered by Cabinet on Monday 20^th October and it was agreed that this should be addressed to Mrs Macpherson and would ideally be circulated to Cabinet ahead of the meeting.

The Chairman invited members’ questions.

How does the Improvement Plan enshrine improvements in Children’s Services as a priority?

The Improvement Plan is divided into six workstreams and each has a series of actions which directly refer back to Ofsted recommendations.  We wanted to establish very clear leadership roles in the workstreams to ensure that improvements are driven forward.  I had a meeting with the Programme Leads this morning to discuss timescales and milestones and to ensure that all six workstreams will move forward together.  Several of the Programme Leads have already asked how best to engage with members.

How will you ensure that all partners understand and agree on the multi-agency thresholds document, that it is implemented and monitored effectively and supported by clear guidance? I am concerned that partners have been referring into Social Care rather than dealing with issues themselves.

The Buckinghamshire Safeguarding Children Board (BSCB) has reviewed the Thresholds Document.  This has four levels and has been approved by all partners involved in BSCB, who have issued it and committed to training their staff.  Going forward the BSCB will monitor the implementation of the Thresholds Document.

There are three different workstreams which should all contribute to ensuring that more appropriate referrals come into Social Care – these are Leadership, Governance and Performance, whereby all agencies should scrutinise the relationships they have with one another, Improving Early Help whereby services should offer initial support and refer onto Social Care if this does not resolve a family’s issues and also Improving Tools, as improvements in data recording will help partners to refer on more appropriately.

How can we ensure that the leadership of the BSCB will be strong enough going forward?

I can announce today that there will be a change of Chairman for the Board, but I am unable to confirm who this will be just yet.  On Monday the BSCB are holding an extraordinary meeting and this will be Donald McPhail’s last meeting as Chairman.  In addition to the appointment of a new Chairman, we will also be ensuring that the members of the BSCB are sufficiently senior within their own organisation to ensure effective and more efficient decision making at BSCB meetings.

Partnerships with Health and Thames Valley Police are particularly key – where in the Improvement Plan are you ensuring that quality of information from partners can be improved?

Some action has already been taken in this area, through the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6.

The purpose of this item is to enable Inquiry Members to discuss any immediate comments/suggestions on the Draft Improvement Plan prior to its consideration by Cabinet on 20 October 2014.

The Committee discussed the additional information they had obtained from questioning the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services and her senior officers.  The following main points were noted:

·         There was still concern that the actions detailed for improving services to care leavers were not robust enough.  Members were concerned for these vulnerable young people, especially in the light of recent child sexual exploitation cases.

·         Members believed that it was important that the Committee should have sight of the project plans and milestones for each workstream.  The Committee also welcomed the invitation to members to get involved in some of the workstreams.

·         The Committee needed to have a role in ensuring that progress was made and to monitor the service to ensure that any improvements were then maintained. 

·         Members felt it would also be important to monitor the work of the BSCB more closely in future.

·         A member welcomed the news that David Johnston was now a permanent member of staff as he believed he was doing a good job.  Members were also pleased with the announcement that there would be a new Chairman of the BSCB.

·         Officers had given the impression that they were confident in delivering the Improvement Plan.  Members had some reservations over plans for recruitment and retention of staff – they hoped this would be successful but felt it should be monitored closely.

·         It was suggested that the letter to Cabinet should outline the Committee’s areas of concern, request the detailed project plans once they had been developed and explain how the Committee wished to be engaged with the process going forward.

Press and Public were included for the whole meeting with the agreement of the Committee.

It was agreed that the Chairman in conjunction with the Policy Officer – Scrutiny and the Team Leader, Overview and Scrutiny would compile a letter which would include the key points discussed.  Members commended the Chairman and the officers who supported the Committee for their hard work in recent weeks.

RESOLVED

That the Select Committee would write to the Cabinet Member with recommendations for the Improvement Plan and would continue to maintain oversight of the Plan on a regular basis in the coming months and in 2015.

To note the next meeting of the Education, Skills and Children’s Services Select Committee on 4 November 2014.

The next meeting of the Education, Skills and Children’s Services Select Committee will be held on 4 November 2014.