Decision details

Since the last update to Cabinet in October 2022, the Service had received two regulatory visits. The first was a Focused Visit from Ofsted that looked at the services and support offered to care leavers and the second was an inspection of Youth Offending Services by HM Inspectorate of Probation. Both visits went well and confirmed that the Service continued its improvement journey and whilst there was more to do, the Service had an accurate self-assessment and understanding of what was needed to be done.  In addition, two of the Council’s Children’s Homes were now judged to be ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted and the Council’s new 4 bedded Parent and Baby residential assessment resource had just opened, following registration by Ofsted.

IMPOWER had now completed their analysis of the profile of demand and developed a number of recommendations outlining how the Service could improve its financial sustainability by delivering better outcomes at less cost. The IMPOWER work also concluded that the service and its partners could work differently together to meet the needs of children and young people. The findings from this analysis had helped the Service to refine its self-assessment from which a whole system Children’s Services Transformation Programme had been developed. This change programme would redefine the support that was to be provided to children and families and redevelop the model to enable interventions that were more responsive to children’s needs. The ambition was to create more opportunities for professionals, including partner agencies, to integrate services around the needs of communities and move from a process driven case management model with multiple hand off points to a relationship based, solution focused system. 

There were a number of significant national policy changes on the horizon and the proposed changes to the way in which the Service operated were in line with national policy direction and were based on ensuring that children receive a consistent, purposeful and child centred approach wherever they are on their journey of need from early help through to being in care.

RESOLVED –

That the national and local developments across the Children’s Services Directorate be NOTED.