Agenda and minutes

To issue a welcome to those present, and to confirm if there are any apologies for absence.

The Chair welcomed those present to the meeting.

It was noted that Councillor Karavadra was no longer a member of the Commission, Councillor Barnes would be joining the Commission in her place.

Apologies were received from Councillor Barnes.

It was noted that Councillor Dr Moore would need to leave the meeting early.

Members are asked to declare any interests they may have in the business to be discussed.

Members were asked to declare any interests they may have had in the business to be discussed.

Councillor Dr Moore declared an interest due to being on the board for Millgate School.

Councillor March declared an interest in the budget items regarding Council Tax support cuts.

The minutes of the meeting of the Children, Young People, and Education Scrutiny Commission held on Tuesday 29^th October 2024 have been circulated, and Members are asked to confirm them as a correct record.

Councillor Dr Moore had a matter arising with the High Needs and Recovery Plan item, requesting that the following be recorded:

Councillor Dr Moore had met with the Assistant City Mayor for Education and the Director of SEND and Education. A subsequent meeting had taken place with the newly appointed trustee to Millgate School. It was agreed that discussions would take place regarding securing funding from sources such as The Primary Trust, or Children in Need, with the aim to extending residency for another year.

AGREED:

That the minutes of the previous meeting of the Children, Young People and Education Scrutiny Commission held on the 29^th October 2024 be confirmed as a correct record.

The Chair is invited to make any announcements as they see fit. 

It was noted that the Chair had no announcements to make.

Any questions, representations and statements of case submitted in accordance with the Council’s procedures will be reported.

Mr Nizamuddin Patel asks:

Who overlooks children's social services to ensure they are following process/procedures. What internal processes are there to ensure quality is maintained and there are no service failures?

The reports do not include the level of complaints raised by parents/professionals for children socials services. This will be useful to help compared to previous quarters to ensure levels of services are maintained and if any intervention or further scrutiny is required.

How does the children's social services manage to ensure quality and accountability when it comes to agency social workers? If a family who are receiving help from the CIN/CPP team are having constant change in social workers which leads to no continuity and thus a service failure at what point will the council appoint a full time, non-agency employee to ensure no further service failures.

Are there equality reportings conducted for those professionals who are present at Child Protection Conference to ensure there are representatives of different backgrounds, gender, race, culture etc? If not, what plans do they have to start recording this to ensure conferences understand parents and children's background and culture.

Also:

There is a huge disproportion of male social workers in Leicester Children's social services.

1. What plans/incentives do children's social care have to recruit more male social workers?

2. Child Protection conferences memberships should include both male and female participants to ensure an understanding and reflection of cultural and diversity needs. In my own personal experience of 2 Child protection conferences and multiple core group meetings, I have not come across one male in any of those meetings. Does Children's social care have systems in place to ensure at least 1 male is present in child protection conferences? If not, what plans do they have to ensure fair equality and diversity in child protection conferences?

3. I understand there are 5 independent chairs for Child Protection Conferences. how many are males/females? What plans do you have to have more male independent chairs?

4. In the last 3 years how many warnings of the vexatious policy have been given by Children's Social Care to parents who's children are under a child protection plan? Who makes this decision and how is this managed to ensure the vexatious policy is not misused by the council and the parents’ views are able to be shared.

5. According to FOI submitted in Nov 24, Agency social workers are paid on average £5440/month, whereas directly employed staff in the same department are paid £3495/month. This is almost £2000/month/worker extra for agency workers and does not include agency fees etc. Just under 20% of staff in CIN, CASP and LAC are agency workers. What plans do the council have to recruit social workers to ensure public money is not overspent in agency staff?

Questions were presented to the commission by Mr Nizamuddin Patel regarding processes and procedures within Children’s Social Care. The following responses were given by The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help:

Mr Patel asked:

Who overlooks children's social services to ensure they are following process/procedures? What internal processes are there to ensure quality is maintained and there are no service failures?

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help responded:

Children’s social work service delivery is inspected periodically by Ofsted. Internally case supervision between an allocated keyworker and their manager takes place monthly and will review progress on key processes and procedures. Within child protection and looked after children procedures, there are also independent chairs who review case progress at key intervals and there is an established escalation process in place they can use if they have concerns about practice. Social Work England is the professional regulator for registered social workers, and they have the power to investigate concerns about social work practice that is not in keeping with professional standards as detailed in their codes of practice.

Mr Patel asked a supplementary question:

If a parent or professional has a complaint and has used the complaints process, is there anything else that they can do to have the complaint fully investigated?

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help responded:

The complaints process is a statutory process with 3 stages, if the parents or the young person are not happy with the response after the 3 stages, they can progress the matter to the local government ombudsman.

Mr Patel asked:

The reports do not include the level of complaints raised by parents/professionals for children socials services. This will be useful to help compare to previous quarters to ensure levels of services are maintained and if any intervention or further scrutiny is required.

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help responded:

A dedicated report outlining levels of complaints and key themes comes to CYPE scrutiny twice a year.

Mr Patel asked a supplementary question:

Do you have the title of the reports please?

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help responded:

The Council’s website contains these reports in the committee meetings section.

Mr Patel asked:

How does the children's social services manage to ensure quality and accountability when it comes to agency social workers? If a family who are receiving help from the CIN/CPP team are having constant change in social workers, which leads to no continuity and thus a service failure, at what point will the council appoint a full time, non-agency employee to ensure no further service failures?

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help responded:

Social work recruitment is a national challenge and unfortunately like most other local authorities we rely on agency workers to ensure we have sufficient capacity to deliver our statutory services. Often, they are covering long term sick leave or maternity leave, as is the case in other roles working with children, for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 113.

Any petitions received in accordance with Council procedures will be reported.

The Monitoring Officer reported that none had been received.

The Youth Representatives, together with the Participation and Engagement Manager for Childrens Social Work and Early Help, will give a presentation to provide an overview of the LLR Youth Summit 2024.

The Youth Representative presented an Update on the Youth Summit using the slides included with the reports pack. Key points to note were:

• Young people from Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland had taken part in October’s Youth Summit.
• This was the first time that all of the participation groups had met together as one.
• The aim was to discuss Health and Social Care services and young people’s  user experiences.
• Themes were explored in group sessions and questions were formulated. The top 5 themes were:
  •  Access to dentist appointments. Why weren’t reminder alerts issued   for regular check-ups?
  • Could there be improvements to Neurodiversity awareness?
  • Appointments with GPs, Schools and Councils left young people feeling ‘unheard’ and feeling were not taken into consideration.
  • There was a need to focus on 25-year-olds transitioning from SEND to provision. It was felt that this was an ‘everything to nothing’ situation.
  • Assistance was required in understanding information. Documents such as Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) should be easy to read.
• The young people had made pledges to go back to respective groups raising concerns in their own areas.
• Young people had signed up to plan the next summit.

The Chair welcomed questions and comments from the commission. Key points to note were:

• This could be the start of a more collaborative approach, perhaps with health care services too. Similar feedback such as feeling ‘unheard’ was coming back from people with health issues.
• Points raised would be useful for the Health Care Commission.
• Young people seeking safety from abroad might share the experiences raised.
• It would be useful to involve a cultural consideration when exploring issues with SEND and young people arriving in Leicester.
• Some of the points raised were being worked on currently. Dental Care, preparation for adult life and Neurodiversity awareness were all under consideration. More widely, use of language was being examined. 
• There was an active project exploring use of accessible language in EHCPs.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted

2)    That the video presented be shared to the commission

3)    Further consideration to take place on young people from overseas arriving to live in Leicester. 

4)    To keep the commission updated with future plans

5)    Communication tools to be examined

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submits a report to provide an overview of children and young people who come to Leicester having arrived from abroad seeking safety, often referred to technically as “Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children”. The report relates specifically to children and young people who are looked after by the council or are eligible for support as care leavers and does not reference all new arrival families entering the city who do not receive support from social care.

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submitted a report to provide an overview of children and young people who come to Leicester having arrived from abroad seeking safety.

The Deputy City Mayor for Social Care, Health, and Community Safety introduced the item, noting the following:

• Sensitivity of language had been considered and the young people arriving from abroad were now known as ‘Children and Young People from Abroad Seeking Safety’ rather than ‘Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children.’ This was considered to be a more humanitarian term and was deemed to be more appropriate when supporting children experiencing trauma.
• Most young people arriving in Leicester were able to remain in the city. This differed to the situation for most other local authorities.
• The hard work of teams involved was acknowledged.

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help gave highlights from the report. Points to note were:

·       There was a small increase in the numbers of children from abroad seeking safety. six additional children were now being looked after since the previous report came to scrutiny in June 2024.

·       There was a slight increase (to 61) in the number of young adults aged 18-25 being supported by The Local Authority Leaving Care teams.

·       There was an overwhelming majority of male young people being supported, with one female child within the Children Looked After Service. three female young people were supported by the leaving care team.

·       The children and young people supported were largely of Afghan heritage, this was followed by those of Iranian and Syrian ethnicity, having predominantly Kurdish heritage.

·       Pathways for children and young people arriving in Leicester were:

o   Spontaneous arrivals – such as those arriving on lorries.

o   The National Transfer Scheme – this had been created by central government to share responsibility for the number of children and young people across local authorities.

o   Those deemed by The Home Office to be of adult age and placed in adult accommodation (hotels) who were then referred to children’s services due to concerns that they were not adults.

o   Sometimes arrangements took place with other local authorities, such as to reunite siblings who had been separated.

·       Regarding placement options, children could be placed in foster care or children’s residential homes. All young people under the age of 18 would have an allocated Social Worker.

·       Those over the age of 18 were supported in semi-independent accommodation in the community. Assistance was given to access medical services such as dentists and opticians after an initial health assessment. Translation services were also provided.

·       Support would be provided in attending Home Office appointments.

·       Specialist provision provided included support from the Educational Psychology teams, support through creative arts, Leicester City in the Community football sessions, leisure passes, bus passes and support to maintain religious practices and faith.

·       Considerations were made for those who were not awarded permanent asylum. Assessment time frames could impact on appeal rights for those

     reaching the age of 18 during decision making process.

• Support is given by the Red  ...  view the full minutes text for item 116.

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help will give a presentation on costing and appropriateness of placements together with an update on IMPOWER.

The Deputy City Mayor of Social Care, Health and Community Safety introduced the item.

It was noted that there had been a concern over the cost of bring in external consultants, so a limited time agreement had been put into place with the option to extend. It was noted that work could be developed and taken forward internally.

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education gave an overview of the work done with IMPOWER. Key points were:

• The value in care tool examined care skill requirements and associated costs.
• Appropriate placement of children relied on both elements.
• Some children were able to return to parents where cases of neglect had occurred previously, but parents had now developed necessary skills.
• The tool was utilized with two cohorts of children.
• Whilst there was a significant saving for the first cohort, the cost grew slightly for the second.
• There was an average saving of around £14k per week across the cohorts which was deemed to be a good return.
• Another advantage of the tool was having the ability to estimate costings for children first coming into social care and consider appropriate care delivery.
• The work with IMPOWER had discontinued but connections remained in place.

The Chair welcome questions and comments and the following was noted:

• The human element of the work was balanced with the financial aspect. Correct costing ensured that care needs were met.
• Functional Family Therapy care work was still in development.
• Increases in costs for children’s social care were not due to increasing numbers of children. The problem came from the regulation of social care from a financial position.
• The value in care tool allowed for needs and costing to be assessed jointly. Conversations on appropriate care packages could then ensue. The goal was not to compromise on care.
• In terms of measuring success, every looked after child case was reviewed. Meetings took place with the young person to gather their views and ensure that their voice was heard.
• Checks were in place with external providers regarding both the care and cost elements.
• The Functional Family Therapy team enabled longitudinal follow up on outcomes to take place at set ages. There was a success rate of over 90% in keeping children out of care

           18 months after the end of support.

• All staff were trained in youth engagement and there was a ‘child friendly’ approach with reviews. Development was ongoing to increase confidence with this aspect of work.
• Each child who was not in contact with family had access to an independent

           visitor.

The Independent Visitor Service was recently nominated for a National Award.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted

2)    For a 6 monthly report, including cover report, on the Family Therapy pilot.

3)    Information on independent visitors would be sent to members.

4)    For future reports to include more elements from the children’s perspectives.

The Strategic Director Social Care and Education submits a report to provide an overview of the development and progress of the Children’s Services Cost Mitigation Programme. 

The Strategic Director of Social Care and Education submitted a report to provide an overview of the development and progress of the Children’s Services Cost Mitigation Programme. 

The Deputy City Mayor of Social Care, Health and Community Safety introduced the item noting the following:

• Internationally recruited staff had received a positive welcome from existing staff.
• A new children’s home had opened in Aylestone, and a further home was to be completed in Braunstone by the Summer of 2025. Communications with the contractor had been highly successful, with an emphasis on meeting the needs of the children.
• The Deputy City Mayor of Social Care, Health and Community Safety recognised and commended the work of staff across the network of Leicester children’s homes.

The Strategic Director for Social Care and Education gave an overview of the report. Key points to note were:

• £2m had been allocated to Children’s Services at the last budget. The various divisions had been successful in delivering within budget. Some surplus had been created.
• Around 3 posts had been lost, but historically these were NHS roles and were likely best placed there. There was good rigour around vacancy management.
• Following the consultation on children’s centres, information was awaited from Central Government surrounding models.
• Aspirations were to move towards more locality based social work teams. Updates would be coming to the commission regarding locality work with families.
• Multi-Systemic Therapy and Functional Family Therapy had created a cost mitigation of £1.6m. Children had been able to remain at home with the support of their families.
• The numbers of children in the care of Leicester City had been reduced down from around 650 to 600.  Many of these children had come from overseas.
• A Social Care Academy would be launched with Leicester universities to develop routes through education, leading to work in Social Care. More information on staffing and training would be coming to the commission.
• There was continued pressure on the High Needs Block. Demand for EHCPs was increasing. A change programme was upcoming.

The Chair invited the commission to raise questions and comments. Key points noted:

• A wide range of support was in place for Social Workers relocating from South Africa and Zimbabwe. This included a relocation allowance, assistance to secure accommodation, finding school places for dependants, training and regular catch ups with the Principal Social Worker. There had been work with local community groups and colleges to aid with the transition into the community.
• When assessing shared premises for children’s services, it was vital to have an open process. 
• Time frames for outcome decisions on children’s centres were reliant on central government plans. Extra funding and resources would be available in the next financial year and a delivery project plan would be developed.

AGREED:

1)    That the report be noted.

2)    That the Commission would follow the progress of social work staffing and training.

3)    For the Commission to be updated on work with families in the locality. A project plan would be required.

The Director of Finance submits a draft report proposing the General Fund Revenue Budget for 2025/26.

Members of the Commission will be asked to consider and provide any feedback which will be submitted to the Council Budget meeting.

As the reports on the Revenue Budget and Capital Programme were related, they were taken as one item.

The Director of Finance submitted a draft report proposing the General Fund

Revenue Budget for 2025/26 and the Capital Programme for 2025/26.

Key points included:

• The medium-term financial outlook was the most severe ever known.  The Council was in the same situation as many other local authorities who were facing difficulties balancing the financial budget, some of which had issued a Section 114 notice.
• The Council found itself in this position due to a period of austerity which had reduced the scope to make further savings.
• Recent cost pressures had not been matched by government funding.  Additionally, cost pressures were affected by a high demand for social care and a rise in inflation.
• The Council were fortunate to have one-off monies available, however, following the Chancellor’s national budget in October, more constraints were anticipated.
• The Government understood the situation that councils were in, however, it was thought that new funding would be modest and amount to a real-terms cut in ‘unprotected services’ including those provided by councils.
• The report showed action taken by the Council.  The strategy was to balance the budget up to 2028.  The strategy was based on forecasts and was aimed at maximising one-off resources.
• It was not expected that there would be any longer-term government plans until next year.
• Strand 1 of the Revenue Budget involved releasing one-off monies in order to buy time.
• Reductions in the Capital Programme involved spending less and raising funds selling property.
• The strategy was reliant on one-off money to get to the 2027/28 financial year, after which there would be a gap of £90m.
• With regard to the one-year Capital Programme, there was no certainty over government funding.  The government would publish a spending review in spring.
• The Capital Programme was linked to getting to a stable revenue position.
• The budgets were balanced for the next three years.  This was the best outlook at this point.

The Commission was invited to ask questions and make comments.  Key Points included:

• In response to concern raised that the detailed financial information was not adequately broken down into divisions and service areas, it was explained that since the reports went to all commissions, they focussed on the overall position.  Additionally, in terms of reports focussing on children’s services, it was ensured that financial implications were set out as clearly as possible.  The need for a breakdown would be fed back.
• In response to a query on Personal Transport Plan, it was suggested that a lot could be saved through Personal Transport Plans as they were significantly cheaper.  It was aimed to promote this option to parents by showing them the benefits.
• In response to a query about the fleet, it was not thought that there were any significant issues with the fleet at this point.  It was being considered as to whether new routes could be taken by the buses in the fleet.
• In response  ...  view the full minutes text for item 119.

Members of the Commission will be asked to consider the work programme and make suggestions for additional items as it considers necessary.

Members of the Commission were invited to consider content of the work programme and were invited to make suggestions for additions as appropriate to be brought to future meetings.

It was confirmed that the issue of Children’s Homes was already under consideration by the Commission.

The work programme was noted.

The Chair noted that Councillor Russell would be leaving the commission and gave thanks for her contributions.

The meeting concluded at: 20:02