Agenda item

Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help will give a presentation on Children’s Services Reforms.

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help gave a presentation on Children’s Services Reforms.

The Director of Children’s Social Work and Early Help gave the presentation.

Key points other than those on the slides (attached with agenda) included:

·       The government had acted quickly following the General Election and an agenda had been set out for what were likely to be substantial reforms in Children’s Social Care. 

·       This built on work from the 2018/19 care review.  The government had expanded on this and taken recommendations from the previous government on developing the Family Help service and developing substantive reforms to take on for this parliament.

·       The four key principles (outlines on the slides), were child-centred and would require substantial changes to current legislation.

·       Previous reports showed that the majority of children in Council care lived with family members or foster carers.

·       The Schools and Children’s Wellbeing Bill was aimed at supporting the key priorities in legislating to keep families together and children safe and removing barriers to opportunity.

·       It was currently seen as good practice to offer Family Group Conferences or Family Network Meetings to explore what was in the family networks and communities to support the child rather than being reliant on agencies as research showed this to be more productive and effective.  The government was now mandating that in situations there the child was at risk of coming into the care of the local authority, such an opportunity must be offered.  A small service could coordinate this activity.

·       In terms of data sharing, having a single identification number rather than separate NHS numbers and unique pupil numbers would help to link databases to allow better data and information sharing.

·       Whilst education had a role in arrangement, education was not currently a statutory safeguarding partner.  The guidance aimed to strengthen the role of education.

·       There had been a large increase in home-educated children since the Covid-19 pandemic, this was a challenge to child protection professionals regarding assurances about children’s safety.  There was currently no legislation to oblige children to attend school as part of a child protection plan.  The planned legislation proposes that the permission of a local authority would be needed before a parent home-educates a child.

·       Corporate parenting responsibilities would be extended to schools, the judiciary and the police.

·       The proposed legislation would make it mandatory that a child’s social worker be supported by the virtual school.

·       The legislation aimed to help care leavers to remain close to the provision that they had been supported by previously.  The local authority had received pilot funding for this, and the programme had been successful.  It was hoped that more funding would follow.

·       In terms of legislating to tackle profiteering, there would be action and planning guidance in the legislation to make it easier to open the right kind of home.  Accountability would be improved through providers with multiple delivery of places.  If Ofsted deemed the care to be inadequate, this would trigger an inspection of the entire organisation. 

·       A more nuanced approach would be taken to children in residential care rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.  For example, it was recognised that supported accommodation for 16–17-year-olds had different requirement to that for other children.  It was also important that there was specialist care in residential homes for children with deprivation of liberty orders.

·       It would be made easier for local authorities to run their own provision.  The Department for Education (DfE) were supporting this through biannual funding bids for councils with match funding for capital funding.  A bit had recently been submitted.

·       In terms of regulating the market to tackle profiteering, a monopolies review was proposed, and legislation was being sought to introduce a profits cap.

·       Many companies owned by hedge funds or investment funds had been leveraging debt against property.  This had been seen as a failure of care groups in the adult sector and the proposed legislation aimed to prevent this happening in the children’s sector.

·       Under previous government regulations, any social worker could become an agency social worker.  Under the proposed legislation, a social worker would need to have been directly employed by a local authority for at least three years before becoming an agency social worker.

·       In terms of priority actions, a reform was proposed around developing family help provision by taking existing early help and merging it into one service with a separate stand-alone family protection resource.  Workers would remain involved so that there was continuity on the child protection plan.

·       The Community based approach would mirror the family help service.

·       The Government wanted Local Authorities to develop multi-agency child protection schemes with partners in the police, health, mental health and drug and alcohol abuse services between now and the end of 2027.  The Council were making sure they had the right resource for this and were working with the Integrated Care Board (ICB) on a shared care record.

·       Work was being conducted with safeguarding partnerships and education colleagues to ensure that the educational strength of the agency.

·       It was aimed to launch a social care and education social care academy to grow the workforce.  This would not only include social workers, but also roles in education and adults social care such as Occupational Therapists.

·       In terms of embedding value of care, work had been done with Impower to work across dimensions on the needs of young people.

·       Private providers were being worked with to drive costs down.

·       Future-proofing would involve making changes flexible to incorporate any future Council reform.

The Committee were invited to ask questions and make comments. Key points included:

·       Providers were clear about what they wanted and were clear in their negotiations.

·       In response to points made on the issue of keeping children with parents or kinship and on inclusivity and the possibility of expanding the scope to other organisations where there were diverse groups, it was explained that it was always looked to ensure that children remained with families where possible. However, where this was not possible. It was important to consider the safety of the child and take other action.  Sometimes in these cases extended family was considered.  In some cases where family members were overseas, the Council looked to bring them to this country for assessment, or to make arrangements for the child to be with family overseas.  Outcomes were better when children were with families where safe to do so, but this was not always a possibility.  If a family put someone forward for assessment, they were assessed and this was monitored by the court, and a judge would make a decision.  In terms of expanding the diversity of support, the best way to do this was through extended family, although there was also a keenness to recruit foster carers.  It was a challenge nationwide to find culturally matched placements for children.  Sometimes children were placed with adult siblings.  There was flexibility on extended family members.

·       There was a regional support group form the DfE to support Local Authorities to progress.

AGREED:

1)    That the presentation be noted.

2)    That comments made by members of this commission to be taken into account by the lead officers.

3)    That the Commission be updated in six months’ time.

4)    That members be kept informed on key issues.