Agenda item

The Chair explained that a number of questions relating to the Ofsted Report had been submitted in advance from Members, in order that the responses could be received and considered before the meeting commenced.  The Chair had formed the questions into what he considered to be nine significant events in the Review of Children’s Social Work. Of these, events one to five had already been considered during the previous meeting on 23 March.

 

Event 6: A recovery plan is developed

 

The City Mayor was asked whether he had commissioned a report into Children’s Services following meetings in May or June 2014, with the then Assistant City Mayor for Children, Young People and Schools.  There had been a reference to this in the previous meeting; a copy of the report had been requested but had not been received. There followed some discussion as to whether this report was actually commissioned in 2014 by the City Mayor, or whether it was being confused with a report that the Chief Operating Officer (C.O.O) had asked Elaine McHale, the incoming Interim Director of Children’s Services to produce 2013. The City Mayor confirmed that he had not said at the last meeting he had commissioned a report as asserted by Councillor Porter.

 

Members raised a series of other questions relating to the Ofsted Report, which were responded to by senior officers, the City Mayor and Councillor Dempster These included the following (responses are in italics).

 

·         Following the recent Ofsted Report, when would the draft Improvement Plan be made available to the scrutiny commission?

 

It was expected that the draft Improvement Plan would be drafted by the end of April 2015; it needed to be submitted to the Department for Education in June. The City Mayor explained that as there would be no formal meetings during the pre-election, this could be brought to the first meeting after the election but also copied into Members before that.

 

·         Did the council now have a full complement of social workers? It was noted that previously actions had been taken to recruit more staff, but despite this, staff had continued to leave.

 

There were currently two members of staff over the establishment, but the situation was very fluid, as the figures included agency staff that could leave at very short notice. The aim was to move to a high quality more permanent work force.

 

Members requested details of the number of staff, including information as to how long they had worked at the council.

 

·         It was recognised that agency staff were expensive. What initiatives were in place to develop our own social workers (such as by working with Universities)?  The long term advantages would outweigh the initial expense.

 

There were various initiatives now in place as part of the workforce strategy that was currently being developed; these included, working with the universities, induction programmes and ensuring that staff felt valued.  Further suggestions on how this could be further developed were welcomed.

 

Event 7: When did Ofsted Arrive?

 

Ofsted telephoned the council at 9.00am on 13 January 2015 to inform them that they would be coming to carry out their inspection on 14 January 2015.

 

Event 8: Ofsted indicate that there were serious problems

 

·         Concerns were expressed as to whether elected members would have known about the serious issues that Ofsted identified, had their report not been made public.

 

For the last few years, there has been a Safeguarding Children Panel, with membership comprising of a range of councillors.  The number of unallocated cases was reported to that panel.

 

Councillor Dr Moore commented that she was a member of that panel, and while they had received reports on the number of unallocated cases, more often than not, they were informed that there were no unallocated cases. These reports appeared to have stopped once Andy Smith, the previous Director of Social Care and Safeguarding had left the authority, and there were no such reports after September.

 

·         Earlier in the meeting, members had been informed that the situation regarding the number of unallocated cases became apparent in October. How difficult was it to establish this?

 

When the new Director of Children’s Services (D.C.S.) came to post, she became aware of the problems when it took 48 hours for her to receive an answer to a straightforward question regarding the number of unallocated cases.

 

Councillor Dempster added that there were problems from the moment that staff realised that there was going to be a review. The service was fragile with staff instability.

 

·         Concerns were reiterated as to whether councillors would have been made aware of the problems if Ofsted had not have carried out an inspection. Other reviews were not subject to an Ofsted inspection and it was questioned as to what safeguards could be put in place for when there were problems with other reviews 

 

·         Part of the Ofsted methodology was that self-assessments should be carried out. Did this happen and if so, what was the judgement of our self-assessment.

 

The D.C.S. responded that when she arrived at the authority, she worked on the existing self-evaluation, which was subsequently reviewed by the time Ofsted arrived. This self-evaluation reflected what Ofsted found, though by that time, the issues were already being robustly addressed in the council’s improvement plan.  Councillor Dempster added that they realised that there were issues around the quality of staffing; which to an extent was not unexpected due to the levels of staff turnover.

 

·         Were exit interviews carried out and if so, was there a familiar picture emerging from those interviews? How many experienced social workers with long service remained and what was the ratio of agency to in-house staff?

 

Officers responded that information relating to staffing could be forwarded to the councillors. The D.C.S. stated that she had no record of exit interviews, being held. The C.O.O. added that exit interviews had always been offered but were not normally taken up.

 

A Member referred the D.C.S. to the first meeting of the Children, Young People and Schools’ Scrutiny Commission that she attended after she arrived, where she was asked about challenges that she felt she faced in her new role. The D.C.S. was questioned as to whether she remembered at the time referring to this particular issue. The D.C.S. responded that she could not remember and the Member requested that minutes of that meeting be produced.

 

• The Strategic Risk Register for January 2015, included a risk relating to the safeguarding of vulnerable groups, with a risk of a severe impact on staff morale. The risk had been given a rating of ‘2’ which was considered to be low and did not reflect the concerns raised by Ofsted. Concerns were raised that Members needed to trust that the entries on the Risk Register were correct.

 

Officers acknowledged the concern raised regarding this particular entry, but added that the officer who dealt with the Risk Register was very diligent. A member of the Audit and Risk Committee expressed concerns that the officer responsible did not have sufficient capacity to monitor all risk registers.

 

Event 9: The removal of the Executive Lead for Children, Young People and Schools and the Interim Corporate Director

 

• Did Ofsted make any attempt to talk to Elaine McHale, the previous Interim Director?

 

Officers responded that they could not answer this question on behalf of Ofsted; they would have been aware that Elaine McHale was still present at that time; however it would not have been normal practice for Inspectors to speak to previous Directors.

 

• Concerns had been raised generally regarding the appointment of the Interim Director .The process appeared to have been secretive.

 

The City Mayor replied that the process for making interim appointments had not always been satisfactory in the past and measures were being taken to address this, so that the same process for making permanent appointments would apply to interim Director appointments.

 

• In relation to the appointment of the Interim Director, could someone within the council have been given the opportunity to ‘act up’ in the post?

 

There was no one suitable to take on this responsibility.

 

• One of the Youth Representatives commented that at a meeting of the Children in Care Council, the City Mayor and the new Director had talked about the removal of Elaine McHale, but nothing had been said about the removal of the Assistant City Mayor for Children, Young People and Schools. People had asked why this had happened and whether there would be a replacement.

 

The City Mayor responded that he had made it clear that he and Councillor Dempster, the Assistant City Mayor at the time, had not been kept informed of the situation. He was taking on this portfolio for the time being, but this was not sustainable for long because of the size of the portfolio.  Another appointment would be made, but not before the election.

 

• Were disciplinary warnings issued to any officers?

 

The City Mayor confirmed that warnings had been given, but explained that he could not give further details.

 

The Ofsted Report

 

The Chair then invited members to consider the Ofsted Report. He summarised the findings of the Inspectors.

 

Members expressed their concern over the findings highlighted in the report. It was noted that some of the areas that had been identified as needing improvement in the previous Ofsted report in 2011, had still not been addressed.

 

Members commented that the Ofsted inspection did not just identify the issue of unallocated cases, but highlighted other issues such as failings in management and poor systems for the collection of data. They questioned how poor corporate leadership could be addressed and also queried the effectiveness of transferring data collection to a Corporate Data Centre. Members also questioned whether senior management had had concerns about the lack of data that was available and whether they had been pro-active in addressing any concerns they had. The C.O.O. responded that it was subsequently recognised that there was an issue; the information that was being received did not reflect the deteriorating position. It was acknowledged that lessons needed to be learned from what had happened.  Members stated that there needed to be lines of accountability, both up and down the pay scales.

 

It was noted that Councillor Dempster had previously referred to the Children’s safeguarding service as ‘fragile’ and a question was raised as to what she meant by this term.  Councillor Dempster explained that there were issues relating to the quality of the service and higher levels of staff instability than was desirable. When asked what action she took to address the fact that the service was fragile, Councillor Dempster responded that it was the responsibility of the operational strategic staff to implement solutions, rather than for politicians to run the departments. She had spoken to the new D.C.S.  about developing a workforce strategy and she welcomed this as a measure to facilitate a more stable workforce.

 

It was noted that the improvement plan, arising from the Ofsted inspection, would be brought to the CYPS scrutiny after the election, and this was welcomed so that members could work on this for the good of the children and young people.

 

It was noted that the Ofsted Report referred to young people aged 16 and 17 years and a lack of protocol between social care and housing. The report also judged that the experience and progress of care leavers required improvement. Members expressed a hope that young people in this age group would be covered in the improvement plan. The D.C.S. explained that an improvement plan had now been in place for a few months and there had always been a protocol for young people in this age group but that it needed updating. An Improvement Board would be established which would be robust and transparent.

 

Members referred to the problems identified with the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board (LSCB) and questioned how these could be addressed. The D.C.S responded that the LSCB was linked into the work and would be included in the Improvement Plan.

 

The C.O.O. was asked whether he was confident that proper systems were in place in relation to performance monitoring across all departments. The C.O.O. responded that whilst he was not 100% confident, the system was improving in Children’s and Adult’s services. There had been a dip in performance reporting when the new electronic system had been implemented, but this was improving. Performance reporting had been devolved into the departments and he was of the view that this needed to be lifted up to a corporate level. Lessons needed to be learned from what had happened, and these would be addressed in the Improvement Plan. He added that he could see that there would be significant changes to the arrangements for reporting performance including the relationship with scrutiny.

 

Councillor Dempster was asked whether she regretted shadowing the Assistant City Mayor for Adult Social Care during the past few months. Councillor Dempster responded that she did not regret this, it had not taken up a significant amount of her time and there had been some overlap in the portfolio anyway.

 

A query was raised as to why, following the Action Plan that arose out of the 2011 inspection, were there were no quantifiable improvements to the service.

Councillor Dempster responded that there were issues at the time regarding the quality of the service, and improvements in social care depended on the quality and stability of staff. The Chair asked for a copy of a report that went to the CYPS Scrutiny Commission in 2012, with details of that action plan to be circulated.

 

The Chair then drew the discussion to a conclusion. He stated that Ofsted had highlighted the authority’s failings and he questioned when Leicester would be judged to be ‘outstanding’. The D.C.S responded that this would take time, but there would be a progress meeting with Ofsted and it was hoped that then, significant improvements would be seen. It was estimated that in 2 ½ years, Leicester could be judged by Ofsted to be ‘Good’; an ‘Outstanding’ rating would take longer.

 

The City Mayor added that during the discussions, the focus had been on the council, but there had also been issues with the council’s partners and there was a need to consider the way the authority worked with and engaged with them as well.

 

The Chair asked for a list of previously written conclusions and recommendations to be circulated. Councillor Chaplin requested that an additional recommendation be included to note that it was recognised that there was not a 100% confidence in performance data reporting but members looked forward to this being rectified.

 

A Member commented that he would like to consider the conclusions and recommendations in more detail and he was informed that they were at this stage, interim.

 

The Chair proposed and Councillor Willmott seconded that the conclusions and recommendations be agreed as interim. This was duly agreed.

 

The City Mayor expressed his concerns, stating that they were clearly written before the meeting, and were not at all credible given the evidence heard and questions asked.

 

The Chair stated that they were interim conclusions and recommendations and would be forwarded to the City Mayor for his consideration.

 

RESOLVED:

that the interim conclusions and recommendations be forwarded the City Mayor for his consideration.