Presentation of the Deputy Director of Children’s Services

This presentation outlines work on helping and supporting Our Children to lead a safe, healthy, happy life and have a successful future.

The Committee received a presentation of the Deputy Director of Children’s Services which outlined work on helping and supporting Our Children to lead a safe, healthy, happy life and have a successful future.

The main points and themes within the presentation included:

• Decision making in practice, focusing on early permanence, family time and the legal gateway process;
• The role and function of the Independent Reviewing service;
• Engagement and participation of children and young people;
• Quality of care planning, including pathway planning;
• Providing stability and permanence for children;
• Risk management with specific focus on the role of the complex safeguarding hub;
• Health data and impacts on children;
• Permanence and placement stability; and
• The virtual school contributing to preventing young people from being Not in Employment, Education or Training (NEET).

The Executive Member for Children’s Services reported that Ofsted had seen improvements at every visit and suggested that the Ofsted Subgroup could focus on some of the areas identified as needing more work.

Some of the key points and themes that arose from the Committee’s discussions were:

• The frequency of Our Children seeing their own Social Worker and the impact of the number of agency workers; and
• Access to dentists for Our Children;
• Access to support for families caring for children on Special Guardianship Orders (SGOs); and
• Children placed outside the city boundaries.

The Deputy Director of Children’s Services advised that issues with access to dentists had been escalated through the Corporate Parenting Panel and NHS England.  The Executive Member for Children’s Services advised that the last two meetings of the Corporate Parenting Panel had received data on this and that the more recent set of figures had shown signs of rapid improvement and that this and other health-related issues affecting Our Children would be a priority at the next Corporate Parenting Panel meeting.

The Deputy Director of Children’s Services recognised that inconsistency of contact with Social Workers would have a detrimental effect on Our Children but advised that the risk of this was low because the Council’s turnover rate for Social Workers was around 11% and the vacancy rate 7% and that the figure for Social Workers seeing the child on their own was 85%.  He advised that the risk was mitigated through the permanence planning meetings and looked after children reviews.  He reported that the service’s reliance on agency workers was less than it had been in 2017 and that he could provide figures on this. 

The Deputy Director of Children’s Services advised that a support plan was put in place when an SGO was discharged but that he would undertake a deep dive investigation of re-engagement with families when the arrangements were not working out.  He informed Members about the Advice, Guidance and Support service that could signpost families experiencing difficulties to support, advising that this was very well used.  In response to a request for the Committee to look at this issue further, the Chair advised that this could be something that the Ofsted Subgroup looked at it.  In response to a Member’s request for information on progress in areas that had previously been judged as ‘requires improvement’, the Chair advised that the Ofsted Subgroup would be looking at this in detail.

The Deputy Director of Children’s Services advised that most children who had been placed outside of the city’s boundaries were still placed close to Manchester and, due to the geography of the city, a placement outside of the Council area could sometimes be closer to the area the child was from than a placement in a different part of the city.  In response to a further question about reciprocal arrangements where children were placed across local authority boundaries, he advised that he chaired the Greater Manchester Local Authorities Care Leavers Forum which was looking at and escalating this issue.  The Executive Member for Children’s Services advised that he sat on the Greater Manchester Children’s Board and that there was a lot of commitment to making the offer to Our Children and Care Leavers more equal across Greater Manchester and that the disparity sometimes arose because one local authority was leading the way in what it was offering.

The Chair recognised the progress that the Council had made since it was judged as ‘inadequate’ in 2014.  She encouraged more Members to become independent visitors to children’s homes under Regulation 44 of the Children’s Home (England) Regulations 2015.

Decision

To note the presentation.