The Interim Strategic Director will submit a report (Document “Q”) which provides the panel with a progress update in respect of improvements identified within the Improvement Plan following the recent OFSTED inspection September 2018 and subsequent DFE notice to improve issued on the 4 December 2018.

More specifically the report will focus on changes and improvements within Workstream 2 of the Improvement Plan – Partnerships namely:

Ø  The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)

Ø  Front Door Service

In addition, the report will also provide panel with a general update relating to:

Ø  The structure and governance around the Improvement Board including Improvement Plan, and

Ø  OFSTED’s first monitoring visit.

Recommended –

(1)       Note the contents of this report.

(2)       Note the latest Improvement Plan.

(3)       Consider a review of the corporate parenting offer.

(4)       Provide critical comments and challenge where needed.

(Catherine Knowles)

The Interim Strategic Director submitted a report (Document “Q”) which provided the panel with a progress update in respect of improvements identified within the Improvement Plan following the recent OFSTED inspection (September 2018) and subsequent DFE notice to improve issued on the 4 December 2018.

More specifically the report focussed on changes and improvements within Workstream 2 of the Improvement Plan – Partnerships namely:

·         The Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH)

·         Front Door Service

In addition, the report also provided the panel with a general update relating to:

·         The structure and governance around the Improvement Board including Improvement Plan, and

·         OFSTED’s first monitoring visit.

The Interim Assistant Director, Children’s Social Care Improvement reported that steps were being taken to making improvements in response to the OFSTED Inspection of Local Authorities Children’s Services which included:

·         The safeguarding sub group had worked with the improvement consultant to go back to basics and develop a revised consent policy and redraft of the thresholds document in relation to the Multi agency review of the consent policy and thresholds.

·         A Back to Basic’s programme for all children’s social care staff was being developed which focussed on what good looked liked in terms of case recording, voice of the child, analysis of risk within assessments; undertaking home visits and use of supervision.

·         Review and refresh of the social work job role, with a view to achieving an increase in grade to support retention of staff in a competitive market.

·         Looking at reducing social work caseloads to a more appropriate level of 20 for experienced social workers and 17 for newly qualified.

·         Quality assurance through audits was beginning to show some shoots of improvement in casework, although there were still challenges around consistency and quality of practice for too many teams.

• A Social Work Health Check had been completed with some positive results including social workers stating that they were finding their teams to be supportive, they liked the flexible working arrangements that Bradford offered and they had easy access to training and development. Whilst areas they would like to see improve centered around reduction in case loads, stability with the teams, retention of experienced staff and more opportunities to spend face to face time with children and young people.

• There had been some internal changes to the front door and MASH, including a social worker now being based at the Contact centre that screened all calls coming in.  In order to achieve this, a decision was made to redirect the current five email boxes where contact and referrals came into and four telephone lines into two each respectively. This allowed and assisted the social worker in monitoring just two email boxes.

·         OFSTED had completed their first monitoring visit on the 6 – 7 March, where they specifically focussed on the front door and MASH which went well.

Members of the Panel made the following comments:

·         Did the service have sufficient staff because of the changes made to the Front Door?

·         What was the reason for 133 children not being under the correct team?

·         Needed to ensure there were no delays in dealing with care orders.

·         The Panel was originally told caseload would be reduced to 20 and now being told the Service would reduce caseload down to 25; what was the up to date position on reducing social work caseloads?

·         What was the progress in relation to the recruitment of social workers?

·         The service received a budget for extra social workers.

·         The issues the social workers had was not all about caseloads; retaining staff was crucial.

·         What was the latest on sharing information between agencies and acting on referrals?

In response to the questions raised by Members it was reported that:

·         The service was identifying where cases should sit in the system to take the pressure off early based services; ideally experienced social workers should have a caseload of 20 but the service was starting with 25; there would be redistribution of work across the service.

·         The changes to the front door service and Early Help and Prevention Service would help in terms of children being dealt with faster in terms of where they should be placed etc and permanent arrangements needed to be looked at.

·         Any capacity issues in relation to Front Door would be dealt with.

·         The Service was not ready in terms of moving cases on; remit of some services had been widened.

·         The Service was reliant on how fast the courts dealt with care orders but needed to ensure the delays were not being caused by the department.

·         Some staff had a caseload of 30 and the service was pushing to reduce that to 25 which would be positive; recruiting and retaining social workers was a local and national problem.

·         A recruitment campaign would be started in 3 months time; the service still employed agency staff; some agency staff were being converted to permanent employees.

·         The service did receive extra funding for social workers and had received approval to look at pay scales to be in line with neighbouring authorities; once the pay scale had been sorted then the recruitment campaign would begin.

·         In terms of retention of social workers the service was looking at supervision, manageable caseloads, environment they worked in etc; building blocks would be put in place to ensure that it was a good place to work.

·         The consent document had been redone and shared with partners; 4 threshold events were being held; the threshold document was being redesigned.

There was a short discussion on how more elected Members could be engaged with Corporate Parenting responsibilities.

Resolved-

(1)          That the steps being taken to making improvements in response to the OFSTED Inspection of Local Authorities Children’s Services be recognised and that the progress being made to the Improvement Plan continue to be monitored.

(2)          That future reports to the Panel on the progress being made with the Improvement Plan include what actions have been taken or being taken.

(3)          That consideration be given as to how more elected Members could be engaged with Corporate Parenting responsibilities and that this be reported to the Panel’s meeting on 15 April 2019.

Action:           Assistant Director, Children’s Social Care Improvement