The purpose of the report of the Strategic Director Children’s Services (Document “AX”) is to provide members with an outcome following the Ofsted Assurance Visit which took place from the 15^th to 17^th December 2020 and to appraise members with the Vital Signs report.

Recommended -

That this Committee notes the contents of this report and the progress being made.

(Irfan Alam - 01274 432904)

The purpose of the report was to inform Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee members with an outcome following the Ofsted Assurance Visit, which took place from 15 to 17 December 2020 and to appraise members with the Vital Signs report.

Children’s Services Officers informed Councillors that the focus of the visit was to look at the quality of key decision-making for children who need help and protection, children in care and are leavers, together with the impact of leadership on service development.  A copy of the Ofsted Assurance Visit letter, was also appended for members.

Members learned that the Ofsted letter had recognised a number of improvements relating to:

• Leaders having achieved some positive steps forward in a challenging context;
• Having taken opportunities to maximise partnership working with other organisations;
• Putting in place the basic infrastructure and practice standards needed to support improvement within the service;
• Developing a more effective oversight to support immediate decision-making when children are first referred to social care;
• Renewing IT resources to better support frontline practice;
• Recruiting to specialist posts and secured financial funding investment for children’s services.

Children’s Overview and Scrutiny Committee members were encouraged at these improvements, however members were concerned at the areas of weakness in achieving consistently good practice, as set out in the Ofsted Assurance Visit letter. Particularly those areas that relating to:

• The delivery of improvements being slow since September 2018;
• Significant weaknesses in practice and oversight in front line services, as a result of workforce instability, high caseloads and ineffective casework planning;
• Children in need and child protections plans not always being effective in improving children’s circumstances and some children in need cases were often closed or stepped down without evidence of sustained change, because management oversight had not thoroughly tested the impact of social work practice for children and families;
• Enduring drift and delay due to long-standing poor practice continuing to affect some children;
• The consistency of social work practice continuing to remaining to be an issue;
• Care leavers receiving an inconsistent service and some care leavers had experienced poorer levels of support through the COVID19 pandemic.

Councillors were keen to know if the as stated in the Ofsted Assurance letter that the comment relating to the delivery of improvements being slow was accurate.

In response, Children’s Services Officers highlighted that Ofsted had taken the view that the period of improvement commenced from the inadequate judgement in 2018 and not from when the management team was in place.  Moreover, members also heard that it does take time to appoint the senior management team.

Continuing on, members wanted to explore how the significant weaknesses were going to be addressed.

Officers stated that addressing the weaknesses was a three year plus improvement journey and that the service was currently half way through that improvement journey.  Furthermore, officers also indicated that the improvement work has been affected by the current COVID19 pandemic and acknowledged that there were some weaknesses in practice, along with some legacy issues.

Moreover, members highlighted that in several places in the Ofsted assurance letter, it stated that transients in the workforce was not easy to address, yet this is vital to the improvement work.  Therefore, members were keen to understand the steps that were being taken to address this, within the timescales.

Officers did acknowledge here that the stability of the level 3 Social Care workers was a substantial challenge.  However, there had been some success in recruiting new Social Care workers.  Members also heard that one in four Social Care Workers were from agencies, which was higher than the national average.  Furthermore, members were also made aware that there were 30 level 2 Social Care Workers, who were about to make the step into level 3.  As well as this, four teams of Social Care Workers had been procured for 12 months, from additional COVID19 funding received.

Continuing on officers informed members that Practice Guidance and Standards for all our workforce had been issues to staff.

Children’s Services Overview & Scrutiny Committee members were concerned at the lack of basic management procedures in place, along with some cases being closed too early with children then being exposed to risk for far too long.

Here, officers acknowledged that the standards of Social Care work in Bradford had not been good enough for a long period of time and the leadership team had spent most of last year getting the right structures in place, ensuring that the service has the managers with the experience and skills to be able to support practitioners and showing them what good social care work looks like.

Members commented that workforce stability was key in relation to the improvements to be delivered and members felt that one of four Social Care Workers being from an agency was not good enough and that the improvements had to be accelerated.

In response, officers stated that this was one of the biggest priorities and challenges, with the challenge being to reduce the numbers of agency staff where possible.  However, officers highlighted that the agency staff that were in the service, were of a high quality.

Resolved -

That the progress and challenges that need to be addressed be noted and  that the Improvement Plan and Vital Signs be presented to the Committee early in the new Municipal Year.

ACTION: Strategic Director of Children’s Service