Agenda item
Children's Services Presentation on Risk
A presentation will be given at the meeting.
Minutes:
Debbie Jones, Corporate Director for Children’s Service gave a presentation on Risk Management issues for the Children’s Social Care service and listed the risks identified as:
· Death or serious harm to a child that was or should have been in receipt of services, either from the council or a partner agency; and
· The risk identified in the Ofsted Inspection of Jan-Feb 2017, which stated that children and young people are being left in situations of harm and the DFE directions issued to the borough.
Debbie Jones said the risk had been assessed at 5 for likelihood and 5 for Impact with a total risk score of 25.
She said the Ofsted Inspectorate had made several comments in relation to the failings of the service from children being put “in situations of actual or potential harm for too long” to “Management oversight of assessments [being] poor and not providing sufficient action to ensure that children receive timely help and protection.”
Debbie Jones said it was important to note that whilst work was being undertaken to reduce the impact and likelihood of risk, it is not possible to completely eliminate the risk.
She said the following groups of young people were in the highest risk band:
· Vulnerable adolescents – young people who are at risk of gang involvement, child sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation (including county lines – involves the carrying of drugs to cities or towns outside of London) and children who go missing
· Children in care targeted by perpetrators who seek to exploit their additional vulnerabilities; and
· Very young children due to their natural vulnerabilities and total dependence on their carers.
Ms Jones said the Service had responded to these risks by ensuring the recommendations identified by Ofsted are implemented. Management Oversight had improved with over 95% of cases now being monitored and performance checked. She said the non-compliance to core statutory and local requirements was a real issue at the time of the inspection however changes had been made and these were now embedding within the service. Compliance was improving such as the timeliness of visits as well as improved performance for pre-proceedings.
Key threshold decision were now in line with the London Process and the number of ‘step down’ cases following assessment continues to reduce indicating improvements in the application of thresholds.
The risk assessment and risk management process was more robust especially for the areas identified. The service has ‘trigger plans’ for regular missing children and the Edge of Care Services was beginning to have an impact.
Members of the Committee made the following comments and asked questions in relation to the presentation:
· To give context, the Audit Committee had asked for a report on risk in Children’s Services prior to the Ofsted inspection, due to the Internal Audit inspections, which were reporting on weaknesses within the service. Are you now able to identify risks sufficiently?
· What processes are now in place to identify risk and are staff aware of how should this work?
· How do you review risk in Children’s Service? Should the risks be on the corporate risk register?
· What do you think the role of the Audit Committee should be to assist your service?
The Chair thanked Debbie Jones for her presentation and said this was helpful to Members. It provided a better understanding of the issues and risk the Service was facing and what had been done to mitigate those risks.
Equally Debbie Jones expressed her thanks to the Committee Members and said what had been achieved by the Service was through the willingness of Officers across the Council to assist in resolving the issue identified. She thanked the finance team for the financial and procurement changes that they had helped to implement and said the checks and balances introduced to tighten up processes and procedures within which the Service had significantly helped in providing a better service to their clients.
Supporting documents: