The Committee will be asked to undertake monitoring of the implementation of the improvement plan

The Committee received a report thatprovided an update on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services in response to the report published by    Ofsted in April 2017 which rated Tower Hamlets services as ‘inadequate’. The main points of the discussion maybe summarised as follows.

The Committee noted that:

• The Council’s Improvement plan aims to achieve a standard of ‘good’ in summer 2019, when it is likely to be next inspected.  This it was noted was a bold aspiration but it is believed to be  what the Borough’s children and families deserve;
• The Council have now completed five of the six monitoring visits that Ofsted had scheduled in order to monitor the improvement journey. The over-arching feedback by Ofsted inspectors from these Monitoring visits it was noted had been positive, with inspectors pleased with the progress made. The visit in August contained a number of specific challenges with regard to performance within the Children Looked After Service. Following this challenge it was agreed  that the December monitoring visit would re-consider this area of service to check progress;
• The sixth and final monitoring visit took place on 19^th and 20^th March 2019. This will then be followed by an independent evaluation visit as requested by the DfE that will be undertaken by the London Borough of Bexley. This learning and improvement visit will take place between 10^th-16^th April 2019;
• The focus of the final Ofsted Monitoring visit was focussed on the Multi-agency safeguarding hub (MASH), Assessment and Intervention teams and Family Support and Protections services. Inspectors also  reviewed the practice of these teams in terms of how the Council manages and mitigates concerns of “neglect” within families;
• The independent evaluation is likely to focus across all areas and aspects of practice, with a particular interest on how the Councils performance and quality assurance systems can provide assurance that decision making and planning remain appropriate, consistent and timely;
• Following the completion of the final Monitoring visit in March, the full re-inspection of the whole of Children’s Social Care has to take place within six months of the last monitoring visit. Therefore it is anticipated that the full re- inspection will take place between April and October 2019. 
• This inspection will be under the new Ofsted's framework and guidance for inspecting local authority services for children in need of help and protection, children in care and care leavers;
• To minimise any risk of neglect or poor service it is important to have a consistent follow-through, which ensures that every family gets the same quality of response;
• Front line management have a key role in maintaining the Children Services grip on the pace of change at all levels;
• The political and professional leadership of the Council had demonstrated their determination to address the poor performance as highlighted by Ofsted;
• The infrastructure necessary to support a sustained improvement was in place;
• Leadership is about all staff in Children’s Services taking leadership for their roles;
• It is necessary to have consistency of good practice in the delivery of service across  all levels of the service
• The Council has strong operational leadership although there is a need  to ensure continuity across Children’s Services;
• To ensure they effectively scrutinise the Service improvement.
• The embedding of restorative practice continues at pace, and this is now starting to have wider impact;
• Verbal feedback from the Ofsted monitoring visit in December confirmed that the benefits of the restorative model are now being evidenced within planning and direct interactions with families;
• A visit to Leeds City Council had taken place on the 13^th and 14^th February. The focus of the visit had been to understand their journey towards embedding Restorative Practice and to identify any learning that would be helpful to support the improvement journey;
• Visit to Leeds comprised a number of staff at all levels of the organisation including the DCS, Lead Member and Divisional Director and was beneficial in supporting the implementation of Restorative Practice as well as learning from their successful improvement journey.  One of the key developments from this has been the agreement for Leeds to come and deliver a workshop with the Team Managers on how Restorative Practice is embedded into everyday practice within teams;
• The Service has created a positive environment where staff are valued in what they are doing;
• The positive improvement in Children In Need Meetings (CIN) is significant as engaging with these families is challenging and remains a priority for the Council;
• Regarding the CIN the Council is on track to hit 90% of such visits and the Service is recognised as being tenacious in achieving this target;
• It is not just about arranging the visits but to ensure that when the family/professionals meet to (i) share information; (ii) identify need and (iii) agree the most effective plan.  This plan must have measurable outcomes for the child identified within stated timescales;
• The Service is aiming to to achieve “Good” at the next inspection and maintaining that and then the ambition is to move onto “Outstanding”;
• It was important that there was careful scrutiny of private fostering/adoption and this would be reported to the Committee in future;
• It wanted assurances that the was no other data that they needed to undertake a thorough scrutiny of all key issues;
• Recommendations on the case reviews have been adopted as have the London Wide thresholds for Case Protection;
• Service can also provide details on the Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH), which has been strengthened and makes a real difference;
• The current detailed safeguarding arrangements were not in place in 2015;  
• They needed to see comparative benchmarking data to enable robust scrutiny of the Children's Services Improvement journey.  It is likely that the re-inspection will focus strongly on the theme of ‘neglect’ judging from recent Inspection outcomes;
• Service in order to fully prepare for the visit has already begun work to ensure that staff have additional training in recognising neglect, and are provided with tools and resources that will assist them to further strengthen the existing work provided in relation to “neglect”;
• Service has recently launched a pilot project in conjunction with colleagues within the Early Help Service to provide an “Integrated Offer” for families at risk of neglect; This work it was noted will link dedicated Social Workers, Children’s Centres and schools together to address neglect concerns at an early stage of identification;
• Pilot starts with the cluster of schools in the North-East of the Borough and will then be rolled out into other areas. The Chair indicated that he would wish to see details of the Pilot;
• Numbers of agency staff with the Assessment and Intervention Team have decreased from 49% to 33% which is significant as recruitment to such teams is challenging;
• Major challenge for the Council going forward would be to sustain the level of funding in the years ahead; and
• Chair indicated that he wished to see a report on Education and Aspirations within the Borough.  

The Chair Moved and it was:-

RESOLVED

The Committee welcomed the report and looked forwarded to receiving reports on the

1. “Integrated Offer” for families at risk of “neglect”; and
2. Education and Aspirations within the Borough.