Councillor Danny Hassell, Cabinet Member for Children, Schools and Young People presented the post inspection update report from Ofsted, relating to Children’s Social Care and Early Help Service.

Councillor Hassell said following the ‘inadequate’ rating Children Services had received in 2017, the Service had worked hard to improve and had developed a detailed improvement plan. The most recent inspection took place in June 2019 and demonstrated significant improvement with Children’s Services, which is now rated as ‘Good’.

However, the Service continues to face several issues and challenges such as financial pressures, the recruitment and retention of staff, the levels of demand and ensuring that improvements in the quality of practice are sustained.

Councillor Hassell said the budget for the Service would need to be right sized, as part of the budget process, to ensure it had the right level of funding for the levels of demand the service was experiencing. Regarding the recruitment and retention of staff, good progress had been made, with a reduction of agency staff by fifty percent. Levels of demand remains high which is to be expected in an inner London borough with our demographics. Ofsted had concurred that the level of demand that is experienced was to be expected.

Councillor Hassell said it was vital the Service continued on this trajectory of improvement.

In response to questions from Members of the Sub-Committee the following was noted:

·         In reference to the table on page 33, Members of the sub-committee enquired why there had been a big increase in the number of Looked after Children whose assessments needed to be reviewed - referencing 5.10 in the table. Councillor Hassell said the increase was due to the fact that a large number of assessments were due to be reviewed at the same time; however a significant effort had been made to ensure that this figure was addressed. He said considerable data sat behind the spreadsheet which he would further enquire about and report back to the Sub-Committee.

·         In response to what had been learnt from the past and how the service would be protected against budget cuts, Councillor Hassell said the knowledge and practice of social workers had improved and developed and this had a significant impact on the services provided. Regarding the budget, Councillor Hassell said a case would be made as part of the budget process.

·         Ms Debbie Jones added it was important not to become complacent and take the foot off the pedal. She said the Service could not afford to go backwards and had to continue of this path of improvement.

·         Councillor Perry commended the Service for what it had achieved and said she feared the transformation would stall if funding was not adequate. She asked if the Service had enough money to deliver the improvements it wanted. Councillor Alam echoed this, asking what approach had been taken to right size the budget. Ms Debbie Jones said there is an overspend, in the Children’s Directorate. It was not possible to know in 2017, where in the journey the Service would be or what demand would be like. The budget needs to be looked at and the service needs to benchmark itself against comparators.

·         In response to if the Early Help Services are able to cope with additional demand, Ms Jones said social workers were working in partnership with others and an Early Help pilot was looking at innovative ways to make the early help offer more responsive.

·         The Exploitation Team is working with families and individuals who are at risk of exploitation. This is a challenging area as the threat is constantly moving and evolving. Work has evolved to include knife crime and county lines and the team has been restructured to take into account the rising demand.

The Sub-Committee RESOLVED to:

NOTE the contents of the report