The Committee are asked to note and comment on the contents of the attached report that is to be considered by the Cabinet at its meeting to be held on Tuesday 20^th March, 2018.

The (Time allocated – 50 minutes)

The Committee received an update on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services in response to the report by Ofsted in 2017 which had rated the Council’s services ‘inadequate’.   The Council’s improvement plan it was noted aims to achieve a standard of at least ‘good’ by April 2019, which is the minimum that the Borough’s children and families expect. 

The report indicated that the Council has now had two monitoring visits from Ofsted. In their letter reporting findings from the most recent of these visits in December 2017, Ofsted noted that improvements have been made and sustained within Children’s Services and that leaders and managers now showed increased in-depth knowledge of strengths and areas of weakness.  In particular, the way the Council assesses referrals of children and families for social care support had been identified as being timely and thresholds for help were appropriately applied, meaning that no children in the cases they sampled were at risk of immediate harm.  The letter also pointed to some areas needing further improvement and we are continuing our focus on these areas through our improvement plan. 

The body of this report also included commentary on progress in the four themes of the Council’s improvement plan at the end of the third quarter of the improvement programme.

In addition, it was noted that whilst the Council are making progress in embedding the changes that have been made in the first 9 months of the improvement programme, giving Tower Hamlets a firm foundation for improvement, there does remain significant challenges to ensuring that the service improves to meet a ‘good’ inspection standard and sustains this improvement.  Finally, the Committee were informed that the focus in the next stage will be to build on the progress made so that further improvement is achieved and sustained. The questions arising from the discussions on this agenda may be summarised as follows:

The Committee:

·         Noted that the focus of tonight’s meeting would be to hear from two of the Council’s service improvement partners (i) Debbie Barnes. Executive Director, Children's Services - Lincolnshire County Council and (ii) Sir Alan Wood - Chair, Children's Improvement Board) and to challenge them on the journey that they have been on with Tower Hamlets;

·         Was reminded that tonight as with previous discussions at Scrutiny on the Children's Services Improvement Programme would aim to maintain the transparency with the public through the process;

·         Noted with interest that both the DfE and Ofsted have been very positive on the progress although there is still a long way to go; 

·         Noted need for Tower Hamlets to have a cadre of highly qualified and skilled staff to take this forward and that is an issue that will need to be the focus of regular scrutiny going forward;

·         Noted that as part of embedding of Quality Assurance at all levels, Ofsted have recommended that the Council take forward a “Practice Week”, where senior leaders spend time with frontline social workers reviewing cases and shadowing their work with children and families in order to better understand their day to day experience. It was noted that “Practice Week” had taken place over a three day period between 20^th – 22^nd November, 2017 with senior officers including the Chief Executive and Director of Children’s Services taking part, alongside the Mayor, the Lead Member for Children’s Services and Lead Overview and Scrutiny Member for Children’s Services, the Divisional Director and the Chair of the Local Safe Guarding Children’s Board.  Observations of practice had included meeting student social workers, spending time with social work teams and observing professional meetings about children.  Frustrations with the IT infrastructure had been observed as well as concerns around caseloads, personal development / training and the approach to compliance and communication.  These observations it was noted are informing the improvement activity going forward;

·         Noted that (i) the Service has achieved compliance with statutory guidance; (ii) that needs a stable and qualified workforce to deliver these changes and (iii) that there needs to be a strong and effective partnerships between schools; health; police and third sector especially in respect of “early help”.  However, there needs to be regular and robust scrutiny of these areas and the Children's Services Improvement Programme needs to form part of the councillor induction programme;

·         Noted that the biggest potential risk to progress is the work force and the scrutiny role going forward needs to be the monitoring recruitment retention Noted that Scrutiny needs to see that the Council understands the quality of the employment offer i.e. career development; management of staff caseloads; the development of managers as part of the professional offer; Scrutiny needs to identify and scrutinise e.g. those providing the universal services need to understand the new offer that is now being made; how deeply understood is that offer be they doctors; teachers or police especially with regards to the new thresholds and how many children are there without plans;

·         Noted that the training for Councillors in Tower Hamlets on the Children's Services Improvement Programme is very good and needs to be rolled out again for new Councillors;

·         Noted that the Council is in the middle of a period of change and that staff feel that their managers are interested in the support and development of their officers;

·         Noted that frontline management is now more in tune with central management and their staff;

·         Noted that the performance surgeries are having a positive impact and staff feel now that they have manageable caseloads and can speak to managers about their workloads and their safety on a day to day basis;

·         Noted that staff know how to engage with family and their networks;

·         Noted that staff know their managers consider them to be an asset;

·         Noted that both staff and managers now own the process which is a corporately supported bespoke process;

·         Noted that staff consider that both councillors; the corporate leadership and their managers are more visible than before and the staff turnover has slowed and the teams feel that there is increased stability.  Also mangers feel that their senior management are there to support them; manage the risk and officers are more supportive of each other and other teams i.e. That there is now a real sense of energy from staff but there is still a need to be mindful of staff wellbeing;

·         Noted that the level of corporate attention to addressing this issue is of a very high standard;

·         Noted that those staff in the relevant teams feel that they actually have ownership of the approach and the level and pace of change;

·         Was keen to ensure the sustainability of this process in a high risk service;

·         Wanted to see evidence that the parents and their families understand the development of the process that is there to help them. 

·         Wished to see a very positive and productive way the offer of support is communicated to the parents and families;

·         Noted that the social work force should reflect the community that it seeks to serve (culturally sensitive) and there is engagement across the community about developing this programme;

·         Agreed that early help and support is available is fundamental and that it is seen as genuine support which will mean that there is a greater the chance of there being positive outcomes; and

·         Noted that Tower Hamlets is now spending £16m on improving the Council’s ICT platform and reliability (e.g. Prioritising Children’s and Social Care ICT infrastructure).

In conclusion, the Councillor Whitelock Gibbs the Cabinet Member for Children’s Services place on record her thanks to the Committee for all their help and support and stated that it had been a pleasure to attend scrutiny meetings and to receive the thoughtful and considered views from across the political spectrum.  In response, the Chair Councillor Chesterton thanked Councillor Whitelock Gibbs for what she has done is taking scrutiny through her portfolio in an open and positive manner.