Agenda item
Children's Social Care Improvement Plan update
- Meeting of Tower Hamlets Best Value Improvement Board, Monday, 11th June, 2018 6.00 p.m. (Item 6.)
- View the background to item 6.
Minutes:
The Chair welcomed the new Cabinet Member for Children Schools and Young People. He thanked the outgoing Cabinet Member for Children's Services and acknowledged the work she had undertaken in providing leadership to address the findings of the inspection. He also acknowledged the work done by the Interim Divisional Director for Children's Social Services in this regard.
The Corporate Director, Children's presented the report which provided an update on progress in delivering improvements to children's social services in response to the OFSTED inspection report of April 2017. The Board was informed that:
- The report provided an update on progress against the 15 recommendations identified in the OFSTED inspection report.
- The service had entered the second phase of the improvement programme that had been established in response to the inspection and its aim was to achieve continuous improvement.
- OFSTED had conducted a visit in May 2018 and out of this had indicated that, since its visit in December 2017, there had been substantial improvement in the quality of practice relating to exploited children and their families. OFSTED noted that:
· A dedicated multiagency team had been established to respond quickly to situations.
· Overall, vulnerable adolescents were receiving higher levels of support.
· There had been a change in culture in frontline social work.
· OFSTED were encouraged by the improvements evidenced in the quality of multiagency and social work practice for vulnerable adolescents and their families
The Corporate Director advised that, while the exceptional progress made had given encouragement, the Service need to ensure that the challenges of sustaining the improvements that had been achieved and the challenges around staff recruitment and retention would need to be met.
The Member for Children, Schools and Young People informed the Board:
- That a there had been induction training as part of the Member learning and development programme to support elected Members to deliver their roles and responsibilities around safeguarding children. Further training was also included in the programme.
- That the Council faced challenges in meeting its sufficiency duty under the Children Act 1989 to ensure that accommodation within authority's area met the needs of the children in the care of the Council.
- That that he was keeping the IT infrastructure under observation to ensure that this did not act as a barrier to document access for social workers.
The Board:
· Acknowledged that addressing the areas of recruitment and retention was a long-term matter.
· Noted that, as part of the council's ongoing IT infrastructure improvements, it was planned that Framework-i social services casework management system would be implemented; this would provide a better IT interface.
The Chair thanked officers for their work and achievements.
The Board considered the report and information provided and in discussion:
- Noted, in relation to the Council’s aim to becoming a recruiter of choice that much work had been done around recruitment. This had been evidenced in a good reduction of staff turnover rates which had fallen from 26% to 19%. However recruitment and retention was not solely influenced by salaries offered but on the ‘offer’ as a whole including learning and development and workloads.
- Noted that the service was moving towards restorative methods of social work where an holistic model was adopted as well as favourable rates of pay; this also influenced recruitment models. Turnover rate remained a factor for the Council even though most agency staff currently engaged had been with the Council for some time and brought a good range of skills to the service.
- Noted an advice from the Corporate Director that OFSTED had reported that there was evidence of a change of culture.
RESOLVED:
1. That the progress made in delivering the children's services improvement programme be noted.
2. That the next steps in the improvement journey which will be updated in the next report be noted
Supporting documents: