The Committee will receive a report that provides an update on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services in response to the report published by Ofsted in April 2017 which rated LBTH services ‘inadequate’. The Council’s improvement plan aims to achieve a standard of ‘good’ at its next inspection, in 2019.

The Committee received a report that provided an update on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services in response to the report published by Ofsted in April 2017 which rated the Council services as being ‘inadequate’. The Council’s improvement plan aims to achieve a standard of ‘good’ in summer 2019, when it is likely to be next inspected.  This is a bold aspiration but the Council believes it is the minimum local children and families deserve.

Committee focused on the following areas:

·         3.1- 15%gap- what doing to shorten impact and improve closer to 100%? Context – CIN plans improved but more work to be done. CIN plan is just below child protection plan- visits are not where the Council wants to be for children on cusp so important that get in early to prevent. Reasonably steady practice then decline. Plans not completed because sickness and illness. Children in need – working on voluntary basis- not statutory. Committee discussed that the figure of 90% could not be a stretch target if the upper limit was 95% and noted that there was a downward trend so this target was not going in the improvement trajectory;

·         Care leavers – what does “suitable accommodation mean- why 18%? Suppliers provide suitable accommodation. Some are in youth custody / prison which is deemed unsuitable. 44 care leavers between 18-25

·         Health assessments – what have these not been included in the performance measures. Now 50%- how many children does this impact? Barts Health have commissioned a review to gain a clearer idea of delays. Not on here because on dashboard. Committee noted that in future this needs to be on here.How many children does this impact? What happens to those going over 28 days?

·         Child’s diversity explore in “most” cases. What is “most cases” and what is the impact of not exploring this for the child?

·         Missing children in care- how many are missing. Better at tracking. What are the reasons? Missing care- daily tracker. Reasons for missing are 1) visiting family and friends but recorded as missing every time leave supported accommodation, 2. Crossing county lines and exploitation, 3. Safety plans- children are found. . Missing children- 77% had a return to home interview in 3 days. 1 of hardest to reach groups so this is good performance.

·         Are you seeing a tangible decrease in missing children through interventions and prevention work and how are you explaining to the wider community? Neglect addressed through early help pathway and early identification and how link with schools and social workers. Not yet seeing a decrease in missing children numbers. Building greater awareness and confidence to identify concerns. Tracking the same names in particular- comes out in profile- understand why young people going missing. Exploitative relationship. Quarterly reports become outdated but cabinet member acknowledged that OSC may require specific information to help them provide effective scrutiny.

·         CIN visit measure in plan- what measures to ensure consistent upward trend- 100 children not visited in 4 weeks. Children visited but not recorded. Seeing an improvement in performance- trends of concern. Supervision- performance surgeries. Continuing to do month by month. Performance drifting until intervention. Focus on statutory visits- all children needs protection.

·         Exploitation- needs performance data- how many at work? Areas of improvement- what of your action plan? Do you have measures to adequately address?

·         Do you have data- 53 people CSE? Risk assessments= most vulnerable. Assessments updated regularly. Criminal exploitation- co-location of police colleagues- disruption techniques.

·         Do you have sufficient resources? Best way to tackle exploitation at early stage- source – strengthen work with early help and work with schools. Need culture shift from police. – dedicated resource to team.

·         Auditing- what cases are these targeted? Thematic approaches. Front door assessment and intervention audited.

·         Performance data- include dashboard

Recommendations:

1.         Information in reports in future. Chair and Scrutiny lead for Children’s service both highlighted that the performance data need to be included in the actual report presented to the committee to assist effective scrutiny and transparency. This includes health assessment performance data.

In conclusion, Councillor Francis thanked Councillor Hassell on progress in delivering improvements to Children’s Services.