Agenda item

To receive information on how the council assesses the robustness and efficiency of its safeguarding processes (report to follow).

A presentation and briefing for Members of the Committee was held before the meeting.

Under the ILACS (Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services) inspection framework Ofsted arrange an annual conversation with every local authority in the country. In Wiltshire the annual conversation was held in November 2020. In preparation for the meeting the latest self-assessment and performance data for children’s social care was shared. A report was presented summarising the Ofsted report following the annual conversation.

The Cabinet Member for Children’s Services, Councillor Laura Mayes, was in attendance to provide further information along with Martin Davis, Director, Families and Children, Helean Hughes, Director of Education, and Lucy Townsend, Interim Corporate Director for People.

The Committee discussed the report and comments made by Ofsted, including particularly their interest in the new or developing work being undertaken with family led review of child protection processes and work with fathers, with a view to sharing learning on this on a regional basis. The stable nature of the workforce was noted along with other points as detailed in the Agenda Supplement.

It was stated that it was important that the positive work which had taken place within Children’s Services in the past 10 years was maintained, and that it was essential robust scrutiny of performance continue to take place to ensure this.

In respect of education it was noted that the meeting took place during a previous lockdown and some of the information would be out of date with the present situation. Details were provided of weekly attendance surveys, complications with Early Years funding, and the impact of a rise in cases among young people and large cohorts self-isolating and creating Covid bubble arrangements. Plans were being drawn up for a predicted baby boom in the next year.

In response to queries details were provided in an increase of referrals for elective home education (EHE), which referred to expressions of interest rather than that every referral led to the parents in question undertaking home education. Such referrals did increase during periods of lockdown, and all those cases were followed up. It was requested and agreed that a more detailed report on EHE would be produced for a future meeting.

There were also questions on definitionsof key workers, suggestion of rating systems for specific topics to assist the Committee in focusing on key areas, and potential task group looking at a roadmap for the Families and Children Transformation (FACT) programme.

At the conclusion of discussion, it was,

Resolved:

1)    That, in future reports to this committee, the table presenting data include an explanation of acronyms used and also a rag-rating system showing whether figures and changes are good or not, showing trends, comparison to statistical neighbours (if possible using the Safeguarding task group’s way of presenting the data), as well as comparison to “high performers” (whether they are statistical neighbours or not).

2)    That the committee includes in its legacy report a recommendation for the new committee to receive a 3 to 5 year plan or roadmap showing the FACT programme’s journey to date (including its original objectives), the current aims and objectives of FACT (at the time the committee will receive the report), and how the council is planning to deliver these.

3)    That the committee also includes in its legacy report a recommendation “to consider the establishment of a task group to scrutinise the impact and effectiveness of the FACT programme” and some of the areas to focus on could be:

o   Integrated case management system – including engagement from partners and progress on detail of case recording;

o   Effectiveness of early help / early support and also impact of the Wiltshire Early Support Assessment and Early Help Navigator (post introduced in June 2020); (* also in the report as their areas for continuing improvement)

o   Investing in our staff – measuring improvements;

o   Progress (meeting targets) in embedding a Contextual Safeguarding approach across Wiltshire from 2019-22;

And possibly the areas for continuing improvement that have been highlighted in the report considered at this meeting:

o   Educational outcomes for vulnerable groups including family and community learning

o   Whole life pathway service delivery including transitional safeguarding

o   Integrated children’s commissioning across health and social care

o   Voice – having further impact and influence including outcome focused performance framework

As suggested by the Cabinet Member the task group would also need to ensure that the voice of the child is embedded in the FACT programme.

4)    4. As offered by officers today, for the committee to receive figures on education at the next meeting, including:

o   attendance

o   elective home education