Agenda item

Context:

To scrutinise the 2017/18 quarter 2 performance information under the remit of the Children and Young People Select Committee, this comprises:

·         Information on how the Authority is performing against a range of nationally set measures related to children’s services used by all councils in Wales that were introduced in 2016/17 as part of the Social Services and Well-being Act.

·         Report benchmarking data to demonstrate how the Authority performed during 2016/17 against the Welsh average.

Key Issues:

The Council currently has an established performance framework, this is the way in which the Authority translates its vision - building sustainable and resilient communities - into action and ensures that everyone is pulling in the same direction to deliver real and tangible outcomes.  The framework was presented to the Committee in July 2017.

The report card explains Children’s Social Services key process and performance in quarter 2 2017/18, as well as presenting benchmarking of performance in 2016/17. This comprises of data from the new measurement framework introduced in 2016/17 as part of the Social Services and Well-being Act. The performance measures are a blend of quantitative and qualitative data which includes asking people about their experience of social services and whether this has contributed to improving their well-being.

Welsh Government has highlighted that the first year of data collation (2016/17) of the Social Services and Well-being Act performance measurement framework has provided some challenges and some quality issues with the data and as a result, it has not published local authority level data performance data for 2016-17. Wales level, means and quartile data has been published which has allowed some benchmarking to be undertaken, although this is caveated in how much reliance can be placed on this given the quality issues raised.

There are ongoing discussions and workshops on potentially revising the standards and measures, as part of the framework in the future.

The qualitative measures within the framework are derived from questionnaires to children and parents that social services are working with at the beginning of September 2017. Therefore, at quarter 2, data may only be presented on one month of responses. Efforts are being made to increase the number of responses to the questionnaire for 2017/18. 

Another important nationally set framework used to measure local authority performance is ‘Public Accountability Measures’ set by Data Unit Wales ‘. This includes some of the indicators for children’s services that are part of the Social Services and Well-being Act measurement framework. This also includes measures relating to educational attainment and attendance from the academic year 2016/17 that are under the Select Committee’s remit.

Member Scrutiny:

·         It was noted that there was a comments box on the questionnaire.  The Data Analyst stated that she could look through the comments received from 16 / 17 year olds to see if there were any comments received that could be passed back to the service with a view to providing support for the young people.

·         The questionnaire is only one way of engaging with young people who are in the looked after system, e.g., working with the Youth Service and ensuring that young people are heard via the Corporate Parenting Panel. Personal advisers work with each of the care leavers coming through the system.  There has also been some additional Welsh Government investment into the personal advisor resource, this year.

·         Concern was expressed that the percentage figures for 16 and 17 year olds and the percentages for the quarter 2 results in respect of every measure fell below the Wales average.  It was noted that Officers had undertaken some evaluation regarding this matter, last year. However, the number of responses had been low but measures were being taken to try to increase the number of responses in order to obtain a more accurate assessment of the situation.

·         In response to a question raised regarding Looked After Children and the stability of their schooling, it was noted that the service focusses on the best interest of the child, rather than focussing on the performance indicator.

·         Following the latest drive for foster carers, more enquires are being received.  However, it takes a period of time from the enquiry stage to getting a foster carer registered, before the foster carer is able to look after a child.  A report will be brought to a future meeting of the Select Committee outlining progress regarding this matter.  With regard to the figures, the Authority has a similar proportion of children in foster care but there is still a disproportionate number of those children in foster care within the independent fostering agencies.