Agenda item

Reporting of performance of Children’s social services for 2019-20 (6 monthly)

Officers presented a performance report for quarter 2, which was based upon the statutory performance framework and outlined the performance of Welsh Government indicators, providing local context where relevant. Officers highlighted the increasing pressure on service, with a greater number of adults requiring social service interventions. 

Members heard that the numbers of Looked After Children (LAC) have increased, which is positive in terms of being able to help more children but it is placing pressure on the service.  The committee was advised that there has been a greater focus on the ‘early help offer’ and ‘family support offer’ and that these interventions are assisting a lot of families and it is hoped that these types of services will reduce the number of referrals. Members heard that over the next 18 months, the “families together team’ has been helping children to leave care and re-join their families.

Officers explained that there is a need to increase in-house foster care provision, as it’s not yet meeting our demand and that there is an ongoing strategy to recruit and retain social work staff, due to difficulties in recruiting to the child protection team given the nature of the role being highly pressurised.

Challenge:

• You have identified that our LAC numbers have increased and that it it contrary to the Welsh trend and your explanation within the report is that numbers are rising as we are becoming more informed and aware of child protections issues. Are our assessment processes the same as other councils?  Why are our numbers higher?

There is a rigorous assessment before any child joins the protection register.  Your question is difficult to answer as there is no ideal target for what our case numbers should be.   I’m confident that our processes are as they should be. Our practice can always change and improve, but whether that would lower the numbers is difficult to say. Numbers rising or falling is not a positive or negative issue. What it important is whether our thresholds are right. Our approach is a multiagency one based upon the Gwent footprint. 

• You have mentioned recruitment difficulties? Is there any way of making the role more varied??

We frequently revisit how should we structure and manage the workload in Social Services and all qualified staff do elements of it, but some teams do more of it and that’s the picture across Wales. We continually review this and we think we have the right structure at present in terms of how we manage the work within the team and develop the right culture.

·           You say our LAC numbers have increased against welsh average. Is there any correlation with the statistics around substance misuse and mental health services?  Aare we doing supportive work with the families on this?

Yes, we work with families to understand what needs to change and there are 2 strands to the support ~ one is pre-intervention level support and the other follows into education care.

• Are we adequately supporting care leavers?

Yes, we provide support to care leavers. All have individual packages bespoke to them as an individual, because some [people have particular issues which is why they need bespoke packages created.  

• Please can you explain the issues related to recruitment in foster carers and how that relates to MIST?
•  

The issue we have is recruiting foster carers and it is an ongoing issue. There is a pay gap, so it’s the really the support offer that we offer that differentiates us from others and draws people to become foster carers in Monmouthshire. It is our approach to how we look after children which is particularly attractive to foster carers. The MIST project focusses on having the right carers. 

Chair’s Conclusion and Outcome

We have scrutinised this in detail and the committee understands the nature of the problems officers are facing. We agree as a committee that the service is coping as well as it can with the demands placed upon it. We also agree that we would like to scrutinise the issue of support for care leavers to better understand the support given to them, so we will table a future report on the care leaver package and MIST.