Issue - meetings

To consider a report of the Director of Children’s Services.

Councillors Phil Hoyland and Ken Edwards attended the meeting and addressed the Committee in respect of this matter.

Ian Rush, Chairman of the Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) attended the meeting and explained the role of the Board and its links to the Improvement Board which had been set up in response to Ofsted recommendations in connection with the Council’s arrangements for the protection of children.

The LSCB was an independent body made up of professionals representing all agencies involved in child protection. The work of the Board was open and transparent and subject to informal scrutiny from the statutory partners and formal scrutiny through this committee.

Although the work of the LSCB was distinct from that of the Improvement Board, there was a considerable amount of collaboration between the two boards.

The LSCB met every two months and its aim was to ensure that the Child and Young people’s protection system in Cheshire East was working effectively and improving.

Kate Rose reported that in terms of the local child protection arrangements, approximately 112 families involving about 204 children were currently subject to Child Protection Plans.

Kate then gave a brief overview of the Councils activities in relation to:

Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE);

Neglect;

Child Protection and domestic abuse.

Kate informed the Committee that the Council had not had any serious case reviews for over 3 years.

In relation to priorities, the Council had remodelled its services by putting in place arrangements to pool budgets by 2015 in order to provide a comprehensive service to manage all levels of risk through two community bases in Macclesfield and Crewe. Some of the interim measures already in place included placing Independent Domestic Violence advocates (IDVA) with the CHECs (Cheshire East Consultation Service) and within Accident and Emergency departments in local hospitals.

One area of concern that had been noted through the CHECS service was the high incidence of queries raised by schools on Friday afternoons.

Tony Crane then introduced a report which updated the committee on the Children’s Improvement Plan.

As part of the Council’s engagement with Ofsted, 3 monitoring visits had been completed focusing on key issues within the improvement plan.

Ofsted had focused on the following themes:

·         Identification and management of risk and potential risk  at the point of referral to Cheshire East’s Consultation Service (ChECS);

·         Effectiveness of assessment in ensuring that children receive the right level of help at the right time;

·         Implementing effective audit arrangements;

·         The quality and consistency of child in need planning

In summary, Tony explained that the Council was making good progress, but the Council was still not in the position it wished to be in i.e. good or outstanding.

One of the main improvements had been in respect of the recruitment and retention of social workers and with the assistance of the Children and Families PDG, a number of changes had been made to the package on offer to social work staff.

RESOLVED

(a)          That the report be received and noted;

(b)          That the  ...  view the full minutes text for item 103