Agenda item

To consider the attached report of the Director of Finance & Business Services / Strategic Director, Places & Organisational Capacity.

Fintan Bradley, Head of Service: Strategy, Planning & Performance, attended to present the Quarter 1 Finance and Performance report for the Children and Families Directorate.

Fintan Bradley noted that the Directorate had a budget of £59m for 2012/13, excluding the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG). The emerging pressures on this budget had been identified at £4.9m with £4.1m of remedial action identified in order to reduce the base budget net overspend to £0.8m.

Touching on the emerging pressures, Fintan Bradley identified the key revenue issues that the Directorate was facing:

·         Reliance on expensive out-of-Borough placements for Cared for Children due to a shortage of foster care provision.

·         A reliance on expensive agency social workers in the Children in Need/Child protection, Children’s Assessment Team and 16+/Cared for Support teams. This was due to a difficulty of recruiting experienced and qualified permanent social workers.

Fintan Bradley was asked to expand on the issue relating to the shortage of permanent social workers. He explained that whilst the service has had an ongoing campaign to recruit qualified social workers; competition was strong from neighbouring authorities for experienced staff. Other authorities were using initiatives such as ‘Golden Hello’s’ to attract experienced social workers and therefore Cheshire East was finding it difficult to compete. Fintan added that the nature of the positions available, namely in the Child Protection teams also made it difficult to recruit permanent staff as these roles were some of the most challenging within the social work field.

Members agreed that it would be useful to receive more information on the issue relating to the recruitment of permanent social workers at a subsequent meeting. It was requested that the Committee receive information on:

·         The number of social worker vacancies in the Council,

·         How much more it was costing the Council to recruit agency workers in comparison to having permanent staff.

·         How long agency staff tended to stay with the Council.

It was commented that the NHS had faced similar issues in terms of relying on agency workers and as a result, they had tried to counteract this by establishing a bank of staff. It was queried therefore whether creating a bank of social workers was something that the Council had considered.

A number of other suggestions were made as to how the Council could attempt to reduce the reliance on agency workers:

·         That the service gather intelligence to understand what made agency working attractive to social workers so that conditions could be replicated within the Council i.e. flexible working, short term/temporary contracts.

·         That offers be made to recently departed experienced social workers, of a particular standard, to either return to work on a reduced hour’s basis or to mentor less experienced social workers.

It was suggested that an item be added to the work programme for the next scheduled meeting so that a response to these suggestions could be provided.

It was queried whether the closure of the Brereton Children’s Home would place extra pressure on the budget. Fintan Bradley acknowledged that the closure would put pressure on placements which could potentially result in children being placed in out-of-Borough placements – incurring an additional cost.

Following on from this issue, it was requested that the Committee receive information at a future meeting on:

·         How many foster carers the Council required.

·         How many foster carers were currently employed by the Council.

·         What the current ‘turnover’ rate was for foster carers.

A number of general comments were made on the Children and Families budget. It was noted that there appeared to be a number of areas in which there was a consistent overspend. It was suggested therefore that a budget session be arranged for the Committee in order to better understand these issues so that informed recommendations could be made.

In terms of performance information, attention was drawn to page 14 of the agenda which highlighted that the Directorate had not met its target on the following indicators:

·         NI 59 – Initial assessments for children’s social care carried out within 7 working days of referral

·         NI 60 – Core assessments for children’s social care that were carried out within 35 working days of their commencement.

It was queried how many days it was taking for initial and core assessments on those instances that the targets were missed. Fintan Bradley suggested that this information could be provided for the Committee in an updated action plan for the Ofsted Announced Inspection on Safeguarding.

RESOLVED –

a)    That the report be noted.

b)    That an item be placed on the Committee’s work programme for the next scheduled meeting relating to the challenges in recruiting experienced social workers. That this include:

a.    Information on:

                                          i.    The number of social worker vacancies in the Council,

                                        ii.    How much more it was costing the Council to recruit agency workers in comparison to having permanent staff.

                                       iii.    How long agency staff tended to stay with the Council.

b.    A response to the following suggestions:

                                          i.    That the service gather intelligence to understand what made agency working attractive to social workers so that conditions could be replicated within the Council i.e. flexible working, short term/temporary contracts.

                                        ii.    That offers be made to recently departed experienced social workers, of a particular standard, to either return to work on a reduced hour’s basis or to mentor less experienced social workers.

c)    That at a future meeting, the Committee receive information on:

a.    How many foster carers the Council required.

b.    How many foster carers were currently employed by the Council.

c.    What the current ‘turnover’ rate was for foster carers.

d)    That an updated action plan for the Ofsted Announced Inspection be brought to a future meeting and that this include further information on the range of days being taken to perform initial and core assessments for children’s social care.

e)    That a session be arranged for the Committee to go through the Children and Families budget pressures prior to December 2012.