Issue - meetings

To up-date the Committee on matters raised in the Lord Laming Report on Child Protection, particularly in respect of how Safeguarding will operate across Cheshire East.

The report of the Services Manager, Children and Families, is attached for consideration.  Members may also find it helpful to bring their own copy of the Lord Laming Report to the meeting.

The Committee considered a report of the Strategic Director – People on the issues and actions being taken to ensure a comprehensive response from the Council to the issues raised by Lord Laming in his report “The Protection of Children in England: A Progress Report”.

The report outlined that there was a significant level of national scrutiny of safeguarding and Lord Laming had made a number of recommendations for improvement.  A detailed Action Plan had been produced for Cheshire East to address both the recommendations of Lord Laming and those identified following the Annual Performance Assessment (APA) of Cheshire held in 2008 which related to:

      Assessment Timescales;

      Securing placement stability for Looked After Children;

      Adoption;

      Private fostering.

The APA was to be replaced by the Comprehensive Area Assessment and there would be an annual inspection of safeguarding.  No notice period would be given and up to 12 Inspectors would be involved, Government Office North West had advised that Cheshire East was likely to be one of the first authorities to be inspected.

The Committee was advised that overall, teams had exceeded the target for completing Assessments within the timescales required but it was important that Assessments were of a high quality as well as within timescale.  There had been an increase in children subject to a Child Protection Plan to 146 children.  The Local Safeguarding Children Board (LSCB) had commissioned an external audit of all children under 5 years of age who were subject to a Child Protection Plan as those children were seen as the most vulnerable.  The results of this audit would be a useful tool for assessing quality of assessment and intervention and highlighting key actions required and may be appropriate for the Committee to consider when available.

The numbers of Looked After Children had risen over the past two years and there were currently 368 such children in Cheshire East.    It was important to secure the most appropriate placement so as to reduce the number of times a Looked After Child was moved between placements. 

Adoption rates remained low but the numbers of children subject to placement orders and placed for adoption (but not yet adopted) had both increased considerably.  It was hoped higher rates of adoption would result in the next year.

The procedure for private fostering arrangements, of which there were 6 in Cheshire East, was under review and a Champion had been identified. 

In relation to the Lord Laming report, a key aspect was to ensure that children in need had early access to effective specialist service as well as indicating that more needed to be done regarding safeguarding and child protection across all front line services.  An experienced social work practitioner had been commissioned by both Cheshire Councils to undertake a review of front line services to ensure there was sufficient capacity and that referral and assessments were timely and appropriate.  The findings for Cheshire East included:

      Staffing – the staffing group was very stable and committed with low turnover and few  ...  view the full minutes text for item 14