Agenda item

To receive a presentation by Lorraine Butcher, Head of Services for Children and Families, on the Redesign of Social Care.

The Committee was briefed by Lorraine Butcher, Head of Services for Children and Families, on key actions undertaken in relation to safeguarding services in Cheshire East.  Cheshire County Council had received a rating of 2 - Adequate for its Safeguarding Services following the Annual Performance Assessment 2008 with a number of issues identified:

      Assessment timescales;

      Securing placement stability for Looked After Children;

      Adoption;

      Fostering.

The position at April/May 2009 was:

      Ofsted inspections had judged provision at Redsands and Priors Hill Residential homes to be inadequate;

      The Lord Laming report “The Protection of Children in England – Progress Report” had made a number of recommendations including that children in need had access to effective specialist support at an early stage and more needed to be done regarding safeguarding and child protection across all front-line services;

      A review of frontline child care services had looked at various areas including access to services, caseloads, team management and size, computer systems and training and development;

      An Audit and Review of Children under 5 subject to Child Protection Plans in Cheshire East had been conducted.

A number of actions were now underway:

      The Cheshire East Local Safeguarding Children Board had been established and an independent Chair appointed – David Mellor;

      Regular performance reporting meetings had been arranged with the Chief Executive;

      Two interim managers had been appointed;

      A separation of the review process from the delivery of services had been introduced into the departmental structure;

      A new team of agency workers had been appointed to support the team in Crewe;

      Agency workers were filling current vacancies and providing additional capacity in Crewe, Macclesfield and Congleton;

      Changes were being introduced to PARIS – the computerised system used by social workers;

      Residential provision – Redsands was closed and two new residential units were scheduled to open in October/November; a Scrutiny Task/Finish Panel had been established to look into residential provision;

      Risk assessment training for staff had been scheduled;

      Briefings with key managers on audits had been held;

      Unannounced internal proxy “Ofsted” type inspections had been held in Crewe;

      A Supervision audit had been undertaken;

      Amended Thresholds of Need guidance had been reissued to all staff and revised guidance to staff reissued on Referral, Assessment, Planning and Decision making;

      Redesign of Services, Phase I was underway including processes for children in need such as assessment, referral, case management and child protection plans and ensuring arrangements were on a locality basis;

      Redesign of Services, Phase 2 would focus on embedding across the Children’s Trust and all elements of the Children’s workforce the early identification, prevention and targeting of support to children and families at risk of needing statutory intervention;

      Refocusing of services to provide a wide range of family support and prevention whilst also maintaining a clear focus on children who are most at risk;

      Halting the continuing increase in the numbers of children/families requiring statutory interventions through well co-ordinated arrangements for early intervention and prevention.

During discussion of the item the following points were raised:

      The Audit report that had been received in June had led to the view that additional temporary resources were required and some additional temporary staff had been appointed to work in Crewe.  A rolling programme to recruit permanent staff was underway;

      A national Social Work Task Group had made recommendations around practice and training and Cheshire East already offered training opportunities and social care work experience to students;

      The staffing structure for Children and Families Section would take into account the outcome of the redesign including joining up services where possible to reduce management levels;

      The Committee requested the opportunity to visit the two new units that would replace Redsands.

RESOLVED:  That:

(a) the current position be noted and regular updates be submitted to the Committee; and

(b) a visit be arranged for all Members of the Committee to the two properties that have replaced residential provision at Redsands.