Agenda item

To inform the Committee of the work undertaken by Children’s Services on a day to day basis and to update on the progress and implementation of developments.

The Committee considered a report which highlighted key areas of work and progress within the Children’s Services Directorate. The report was presented by Mrs Booth, Director of Children’s Services, who began by providing a verbal summary of the main content of the report under the following headings:

·         Self-View Pilot

·         Blackpool Young People’s Service

·         Improvement Board

·         Staffing

·         Partnership working – White Ribbon Accreditation.

Mrs Booth then responded to comments and questions from the Committee in relation to the content of the report and the summary she had provided.

With regards to the numbers of looked after children, the Committee questioned why Blackpool was above average in comparison with other local authorities with similar deprivation levels and demographics. Mrs Booth acknowledged the situation and explained that it was part of a whole system issue, based upon the following main points;

·         Partners requiring more support

·         How the threshold around social care was managed

·         Funding pressures.

Mrs Booth went on to explain that the needs of children continued to be at the forefront of everyone’s mind and that should a child need to be placed in to care, that would happen. However, a change of culture was required, together with different ways of doing things. Early intervention was a key element in reducing the numbers of children in care.

Members pointed out that there appeared to be a degree of propensity in taking children into care and questioned whether Blackpool had been too keen to resort to those measures to date. Mrs Booth acknowledged that a change of approach was needed, which had now commenced. There was a need to ensure that thresholds were embedded to ensure that only the right children came into care.

Members asked whether set procedures were being changed in order to achieve the change of approach that was referred to. Mrs Booth explained that changes had been made to the scheme of delegation in relation to looked after children. There were also two Priority 2 plans, one relating to looked after children and the other to educational attainment, as well as the Social Care Improvement Plan, all of which would be brought to the Committee, going forward.

The Committee discussed the implications and concerns for staff relating to making mistakes, or making a wrong decision. Mrs Booth explained that she would always support a decision that was made for the right reasons, based upon the available information at the time, although it had to be acknowledged that situations could sometimes change very quickly. Where possible, decisions made by staff were checked by supervisors and recent feedback from staff events had been largely positive.

The Committee suggested that it might be helpful for Members to have access to case studies and Mrs Booth agreed that this would be arranged.

In connection with information sharing and whether this could be done more effectively between agencies, Mrs Booth acknowledged that improvement was needed in this area and was currently being looked at. She added that the majority of serious case reviews highlighted insufficient sharing of information. The Committee asked about new restrictions on data sharing that were coming into place, to which Mrs Booth agreed to provide more information at the next meeting of the Committee, following a briefing that she was due to attend on 20 October 2017.

The Committee agreed to note the report.

Background papers: None.