Agenda item

To receive an overview of the journey of Children’s Social Care, current key issues and areas of focus.

The Committee received a presentation updating it on the activities within the area of Children’s Social Care from Ms Vicky Gent, Director of Children’s Services.

Ms Gent highlighted the progress made over the past five years within children’s services. Members noted that the workforce within children’s services had been stabilised ensuring that the Council had staff to achieve positive outcomes for children and families.

Ms Gent reminded Members of the key areas of improvement identified in the Inspection report namely:

·         Improvements to the multi-agency response to children suffering domestic abuse or long-term neglect, and to those children with complex needs.

·         The need to work with partners to strengthen their contribution to early help and neglect.

·         The lack of sufficient placements to meet children’s assessed needs.

·         The timeliness of meeting children’s dental and emotional needs.

The Committee noted the revised improvement plan and asked that updates on the progress made be presented as well as areas of potential issues including the identified challenges. Ms Gent explained that there were four cross-cutting themes which drove issues within the town broadly and children’s social care particularly. These were neglect, domestic abuse, sufficiency and permanence of placements and education for children with social care involvement. The Committee agreed that in developing its workplan it would seek to ensure that these themes were addressed in policy development work and in Scrutiny Reviews.

Ms Gent then spoke about the Plans for the Future in terms of further improvement. Ms Gent highlighted the recent appointment of a Head of Service for Transformation to lead on whole service improvement The recent successful funding bid for the implementation of Family Hubs with the aspiration for these to include the co-location of statutory services within the hubs and the development of multi-agency teams which could have additional positive impact around substance misuse, emotional health and domestic abuse.

The presentation also explained the proposed transition from Pan-Lancashire Safeguarding to a place based board. The pan-Lancashire arrangements which had been in place since 2019 it had been felt no longer offered the most responsive system for local needs and had not driven change in key areas such as domestic abuse. The ability to more clearly link with other partnership boards such as the Corporate Parent Panel and B Safe Blackpool Board was also noted. A report would be brought to the July Executive to agree the next steps. The Committee was broadly supportive but agreed that once implemented the Committee should consider reviewing the new arrangements’ operation.

The Committee was also informed of the progress towards the creation of the Children and Families Partnership Plan. The development of the plan had already commenced with a Development Day held on the 15 March 2023 with over 80 attendees. The Committee agreed that the creation of such an overarching strategy which had not existed for sometime was necessary to the delivery of further social care improvements. The Committee emphasised its view that those with lived experience needed to be involved in the plan’s development and help direct its implementation.  The Committee noted that it would be involved further in the development of the plan which would take place during September 2023.