Agenda item

(To receive a report from Tracy Johnson, Scrutiny Officer, which invites the Committee to consider the draft final report arising from the scrutiny review into Frontline Social Workers and Safeguarding)

Consideration was given to a report which invited the Children and Young People Scrutiny Committee to consider the draft final report arising from the scrutiny review into Frontline Social Workers and Safeguarding. 

Tracy Johnson, the Scrutiny Officer for the Review, gave a brief presentation which provided Members of the Committee with further details in relation to the following areas;

·         Objectives of the Review;

·         Methodology of the Review;

·         Key findings and conclusions;

·         Recommendations;

Members were provided with the opportunity to ask questions to the officers present in relation to the information contained within the report and some of the points raised during discussion included the following:

·         Members were supportive of all the recommendations which were being put forward in the final report;

·         It was explained that if the draft final report was given approval by the Scrutiny Committee, it would be considered by the Executive on 1 July 2014, and delegated to the Executive Councillor Adult Care and Health Services, Children's Services for a response.  The Executive Councillor would have two months to formulate their response and it would then go to the October meeting of the Committee with an action plan, and the Committee would monitor the action plan on a 6 monthly basis.  Implementation would commence as soon as the action plan was received by the Committee;

·         The Task and Finish Group was congratulated for a very thorough report;

·         It was queried whether the caseloads of each locality team were investigated during the review as the number of children in care was increasing.  Members were advised that senior officers were aware of the increase in cases, and the County Council had made the decision to increase the number of social workers it employed.  Therefore the Task and Finish Group had not made any recommendation in terms of caseloads;

·         It was clarified that the second paragraph on page 37 of the final report referred to the national situation in relation to pressure felt by child protection workers to reclassify section 47 child protection cases to a less category of 'child in need'.  It was suggested that the wording should be amended in the report to highlight that it referred to a national survey.  Members were also advised that the senior management team had worked very hard to reach out to social workers to let them know that if they were under this pressure they should let management know this;

·         Page 19, last paragraph, of the final report – there was a query regarding Police holding onto evidence.  It was noted that this would only be done in order to strengthen the case against the perpetrators and secure a conviction.  However, there were systems and processes in place to ensure that the courts and social workers could have this dialogue with the police;

·         Page 5, paragraph 5 of the final report – the percentage of children subject to some form of early intervention referred to any form of contact, not just with social workers, such as at children's centres.  The wording of the paragraph would be clarified to reflect this;

·         Members were advised that a more modern IT system for social workers should be in place from April 2015.  Although it was noted that it was unlikely that there would be a single system which could be logged into by all partners, the new system would improve the way that social workers worked;

·         Members commented that they were looking forward to seeing the recommendations implemented and the impact that they would have on frontline procedures;

·         It was noted that if any of the recommendations were rejected by the Executive Councillor, they would need to provide a reason;

·         Members who took part in the Task and Finish Group commented that the amount of access they had to officers both within the county council and from outside organisations was appreciated.  It was thought that Lincolnshire had very resilient social workers who worked exceptionally hard.  It was also noted that the relationship between frontline social workers and senior managers was good, and that there was a two way challenge.  This was a good basis for moving forward;

·         Members were very impressed with the way that child protection was carried out in the authority, and there was a lot of good work underway.  It was emphasised that the recommendations which were put forward were to support that work, and were not critical of work already being done;

·         It was clarified that there was not a difference in the way that social workers were recruited, whether they were directly employed by the authority, or they were from an agency.  They would all have the same checks carried out in relation to their qualifications.  They all needed to be registered with the HCPC (Health and Care Professions Council);

·         Members were advised that independent social workers in the past were used by the courts, but this practice had now reduced dramatically;

·         It was clarified that in relation to the 3700 open cases, one case related to one child.  If there were cases for multiple children from the same family, each child would have its own case.  Members were advised that the authority had a child level data approach, for example, if there were five children in a family, they could have five different sets of needs, or five different sets of parents and so there would be a separate case for each child;

·         Neglect was a big area of concern as there were some cases where the decision to intervene early could be made quickly, but others where the home situation was assessed as ‘just good enough’ and then the situation would change – sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.  It was noted that there was no legal basis to be able to remove a child too early;

·         A working group had been set up which focused on signs of safety and embedding the signs of safety methodology into a multi-agency partnership approach;

·         In terms of obesity, it was known that there were a number of issues across the country in terms of whether obesity in children could be classed as neglect.  The authority had not intervened in a child’s life because they were obese.  Members were advised that there were a number of interventions for families where the children were over-weight;

·         It was thought that the authority was good at dealing with cases of physical and sexual abuse, and they were dealt with quickly.  However, neglect cases were much harder to deal with;

·         Members commented that they were reassured by the work which had been done during this review, and by how transparent the authority had been.  It was felt that members would be able to reassure many parents that good work was being done;

·         The Scrutiny Officer was thanked for all her work in putting together the information collected and arranging the visits;

·         It was felt that an understanding of child development needed to be more widely embedded;

·         Officers commented that they were pleased by some of the things which had been said in response to the review, particularly in relation to the work of social workers.  It was queried whether the Scrutiny Committee would be willing to write something for the social workers which reflected some of the comments made.  It was agreed that a letter of thanks and commendation would be sent to all social workers from the Chairman on behalf of the Committee;

·         The focus of the task and finish group had had a positive impact on morale, as it made the staff feel that councillors cared about the work that they did.  It was positive to get some good feedback;

RESOLVED

1.    To approve the final report, with the amendments detailed above, into Frontline Social Workers and Safeguarding;

2.    That the final report be submitted to the Executive for its consideration and response.