Issue - meetings

(Verbal Reports by Mr L Ridings, Deputy Cabinet Member Vulnerable Children and Partnerships, Ms H Davies, Director of Specialist Children’s Services and Mrs J Wainwright, Director of Commissioning and Partnerships)

(1)         The Chairman asked Ms Davies to begin with her report.  Ms Davies gave  an update included the following:

• Following the unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment services in August, an improvement plan was being implemented, and an improvement and development steering group, chaired by Mrs Hohler, was put in place to monitor progress.

• Additional administrative and social work assistant capacity had been made available to all 12 duty and initial assessment teams.

• The number of trainee social workers being recruited in autumn 2010 has been increased from 10 to 22.  The number of social work assistants being sponsored on the Open University training course had been increased from 10 to 20.

• 58 newly qualified social workers joined the service from 13 September.  23 more social workers had been recruited from Europe; they would take up their posts in January.  The number of social worker vacancies dropped to 15% at the end of August.

• 12 preventative services managers (one per district) came into post on 1 September and were developing strategies to reduce the number of inappropriate referrals to Children’s Social Services

• The number of children with child protection plans and the number of Looked After Children (LAC) continued to rise, causing capacity issues for the social work teams, along with financial pressures.

• An announced (i.e. 2 weeks notice) inspection of safeguarding and LAC services took place on 11-22 October.

(2)         Mr Ridings felt confident that the funding would be available to get the staffing level up to the appropriate number within the social work teams. Recruitment of highly qualified social workers was considered as there was recognition of the need to have the very best social work teams.  Every effort would be made to safeguard the service from any cuts in the budget.

(3)         Members were given the opportunity to make comments and ask questions which included the following:

(4)         In response to questions by Mr Wells, Ms Davies advised that in terms of principal social worker posts the current vacancy rate was 20%, and every effort was being made to find suitable staff.  In terms of capacity, there were 1350 children with child protection plans in Kent and approximately the same number of LAC in Kent this did create pressures for the experienced social workers within the teams as the less experienced staff would not be able to deal with those cases. Ms Davies assured the Committee that all of those cases were allocated to a social worker.

(5)         Mr Wells mentioned that there were issues being highlighted outside the social workers’ normal role that were having an impact such as leased cars.

(6)         In response to a question by Mr Manion, Ms Davies said that the service was in the process of recruiting trainee social workers.  The graduates being selected had to have a minimum of  ...  view the full minutes text for item 39