Agenda and minutes

(1)       RESOLVED that, subject to Mrs J Doherty being added to the list of those in attendance, the Minutes of the meeting held on 24 September 2008 are correctly recorded and that they be signed by the Chairman.

(2)       The Minutes of the meeting held on 21 May 2008 had already been signed and were included for reference only.

The Chairman referred to the increase in interest in and concern about the County Council’s Corporate Parenting role that had arisen from high profile media coverage of recent child protection cases.  The practice of circulating statistics on the number of Looked After Children and children with Child Protection Plans (previously those on the “At Risk” Register), quarterly, to all Members of the County Council has been established for several years as part of the Board’s regular work.  These statistics are currently presented district by district but Members have recently asked that they be broken down into figures for each County Council electoral division.

(Sally Morris, Head of Strategic Planning and Review, was in attendance for this item)

(1)       Mrs Morris introduced the report and presented a series of slides (which are appended to these Minutes) setting out the key features of the new arrangements.  In discussion, and in Mrs Morris’s and Mrs Weiss’s responses to questions from Members, the following points were highlighted:-

(a)       It had been expected that the new inspection arrangements would reduce the burden on children’s services teams which inevitably came with inspections, but this reduction had not materialised;

(b)       Members expressed disappointment that the new arrangements might lead to inspection visits which were more numerous but which looked at issues in less depth.  This would depend how the new ‘annual fieldwork’ feature was undertaken.  Although the new system would tie up senior staff for a shorter time, this was still an interruption to the daily work of running a good children’s social care service.  In response to a question about the costs to the County Council of the inspection system, in terms of officers’ time, Mrs Weiss said that the costs were extremely heavy and could not be recharged or recouped; 

(c)        Members expressed concern that Ofsted had more inspection work to do but had suffered a 30% cut in resources. Mrs Weiss said she expected Ofsted to question how it would evaluate services in the future.  The proposed Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) inspection regime now looked more likely to happen;

(d)       The size and diversity of a county like Kent could mask differing performance levels across regions.  Officers had raised this concern with the Government, but expected that the advice given would be that a local authority’s approach should match its area’s geographic diversity; and

(e)       Members were concerned that the self evaluation process could fail to show up problems.  For example, Haringey Council had assessed their services as “good” and been assessed in the Joint Area Review (JAR) as good.

(2)       Mr Brightwell pointed out that Kent’s children’s social services had scored very well in quality assurance assessments.  As the Manager of the Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) Service, he and his team were independent of the operations management team of Children’s Social Services so could be challenging.  He pointed out that a smaller local authority would not have the scope to organise these roles in this way.

(3)       RESOLVED that the new arrangements for the inspection of Children’s Social Services, and their impact on the service, be noted, with thanks.

(1)       Mrs Weiss explained it had not been possible to supply the planned Kent Safeguarding Children Board (KSCB) Annual Report. The paper will not be signed off by the KSCB until the next meeting.  Mrs Weiss gave an oral update on Safeguarding within the Children, Families and Education (CFE) Directorate and responded to questions and comments from Members.  She said that that the Cabinet Member, Leyland Ridings, took an active role in safeguarding issues, having regular monthly briefings with Bill Anderson and Mrs Weiss, in which he asked searching questions.

(2)       Members commented that the relationship between Paul Brightwell and the IRO service was good, but the external perception of this would be that the services, being in-house, were not sufficiently independent.  The County Council should be aware of this perception and how the services would appear to the public.

(3)       A Member stated that the County Council should ensure that channels of communication were as open as possible, from the bottom up.  A case was cited of a non-Kent child in another authority, whom the Head Teacher had noticed was behaving in a disturbed fashion. Referrals to the local safeguarding service had been unsuccessful. It later transpired that the child’s father had killed the child’s mother. The Member asked what help a Head Teacher would receive in Kent. Mrs Weiss explained that, in Kent, the Head Teacher could have contacted the Education Safeguards Service run by Kel Arthur, Policy and Standards Manager, Education Safeguards, and they would have a supported discussion with Children’s Social Services.  Head Teachers are aware of Kel Arthur’s Team, which has a good working relationship with them, with Kel’s team being well thought of.  Some Local Authorities do not have this sort of team or service. 

(4)       Mrs Weiss explained that there had been an increase in the number of children who are subject to Child Protection plans (previously those on the ‘At Risk’ Register) in the last 3 years. This correlates with the reduction in the number of Looked After Children. 

(5)       The largest number of cases are due to neglect and emotional abuse.  All children who have a Child Protection plan have an allocated social worker, and all social workers have regular supervision.  Performance in respect of the Performance Assessment Framework indicators is mostly very good. 99.8% of case conferences are held on time.  Kent performs well compared to its statistical neighbours. 

(6)       Members asked if Kent could be sure that ALL its children were safeguarded, to which Mrs Weiss replied that it was not possible to give a 100% guarantee that there would never be a Child Protection incident.  Some families may not be involved with social services. When families are known, social workers and managers work to manage risk as safely as possible and in the best interests of the child. When there is an incident, the KSCB will hold a Serious Case Review. The KSCB was previously chaired by the Managing Director of CFE, and recommendations for improvements  ...  view the full minutes text for item 20.

(1)       Ms Robson introduced the report and pointed out that the Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children and Young People (UASCYP) Service had achieved much since the last report to the Champions Board, but there was still more to do.  It was important to be realistic about what was possible to best meet young people’s needs.

(2)       Mr Reymond highlighted the challenges around providing young asylum seekers with the education that would be most useful to them in adult life.  Being accepted for, and embarking upon, vocational courses often required a young person to be able to read and write English to a higher standard than they could realistically achieve, and the school environment was not necessarily the most productive or appropriate for some young people.  The service needed to achieve the right combination of life skills and language skills which would prepare young asylum seekers and give them maximum scope to benefit from any opportunity which was open to them.  Even if they were ultimately repatriated to their country of origin, they would be as well prepared as possible during their time in Kent.  The Learning and Skills Council (LSC) had supported a pilot of an independent living skills course to help with this preparation.

(3)       In response to questions, Ms Robson, Mr Reymond and Mr Brightwell explained that:-

(a)       Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children and Young People and Looked After Children were able to access careers advice from the Connexions Service in the same way as could any other young person;

(b)       Although the Asylum Seeker Duty Team made thorough records of a young person’s country of origin, language and circumstances of arrival, the immediate concern was to look after a lone young person who was confused, traumatised and malnourished after a long journey, and who had possibly also been abused.  Their first need was for a thorough needs assessment.  Any country experiencing war or crisis at any time would generate numbers of young unaccompanied asylum seekers, and Kent was inevitably in the front line as a destination for them as they crossed mainland Europe;

(c)        The recent Joint Area Review (JAR) had praised Kent’s UASCYP Service and the work undertaken to protect and support young people;

(d)       Befriending or ‘buddying’ initiatives were important in supporting young asylum seekers, and a project by the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO), being piloted as part of the Riverside Project in Gravesend should improve outcomes for young people.  Evaluation of this pilot would help plan future work;

(e)       Members praised the difficult and emotional work undertaken by the UASCYP Team on a very restricted budget.  The work of the team had no precedent to follow and had to try out initiatives and test what worked.

(f)         Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children and Young People following courses at Kent colleges were generally positive and well motivated and provided good role models for other young people.  Once in the education/training system, they were able to access the same social networking  ...  view the full minutes text for item 21.

(1)       At the conclusion of the meeting, Members reflected on issues covered in the meeting and had a brief discussion of the role the Board could play in future in engaging with and addressing the issues covered.

(a)       Members would need to identify what information to ask for, and examples of things which would be useful were:-

·                    The percentage of cases checked and monitored by Mrs Weiss’s team;

·                    A tracking report on the number of cases (including those of Looked After Children) currently being investigated.

(b)       Members also asked to see the full report on the Haringey case as soon as it was available;

(c)        Members could also invite the Cabinet Member to address a future meeting on his role in the Children’s Care Council.

(2)       The County Council’s Corporate Parenting role, together with the Board’s revised Terms of Reference, would also be discussed by the full Council on 11 December 2008.