Agenda and minutes

(1)                     The Chairman welcomed all those Members who had attended in response the Board’s invitation and thanked them for taking the time to discuss this vitally important issue.

(2)           She explained that the report was Phase 1 of three phases of a major review of Children’s Safeguarding issues commissioned by the County Council.

(1)       Mr Ayre and Mr Thomason introduced the report and presented a series of slides (which will be appended to these Minutes) setting out the key findings of Phase 1 of the review.  With Dr Craig and Mr Anderson, they answered a number of factual questions from Members about the findings of the review and its recommendations, and responded to Members’ concerns. Mr Ayre emphasised that the Board was not required to agree the recommendations at today’s meeting.  There was general cross-party support for the robust and thorough report that had been produced, and Members added their thanks and congratulations to the review team.

(2)       In discussion, and in officers’ responses to questions put by Members, the following points were highlighted:-

(a)       Questions asked of Children’s Social Work teams had been based on the issues covered by the Haringey Joint Area Review (JAR).  Questionnaires had been sent to 52 members of staff, with 34 responses having been received - a response rate of 65%.  Staff chosen to receive the questionnaires were Team Leaders, District Managers and Heads of Service;

(b)       Findings arising from the questionnaire had confirmed information identified in the Haringey JAR.  Key issues were staff shortage and increased case loads, delays in giving written acknowledgement of referrals and allocating cases, leaving Managers holding cases.  However, Mr Thomason and Mr Ayre emphasised that they had found professionalism, compassion and much excellent practice in the work of social work teams, including the following:-

(i)         Most children in care had an allocated social worker;

(ii)        An initial meeting with a child always happened within the prescribed time span;

(iii)       No child with a child protection plan (CPP) was without an allocated social worker;

(iv)       Case files were very comprehensive; and

(v)        There was much good practice in multi-agency working

(c)        Findings presented in the slides had been identified by looking at five serious case reviews (SCRs) of very complex cases and 14 cases from the ICS.  At the end of December 2008, there had been some 1052 CPP cases in Kent;

(d)       Case loads changed frequently and it was not possible to identify an ideal case load size.  Even for some experienced social workers, two child protection cases going on at once could be too much to handle.  Child protection cases were allocated to a team manager before being allocated to a social worker, but team managers would not normally hold such cases. The Haringey JAR had highlighted case load size as an issue and Kent’s review had found that case load monitoring and management was done very well;

(e)       The Integrated Children’s System (ICS) was a problem shared by many other local authorities, and Directors of Children’s Services in the South East and London Boroughs were working together to lobby the Secretary of State to delay further development of it until some consolidation of the system could be done.  A task force had been set up by the Secretary of State to look into this;

(f)         Potential benefits  ...  view the full minutes text for item 24.