Agenda item

(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 a 2:1 degree.  Ms Davies was confident the graduates chosen in the recruitment process would have the potential to become good social workers.  The successful graduates would then work in a team for 9 months before studying for a 2 year diploma.  The Universities were also working with KCC on this.

(7)         In response to a question by Mr Hirst, Ms Davies advised that the current focus was to improve and review the ICS computer system which was due to be finalised in November.  She concurred that the next step would be to work on the social workers’ paperwork.

(8)         In response to a question by the Chairman, Ms Davies explained that ICS stood for ‘Integrated Children’s System’, a nationally prescribed computer system for recording children’s social services data.  There had been concerns about the system.  Work had been carried out to change the exemplars of the system.

(9)         In response to a question by Mrs Cole, Ms Davies advised that the best way to retain social workers was to ensure that they had sound supervision, support and a manageable workload.  In terms of supervision, a new supervision policy had been launched in August 2010 and training was currently being carried out.  Ms Davies agreed to the request for a report on the Supervision Policy and the progress on the ICS computer system.

(10)    In response to a request, Ms Davies agreed to supply Members with monthly statistics on the Kent social worker vacancies.

(11)    Mrs Wainwright then highlighted the key issues affecting the Commissioning and Partnership Team which included the renegotiation of the last two years of a three year contract with Connexions, with an aim to reduce the price of the contract with the least possible impact on the contractual outcomes that were jointly sought.  Mr Ridings advised the Committee that Mr G Bernard had retired and had been replaced by Mr S Kearns as Chief Executive of Connexions.

(12)    Mrs Wainwright then spoke about work being undertaken on the attainment and wellbeing of children whose parents were in the armed forces in Kent, the results of which would help to advise teachers of how to support those children better.  In response to a question by Mr Manion, Mrs Wainwright advised that there were approximately 700 service children in Kent; the majority of which reside in East Kent with small pockets of children in other areas of Kent.  Mr Ridings added that the children’s parents mainly worked for the Army as there were very few naval and air force personnel in Kent.  Some of the children had changed school up to 6 and 7 times depending on their parent’s posting.  Mr Willicombe advised that because the Royal Engineers were posted individually and were away from home for very long periods their children may need more support.

(13)    In reply to a question by Mr Wells, Mrs Wainwright said that there had been no discussion for service children to have the same status as LAC in the school admissions process but agreed to take the request forward. 

(14)    Mrs Wainwright spoke on the support her team had given to the Local Children’s Trust Board in understanding their new role.  A full report would be made to the Kent Children’s Trust Board on how that was progressing in the future and would include the next steps.

(15)    Mrs Wainwright concluded by clarifying a mistake made by the DFE.  This involved a proposal for the Kent schools complaints procedure to change. The original procedure was as follows: Stage One - Where a parent complained about the school this should be made to the headteacher in the first instance. Stage Two - If the parent felt that the complaint had been dealt with unsatisfactorily dealt with by the headteacher it would be referred to the governing body.  Stage Three - If following the governing body’s response the parent was unhappy that they had not followed due procedures then the local authority would be asked to take a view, but the local authority had no power of redress, and could only comment on the procedure.  The new procedure was agreed through legislation that the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) would take on the ‘stage three’ role rather than the local authority. 

(16)    This was to be done in two stages of pilots; Kent was in the second pilot.  The LGO trained many Kent headteachers in the new process.  At the beginning of September 2010, KCC learnt that this was no longer going to happen and would be reverting to the previous process.   However this was an administrative error on the DFE’s part as it was written in primary legislation and could not be repealed easily so we were back to where we were.  Mrs Wainwright suggested that this was good for the schools as the Ombudsman could adjudicate and also offer financial redress where necessary.  In reply to a question by Dr Wadman, Mrs Wainwright advised that she thought the referral for the denominational schools followed the same route but agreed to check.

(17)    RESOLVED that:-

(a)   the Committee receive monthly statistics on the social worker  vacancies by district in Kent be noted;

(b)   the request for a report on the Supervision Policy and the progress on the ICS computer system be noted;

(c)   consideration be given to the request that children whose parents were in the armed forces receive the same status as Looked After Children with regard to the School Admissions criteria be noted;

(d)   the complaints procedure for denominational schools be checked on whether it followed the same routes as non denominational schools and reported to Members outside the meeting; and

(e)   the verbal updates be noted.