Agenda item

The Committee requested a report so that it could understand placements for Children in Care, including what the Council is doing to ensure good value for money, placements near home and, also, how the Council’s actions are improving outcomes for Children in Care.

Cllr Liz Brighouse, Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services, Anne Coyle, Interim Corporate Director for Children’s Services, have been invited to present the report and to answer the Committee’s questions.

The Committee is recommended to consider the report, to ask any questions and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet arising from the report and discussion.

Report to follow.

Cllr Liz Brighouse, Cabinet Member for Children, Education, and Young People’s Services, Stephen Chandler, Interim Executive Director: People, Transformation, and Performance, Anne Coyle, Interim Corporate Director for Children’s Services, and Jean Kelly, Deputy Director Children’s Social Care, attended the meeting to speak to the report the Committee had requested on children’s social care placement sufficiency as well as market management and fostering.

The Interim Corporate Director for Children’s Services gave an overview of the report and introduced the Deputy Director Children’s Social Care and the Lead Commissioner to the Committee and commended them for their work.

The number of Children We Care For (CWCF) in Oxfordshire had been rising and that corresponded with what had happened in other areas of the country.  There were challenges across the system and Oxfordshire had not been immune from them.  However, the Committee’s attention was drawn to the numbers having reduced and the successful targeting of the service’s work.

The report sought to demonstrate that the right strategic and operational approach was in place to ensure that the Council has the right number of CWCF in the right placements at the right time.  It reported on the numbers over the past 12 months. There was a project supported by the Department for Education regarding hubs.

The number of children had been rising which corresponded what happened in other areas of the country.  There were challenges throughout the system on how children were supported from a partnership perspective but that was strengthening.  The Council had been looking very closely at the children it supported ensure that they only became CWCF where that was personally appropriate.  The numbers had reduced as a result of purposeful activity. 

There had been increased oversight and scrutiny from senior officers to ensure the best child-centred decisions were made.  Work was to continue but there was a commitment to consider each child carefully as an individual. 

Support for the workforce was key and building its confidence to work best in a child-focused approach was essential. 

In discussion with the Committee, the following points were noted:

·       That excellent outcomes for children were essential and that the Council needed to ensure that the leadership was supported in the work that was necessary to arrive at those outcomes;

·       That the Workforce Development Board was considering the wellness of staff and recognised there was a national challenge around children’s social work.  It was important to have sensible caseloads for social workers so that effective work was possible.  Because of the work undertaken in 2022 to reduce the number of children in the system, the average is approximately 18 or 19 per social worker.  Newly qualified social workers have a maximum of 12 and Heads of Service are alerted when a social worker reaches 20 to manage that.  Consistent progress had been made in the past 10 months.

·       The end of year figures for agency social care staff was 10% which was lower than south-east statistical neighbours.  The Council’s turnover was 12% compared to an average of 17% and so progress was being made.

·       A recruitment campaign was planned but was not yet in a position to be launched.  There was a commitment to wanting the right skills for social workers in Oxfordshire and a commitment to ‘growing our own’.  Agency workers were sometimes necessary for a variety of reasons.

·       One member had recently joined the fostering panel.  The reintroduction of what had been the corporate parenting panel was welcomed by the Committee.

·       Council services had been considered paternalistic, exacerbated by COVID, but partnership with families was important.  There were levels of need and intervention and interference were sometimes necessary but not always.

·       Unregistered placements for children were present in all local authorities.  Last year, there were 15 such in the county with very complex needs, often rooted in trauma.  Courageous professional conversations were necessary to deliver placements for some children who were particularly complex to place.   That number had reduced to one but had risen slightly again.  There was optimism that this would very soon reduce again as those children moved to registered provision.  The costs of supporting some of those children was in the region of £30k per week given the complexity of their need and the Interim Corporate Director and her team had been working closely with Health services to ensure effective and efficient partnership.

·       The Council had been successful in its bid to purchase four homes, including one or two that would enable staffing ratios to support those unable to live with others.  These homes would be provide accommodation for CWCF that was owned by the Council and which the Council would manage.

·       The Oxfordshire aspecct of the Link Programme, a regional programme covering Oxfordshire, Berkshire, and Buckinghamshire, which had been developed to support young people with a range of needs whom professionals, families, and carers found it difficult to help had been launched.

·       The Council was keen to join a regional recruitment campaign for foster carers and had increased its foster care allowances to be more competitive.

·       There was a mandatory national transfer scheme which required local authorities to accept children arriving who need placement on a rota basis.  Until last year, each local authority had a percentage take linked to the population of the authority.  Oxfordshire was currently expected to receive 148 children but had fewer than that.  The Council had bespoke supported placements which it was seeking to broaden.  A large proportion of those arriving were in their mid- to late-teens which had an impact on the number of care leavers.

The Committee was grateful for the information provided by officers and requested an update to the Committee on the work of Adopt Thames Valley to a future meeting.

The Committee resolved to NOTE the report.