Agenda item

Cllr Kate Gregory, Cabinet Member for SEND Improvement, Cllr John Howson, Cabinet Member for Children, Education & Young People’s Services, Lisa Lyons, Director of Children’s Services, and Jean Kelly, Deputy Director for Childrens Social Care, have been invited to present a report on the recent ILACS inspection.

The Committee is asked to consider the report and raise any questions, and to AGREE any recommendations it wishes to make to Cabinet arising therefrom.

Cllr Kate Gregory, Cabinet Member for SEND Improvement, and Cllr John Howson, Cabinet Member for Children, Education & Young People’s Services, attended to introduce the report on the recent Inspecting Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACS) inspection.  Lisa Lyons, Director of Children’s Services, Stephen Chandler, Executive Director of People, and Jean Kelly, Deputy Director for Children’s Social Care, attended alongside.

The Deputy Director provided a broad overview and explained that, after a slightly delayed inspection, the ILACS report was published with Oxfordshire being judged as ‘Good’ across several areas. The inspection checked several themes, such as child neglect and abuse, over a standard 3-week period.

The report identified a great number of strengths, across the localities and areas of work. The help and protection offered to children in need had significantly improved since the previous inspection. The strategic and operational leadership was noted for significant praise in the report.

The report also identified some areas which could be further improved. The main areas were as follows: how quickly actions were taken to escalate proceedings; arrangements for different agencies to share information; closer collaboration with corporate leaders; and the standard of direct work with disabled children.

The Action Plan to be reported back to Ofsted was due on 18 July 2024. This action plan also covered other areas which the Council wanted to improve regardless of the ILACS report.

Members of the Committee explored the following issues:

A multi-faceted plan was in place for improving the stability of the workforce. This included an apprenticeship scheme, which was funded by the Department for Education (DfE), resulting in twelve new colleagues. Recruitment had begun for the next intake of newly qualified social workers. The service was also looking at international recruitment, which was common across the industry. There was also an active return to social work route, to encourage qualified staff to return to the profession.  Work to support existing staff was also being done to encourage greater staff retention.

Lengthy waiting times had been addressed with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) and other partners. The service had provided some CAMHS engagement for children in care and those with high level needs, and they also signposted families to online support and early intervention approaches.

It was acknowledged that waiting times for CAMHS were too long, but the service did not have a ready solution for that. It was suggested that CAMHS should offer a view on how to improve the situation. The Executive Director agreed that this was a problem across the country and suggested that the Committee might refer this to the Oxfordshire Joint Health Overview & Scrutiny Committee (HOSC) to explore further. The Committee agreed that this issue needed to be resolved.

The previous 18 months had seen a decrease in the number of children in care, but more efforts were being made to address the main causes, such as domestic violence, drug abuse, and mental health problems. Work had been done to stop issues worsening by helping parents deal with issues as early as possible. Teams had also been established to support families to enhance conditions and work towards possible reunification.

In order to improve the quality of direct work with disabled children in care, the service would ensure that, in every statutory review, there was supervision from the independent reviewing officer and actions were taken to help each child comprehend why they were not being looked after by their families. For disabled children, this would involve exploring different methods of communication with them. The service needed to ensure that this work was clearly evidenced in every child’s case file.  The Deputy Director emphasised that, whilst appropriate work had been undertaken, it had not always been evidenced.  It was this that needed improvement.

To support work demonstrating areas of improvement within the action plan relating to participation and engagement, CoramBAAF, a leading UK organisation for adoption, fostering and kinship care, had been asked to lead a survey of all children in care about their experiences in care, which was currently ongoing. It was hoped that this would inform the service of its strengths and areas to improve. Case audits were also a continuing piece of work where every family had the opportunity to engage with the service and talk about their experiences including what else could be done to support them. These audits included young people and their separate views.

The Committee requested the following ACTION:

•         That HOSC be requested to consider CAMHS waiting lists on its work programme.