Issue - meetings

(Report of the Director of the Children and Young People’s Service) To enable the Overview and Scrutiny Committee to comment on the Action Plan prior to submission to the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

The Chair of the Committee gave a brief introduction and outlined the scope of the meeting. The Cabinet Member for Children & Young People and the Director of Children & Young People's Service introduced the Action Plan produced at the request of the Secretary of State in response to findings of the Joint Area Review into safeguarding services in Haringey. The deadline for the submission of the Action Plan to the Secretary of State was 27 February 2009.

The Action Plan would provide a framework within which progress could be made through partnership working to improve safeguarding services and was based around seven key themes, with the aspiration of ultimately becoming an exemplar for Children’s Services. The Plan was developed by a cross partnership project group and would evolve over time to incorporate feedback from consultation exercises held with relevant stakeholders.

The Committee were advised that the financial plan to support the Action Plan had yet to be finalised. Initial costings anticipate additional funding demands in excess of £3 million, with the potential for further financial implications associated with any amendments requested by the Secretary of State prior to approval. Partner organisations expressed a clear commitment to child protection being a top priority in organisational budget setting and allocation processes.    

It was recognised that the Action Plan represented a high level, strategic document illustrating the involvement and commitment to change at senior level. The Committee raised concern that the success of the Action Plan relied fundamentally on implementation and delivery at a frontline, operational level. It was acknowledged that this would necessitate ensuring that appropriate support systems were in place for frontline staff and that staff were fully trained in order to encourage the shift in culture necessary to achieve and maintain improvements in safeguarding services. The importance of ongoing consultation with social work staff and facilitating a culture of openness to permit issues to be flagged up promptly was emphasised. Discussions were also held around the need to embed reflective practices and a greater focus on sceptical challenge and assertiveness in frontline delivery. This would also assist in collaboration with management supervision in ensuring the monitoring and maintenance of the quality of casework records.

The importance of the role of scrutiny both in the development and implementation of the Action Plan was emphasised, including the need to develop proposals to facilitate ongoing scrutiny by the Committee. Additional opportunities for scrutiny would include independent chairing of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board, encouraging more frequent external examination e.g. IDeA peer reviews and the opportunity for opposition Members to sit on the Children’s Trust Board. It was reported that there would be a greater level of unplanned inspection, audit and external verification of processes and that this would be ongoing. It was confirmed that a condensed version of the Plan would be developed to clearly identify milestones and prioritisation for key themes to facilitate the scrutiny process. In addition, the scheduled refresh of the LAA would give priority to safeguarding indicators to allow scrutiny  ...  view the full minutes text for item 6