Issue - meetings

Briefing and answers to questions from Councillor Reith, Cabinet Member for Children & Young People.

The Committee received the portfolio briefing from the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Councillor Lorna Reith, and noted the advance questions and responses. Peter Lewis, Director of Children and Young People’s Service (CYPS), was also in attendance.

The Committee noted that the Council was making progress in safeguarding but expressed concerns about the funding available.  The Director of Children’s Services, Peter Lewis, advised that joined-up working with partners was occurring including health services and the voluntary sector with pooled-budgets (consolidated) and plans were in place as part of the Joint Area Review (JAR)) for better value for money. 

Committee Members requested to be sent the web-link to the Council’s current Child Care Sufficiency Assessment (CSA) and asked what monitoring processes were in place to monitor performance.  It was noted that national performance indicators and quality audits were conducted in addition to three separate audits and additional case assessments by management and the safeguarding board.  The Committee requested a breakdown of safeguarding referrals to the First Response team be provided to Committee Members detailing in categories, which referrals were taken to the assessment stage and those not followed-up.

In response to the Committee’s concern that funding for children in care was not sustainable it was noted that, whilst safeguarding was paramount, Council officers were looking at efficiency savings and as part of this had reconfigured care homes and were reviewing how emergency foster care was dealt with to keep care in-Borough as well as preventative work to identify problems early to avoid children going into care.  Other areas of savings included the reduction of agency staff in the service as well as Council officers liaising with the courts about the cost of legal proceedings.

RESOLVED that the briefing be noted.