Agenda and minutes

The Chair will consider the admission of late items of urgent business. Late items will be considered under the agenda item they appear. New items will be dealt with at Items below 9&10.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 28^th January 2013.

To consider the Committee Work Plan.

This report sets out performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to: Children and Families - Contacts, referrals and assessments and Child Protection.

The assistant Director of Children’s Services provided the positive highlights of the performance report. January saw a decrease in the number of children in care, there had been an increase in the number of children subject to a child protection plan which was not in line with statistical neighbours and the service were completing additional work to try and combat this increasing performance rate.  There was good performance for visiting children on child protection plan c. Special guardianship orders had gone up to 27. The number of children under 16 missing form care was reviewed by the Director and Cabinet Member.  It was noted that the Police were reviewing the thresholds in place to investigate a young person that is missing as it is being encountered that there is an understanding of t where the young person is. It was note that this review should not have a detrimental impact on t  investigation so children going missing rather that Policy  thresholds will become more in line with how Children’s services  assess the  a young person is missing and there is cause for concern,.

HY 59 - In relation to this performance figure the cause of the delay had been identified by the service and this was a particular capability issue with two social workers, one of whom had resigned and the e other was on a capability process.  It was anticipated that the target would improve in the next quarter.

P31 -  the variation in the figures  for each month was attributed to the in frequency of  children coming on  to protection plans and separate children coming off the plans .Also if there was a large sibling group involved this  could lead o significant variations in the figures from month to month. There had been an analysis into the numbers of children on child protection plans to understand if there as any issues of drift or was the social worker not escalating issues too quickly. The analysis had change in work would lead to a drop in numbers of children on child protection plans and this would be evident in the performance figures for March. 

The key change will now be that once the first response team has established that a initial assessment is required this will now be passed to the safeguarding and support team .This will allow the case to be taken forward by one social worker form the start and limit delays theta are being caused at the moment by the much later transfer.

In terms of tack lining drift, warning mechanisms were established and the Head of safeguarding and support was meeting with Child conference chairs o look at plan and ensure there was no drift and decisions were being made expediently.

OP367 - this was a cut and paste error and correct comments would be circulated after the meeting.

  The potential reasons for delaying a strategy conference were explained this could be due to the Social worker being called away to court. This had happened  ...  view the full minutes text for item 127.

To consider a presentation on the operation of the MASH(Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub), one year after operation.

This  presentation has been withdrawn and  verbal update will be provided by the Director of Children’s services at the meeting.

 Following the judgement on Thursday the 14^th March, one day after the agenda pack had been published with the present on the work of the MASH, there had been further reflection on   the content of the presentation which included details o the operation of the MASH and as some o f these procedures may be likely to change, it had been felt prudent to withdraw this items.  Instead the Director of Children’s service set out the background to the judgement. Essentially the judge had found that the section 47 investigation had not been correctly pursued .The initial assessment and strategy meeting had only been completed after the section 47 investigation had been instigated.  Before persuading the investigation there had not been proper contact with the parents to authorise information being gathered from the school and GP and this now raised questions for the council and indeed other local authorities with a MASH about the authority for information sharing between partners in a working environment.  The presentation advised o the benefits of information sharing and HW this was done but now there as this legal question to answer which would have a fundamental impact on how the MAH operated and shared information.

The criticism o the judge on the completion of the initial assessment, standards in reporting would be resolved. The initial assessment and core assessment were being replaced by the single assessment and the services were now looking at how they can create space for staff in First Response to   improve the standards in reporting. Legal and advice from a QC would be sought on the collation of data by the MASH and whether they are meting legal standards.

 There will also be a further audits completed on initial assessments.

The chair sought clarification on whether the initial decision to go ahead on a Section 47 without enough consultation or were there other issues as well?  The comments on the completion of initial assessments and core assessments were not good   and this was specific to Haringey.  In terms of the initial assessment as previously reported at committee an initial assessment is opened n the Framework I system to allow......

 The decision to go ahead with a section 47 was not properly constituted and the action taken was not proportional to the evidence in hand about the case to justify this.

 The committee discussed predicament of the social workers and on one hand could see that the action taken was overzealous but this could be attribute dot the recent history of the council. However, it was apparent that the action taken was not in proportion to the evidence in hand the committee agreed that information sharing was vital as it was necessary to identify a child and build up an understanding of the risks that the child could be subject to as this would inform the level of action to be taken.  It was noted that all MASH  collate and share information but it was now about  establishing the right  ...  view the full minutes text for item 128.

The Committee will consider the support provided  by the council to families who have no recourse to public funds.

To consider any new items of urgent business submitted at item 2.

 To consider any exempt items  of urgent business  submitted  at item 2.