Agenda and minutes

To received any apologies for absence.

Apologies for absence were submitted from Cllr Allison and apologies for  lateness noted for Cllr Adamou.

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 Item 10 below.

There were no items of urgent business submitted.

A Member with a disclosable pecuniary interest or a prejudicial interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered:

(i) must disclose the interest at the start of the meeting or when the interest becomes apparent, and

(ii) may not participate in any discussion or vote on the matter and must withdraw from the meeting room.

A Member who discloses at a meeting a disclosable pecuniary interest which is not registered in the Register of Members’ Interests or the subject of a pending notification must notify the Monitoring Officer of the interest within 28 days of the disclosure.

Disclosable pecuniary interests, personal interests and prejudicial interests are defined at Paragraphs 5-7 and Appendix A of the Members’ Code of Conduct.

 There were no declarations of interest put forward.

To confirm the minutes of the meeting held on 22 November 2012 as a correct record.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 22 November were agreed as an accurate record of the meeting.

To consider the Committee Work Plan.

The Head of Service, Ros Cooke, accompanied by Shubhi Raymond, will provide give a presentation on the support provided by the Early Years service and Children’s Centres on safeguarding.

The committee considered an overview of the provision for Children’s Centres in Haringey. Childcare was available in 8 children’s centres. The service was working on underdeveloped places and more work was needed to find new places   that are funded and provide a reasonable payment rate to attract parents to places.  By 2014, the council need to meet government targets the number of places will need to double. In number. From September 2013 the criteria used for free school meals will replace existing criteria to allow a wider number of children to access places. With a wider eligibility for places the early year’s service recognised the need to protect for Children in need and children on protection plans.

The Committee asked how the service ensured that vulnerable children   got    the right places. To ensure they were supported and monitored appropriately.   The committee learned that vulnerable children, as all other children, access integrated provision and they will receive  a regular  progress review, alongside this there will be  standing two weekly meetings at the children’s centres to examine the specific needs of  children that are in need or on protection plans  or have obtained a place as a result of a CAF .  Managers and staff will consider how the needs are addressed and monitor how they are managed.

The reason for looking at the role of children’s centres in safeguarding vulnerable children was that past committee members had shared their positive experience of the difference being made in other boroughs by children’s centres ensuring vulnerable children were prioritised for a place.  The Chair was advised that there was a good working relationship between the First Response and Early Years service to ensure that referrals were passed onto children’s centres.  There was already a contact person for the screening team in each of the children’s centres cluster. To further expand the focus on vulnerable children the two services were discussing ensuring places were available for vulnerable children at the cluster level.

Alongside accessing children’s centre places, parents were offered a wide range of development and skill programmes to attend whilst their child was at the centre and enquiry was made on the take up of the programmes and any experience of peer support from parents. The feedback received from children centres was positive and indicated that the parent programmes had been successful.  As part of the review of children’s centres the service were looking at expanding the sessions and considering the amount of out reach work. Good positive friendships were developed as part of parents accessing children’s centres.

In terms of the Children’s Centre’s review, this will analyse the impact of the restructure and if any improvements need to be made. There was a good relationship with the children’s centres and the associated schools. The review will check that there has been good and appropriate expenditure as there is a lower budget available than in previous years it is crucial that the budget available is appropriately spent. The review will initially be considered  ...  view the full minutes text for item 113.

Update on the performance of the Disabled Children’s team for completing child protection visits .

 At the previous meeting the committee had considered the findings of an audit into the quality of recordings of child protection visits which had covered all teams that were responsible for child protection visits. This had included the disabled children’s team. The committee had requested further information on the number of visits completed by the disabled children’s team, frequency of visits understanding if the visit was included the assessment of a sibling group and measures to be taken to improve the timescales for visiting families.

The report put forward by the Head of the Disabilities Team and the committee noted that there were 11 children subject to child protection plans and   ten of this case is subject to fortnightly visits and one to weekly visits there were seven children with disabilities and three of these children have siblings totalling five children.

The committee received information about the frequency of visits made over a 6 month period and an analysis of the child protection recording for January showed that this was appropriate.

Although the Disabilities Team were only responsible for a small number of children subject to child protection plans, assurance was given that all social workers in the team were fully aware of the importance of seeing children within timescales   and collectively as a tea, the made sure that  there was cover for these visits if for any reason a social worker is unable to make their visit.  All staff had been made aware that when visiting a sibling group there needed to be a separate case note for each child. A recent supervision meeting had highlighted the need to induct  new or temporary members of the Disabled Children’s team with an induction to completing the template for CP visits and this would be taken forward.

 In response to committee questions about managers ensuring visits were undertaken, it was noted that managers were able to review diaries of staff to   ensure visits were being completed.

The  committee remarked on the small proportion of disabled children subject to CP plans in terms of the wider number o children on plans and would receive a later presentation about the work to ensure that the health’s service and partners w ere picking up on children that were known to the social care and ensuring that their needs were assessed.

 In terms of recording of visits a wider question was put forward to the Director of Children’s services about the   whether there was the right proportion of administrative staff in place to support social workers to ensure they were not spending valuable time on completing appear work instead of meeting with families. It was also important to point out to members when making any budget  reductions any knock on effects   in the reduction of staff so that they were clear on on the merits and drawback to  what they were approving.  The Director would be making an assessment in the coming year about the proportion of administrative staff working in the service.

At the September meeting, the Committee learnt about the work that was underway in the Disabled Children’s team to identify children and young people who have additional needs such as speech and language therapy and  are known to Social Care  but not subject to Child protection plans.

The  Committee had heard in September that the Disabled Children’s Policy and Practice  Review Group would  examine  children with special educational needs  which  are met at school action  or School Action Plus.  As the local authority did not hold this information it was agreed  to identify children and young people  that are known to  social care  but not subject to Child Protection Plans . This group may have an additional need such as Speech and language therapy  and are known to the First Response service. 

 Vikki Monk, the borough lead  for therapies and specialist nursing Haringey Whittington Health provided the committee with a presentation of the key findings of the review. 

The committee were provided information on the therapy audit  tool   used in

The analysis, the  number of children chosen and  understood that the audit had concerned the Health service records (RIO) .

 The file audit had concerned  contact with the child, assessment, review,  interagency involvement,  examined the decision making at meetings, therapy assessments and interventions  and information sharing .

The  committee  were advised about  areas of good practice seen and where improvements were needed. They learnt about how the language used in recording  cases,  sharing of information by therapist  was crucial in understanding whether issues were long running and needed more  immediate attention and referral to  safeguarding. Also  where there could be more proactive communication  to quicken the pace of the  decision making.   Training was  suggested on how therapist could  describe risks  as this  important in gaining an understanding of  a wider problem. Line investigation on blue and red groups

The Safeguarding Policy  Review Group would be looking  at case recordings and  would conduct a case presentation  from mainstream schools and  do a case review which would be  reporting back to the LSCB(Local Children’s Safeguarding Board).

A Committee member asked about how  easily  health information could be passed from agency to agency ,borough to borough, or region to region  when a family moved  given that the RIO system  was  not a commonly used data base and does not easily communicate with other systems. It was noted that when a child moved to another borough  there was an active transfer of data   and it was a requirement to go and visit the child. It was vital to  ensure that any required context about the  case was added to the  file so that there was a good understanding of the child’s health and safeguarding  situation.

 The audit had demonstrated the willingness of the council and Health services to work together  to ensure a child’s needs are picked up in the assessment process  and that there is  good information on  both the RIO and framework I systems.

Following the audit an  Action Plan had been devised which would be monitored  by LSCB and there  would  be focus on  the areas such as making sure that therapists contact and speak with social workers.

 The independent member recommended that the  audit of one case which would be agencies having a collective examination of their  ...  view the full minutes text for item 115.

To consider and comment on the draft council report setting out how the Committee has achieved its remit. The report will progress to Cabinet on the 12 February and full Council on the 18 March 2013.

 The committee agreed to note the report and send any comments to Ayshe Simsek before Monday 04^th February .

To consider any new items of Urgent Business admitted under Item 2 above.

No items of new business were  put forward.

The press and public were excluded from the meeting for consideration  of the following  item as it contained  exempt information  as defined  in section 100a  of the local government act  1972 (as amended by section 12A of the local government act 1985) paragraphs 1&2 namely information relating to an individual  and information likely to reveal  the identity of an individual.

 RESOLVED

The press and public were excluded from the meeting for consideration of the following items as  they contained exempt information as defined in section 100a of the local government act 1972(as amended by section 12A of the local government act 1985) paragraphs 1&2 namely information relating to an individual and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

The Committee has asked the Independent Member to complete an audit of a sample of new referrals from a particular week in December, specifically looking at the thresholds of need  that are being applied.

REPORT TO FOLLOW

 The Independent member had examined  a particular week in December where there had been  a higher than average number of referrals .  A sample of 25 cases had been audited  using the Framework I system. The  Independent member explained to the Committee that  she was withdrawing her comment  on a culture of  close working at  this was concluded as a result of looking at the number of visits made and  there was a section on the framework I system  which displayed this but was not  accessed by  the Independent member at the  time of the audit.

 Initial observation were as follows:

 There seemed to be more resources to signpost  children to from the ages of 0-5  in comparison to resources available for 5-9 year olds. It was expected that once the 54000  programme was embedded there would be  an increase  in resources available through the Help Strategy.

 In terms of the source of referral,  a high proportion came from health,  and the Police . A good indicator, next year, to how the help strategy was progressing, was to see referrals from other sources  such as neighbours and community organisations.

 There was discussion about the  whether the service were treating contacts as a referral too often  but in this sample of cases  looked at  there was a case for more referrals to be treated as contacts.

The Deputy Service Head for First Response  provided some further context to the period in which the audit was undertaken. It was important to note that  the rate of referrals for December 2012 was considerably lower than compared to December 2011. 

 The Chair asked the Independent Member whether there were any circumstances seen where cases were allowed to ‘drift’ . The committee  were assured that there  all urgent cases were addressed in good time  but the service  could not be complacent on this issue.  The Assistant Director  advised that the service were continuing to look at the ‘Front door’ to the service  as currently the  there were too many cases coming through the social work  pathway which was a more authoritarian style of intervention and  there  was more to be done to be to  see children as early as possible.

 There was a need to consider whether the   when assessing contacts they  are subject to a higher threshold  when this is not needed . There could be a high level of assessment

To agree the date of the next meeting.