Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were receved from Cllr Gunes and Cllr Weston.

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 10 &12 below.

No items of urgent business were received.

 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.

No declarations of interest were put forward.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 31 July 2013.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 31^st July were agreed as an accurate record.

CPAC agreed that there was a need to find a term which was understood by children and young people in care which best described how to put forward a complaint/concern about their care. Currently Barnados were commissioned to provide an advocacy service  but it was unlikely that children and young people fully understood the term advocacy and this may hinder  the use of the service..

The Ofsted Action plan was due to be submitted to Ofsted on the 18^th October. There had been 17 recommendations put forward and the council would set out how they were going to meet them.  Once the plan was submitted to Ofsted, there would then have a few days to clarify or make any changes. Following Ofsted agreement to the action plan, it could be published on the council’s website and distributed to CPAC members.

The report will provide an analysis of the performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to looked after children on behalf of the Corporate Parenting Advisory Committee. Report to Follow

The Performance report was a helpful tool to help the Committee identify issues that required focus in the care for looked after children and care leavers.

The Director for the Children’s Service highlighted the number of areas where performance improvements had been made. This was through a focused approach of the monthly call over meetings and the embedding of a quality assurance function.

The borough still had a high number of children in care and was still considered an outlier. Members were assured that there were specific monthly placement planning meetings to ensure that all options for placements are being explored and that there is consistent rigor being applied by officers.

The Permanency strategy had made significant improvements to providing more permanent stable placements for children and young people in care. There had been an increase in the special guardianship orders and kinship carers, and adoption timescales.  However, there was still room for improvement with adoption timescales, so the service would be re-launching the permanency strategy and considering at all aspects of permanency planning. The council would also be speaking with a specialist organisation about working together on adoption.  The re -launched strategy will  set out the key values  on long term placement options  such as living with a family member,  kinship carers and also looking at  supporting and  provisioning the judiciary  with the  confidence that  LAC  ,on section 20’s notices, are  able to  stay at home.

There was still concern about the cohort of children aged between 5 to 13 coming into care and there would be further monitoring and scrutiny of the process of their care.

In response to a question about the number of older children in care, it was noted that there are 118 aged between 14 -17 coming into care via section 20 notices. The Committee further asked how this number compared to statistical neighbours and noted that the borough did have higher numbers of older children in care. Officers felt that older children in the borough were more likely to become looked after due to the risk adverse culture in the service.  Also there were undeveloped diversionary activities in the borough to engage the young person in and better enable the behaviour of the young person to be tackled. This requires a multi disciplinary approach as there would need to be joint work with schools, Youth Services, YOS, Police and judiciary.  Members noted that all partners working together can make a   difference and this involves getting involved with the young person at the right time and using the expertise and skills at an early stage.   The Committee were pleased to note that was additional external funding was being sought to support early diversionary activity and the committee were interested in getting a report back, at their March meeting, about this work and any initial improvements.

 Following member question the following information was provided to the Committee:

·         The number of children in care can suddenly go up in a month due to a large family  ...  view the full minutes text for item 316.

This report provides information on the arrangements in place in Haringey to meet the housing needs of those young people living in semi-independent accommodation. 

At the December 2013 meeting, Committee members noted that there are 55 [16-17] year olds [10% of the total number of LAC in the borough] not living with a family, in separate accommodation, and they felt it would be important to look at this group separately .They agreed that a report be compiled which is focused on this group of young people and sets out the council’s support to them and how this compares to other local authorities, working with a similar cohort. 

Committee Members noted that there were now 40 [16-17] year olds living in semi independent accommodation. The support to young people living in this type of accommodation was set out in the report.  It was important to note that  all these young people  have an allocated social worker  who   will meet with them on a regular basis , they will continue to have LAC  reviews  and will receive  regular monitoring visits from the  placement  officer.  The report provided assurance to members  about the as safeguards in place to ensure the properties, that  young people  were living in, were to a good standard as there was no external inspection of these units/ properties .  Also despite the previous negative assumptions made about the quality of these accommodation units, following a comprehensive review of the quality of accommodation offered by the council to young people,   they were found to be generally good quality. Members of Aspire were also now accompanying young people in care to inspect offered accommodation before moving in. This was a positive development, as the young people were able to better talk about their issues and concerns about the accommodation with the young person from Aspire before moving in and know their rights about the improvements that they can expect.

Where units were found to be adequate there would be   support from the council to improve the placement [there were no units found to be inadequate].  The council were aiming to work in an appositive way with the providers to support improvements and there was felt to be a good response from the landlords about this.  An action plan had been compiled following the review of accommodation and this included training with providers to set out what is expected of the property and service to the tenant.

Members were pleased to note the support and focus around 16-17 year olds and the attention being given to the quality of their accommodation. Members requested a report back to the March meeting on the progress with the action plan with some case studies highlighting the improvements / issues.

To provide the Committee with information about the use and decision making around  the Looked After Children Pupil Premium.

At the previous meeting the Committee had requested some feedback on the how the Looked after Children Pupil Premium Grant is used and the involvement of the young person in deciding how this grant will be spent on them.  The Committee noted that the council is responsible for distributing the grant and have decided   to do this on a term basis [600 a term over 3 terms].  The schools will then decide and record on the PEP how they will be spending this funding on the child/ young person inc are attending their school.  Members noted that t school has to spend this grant otherwise it will be returned back to the DFE.  Members further noted that the remaining £100 left over from the yearly £1900, provided by the LACPPG, is spent by the Virtual School on books, materials, and activities to boost LAC attainment.

The Committee were provided with some case studies to provide a guide on the types of activities the PPG can be spent on and the impact this has

 Members learnt that the Virtual School is highly regarded service with an innovative and creative approach to motivate and support LAC to achieve and do well at school.  In terms of monitoring the PEPs and agreement of LACPPG spend, the head of the Virtual School advised that she would look   closely at the PEPs to ensure that there is consistent consultation with the young person, foster carer and social worker when deciding the spending of this funding.

The Chair also thought it would be assuring for the Committee to receive a report on how the LAC PPG is spent by schools and how the remainder of the funding, following termly allocation to schools, is spent by the Virtual school.

This report will  keep the Committee informed of progress and developments in the Fostering service area.

After several years of poor performance in recruiting in-house foster carers and the  imminent turnover of foster carers due to retirement, it had been agreed, earlier in the year, to outsource the recruitment and training of foster carers to NRS who had worked successfully with other boroughs in the recruitment and assessment of foster carers. To meet the current need for in house foster carers [this cost was £480 per week in comparison to an agency foster carer who will cost £700 per week], there would need to a recruitment of 40-45 foster carers.  

The Committee noted that there were 14 new in-house foster carers applications and they were planned for consideration by the Fostering Panel before the Christmas period. The Panel meetings would increase to two a month to ensure the target of 45 new carers was met.  With more choice of foster carers, there was also better chances of getting good matches for children /young people in care.

The Committee accepted that the cost of procuring this service from NRS was value for money as it would enable for in -house carers to be recruited and allow the social worker more time to support foster carers.

Members noted that there would be a lot of publicity in the coming weeks   advocating fostering as a career choice. There would be banners outside schools and Initial assessments were being taken forward by telephone to understand if enquirers could meet the basis criteria of becoming a foster carer.

The Committee were pleased to note the improved stance in valuing and supporting   Foster carers and were happy with the stance of  Fostering as a career choice.  The council  had took on  board the concerns  expressed by Foster carers  about: the late payments, the  changes in the   social workers supporting  foster carers and  need  for a   sense of recognition.Improvements included, Finance sorting the late payments, a  Foster  carers  conference  on the 12^th November, annual  end of year party,  a   monthly newsletter and dedicated social workers working  to support  and develop  Foster carers.

The contract with NRS was subject to yearly renewal and a Committee member asked about the work to transfer the skills and experience from NRS to social workers so they can continue with recruiting  in – house foster carers in the future. The Interim Head of Placements spoke about continuing with NRS until enough in house foster carers have been recruited and there is stability with the number of in-house foster carers. After this period, independent social workers can be recruited to undertake foster carer assessments and there could be an officer trained to undertake  a customer service type role of responding to enquiries and leading potential foster carers to the assessment process.

The Committee further recommended undertaking a mystery shopper exercise to provide assurance about the quality of customer contact by NRS. It was suggested that iMPOWER could complete this task.

As per item 2

No new items of urgent business.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of any  urgent items  that  contain exempt information as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government Act 1972 (as amended by Section 12A of the Local Government Act 1985): paras 1 & 2: namely information relating to any individual, and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.  

Not required

As per item 2

None

Date of next meeting 8^th December 6.30pm.

 Agreed a report on the diversionary activities to be taken forward to reduce the number of 14-17 year olds becoming looked after is considered at the March meeting.

 Agreed that the Annual report form the Virtual school on LAC attainment is considered at the December meeting.

Agreed the Ofsted Action Plan is considered at the December meeting. Committee members will also be sent a copy of this, once it is published in November.