Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from Cllrs Adamou, Alexander and C Harris.

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 11 below. New items of exempt business will be dealt with at item 17 below. 

There were no items of urgent business.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existence and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the consideration becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’ judgement of the public interest.  

Cllr Cooke declared an interest in respect of CPAC 74 as his job involves apprenticeships for 17+ year olds.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 20 October 2009.

RESOLVED:

That the minutes of the meeting held on 20 October 2009 be agreed as an accurate record. 

RESOLVED:

·      That Cllr Allison be sent the OFSTED report for Muswell House as a matter of urgency.

·      That information regarding re-offending rates be sent to Members

With regard to the use of suitcases to move the possessions of CiC Members were advised that although there had been no methods for judging past non compliance, mechanisms were now in place to do so in the future. Notification had been sent to all Social Workers to ensure bin bags are never used.  Suitcases are available in the offices. This will be monitored. 

·      That a hard copy of the DCSF statutory guidance on children who run away from home or care 2009 be re-circulated to Cllrs Patel and Allison.

·      That the revised version of the table on weekly unit costs for placements be circulated to Committee Members

To provide an update on Haringey in-house fostering service and the changes proposed to improve performance.

The Committee received an update on Haringey’s in-house fostering service and on changes to improve performance. It was noted that over the last three years the fostering service had failed to reach local performance targets for the recruitment of new foster carers, whilst the demand for local in house carers had increased. The number of children in care had risen by about 50 at any one time.

The cost of placements in independent fostering agency placements was significantly higher than the cost of in-house placements, consequently it was planned to reduce expenditure in placements by increasing the number of in- house foster carers.

There had been some impact from the extension of the recruitment campaign and it is anticipated that 20 foster carers will be approved during this year. No single operational Manager in fostering had had responsibility for overseeing the recruitment which had resulted in poor co-ordination and delays in responding to enquiries and in processing applications. A dedicated recruitment team is to be piloted within the service.  The Committee noted the problem of recruiting carers was a national one. There were a number of reasons for the low level of interest including poor follow up of initial enquires and poor co-ordination. Last month there had been approximately 50 enquires, of which around 20 were immediately considered as unsuitable. From the remaining 30, 10 were visited immediately with 5 subsequently dropping off. The remaining 4/5 reached the F Form stage with the possibility of 3 actually becoming foster carers. Once recruited the retention rates were good, with some foster carers having 15 years or more service.

The pilot team will be responsible for fostering campaigns, information events, enquiries, preparation training and foster carer assessments. Although initially there would be three social workers in the team, this would need to be reviewed and may need to be increased.  . Also it was noted that independent assessors maybe required if the numbers of assessments surpassed the capacity of the team.

The Committee noted that the service had commissioned a review of the in-house fostering service to run alongside the pilot, which would be completed within two months and would inform proposals on future permanent arrangements. The Members felt that it was important that there was effective monitoring of the pilot scheme.

RESOLVED:

1.      That a progress report be presented to the Committee in three months.

2.      That figures on retention rates be provided for the next meeting.

3.      That the Committee be provided by e-mail with a breakdown of the number and types of carers.

To set out the draft action plan to improve employment opportunities for care leavers. 

Concern was expressed by Members over the excessive use of acronyms in the report. Following the previous meeting there had been multi agency meetings which had resulted in a draft employment action plan, intended to improve employment opportunities for care leavers.

 The main gaps within the current provision were identified as:-

• Although there are a number of employment and apprenticeship initiatives available for care leavers they appeared to be unaware of these opportunities or they were unable to utilise them due to the issues below. 

Ø      There is no lead person responsible for advising young people within leaving care and asylum service about employment opportunities

Ø      Young people need to be made aware of new developments on employment opportunities for young people e.g. care2 work program, apprenticeships

Ø      The apprenticeship opportunities that are available have stringent criteria that young people are unable to fulfil

Ø      Lack of data analysis and young peoples involvement in identification of employment or courses that will meet their needs

The action plan was noted. 

RESOLVED:

That a needs assessment progress report be presented to the next meeting to include the number of people involved and their tasks,  opportunities for work experience and links with local employers and more information on the gaps in provision.

To provide the policy and procedure regarding the accessing of social networking sites by CiC in their placements.

The Committee were advised that all children’s homes and foster carer households were provided with computers, albeit with restrictions on accessing certain sites. Children in care were requesting access to social network sites. Following research it was proposed that the restrictions on social networking sites be lifted to allow access to My Space and Facebook sites within the proposed framework.

Foster carers and residential staff had been provided with training and support to monitor children’s usage of the internet. In addition to restricting use of Facebook to those over the age of 11, guidance had been provided for young people, foster carers and staff to support safe use. Furthermore the service proposed that children and young people be encouraged to allow a trusted adult friend to be accepted as a friend on their Facebook page to enable the “friend” to monitor and provide guidance where appropriate, although it was noted that this could not be enforced.

Members expressed some concern over the tone and language used in the guidance to young people and attention was drawn to suitable guidance on this matter published by the police and by NSPCC. Officers advised that the guidance would be proof read by a young person and would be written in a user friendly language. It was noted that the service would be able to interrogate what sites were being accessed and foster carers and social workers would be fully trained in supporting the young person to use the internet safely.

RESOLVED:

That the report be noted.

To provide the annual educational results for Children in Care and an update on performance issues relating to Personal Educational Plans.

The Committee were provided with the annual educational results for children in care. Nationally children in care have consistently underachieved in national examinations and were over represented in the prison and homeless populations.  It is the Authority’s responsibility to ensure that children in care did as well as possible to achieve positive outcomes. It was also a major Government priority to narrow the gap between Children in care and their peers.

The dedicated Children in care education team works in close collaboration with officers in children and families school improvement and collaboration and with schools in and out of the Authority to improve educational outcomes for these young people. The Committee were pleased that the outcomes for CiC at the end of KS1 were exceptionally good. Although in real terms in 2009 there had been an increase in the academic achievement of children in care at the end of KS2 the figures were not as good as at KS1. There were a number of possible reasons for this, such as because it was a different cohort, or some may have moved out of care. At key stage 4, as a result of specific interventions over the years progress had been made since 2005 and there had been an increase in the number of young people in care gaining GCSE’s. It was noted that across all age groups huge efforts had been made to get to know and be interested in the young people. Foster carers and social workers were in regular contact with schools and there was an expectation that CIC would attend school and do well.

The Committee were advised that from January 2010 Haringey schools and social workers were to adopt the Pan London personal education plan. This PEP was considered an easier document to work with and  would be more useful to a range of agencies.  Each young person’s PEP was to be reviewed twice during the Academic year, in October and again in March. There were four sections to each PEP which would enable different professionals to provide information most relevant to their professional expertise. The action to be taken to improve the current low completion rate was outlined. It was noted that the new PEP’s would be monitored by both the Authority and by OFSTED

RESOLVED:

That the Committee receive a report on the take up and success of the training to be provided to teachers in relation to CIC, including the implementation of PEPs.

To consider specified performance data for CiC.

The Committee received a report setting out the October performance monitoring data in relation to CiC within the Children and Families Service and details of statistical neighbour comparative data collected by central government on a national basis for 2008/09 for a range of CiC outcome indicators based around health and education.

The Committee were advised that since early 2008 there had been an increase in the number of children in care but that the numbers were now beginning to stabilise.

A manual audit of a small sample of 10 children in care for over a year had been carried out to provide an indication of the turnover of allocated social workers within the children in care team. Three out of the 10 sampled retained the same social worker for the 12 months, 4 children had two social workers and 3 children had 3 social workers. Given the turmoil that Social workers had faced over this time period it was felt that the continuity was reasonable, but in the future it was hoped that this would improve. The Committee noted that the workload allocation of social workers to children was done according to need. Although there was provisional data it was noted that the next meeting would receive a report setting out the annual outcome indicators for children in care.

Details of the new case audit framework which had been implemented throughout September was given. The first sets of audits focussing on quality of practice were implemented in October whereby 65 files had been reviewed and  55 in November. This gave the service a wealth of information on the quality, and supervision ofpractice. Members noted that the majority of cases were judged good or adequate but there had been three cases identified as inadequate with a need to improve supervision in particular.  Members were informed of a range of strategies being taken to ensure that there was regular good quality supervision for social workers and that training around supervision management was in place.

Heads of service were responsible for following up actions in relation to all audits rated as inadequate. A sample of the audits would be re-audited on a quarterly basis to ensure that issues were followed up and action taken as necessary. The audit would be carried out monthly and reported to the Children and families Performance Management group for discussion. The Committee were informed that improvements had already been made from the previous month’s audits. 

Committee Members questioned the figure of 90.6% up to date visits to CIC at the end of October, which it is was noted was a fall from the previous month. Also there was a discussion around the figure of 90% of NI 66 reviews in timescale and it was noted that this was below the target. Members were advised that this was due to a member of staff leaving unexpectedly.

RESOLVED:

·      That the October performance report be noted.

·      That future reports contain comparison performance indicator figures and target figures with the previous month  ...  view the full minutes text for item 78.

To consider any items admitted at item 2 above.

There were no new items of urgent business.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of Items 13 to 18 as they 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.

RESOLVED:

That as items 13 to 18 contained exempt information (as defined in Section 100a of the Local Government 1972; namely information likely to reveal the identity of an individual, and information relating to any individual) members of the press and public should be excluded from the remainder of the meeting.

To consider the exempt minutes of the meeting held on 20 October 2009.

RESOLVED:

·      That the exempt minutes of the meeting held on 20 October 2009 be agreed as an accurate record.

To provide a verbal update on progress with improvements to the Home.

RESOLVED:

1. That the update report be noted.
2. That the Committee be provided with the OFSTED report, when available and that in future they be sent any OFSTED reports automatically.
3. That update reports on both Haringey Park and Muswell House be provided regularly to the Committee.
4. That officers notify Cllr Allison and the chair whether there were any disabled children in care resident at Hazelmere

To provide an outline of the recent management review of the Emergency Duty Team.  

RESOLVED:

1.      That a follow up report be presented to Committee three months after the transfer of responsibility to the Children and Young people’s service.

2.      That information be provided to Members on the number of children in care who came through the EDT.

To provide a verbal update on safeguarding issues pertinent to the remit of the Committee.

RESOLVED:

1. That a report be presented to the meeting after next on the strategies in place for managing children in care with particular challenging needs.
2. That a report be presented to the next meeting on the support given by Housing for young people leaving care to find suitable accommodation.

To consider any items admitted at 2 above.

There were no new items of exempt urgent business. 

Date of next meeting: 26 January 2010.

There were no items of further business.