Agenda and minutes

Apologies for absence were received from the Chair, Cllr Waters.

Cllr Brabazon was elected to chair the meeting.

There were no items of urgent business put forward.

 There were no declarations of interest put forward.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 03^rd October and  further approve the minutes of the joint meeting between  Corporate Parenting  Advisory Committee and Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee held on the 5^th November 2013.

The minutes of the meeting held on the 03^rd October were agreed for accuracy.

Matters Arising

Agreed that information is gathered by the Virtual School on how the Looked after children element of the pupil premium grant is spent across schools . This is to inform a report to the Committee on the 6^th March 2014.

Outsourcing of Fostering recruitment  Activities

The  Children’s service has gone out to the market and are seeking possible organisations that can work with the council in increasing  the number of internal foster carers. The tenders of potential providers would be ready for assessment at the end of January , earlier than expected , with an organisation expected to be recruited by this time. The Committee were pleased to note, that there were already 15-20 new foster carers in the pipeline for recruitment following past council recruitment activities. It was noted that the council team will continue to provide the newly recruited foster carers with support and supervision. Agreed a brief report back come to the meeting in March.

Joint meeting of Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee 05^th November 2013.

It was felt that the minutes had not captured the agreement for all SCR’s, involving the council, to be considered by the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee when published and by a special meeting of this Committee if necessary. Agreed that the minutes be updated to reflect this.

Noted that the quarterly performance figures on care orders was not ready for this meeting and would be ready for consideration at the next Committee meeting on the 6^th March. This information would be accompanied by the findings of the quality assurance activity, requested by the Joint Committee, to understand the quality of reports going forward to court and whether they were meeting the requirements of the public law outline.

 To consider the  agenda plan of items.

• Agreed to add a report on the Pupil Premium Grant to March 06^th meeting.

• Agreed to add an update  report on the work to recruit an external provider to recruit and increase the number of internal foster carers.

Members to  briefly consider the summary report and recommendations , from the All Party Parliamentary Group  for looked after children and care leavers,  about the inquiry into the rights and entitlements of children in care and care leavers.

This report was put forward the findings of the All Party Parliamentary group inquiry into the entitlements of children in care and care leavers. It was noted that Haringey provided the full £2000 award of bursary to their young people leaving care, even if they were not going onto university.

Overall, the Committee found the report easy to read and the findings provided an insight into the amount and consistency of information given to foster carers and young people leaving care .For example, it was ascertained that a significant amount of information is given to the young person or foster carer in the entry to care but it is questionable if this continues at the same level, in their journey through care. The Committee commented that it was essential to ensure information is passed through effectively  to  children in care and care leavers about their rights and entitlements . For example the council has implemented  a free leisure pass scheme for children in care  and subsidised scheme for care leavers but use of this entitlement will depend on the communication of its availability.

In relation to recommendation 6, accessible and relevant information provided to children in care council about entitlements, the Head of the Young Adults team indicated that there was a new document ,accessible for young people in care and care leavers, which summarised their financial entitlements. This was complete and would be put forward for sign off by the senior team. The Committee urged for this work to be  completed as soon as possible.

Councillors spoke about anticipating and providing information in ‘bite sized chunks’ at the appropriate time in a young person’s or care leaver life so they are best placed to act on the information given and seek their entitlement. There was also a need to keep in mind the range of ages of children in care and care leavers and ensure correspondence was  designed accordingly .

Agreed that the recommendations, at page 19 of the parliamentary report, be used as part of a self evaluation tool to understand  whether young people in care and leaving care are accessing the full benefits of their entitlements. This exercise will also help identify the particular groups of young people more work needs to  be done with to raise awareness of their entitlements..

This report provides information on the arrangements in place in Haringey to meet the housing needs of care leavers and young people who are facing homelessness.

The Head of the Young Adults Service provided a brief overview of the arrangements in Haringey to meet the housing needs of care leavers and young people facing homelessness. 

Key information noted:

• There is a social housing quota of 60 properties a year allocated to care leavers  [There are 15 properties provided  in each quarter of the year and young people need to attend a tenancy workshop, as part of the arrangement, for receiving the accommodation]

• Care leavers studying, outside London ,at university are still entitled to come back to the borough and be placed in Band A for housing.

• A property in Conway Road N17 had been identified for the council to covert into a shared living space for care leavers. They would be supported by a permanent support worker living in the property.

• Some supported lodgings for young people being taken forward by the YMCA.
• The work with care leavers who have no recourse to public funds
• Current procurement of semi independent accommodation
• The legal legislation which the council in following in terms of housing young people.

Members reported back the following issues raised  by Aspire in the previous  meeting:

• Lack of two bedroom accommodation included in the quota,
• The poor quality of semi independent accommodation , 
• Lack of inspection of shared housing and semi independent accommodation before  provision to a young person
• The need to timetable placement checks to ensure the landlord is  keeping the property clean and in a suitable condition for young people living there.
• Consistent, continued support from a personal adviser to the young person living in shared  or semi independent accommodation.

Officers asked Committee Members to keep in mind that there were young people that chose to live in semi independent accommodation as they did not want to remain in foster care . So, there was a need to provide these young people with  accommodation, as placing the young person in a residential care home was also not acceptable.

Members raised concerns about the quality of the accommodation being procured and there was a need to ensure checks were carried out before the properties were agreed. Aspire had offered  to complete visits to the properties to provide an idea, to the council, of the quality  of accommodation and this  offer should be taken up.

Members noted that properties provided to 16-18 years olds were not regulated, centrally, by government and therefore the responsibility lay with the local authority and ultimately social workers and contract officers to determine their standards. Some councillors shared their own personal experiences of dealing with young people who have been living in shared and semi independent accommodation and felt there was a duty of care to the young people to ensure that the accommodation they were being given met certain standards. The interim Director for Children’s services mentioned the Adults safeguarding protocol which could be examined to understand if any elements can be applied to safeguarding young people in care.

The Chair felt that the quality of accommodation for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 276.

Members to consider an update on the financial impact of the benefit cap  for  foster carers and special guardians.

The Committee wanted to ensure that foster carers, special guardians were not adversely affected by the reforms and were able to continue looking after the children placed in their care. The report indicated that,   to date, the reforms have only had a minor impact on Haringey’s Foster carers and Special Guardians.

This report sets out performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to looked after children. Section 2 provides an overall assessment of performance in the service and performance highlights. Appendix 1 provides a series of tables and graphs for each of these measures, grouped by topic, showing monthly data, performance against target, long term trends and benchmarking where applicable.

The report set out performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to looked after children for the period ending in October.

Committee Members asked for the following  information to be included in the report to Committee in March:

IRO reviews - It would be important for Members to understand how many children/ young people were present at these meetings and the efforts being made to seek the child’s / young person’s participation. The Assistant Director agreed that this information was extractable and could be added to the next report.

In terms, of the young people that were coming into the care of the council following a court decision to place them on remand, there was a need for the committee to be aware of  the offers being made to the judiciary beforehand  i.e. seeking bail .

Agreed that the forthcoming report, from the court manager, include information on how the council is being proactive in its permanency planning before issuing care proceedings and also contain  comments on how the council is working to reduce the number of children that need to become subject to care proceedings.

This report will update Committee Members on the key areas of progress and achievement for Children and Young People’s Service, Safeguarding and Social Care at the mid-year point.

Committee Members received a 6 monthly update on the key area of progress and achievement  for  safeguarding and social care elements of the children and Young People’s service.

They considered the  recent downward trend  in the number of children subject to a child protection plan, the performance for completing assessments and visits and  suggested officers look at this information as a whole, together with the age breakdown of children, to understand if there are any  areas for concern.

Suggested that the Children’s service budget could be a further item for consideration in March Committee meeting. This would help the Committee understand the focus and  spend of the service for the coming financial year.

Members noted the imminent  departure of Marion Wheeler,  the Assistant Director for the Children’s service . The Committee placed on record their thanks and appreciation  to Marion for all her hard work for  the children’s service,  over the last 5 years.

The Committee placed on record their thanks and congratulations to the Virtual school team  for the  excellent number of looked after children  in higher education.

Members to  consider  attached guidance and  provide comments on the  areas they want feedback on in relation to the care and welfare of LAC and care leavers when considering reports on quality assurance.

Noted.

To consider new items of business as per item 2.

Noted.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of 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.  

To consider any new items of urgent business as per item 2.

None

Date of next meeting  is 06^th March from 6.30-7.30pm . This will be followed by a joint meeting with Children’s Safeguarding Policy  and Practice Committee at 7.30pm.

The next  meeting was due to take place on the 6^th March at 6.30pm. This meeting would be followed by a joint meeting with the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee on the same night  at 7.30pm.