Agenda and minutes

The Chair of Corporate Parenting Committee and Chair of the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee had discussions, outside the meeting, regarding the appointment of the Chair for these Joint meetings and had agreed that they would alternate this responsibility. The Chair of the Corporate Parenting Committee would begin this arrangement by chairing this first Joint meeting between these two Cabinet Advisory bodies.

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 interest becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter if 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’s judgement of the public interest and if this interest affects their financial position or the financial position of a person or body as described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct and/or if it relates to the determining of any approval, consent, licence, permission or registration in relation to them or any person or body described in paragraph 8 of the Code of Conduct.

None were declared.

Briefing  report on case management in public law proceedings in the family court.

A briefing was provided to the Members of the Corporate Parenting Committee and Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice on how children’s social care cases are managed through the family courts.  The Joint Committee noted that there were: currently 600 looked after children, over 300 children subject to Child protection plans and also over 300 children that were the subject of 156 court proceedings. It was noted that, in the past 18 months, the number of proceedings had increased by over 17%. This had significant cost implications for the Council as the cost per set of proceedings was £4825. The circumstances and procedures for application to court for care and supervision orders were set out in the report. It was explained to the Joint Committee, that a care order would provide the Local Authority with parental responsibility for a child or young person, parents would not lose their parental responsibility and the emphasis was that the local authority would work in partnership with the parents. The thresholds for meeting a care order requirement, which the Local Authority must evidence, were outlined along with the main principles underlying court case management and the overriding objective in public law proceedings. There was also information on the duties which the courts and the Local Authority had in regard to the timetable for the Child.  These guidelines were to ensure that there was due regard given to the significant steps in a child’s life, these would include social, health and educational steps. There was also an update on the action being taken by the Local Authority to reduce the delays in the court care proceedings; this included having a dedicated team which had responsibility for children in care proceedings. There were currently proposals for external local performance improvement groups that would be multi agency and linked to local courts to provide a forum to deal with issues which arise locally such as delays in proceedings.

Members sought an understanding on the length of care proceedings, and whether these delays were being experienced solely by the Council. Members asked how the Local Authority could influence the court process to ensure that the children/young people, subject to the court care proceedings, faced as minimal amount of disruption and upheaval as possible. It was noted that the Director of Children and Young People’s has been involved in discussions with the Greater London Family Panel (all judges and magistrates across London hearing care cases) and their chair (and Lead Judge for London) HHJ Altman.  This has culminated in the Director being invited to join the London Family Justice Panel.  This Panel, chaired by HHJ Altman, is the practice body for all London care courts where practice is monitored and new approaches developed to try and improve the work of the courts. The Panel meets quarterly and the Director will join the Panel for the first time in June 2011, though he is involved in work prior to those reviewing proposals by the Panel to the Family Justice Review being  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

This report will  update members on the Safeguarding and Support Services within the Children and Young People’s Service.

The independent member of the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee provided the Committee with information on Section 47 of the Children’s Act 1989 which set out the regulatory framework which Local authorities were obliged to follow for safeguarding children.   There then followed a report on the Safeguarding and Support service which puts into practice these obligations.  It was noted that the Safeguarding and Support team is separate to the First Response and Children in Care teams and delivers services to the most vulnerable in the borough. This service will be responsible for children that are subject to Child Protection Plans, Children in Need Plans and Supervision Orders. It was noted that there were 326 children and young people subject to Child Protection plans; this was an increase of 47% from two years ago. There were 141 children under 5 subject to CP Plans in the borough   and this was an increase of 50% from Feb 2009. These increases were not dissimilar to those seen by other boroughs.

The report set out the procedures and functions followed for Child Protection Conferences, and the Committee noted that according to London Safeguarding Procedures children and young people subject to these plans should be seen every 6 weeks.  The Council were ensuring that children were seen every 4 weeks and looking to reduce this further to visits every two weeks. The report went onto explain the duties followed by Social Workers in Child Protection Plans and the additional role of the Safeguarding Panel.  It was noted that there were 253 children and young people as at 28 February subject to child protection plans.   Although there was no definitive time for a child or young person being subject to a child protection plan, key factors were the timing of services provided and the family’s engagement with the process.

The Committee were advised that there were 350 children/young people on Children in Need Plans.  These children did not meet the criteria for a section 47 safeguarding investigation but would meet the criteria to receive a service from the Children’s Social Care through Haringey’s Consortium of Need and Intervention. 

Following the Baby Peter case, understanding was sought by the Joint Committee of the improvements in safeguarding in the following areas:

• Social Worker  numbers and case loads
• Supervision of Social Workers
• Sharing of Information among agencies
• Legal case work
• Auditing

The Joint Committee noted that there was a significant increase in the number of Social Workers and managers in the service with a majority of them Haringey employees which made a difference to the stability and efficiency of the service. The improvements in information sharing were easily apparent by the knowledge held by Social Workers of the contact points in service areas such as Adults and Housing.

A key issue, which was heavily emphasised by the service, was having a full knowledge of the visitors and residents to a child’s home.  The audits undertaken on child protection plans would also check the frequency of the visits made  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

That the press and public be excluded from the meeting for consideration of item 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 relating to any individual and information likely to reveal the identity of an individual.

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

This report accompanies the previous  report from Iain Low,  on Safeguarding and Support and provides information on individual cases to  illustrate the issues raised in the report.

The independent member of the Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee introduced the report which accompanied the previous report on the Safeguarding and Support services and specifically focused on Child Protection Plans, their challenges and issues.  The independent member had examined a small sample of 15 cases starting with referrals and assessment undertaken in the first week of November, examining their case notes in February and looking at their outcomes in the first week of March.

The Committee noted and discussed the findings of this qualitative research.  It was noted that six of the 15 cases were closed or planned to be closed. Two of the children had a Child in Need plan, two children were in the care system. The remaining 5 children had good child protection plans in place.  There was concern communicated about the timescales for holding Initial Child Protection Conferences which were required within 15 working days of strategy discussions and would have  helped agencies come to a quicker conclusion on the child’s needs. This was attributed to pressures on the conference timetable as the need for an ICPC can only be identified at the end of strategy discussions and therefore arrangements for the conference initiated after this time.  It was also important to note, the timing of the audit, which was the lead up to the OFSTED inspection and also the seasonal time of year for staff leave.   There had been previous independent audits commissioned by the Deputy Leader on adherence of the service to quality and timing of assessments which showed good practices in place.  These key service area audits had also looked at the initial responses to a referral, strategy discussions and if the child had been seen alone. Because of the good improvement of the service, the audits were now concerned with examining practices in different parts of the services. The service itself also completed a high number of internal audits to continually monitor working practices and adherence to mandatory timescales and this could be an area of work which was reported on to the next Joint Committee meeting.

Further to considering this agenda item, the Joint Committee members noted that Members enquiries related to children’s services could be sent to Debbie Haith, Deputy Director for Children and Families.

 The Chair thanked officers for their attendance and contributions to the Joint meeting.  It had been useful and worthwhile for the Committee to explore and discuss the areas of child protection which overlapped between the responsibilities of both Committees.   Twice yearly meetings of the Corporate parenting Committee and Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee were planned and in the intervening periods the Committees would refer relevant issues to each other.