Agenda item

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 and if there were significant changes an explanation be provided.