Agenda item

Members will consider a briefing paper which summarises Professor Munro’s final report. The Government responded in detail to the report, and a summary of the key points of their response is attached, courtesy of Reconstruct Research Service.

Committee members considered a summary of the Munro review into   child protection along with the government’s response to the review. The key components of the recommendations from Munro report were: developing social work capacity; ensuring children were communicated with, and that the child was at the centre of the organisations process.  Overall, the government response was to agree with the recommendations of the review. However, the Independent Member of the  Children’s  Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee, advised that the  government had not set out how local authorities were able to change fully to the direction of preventative services at a time of reduced funding for Children’s services. It was anticipated that local authorities would begin to review their models of social care following this report  and it was suggested that the social work care model developed in Hackney would be worthwhile to look at. The Chair of  the Children’s Safeguarding Policy and Practice Committee agreed to take this forward as an action.

Clarification was sought in whether the Children’s service had undertaken a systems analysis approach to the changes that would be required following the Munro report.  The Committee were informed that separately to considering the Munro recommendations and impact on the service,  there was an equal need to examine sufficiency  to  know  the level of services that would need to be  commissioned in order to meet the needs of  children coming into the care of children’s services. For example this would mean considering whether there were right levels of accommodation available for looked after children and care leavers, now and in the future. There would also  to  follow some joint strategic assessment work   with the involvement of partners to look at  how services are provided. The  Children’s service would also  be completing an exercise on care pathways to examine how the service identifies children coming into care.

 The Committee were advised that to meet the requirements of  the prevention agenda , would mean  the service, along with partners,  looking at  incrementally  compiling  services around the support that would be needed to prevent a  child  coming into care.  This support package would  need to include voluntary sector and partner agencies with consideration given to how the services were provided in totality. The Committee noted that these were high level changes  which required consideration of the strategic direction  of the service, involved  service redesign and considering how other children related services could be  included in this  support offer.  This  could only be led  by the incoming Children’s Services Director who would be in post  on the 14 November. It was agreed that the Cllr Reith and Cllr Rice would  speak with the  new director  about how the Munro recommendations would be taken forward with a  more substantial report  likely  to be  available for consideration by both Committees in May 2012.  Members of the Committee learnt  that  in the  meantime the Safeguarding Team were already working with  the Early Intervention and Prevention service  to look at how  they can support the de-escalation of certain circumstances which lead to children coming into care.  The Head of First Response explained that  the service recognised it would be   crucial  to de-escalate  these  circumstances permanently and this was a key part of their work with the Early Intervention and Prevention service when  considering  the services for the  families to access.

In terms of the impact of the Munro recommendations on systems  and processes followed,  the service were already exploring the impact on IT systems.

A question was asked about the plans for developing social work practice.  The  Committee noted that there was already a multi agency team in First Response and this team would be expanded with staff from Police intelligence, Adult Safeguarding and Mental Health. This  Multi agency Safeguarding  Hub (MASH) would also have satellite links to services such as Probation and Adult services with a member of their team physically situated in the MASH(Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub) one day a week.  This team would consider referrals to the Safeguarding Service and instantly share information they had on the family in turn  assisting the information gathering stage of an assessment and  expediting the decisions on how the referral should be progressed by the  Children’s service.  In terms of social work development, there had in been a graduate trainee programme in place , which had been very good at recruiting trainee Social Workers. Past members of this scheme were  now becoming team managers and senior practitioners. The key aim for the service was to  continue to build  the experience and  expertise of Social Workers so that it was a workforce able to work and deal with complex cases .

Members asked about help to families and early intervention services to reduce the number of children going  into care .  Officers explained that  Munro saw early help to families as different to early intervention services .The new  meaning for early intervention service  encompassed all work outside statutory sector . With regard to work with  families, Munro was interested in Social Workers engagement with families and  their work with them . Munro also advocated learning from existing family intervention projects and having evidenced systems in place that  will help families who need more than  the support provided by universal services.

Understanding was sought on the relationship between safeguarding social care and providers of care such as children’s centres.   It was felt that children between the ages of 0 to 5 had critical developmental milestones which needed to be supported especially if they were LAC or children in need   and therefore  should  be focused on as a group . In response it was noted that this relationship between the  Safeguarding Team and Early Years continued to improve each month. Social Workers who were responsible for children on child protection plans, under the age of 4,  would  ensure that they could access  day care services.

 Members noted the report.