Agenda item

This report sets out performance data and trends for an agreed set of measures relating to: Children and Families - Contacts, referrals and assessments and Child Protection.

The assistant Director of Children’s Services provided the positive highlights of the performance report. January saw a decrease in the number of children in care, there had been an increase in the number of children subject to a child protection plan which was not in line with statistical neighbours and the service were completing additional work to try and combat this increasing performance rate.  There was good performance for visiting children on child protection plan c. Special guardianship orders had gone up to 27. The number of children under 16 missing form care was reviewed by the Director and Cabinet Member.  It was noted that the Police were reviewing the thresholds in place to investigate a young person that is missing as it is being encountered that there is an understanding of t where the young person is. It was note that this review should not have a detrimental impact on t  investigation so children going missing rather that Policy  thresholds will become more in line with how Children’s services  assess the  a young person is missing and there is cause for concern,.

HY 59 - In relation to this performance figure the cause of the delay had been identified by the service and this was a particular capability issue with two social workers, one of whom had resigned and the e other was on a capability process.  It was anticipated that the target would improve in the next quarter.

P31 -  the variation in the figures  for each month was attributed to the in frequency of  children coming on  to protection plans and separate children coming off the plans .Also if there was a large sibling group involved this  could lead o significant variations in the figures from month to month. There had been an analysis into the numbers of children on child protection plans to understand if there as any issues of drift or was the social worker not escalating issues too quickly. The analysis had change in work would lead to a drop in numbers of children on child protection plans and this would be evident in the performance figures for March. 

The key change will now be that once the first response team has established that a initial assessment is required this will now be passed to the safeguarding and support team .This will allow the case to be taken forward by one social worker form the start and limit delays theta are being caused at the moment by the much later transfer.

In terms of tack lining drift, warning mechanisms were established and the Head of safeguarding and support was meeting with Child conference chairs o look at plan and ensure there was no drift and decisions were being made expediently.

OP367 - this was a cut and paste error and correct comments would be circulated after the meeting.

  The potential reasons for delaying a strategy conference were explained this could be due to the Social worker being called away to court. This had happened recently and due the crucial role that the social worker would play in the conference meeting it had been agreed to delay this. These types of reason were there and should be kept in mind when considering conference meeting dates delays.

The safeguarding and support service,  following an audit by the independent member were looking at t he thresholds  for putting a child onto a plan nod considering the thresholds for taking a child off a plan which seemed slightly different.  This showed a need for safeguarding and support to work with the independent child protection advisors it seemed that once a child/young person was on a protection plan there was a reluctance to take them off. For example if once on a plan, if a child missed a appointments   at a dentist or  nurse  this was used as reason to keep them on a plan when instead the overall  issue of care of the child needed to be looked at.  There was anxiety about taking a child off a plan in case they were re – referred. . This was an ongoing piece of work and analysis to tackle the anxiety and ensure that work with the family is proactive and moves at a quicker pace.