Agenda item

Report to follow.

The Board received a report on the current performance of Oldham’s Children’s Social Care, considering developments since improvement works and a self-assessment were completed in advance of an Ofsted ‘Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services’ (ILACS) review in January 2019.  The ILACS review resulted in a “Requires improvement to be Good” assessment and in response Children’s Social Care had created an Improvement Plan to improve the quality of Social Care for children and young people.

The review of performance, as presented, concluded that

·         there is clear corporate and political ownership over the children’s agenda which has resulted in significant investment to improve the quality of Children’s Social Work;

·         there has been a significant amount of activity undertaken to improve services for children in Oldham through improved management oversight and transformation, which is beginning to show promising results;

·         the levels of demand across key profile areas are decreasing and Oldham is now below or around its statistical neighbour levels;

·         caseloads for frontline social workers have substantially reduced from last year and are currently below the organisational target;

·         the roll out of the Structural Investment Plan to strengthen leadership and management arrangements in Children’s Social Care and to improve capacity across Social Work Teams is underway;

·         the financial performance of Children’s Social Care is stabilising as a result of the investment and closer monitoring of spend; and

·         the improvement in the quality of Social Work is being delivered through new accommodation and training facilities enabling Social Workers to practice high quality Social Work.

The submitted report considered the above issues in further detail, included correspondence from Ofsted confirming that the Improvement Plan satisfactorily reflected the areas identified for improvement in the inspection report and identifies clear actions to address those areas, and the current position on the Improvement Plan 2019-20.

With regard to staffing and in response to Members’ queries as to staff turnover and the loss of experienced staff, the Board was advised that what was hoped to be a sustainable staffing structure was being developed which would assist in the retention of staff, thereby stabilising the staffing position.  An internal ‘college’ of social work was also being developed focussing on the ‘Oldham practice’ which would assist in developing and growing the Council’s own social workers.  The Council was working with Stockport Council, acknowledged as good practice council, in key areas to develop learning and provide opportunity for mentoring arrangements.  Members sought assurance as to how these developments had improved practice, querying what monitoring systems are in place, what lessons were being learnt, and how the Council would make sure that previous issues were not repeated.

With regard to feedback from parents and from children, Members were advised that work had been done with the Children in Care Council and that consideration was being given as to reaching out to the Parent Forum and how best to communicate the improvements and where the Council wants to be.

With regard to caseloads, there had been a dramatic reduction in the average social worker caseload down from 30+ cases to around 18 per social worker.  A small number of social workers remained with the higher figure, but the focus was on safe workloads rather than a purely numerical one.  Vacancy and turnover figures could be available, but figures could be impacted by the move from agency to permanent social workers and by ongoing internal recruitment.

Further issues responded to were

·         further information as to performance with regard to early intervention and children in need could be provided to Members;

·         the number of Out of Borough placements had reduced, but in all cases a consideration as to the suitability of a placement was given.  Further detail as to Out of Borough placements could be provided to the next meeting of the Board;

·         the projects associated with the improvement journey and a consideration as to priorities was given within paragraph 3 to the submitted report;

RESOLVED – That the Board receive an update report on the Getting to Good improvement journey in March 2020, with any statistical items or other responses to issues raised at the meeting to be included as briefings with the work programme report.