Issue - meetings

BCP Children’s Services was inspected, under the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACs) framework in December 2021. The outcome was an overall inadequate judgement. As a result the Secretary of State of Education issued a Statutory Direction and appointed a DfE Improvement Adviser to support the Council in their improvement of Children’s Social Care Services.

As a result a Children’s Services Improvement Plan is in place to ensure progress is made at pace in Children’s Social Care in line with the recommendations of the December Inspection and in accordance with the statutory direction notice received by the Council in March 2022.

Overview and Scrutiny require regular updates on themes regarding improvement. In October 2022 Children’s Services had their second Monitoring Visit, the letter published by Ofsted is presented for scrutiny alongside, the DfE Advisers first report. The DfE Adviser in their role is required to review the pace and progress of improvement at 6 months to ensure it is sufficient and report on this to the Secretary of State.

The Director of Children’s Services presented a report, a copy of which had been circulated to each Member and a copy of which appears as Appendix 'B' to these Minutes in the Minute Book.

BCP Children’s Services was inspected, under the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services (ILACs) framework in December 2021. The outcome was an overall inadequate judgement. As a result the Secretary of State of Education issued a Statutory Direction and appointed a DfE Improvement Adviser to support the Council in their improvement of Children’s Social Care Services.

As a result a Children’s Services Improvement Plan was put in place to ensure progress was made at pace in Children’s Social Care in line with the recommendations of the December Inspection and in accordance with the statutory direction notice received by the Council in March 2022.

Overview and Scrutiny required regular updates on themes regarding improvement. In October 2022 Children’s Services had their second Monitoring Visit, the letter published by Ofsted was presented for scrutiny alongside, the DfE Advisers first report. The DfE Adviser in their role was required to review the pace and progress of improvement at six months to ensure it was sufficient and report on this to the Secretary of State.

The Committee discussed the report and comments were made, including:

• In response to a query regarding the Local Government Review (LGR) and the barriers which still needed to be address, the Committee was advised of the issues which needed resolving corporately, as well as the transition to moving to one case management system, which unfortunately still had not been resolved. 
• In response to a query regarding a Children’s Trust, the Committee was advised that the statutory direction from the DfE was to consider whether Children’s Services could prosper and improve within BCP or whether it should be removed from BCP’s control and become a Children’s Trust, which would be an independent legal entity from BCP Council.  The Committee was advised of the implications should that happen
• In response to queries regarding LGR and the corporate transformation, structure and board, it was highlighted that there was a children’s services transformation board which work along the corporate transformation.  Details of the financial support system, HR operating model and pay and reward model were provided to the Committee
• In response to a query about staffing and dependency on agency staff, the Committee was advised that a shortage of social workers was a national issue and could result in higher caseloads.  The way in which the service was trying to address this issue was detailed
• In response to a query about consistencies and good practice, the Committee was advised of the work being undertaken to drive improvement which included the quality assurance work, a good training offer and the need for a social work model which the service wanted to adopt and were looking for DfE funding to assist with that, however it was noted that this could only be introduced once the workforce had stabilised.
• The Chair enquired  ...  view the full minutes text for item 56