Agenda and minutes

To elect a Chairman for the ensuing year.

The Democratic Services Officer opened the meeting as it was the first meeting of the Municipal Year. Nominations were sought for the Chair’s position.

Cllr Ben Groom proposed Cllr Laura McCarthy. Cllr Bradley James seconded the proposal.

Cllr Sam Gethen proposed Cllr Andrew Burrow. Cllr Anette Mackenzie seconded the proposal.

A vote was called by show of hands. Cllr Laura McCarthy received 5 votes and Cllr Andrew Burrow received 8 votes.

RESOLVED

Cllr Andrew Burrow was duly elected Chair – Children’s Services, Education and Skills Scrutiny Board for the Municipal Year 2023-2024.

To appoint a Vice-Chairman for the ensuing year.

Cllr A Burrow took the Chair.

Cllr Burrow sought nominations for the position of Vice Chair.

Cllr Ben Groom proposed Cllr Laura McCarthy. Cllr Bradley James seconded the proposal.

Cllr Yvonne Clements proposed Cllr Richard Holt. Cllr James Butler seconded the proposal.

A vote was called by show of hands. Cllr Laura McCarthy received 5 votes and Cllr Richard Holt received 8 votes.

RESOLVED

Cllr Richard Holt was duly elected Vice Chair – Children’s Services, Education and Skills Scrutiny Board for the Municipal Year 2023-2024.

To receive any apologies.

Cllr D Cole had sent his apologies and Cllr M McCarthy attended as his substitute. S Golby, Parent Governor Representative, sent her apologies.

To receive declarations of interest from Members in accordance with the Code of Conduct (Members are directed to the guidance attached.)

None declared.

To deal with any questions or deputations received.

None received.

To receive the minutes of the meeting held on Thursday 2^nd March 2023.

It was proposed by Cllr Y Clements that the minutes of the last meeting, held on 2^nd March 2023 be approved as an accurate record. Cllr S Gethen seconded the motion.

RESOLVED

The minutes were approved.

To receive and review the Action Tracker.

The Democratic Services Officer presented the Actions Tracker as set out in the Agenda Pack and advised that there had only been one change since it was distributed which was the Staffing Levels Data Set. This had now been received and would be shared with the board.

RESOLVED

The Actions Tracker was noted.

For the board to agree the Draft Work Plan for the Municipal Year 2023-2024 and the associated Rapid Review Proposals.

The Democratic Services Officer presented the Draft Work Plan and emphasised that the plan could be subject to change as we move through the year. The plan had been devised from actions from the previous Municipal Year as well as Councillors suggestions. The Service had also been asked for their input.

Circulated with the Work Plan was the scoping documents for three Task and Finish Groups, and it needed to be decided in what order these would take place and who would sit on each group.

The Director of Children’s Services emphasised that the service remained under significant pressure for resources as well as remaining under intervention in the form of a commissioner and urged the Board to focus on quality over quantity.

The Board agreed the Work Plan for 2023-2024 and agreed that the order of the Task and Finish Groups would be SEND, Care Leavers and Staff Retention. The membership of each group would be fed into the Democratic Services Officer via Cllr A Burrow, Cllr L McCarthy and Cllr B Groom.

RESOLVED

The Committee unanimously agreed the Work Plan.

To provide the Scrutiny Board with details of the priorities of the Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Skills.

Cllr M Gough, the Cabinet Portfolio Holder for Children and Education, presented a verbal report on his priorities for the next year ahead. He emphasised that the last 12 months had been very challenging for the service but that many thing were beginning to move in the right direction.

Cllr Gough identified the following as the priorities:

1.  Stabilisation of staffing levels/retention of staff/recruitment of new staff/staffing renumeration.

Cllr Gough acknowledged that the current situation in Solihull was making the recruitment of new staff more difficult but that there was a strategy that is being reviewed this year to encourage more people to join the Authority.

2.  Improving the outcomes for Children (With an emphasis on Children with SEND)

Cllr Gough highlighted that you only get one childhood, and it is important that we support all children to have the best outcomes from this. The recent government announcement on SEND was welcomed but more work needs to be done.

3.  Improving Social Work Practice

Cllr Gough highlighted how it was important for the practice to be delivered to a high standard consistently, that there needed to be a greater emphasis on data reporting, that there was work underway to develop a training academy to help upskill staff and for improvement work to be carried out with improvement partners.

4.  Corporate Parenting and Care Leavers

Cllr Gough reminded the board that Cllr Grinsell had been appointed the Lead Member for Corporate Parenting and would be leading the drive to improve the awareness of all members and staff on our roles as good corporate parenting.

Questions from the board to the Cabinet Portfolio Holder were as follows:

·  Cllr A Wilson – There seems to be a tension between the recruitment and retention of staff and how we improve our practice standards. How can we be sure that as we improve, we aren’t driving staff away?

o  Cllr Gough – The service will always remain a demand led service so staffing needs can always change in line with this. However, we don’t want to be in a position where we are driving staff away due to increasing the pressure, they are under to the point they cannot deliver to a high standard. We have to work to increase the staffing levels and then continuously monitor whether there is sufficient staffing to match the demand.

·  Cllr J Hamilton – Can you tell us exactly how many social workers we have gained in the last 6 months?

o  DCS – There hasn’t been a high change in the overall headcount. Last summer the service saw the peak of demand and at that point took on agency staff to be able to cope with the increase until it become clear what the new demand post pandemic would as well as whilst the restructure happened. That saw an additional 70 staff added to the planned headcount across the whole service.

·  Cllr B Groom – Will the recruitment of social workers be included in our planned Task and  ...  view the full minutes text for item 9.

For the board to continuously monitor and scrutinise changes made to and progress made against the plan.

The Director of Children’s Services introduced the report. He set out that the exceptions report would be how progress would be presented to the board moving forward as it highlighted the key areas of movement regarding the plan. He stated that we have seen growing improvement across the top measures particularly in assessments. He finally drew attention to the key activity and added that last week the Council had held its annual conversation with Ofsted which had gone well.

Questions from the board were as followed:

·  Cllr L McCarthy – I have been on the board for circa 5 years now and this reporting style has provided the most clarity and been the most useful to understand progress than we have ever seen.

·  Cllr B Groom – I would agree with Cllr L McCarthy on the usefulness of the report. It would also be helpful to have alongside the exception reporting a narrative of what good looks like so we can compare and contrast.

o  DCS – On our data score card you can see that we use the England average, Regional Average and our statistical neighbour. We can look to add something like this into this report.

ACTION: JH to liaise with Programme Manager to have this added.

·  Cllr L Kaye – As someone who has come in very new to this and reading the OFSTED inspection and Commissioners report which is where this plan has derived from it is hard to correlate what bits of the plan are addressing specific parts of the reports we have had. Could the plan be indexed against the reports to make it explicitly clear which relates to which?

o  DCS – I can guarantee that all the improvements that were identified in the Oftsed Inspection, Commissioners Report, Joint Targeted Area Inspection and National Review are all in the improvement plan. We can look at how we can make it more explicitly clear how the documents link.

ACTION: JH to liaise with Programme Manager to explore having this added.

·  Cllr A Burrow – If we were to sit down with a Social Worker are you confident that they would know what the main themes of the improvement are in the plan? How well are you communicated this plan downwards?

o  DCS – The honest answer would be not as many as we would like. Some of the improvements are very team specific so it is not vital that everyone knows them but the more generic themes it is important that all staff know and we will be continuously education them on these.

For the board to continuously monitor and scrutinise changes made to and progress made against the plan.

Cllr L McCarthy declared an interest on this item due to a close family member being investigated by the Local Safeguarding Partnership whom have responsibility for improvement in the Partnership Improvement Plan.

The Director of Children Services introduced the plan and highlighted that this one was one that the Council had least control over as it involved partners improving the way that they work. There were no questions from the board.

For the board to monitor and scrutinise the KPI’s from the directorate using ‘Measures that Matter’ in it’s approach.

The Director of Children’s Services presented the Score Card. He emphasised that any feedback on how the data is presented is welcome as the report is still very subject to change. He informed the board that since the 31^st March (data reporting period end) there had been some red areas that had progressed from being red to a lower rating. Further to this he also said that as of today there were no unallocated cases.

Questions from the board were as follows:

·  Cllr J Butler – I want to endorse the score card, it is very useful in giving us an insight into the performance of the directorate. I would always caution that we can sometimes loose the context behind the data sometimes but overall it is an extremely useful tool.

·  Cllr R Holt – You have told us there are no unallocated cases but isn’t it the case that we will always capture some as there will naturally be some that aren’t yet allocated for example if they came in just before the reporting took place.

o  DCS – Yes that would be the case, but I get a report on this daily and we have reduced a significant back log.

·  Cllr R Holt – It would be useful to get some more detail on the risk of unallocated cases as it can be dependent on each case.

·  K Goode – It is good to see that the percentage of children with a child protection plan has fallen, but the percentage of children with a child in need plan has risen. Is there a correlation with these pieces of data?

o  DCS – It is the case that if we have fewer children in care then we are likely to have fewer children subject to a child protection plan but then yes you would typically see an increase in the child in need plans as you move that child down the levels of intervention. What I would flag is that the re-referral rate looks to be a flashing red flag however the context behind it could be that the child was referred in January for need A which was dealt with but now his need is B so the need is different but it counts as a re-referral.

·  S Freeman – The data score card is great but it is sometimes useful to have the actual numbers as well as the percentage as this can be useful as we can see what the percentage is of. Could this be added?

o  DCS – I agree that it would be useful so we can look to add this.

ACTION: JH to pass on request to Programme Manager.

·  Cllr R Holt – It would be useful to have some more detailed analysis of near misses with partners as we need to know if partners are letting us down.

o  DCS – This would be the role of the LSCP.

The Chair echoed how useful the data score card had been  ...  view the full minutes text for item 12.

For the board to be informed of the outcome of the report by Sir Alan Wood CBE and the response by the Secretary of State for Education. This will include the implications to Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council Children’s Services.

The Director of Children’s Services introduced the report. He highlighted that Sir Alan Wood CBE had furnished a further update report to the Secretary of State for Education since the initial one but that this would not be made public as it is for the Secretary of State only.

There were no questions from the board.