Agenda item

To review a summary of activity across children’s social care for the period 2021/22 (to be taken alongside budget monitoring).

4.1  The Children and Families Service (CFS) Annual Report is presented annually to the Commission.  However, this report was not available to be included within this agenda, therefore a brief summary of children’s social care activity for the period 2021/22 was presented.

4.2   A budget monitoring report for Children and Families Service accompanies this report (agenda item 5) to enable members to scrutinise policy and budgets in alignment.

Children and Families Service

4.3   The Director of Children's Social Care brought to the attention of the Commission the following:

·  CFS noted that although referrals had increased, the number of assessments had decreased, which suggested that the early help offer was proving to be effective;

·  The number of looked after children (LAC) in the care of the authority had declined from 431 to 405, a significant drop which was attributed to improvement in local assessment processes and appropriate application of care thresholds;

·  It was acknowledged that there were staffing challenges within the service with particular pressure on the recruitment and retention of social workers.  Hackney was signed up to the London Pledge to prevent competition for social workers and the service had recently developed a staffing strategy to support recruitment;

·  Similarly, it was noted that there was an equally competitive market for children’s social care placements which was driving up costs for children and families services.

Questions from the Commission

4.4 Given the confirmed trend in adolescents entering care, how has staffing and service organisation within CFS adapted to meet the needs of this cohort?  What datasets are the service using to help identify and support this cohort, for example SEND services?

·  Officers reported that there was a good youth based offer via Young Hackney.  There was also the Edge of Care Service, which offers dedicated support to adolescents helping them to step-down or step-up into care as needed.  CFS was also looking at how to provide further early help to prevent more adolescents coming into care.

·  The LGA were invited to review CFS work with adolescents earlier this year who were complimentary about the local offer to young people, which was also supported by assessments made by Ofsted.  Young Hackney worked closely with a number of organisations (statutory services, in schools, and in youth centres) as part of this early help offer to adolescents.  The service was very aware of disproportionalities in this data, particularly among young black boys and men, and services were working to ensure that this cohort was supported to help them remain connected to education and other family and welfare networks.

·  In terms of children's social care data, the service regularly undertakes thematic reviews into various cohorts of children which are interrogated for patterns and trends.  The service also reviews complaints data to identify areas for service development and improvement.  Data on socioeconomic status is not collated, but data is analysed alongside census data to further inform how resources should be prioritised.  In relation to SEND, this is kept on a separate MOSAIC system within Education, but a new system is being developed across both education and children’s social care which will allow services to have a singular view of a child.  It was also noted that colleagues from Hackney Education and CFS were now co-located which will facilitate communication and information sharing across these directorates.  A new Outcomes, Business Intelligence and Strategy directorate has also been formed to help develop synergies across both education and children’s social care.

4.5 Despite a 27% increase in the number of referrals to Children’s Social Care in 2021/22, the number of related metrics all recorded strong declines (assessments down 15%, Child Protection Plans down 11%, Looked after Children down 6%).  Officers suggest that this was the result of the early help offer, what evidence or analysis has the service undertaken to support this?  What does CFS know about the demographics of those children who may not be assessed to need such care and support?

·  The service has streamlined referrals into the early help service and set up a consultation line via the Multi-Agency-Safeguarding Hub (MASH).  When referrals come into the MASH, they are screened and referred through to the early help hub if needed and signpost families to other services for support.  The service was changing terminology from referral to request for support, to ensure that supporting agencies remained in contact with families in need and to ensure that that support continued to be provided from the partnership of local services.  The service was assured that thresholds were applied appropriately as there are robust systems in place to assess and quality assure this (e.g. dip sampling).  Twice a week colleagues in MASH and the Early Help hub meet with CAMHS to discuss specific cases and agree a shared pathway forward for children and their families.  CFS believe their thresholds to be robust, which was in part validated by the recent Ofsted inspection.  There was however always a need for ongoing dialogue for partners across the sector.

·  Although there was no increase in referrals during the pandemic, since the pandemic (2021/22) there has been an increase, which was probably due to increased oversight of schools.  It was noted that the rate of referrals coming into the service was now on a par with neighbouring boroughs, having been higher for a number of years.

·  In terms of the Supporting Families Programme, because this is a payment by results service, there was a  very clear audit trail which demonstrated how families were identified, what support they were provided with and whether this was effective.  This is central to an early help offer, which can be escalated to statutory support if needed.

4.6 The Commission is aware of the ongoing concerns around the recruitment and retention of children’s social care staff not only in Hackney, but also across London and nationwide.  How is Hackney’s offer to social work staff unique or different to other authorities which might make the service comparatively more attractive to possible new recruits? How is the wider support offer to social workers different in Hackney compared to other boroughs (e.g. caseloads, training, mentoring, personal development)?

·  It was noted that workforce challenges were being experienced across London and many LA’s were in the same position as Hackney.  CFS was developing its own ‘unique selling point’ (USP) to staff and was consulting with staff on what was important to them and what they valued.

·  From December, a market supplement was being offered to attract experienced social workers into Hackney CFS. In response to exit interviews conducted with social workers, a new Senior Social Worker role was being developed to allow social workers to progress without moving on to managerial roles.  This will be introduced in January 2023 and will hopefully assist in the retention of social workers.

4.7 The Commission has undertaken a number of site visits to local schools in recent weeks (in relation to connected work) where teachers noted that it had become much harder for them to obtain social care support for their children in need.  Given the centrality of local schools to the identification and referral of children in need, how  does CFS work proactively with schools to develop awareness, improve referrals and ensure more effective support to local children and families? How will closer working of Children and Families Service and Hackney Education assist closer working partnerships on the ground for children and families?

·  Officers reported that there would be synergies from the colocation of education and social care teams.  A consultation-line had been established in which local practitioners can talk to social care professionals about children they may be concerned about and to check if a referral is necessary.  The consultation line has been extensively used by education, where 68% of all contacts to this service derived from local educational settings. There was also a healthy dialogue between schools and social care about whether subsequent referrals should be made for additional support.  It was acknowledged however that this was an ongoing challenge.

·  Whilst officers noted that that schools were under pressure, it was suggested that the strength of the early help offer was important to resolving this issue, by making sure children and families got help and support before this needed to be escalated to children’s social care.  From an education perspective, schools had the benefit of additional help and support through the Reintegration Unit and other services available locally.

4.8 Nationally, there are widespread concerns around the availability of residential and secure placements for children. Can officers describe how placement shortages are impacting on children’s social care provision in Hackney?  Also, the placement of children far away from family networks is a concern - are there any parameters which the service applied to this?  Understanding most of our neighbouring boroughs are experiencing the same issue around access to social care placements, how is Hackney working strategically with other boroughs to develop social care placement options?

·  The CFS ambition is always a foster-first approach.  There is a challenge in securing quality residential placements which are close to children's networks here in Hackney.  CFS had a goal of placing children within a 20 mile radius of the borough, but this was not always possible given the specific needs of individual young children.  Whilst vigorous quality assurance processes are in place for commissioning residential placements, the quality of provision was still of concern and it was often necessary to commission additional support for children.  In this context, CFS is often required to plug the gap in case for residential placements.  It should be recognised that for some children with specific needs, the choice of placement might be very limited.

·  Whilst it was clear that most children in residential placements were black and global majority boys, no data was available on location residential placements (distance from Hackney) at the meeting, but this would be provided to members.

Agreed: That further data on the location of residential placements would be provided to the Commission.

4.9  How will the upcoming children’s social care sufficiency strategy address capacity issues and help improve placement options for children’s social care? What are the key elements of this strategy and when will this be published and ready to be tested?

·  It was noted that the children’s social care strategy had been drafted and would be considered by the Corporate Parenting Board in December 2022.

4.10  The Chair thanked officers for attending and responding to questions from the Commission.  Given the lack of capacity to look at this item again within planned meetings, the Chair suggested that when the full CFS Annual Report is published at Cabinet, this is then placed on the following CYP Commission agenda for noting.  Members can then develop key lines of questioning off-line which will then be published with the responses of officers at the next meeting. 

Agreed: The CFS Annual Report will be presented to note and that any subsequent members’ questions will be published alongside officers’ responses.