The Assistant Director of Services for Children & Young People (Social Care) will give a presentation on Ofsted’s unannounced inspection in respect of the Contact and Referral Service, submit the post-inspection action plan and provide an update on ‘Little Ted’s’.

The Assistant Director of Services for Children & Young People (Social Care) submitted the Ofsted’s response to the annual unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment arrangements within Plymouth City Council’s Children’s Services and CIP7 ‘keeping children safe’ information.  She reported on actions that needed to be put in place -

            (i)      Carefirst was integral to the improvement plan;

          (ii)      due to the media coverage of highly sensitive cases, there was an increase in demand and children in care numbers had increased to 410;

        (iii)      foster carers’ recruitment was good but needed to be accelerated;

        (iv)      Ofsted judgements were now more critical nationally;

          (v)      three main areas to address were –

·        clarification of thresholds for children in need;

·        management overview, recording and documentation – this related to Carefirst;

·        CRB checks – nearly all were now completed;

        (vi)      with regard to case recording, consistency and timelines were being addressed;  the majority of assessments were done within 8 days.

In response to questions, Members were informed that –

      (vii)      the issue of new social workers not being adequately trained was a national and two years was insufficient training time for generic work;

    (viii)      leaflets/posters that were provided to partners could be provided to the Panel;

        (ix)      one agency worker had been in place long term, principally because he/she had good mentoring skills for new social workers.

An update on ‘Little Ted’s’ was provided as follows –

        (x)        a great deal of support work had been provided by the Council and partners for families affected;

      (xi)        initial assessments in June had gone up by 500%;

    (xii)        meetings had been held with parents throughout the process and afterwards;

  (xiii)        there had been sessions held with parents recently as part of a Serious Case Review and a view of strengths and shortfalls of the procedures had been gained;

   (xiv)        Early Years guidance would probably emerge as an outcome once the Serious Case Review executive summary was published.

In response to questions, Members were informed that -

     (xv)        each agency had given a report and an action plan was developing;

   (xvi)        mobile phone use was a complex issue and a group was looking at development of comprehensive advice, to be launched in April; 

 (xvii)        there was no intention to remove mobiles at present but there was a need to ensure mobiles were used appropriately; staff issues of behaviour, attitudes and value base;

(xviii)        good practice, including a poster, was contained within Ofsted guidance and it was good practice not to have mobiles;

   (xix)        the Local Authority’s role was to support Early Years providers in adhering to statutory guidance;

     (xx)        the voluntary sector was under-regulated at the moment and the only regulatory body was Ofsted;

   (xxi)        alternative provision had been found for those parents who wanted it; not all parents wanted placements elsewhere;

 (xxii)        there had been few reported incidences of parents withdrawing children from nursery placements.

Resolved that –

(1)               a presentation on thresholds and Common Assessment Framework be provided to the Panel;

(2)               a copy of the ‘e-safe guidance’ due to be launched in April be provided to the Panel.