(a)

the Children’s Directorate (formally the People Directorate) was created in April 2018 to reflect the wider scope of the Torbay Children’s Services contract and the integration of services;

(b)

both Education and social care, as part of the Children’s Directorate, had been changing since 2014. Progress included: creation of alternative delivery vehicles (CATERed, On Course South West); new partnership working with Torbay; roll out of mobile devices to enable more flexible working; a comprehensive accommodation review was being undertaken to establish how staff could be brought together over fewer buildings; further integration of the Early Help Offer and Targeted Support;

(c)

the Children’s Safeguarding Board devised a threshold document to clearly set out what the ‘need’ of an individual contacting the Council was, and to help point people in the right direction as to what support, and by whom, they could access;

(d)

best practice standards focused around the importance of making sure the child was central to everything undertaken by the Directorate; Officers aimed to provide a timely service in a targeted way and to work efficiently with partners in order to provide early help at a very early stage other than escalating things to acute and multi-agency level;

(e)

what children and young people expect from the Children’s Directorate: for officers to practice good communication, to work together with agencies and for the children themselves to not have to repeat their story to several individuals. In response the Council aimed to make a real difference to the lives of the young people, to not take too long in making changes, to work effectively with other agencies and to keep children safe;

(f)

quality assurance systems were built in to the work of the Children’s Directorate in order to highlight to officers how they were performing, what progress was made and if there were any gaps that needed to be addressed. Following the ILACS (Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Services) Inspection in 2018, the OFSTED improvement plan had been finalised;

(g)

Business Plan Priorities for 2019/20 included: increased resilience for children, young people and families through the Early Help and Targeted Support framework; timely permanence plans for children in care; increased permanent foster care placements; increased resilience for care leavers;

(h)

the Early Help support was in the process of being restructured to ensure officers in this area would be working 7 days a week from 8am to 8pm instead of 5 days a week until 5pm;

(i)

partnership and innovation highlights included: Plymouth was chosen to take part in the NSPCC Together for Childhood (to prevent child sexual exploitation); Plymouth was 1 of 3 local authorities nationally involved in a project with Barnardos (looking into care journeys and outcomes for care leavers); the PAUSE Project started in Plymouth in April 2019 (work with women that have had 2 or more children removed from their care); Academy of Social work established in 2018;

(j)

headline achievements for 2018/19 included: successful transition to the Regional Adoption Agency; Plymouth Best Practice Standards embedded; a reduction in percentage of children subject to multiple child protection plans; increase in percentage of the proportion of care leavers in education, employment or training;

(k)

challenges for children’s social care included: managing demand; foster carer recruitment; cost of wrap around support packages; cost of residential placements; recruitment of experienced social workers.

(l)

the City Council’s Education Purpose in relation to Education, Participation and Skills is to facilitate partnerships so that all children, young people and their families in Plymouth have the best access and opportunities; this is achieved by being a champion for children, through commissioning and convening collaborative relationships;

(m)

the 7 key functions of the department included school improvement, health & wellbeing, transport, admissions & organisation, safeguarding & inclusion, skills and special educational needs and disability;

(n)

the role of the local authority included: provide influence as a systems leader; challenge schools and other providers to improve; use powers of intervention for maintained schools; lead SEND; manage school admissions; work in partnership to support schools that are below floor standards;

(o)

the Local Authority has a range of functions it had to perform; a vast majority of these functions were statutory;

(p)

priorities for 2019/20 included: the department lead on the Children & Young People’s Plan (2017-20) – Raising Aspirations; to complete the work recognised by Ofsted – transforming the SEND offer; to deliver an integrated education, health and care offer; deliver the STEM plan; deliver the Skills Plan;

(q)

funding: £9.6m received from Plymouth City Council’s revenue budget (The Government cut the Education Services Grant a few years ago); other funding received from the Dedicated Schools Grant;

(r)

Plymouth’s schools had benefitted from the National Funding Formula however the cap on gains meant that the LA would have to wait until 2020 to receive the additional £10.6m funding;

(s)

Plymouth High Needs Block received an additional £0.232m in 2019/20, an additional allocation of £0.550m was received however the High Needs Block still remained under pressure;

(t)

successes for the department included: progress of pupils from ages 5–11 largely in line with the national average; productive partnerships; high performance in school admissions and SEND; positive Ofsted judgements in Early Years settings; widely acknowledged work in the virtual school;

(u)

challenges included: readiness for school; KS4 performance, falling school attendance and school governance;

(v)

the aim of the Plymouth Challenge was to bring coherence to the education system in Plymouth and develop leadership  and raise standards and aspirations.

·          

the two safeguarding boards, in Plymouth and Torbay, shared one Director of Children’s Services. Dialogue between the boards was managed by the Service Director at both respective local authorities;

·          

safeguarding assurances were undertaken by Ofsted in 2016; the assurances were still fit for purpose however were currently under review;

·          

it was considered that there was sufficiency in numbers of staff but not necessarily experience in the social care section of the directorate. There was far more demand on the social work system than in previous years which was adding to the pressure and higher caseloads – this was continually reviewed.  The newly qualified social workers, whilst very good, were unable to undertake complex work or court work until greater experience was gained;

·          

it was estimated that an experienced social worker would be allocated 18 cases, depending on the nature of the work, however newly qualified social workers would normally have a limit of 14 cases;

·          

there was a wealth across the city in universal and targeted support of people who provide support for vulnerable children and their families; partnership working and a coordinated approach was integral to realising good outcomes;

·          

data regarding sickness was presented to the previous meeting – it was much lower than the Council’s target for the directorate, and lower than the Council’s average figures which was a credit to the workforce. Sickness levels would be slightly higher this year however there were specific reasons relating to a small number of individuals (non-stress related);

·          

the number of agency workers was estimated to be approximately 2 social workers and 3-4 team managers however specific details would be provided to Members. Neelam confirmed that she was an agency worker however there were efforts to permanently recruit to her Service Director post;

·          

the council had a very good commissioning service; a block contract was already starting to show greater suitability of placement in Plymouth; work was ongoing on a peninsula basis;

·          

the Ofsted improvement plan was presented at quarterly safeguarding meetings however would be presented to the Education and Children’s Social Care OSP;

·          

the virtual school was a statutory requirement of local authorities and consisted in Plymouth of a small, high performing, qualified team whose role was to support the educational needs of children in care – the ambition was to ensure those children were placed in high quality provision within their locality; the virtual school was subject to Ofsted inspections;

·          

there was a lag between the work of the virtual school and the rise in care leavers becoming NEET (not in education, employment or training) – it was considered that one of the main challenges was care leavers not wanting to be associated with the council once they were no longer responsible for their care. Work was ongoing with earlier intervention to ensure that young people were engaged, mentored and provided with relevant guidance at a younger age;

·          

a small number of children and their families were placed in bed and breakfast as a last resort; officers did everything possible to maintain the school placement;

·          

young carers was a hidden area of need – a lot of work was undertaken to raise awareness including: having a named young carers champion from the council; the young carers conference which was held last year and well attended by schools; the creation of a young carers lead network; the Time For You Alliance which was a specialist offer;

·          

the council was working with the police to identify if there was a correlation between children missing education and rates of antisocial behaviour and crime; officers highlighted the impact of reduced school timetables on children missing education and the safeguarding issues involved.

1.

the Overview of the Children’s Directorate was noted;

2.

the number and role of agency workers was requested to be provided to Members of the Committee.