Agenda item

JTAI (Joint Targeted Area Inspection) - verbal update

Minutes:

Jean Kelly (Service Director for Children, Young People and Families) provided Members with an update on the Joint Targeted Area Inspection (JTAI).

 

Key points highlighted to Members included the following:

 

(a)

the JTAI took place 18 - 22 November 2019; the purpose of the inspection was for Ofsted, the CQC, the Police Inspectorate, Fire and Rescue Services and the Probation Service to work in partnership to carry out a joint inspection of the multi-agency response to children’s mental health services (between the ages 10-15);

 

(b)

six local authorities across the country were assessed; a letter summarising the findings had been received (and was included in the agenda pack) however judgements were not provided in the letter;

 

(c)

some key strengths identified included: that senior leadership across the partnership was stable, joint commissioning reflected the well-developed partnership arrangements, school based interventions met children’s needs at the earliest opportunity;

 

(d)

areas for improvement included: governance arrangements for the youth offending team required attention, the Safeguarding Children’s Partnership Strategic Board needed to improve quality assurance and learning and development sub groups, the local authority quality assurance framework was not robust enough, the youth offending team didn’t always use the correct template for assessments and didn’t consistently provide analysis of the impact of mental health on a child’s experience.

 

In response to questions raised it was reported that –

 

(e)

every social worker had regular supervision; time set aside for record keeping was reserved and reviewed, as well as the quality of what was written; cases were audited to quality assure written accounts;

 

(f)

MASH was the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (a team of partner agencies); it was acknowledged that there was a lack of health and education decision-makers in this group meaning that some decisions lacked input from all agencies however this would be addressed;

 

(g)

a joint improvement plan would be submitted and agreed by partners in order to address areas of development set out in the letter;

 

(h)

there were instances whereby some children were placed in bed and breakfast establishments, hotels or other unregulated placements however this was due to an emergency placement breaking down or if a child came into care into an emergency; work to improve the fostering service and increase provision of residential care in Plymouth was hoped to improve this;

 

(i)

the improvement plan would be made available for scrutiny Members once it had been agreed and signed off by all partners; timescales had yet to be agreed;

 

(j)

a sub-regional approach for the governance of the youth offending team had been chosen however Devon were leaving this model; a new model had been proposed and agreed in partnership with the Youth Justice Board however it was being considered if youth offending needed to return to a local authority owned arrangement;

 

(k)

an update regarding Child Sexual Exploitation would be scheduled onto the committee’s work programme, specifically with regards to the CSE screening tool to provide Members with assurance that improvements were being made;

(l)

fortnightly meetings were scheduled to discuss gang related activity; officers were confident that safeguards were in place to protect vulnerable children.

 

The Chair thanked all teams involved in the JTAI.

 

Agreed that the JTAI Improvement Plan would be provided to the Education and Children’s Social Care Overview and Scrutiny Committee so progress could be charted again the plan.

Supporting documents: