Agenda and minutes

To approve the minutes of the meeting held on Wednesday 13 January 2021 as an accurate record.

[To Follow]

There was no available minutes published for the Panel to review.

In accordance with the Council’s Code of Conduct and the statutory provisions of the Localism Act, Members and co-opted Members of the Council are reminded that it is a requirement to register disclosable pecuniary interests (DPIs) and gifts and hospitality to the value of which exceeds £50 or multiple gifts and/or instances of hospitality with a cumulative value of £50 or more when received from a single donor within a rolling twelve month period. In addition, Members and co-opted Members are reminded that unless their disclosable pecuniary interest is registered on the register of interests or is the subject of a pending notification to the Monitoring Officer, they are required to disclose those disclosable pecuniary interests at the meeting. This should be done by completing the Disclosure of Interest form and handing it to the Democratic Services representative at the start of the meeting. The Chair will then invite Members to make their disclosure orally at the commencement of Agenda item 3. Completed disclosure forms will be provided to the Monitoring Officer for inclusion on the Register of Members’ Interests.

There were none.

To receive notice of any business not on the agenda which in the opinion of the Chair, by reason of special circumstances, be considered as a matter of urgency.

There was none.

There were no actions.

The Children in Care Performance Scorecard for January 2021 is attached.

The Corporate Parenting Panel considered the Children in Care Performance Scorecard which provided an overview of the August month. The Panel received an overview from the Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care, Roisin Madden, and the Head of Adolescent Services, Early Help and Children’s Social Care, Hannah Doughty, who highlighted the following red key performance indicators:

-        The children who had an up-to-date care plan and an up-to-date pathway plan. The plans were to be updated every six or twelve months according to their need, however, the January performances had a low score of 74% and 70%. This had been acknowledged by senior officers who had put an improvement plan in place to support social workers in completing the documents.

In response to queries raised by the Panel, the Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care and the Head of Adolescent Services, Early Help and Children’s Social Care and clarified the following:

-        Responsible managers had been notified of the challenges and unacceptable performance of the red indicators that had been recognised for some time, and weekly meetings had been put in place to focus better performance and improving actions.

-        An affirmative action approach and a contingency plan was to be taken to address the concern around the unaccompanied asylum seeking children care and pathway plans. It was recognised that this was an area the service had struggled for some time and needed more improvement. There were teams that had better performance than others, concluding for a better planning approach to improve the levels of practice and performance.

-        It was agreed that the council did not have full control within the red key indicator relating to the number of young people that were not in employment, education and training, and though there was limited control, the global pandemic had impacted the availability of employment, training and volunteering opportunities. The service needed to utilise and access local and national government schemes that provided support to employment within the pandemic recovery phase, and support from the whole council would aid better support to raise the performance score of 58% to a more satisfactory mark.

-        The Care Leaver Representative addressed the importance of the issues not recorded within the 58% and that affected young children to not be in education or employment. Unsustainable accommodation was deemed a factor for example finding living costs would be claimed through universal credit, and therefore it was important to review the cause for why a young person would not complete pathways or remained in education. It was also highlighted that the South London Commissioning Programme had submitted a health inequalities bid for young people with mental health needs, social emotional needs and those struggling to get into education, employment or training for supported work to commence; further, the service proposed to support care leavers in apprenticeships within the council expanding opportunities in different sectors and not based around lived experiences. The Chair added that there was aspirations for  ...  view the full minutes text for item 16/21

The report of the level of support for care leavers and the revised local offer is attached.

The Corporate Parenting Panel considered the Care Leavers and Support for Care Leavers & Care Leavers' Local Offer which described the current position regarding the levels of support for care leavers in the key areas of housing; education, training and employment; health; involvement and the transition from being a looked after child to young adulthood. The report also referred to the revised local offer and the new Care Leavers’ financial policy and guidance. The Panel received an overview from the Head of Adolescent Services, Early Help and Children’s Social Care, Hannah Doughty.

It was highlighted that the total of young people being supported in Children’s Services had reduced from 848 in March 2020 to 765 in January 2021.

Officers noticed a dramatic rise in numbers due to the implementations of the Children’s Social Work Act 2018. The service had reviewed the numbers and noted the high numbers of care leavers opened to the service and not in need of support at that time. The service had reviewed this and contacted those care leavers to provide them with information that they required should they be in need of support. The service was also moving towards a joint allocation of a social worker and a personal advisor for young people from the age of 15 and a half years.

Officers informed Panel Members that there were 56% of care leavers who were former unaccompanied children, of which two thirds were male.

The current voluntary arrangement was for each local authority to accept up to 0.07% of the child population that was unaccompanied asylum seeking children, which meant sixty-six children for Croydon Children’s Social Care, though currently the service supported two-hundred and ten children due to the location of the home office – Luna House in Croydon.

There were fifty social workers who were trained to conduct the human rights assessments to determine whether, young people had their appeal rights exhausted and had no legal right to remain in the UK, and, to continue to receive support though the service. It was said that should the assessment state otherwise, the unaccompanied children would return to the Home Office for support in accommodation and charities which repatriation was considered. Currently there was approximately sixty-five young person ages 21 – 25 who had status, which gained an average cost of £11,500 per annum to service per child.

Officers further informed with regards to housing that more work was required around the housing offer to care leavers. Currently the majority of young people resided in private sector accommodation which was secured by housing. All care leavers would be offered accommodation upon their 18^th birthday which would be within their assessment and heard at the housing panel. Young people with no recourse to public funds would be offered shared accommodation. The cost to children’s services for young people accommodation procured by housing was due to a surcharge of 25% of rent of each young person with recourse to public funds at the charges agreed to offset non-payment  ...  view the full minutes text for item 17/21

The review of Missing Children report is attached.

The Corporate Parenting Panel considered the Review of Missing Children report. The Panel received an overview from the Head of Service for Systemic Clinical Practice at the Adolescence Service and Workforce Development, Nana Bonsu.

Officers informed that there had been a 15% reduction in the number of young people reported missing from 2019 and 2020, this was due to the impact of the pandemic and lockdown; and 48% of the young people who were identified as missing in 2020 was discussed at the Complex Adolescence Panel.

Officers addressed the correlation of missing and exploitation where there was a clear connection. Of those that were missing in 2020, two thirds of young people were 16 plus year olds with the highest number being 17 year old, and further demographics highlighted 85% of those young people were from Black and Asian and other ethnic minority group backgrounds, and 75% of the young people had been subject to the Complex Adolescence Panel or MACE protocol even for child’s sexual exploitation or criminal exploitation. [The MACE protocol was a multi-agency panel that reviewed matters of concern around exploitation whether it was sexual, criminal or missing to young children.] The completion rate of return to home interviews were 71%. 60% were of young children out of borough, 64% were return home interviews, 64% were young children in semi-independent, 60% were young children in out of borough placement and 65% were local children. There was a high percentage of black Caribbean children represented in the figures related to the MACE protocol around sexual exploitation and criminal exploitation, with some hypothesis around the risk in comparison to the demographic of other ethnicities; though socio-economic factors and inequalities may be contributing factors to the higher over representation.

Officers informed the Panel of the Missing Strategy meetings and through the Performance Team, data produced repeated missing children and social workers were to ensure that they followed through with the practice guidance with regards to the Missing Strategy meetings. The importance of these meetings was to include how staff engaged the views of young people’s concern that was raised and enabling best practice.

Officers noted the way missing episodes were recorded for young children in placements who may have returned home late past their curfew time without authorisation, and that this needed to be revised to reflect the missing episode as appropriate to what has been coded on record.

The Panel welcomed the report presented by officers addressing a lot of data.

The Lead Representative for Care Leavers had commented on the report in relation to ethnic disproportionality, highlighting that there was a programme on race inequalities within placements, and moving commissioned placements for children and young people, exploring work reviewing language used to describe young people and how unconscious bias training could be improved.

The Lead Foster Carer Representative commented on the report for clearer guidelines for foster carers in regards to the procedure for missing children from placements following a recent training session. For example, at what  ...  view the full minutes text for item 18/21

For the panel to consider how its work at the meeting will improve services for children in care.

Panel Members welcomed the number of actions and recommendations in the meeting particularly around working more closely with foster carers.

Panel Members welcomed more user friendly minutes and reports.

Panel Members welcomed involving young people more robustly in discussions about the local offer and taking it forward and considering further commissioning arrangements and establishment of outcomes; and seeing more support in respect to those young people who were not in education employment or training.

Panel Members would like the staying put work to be driven forward.

Panel Members welcomed the focus on young people and thanked Members and officers for the pieces of work shared on behalf of the young people and their involvement towards their work thus far.

To consider and approve the Panel’s work programme for the municipal year 2020/21.

The Work Programme was agreed as received with the inclusion for an update on the development of the internal fostering services and what the structure, target setting for the service and staffing levels to be included in the next meeting.

The following motion is to be moved and seconded where it is proposed to exclude the press and public from the remainder of a meeting:

“That, under Section 100A(4) of the Local Government Act, 1972, the press and public be excluded from the meeting for the following items of business on the grounds that it involves the likely disclosure of exempt information falling within those paragraphs indicated in Part 1 of Schedule 12A of the Local Government Act 1972, as amended.”

This was not required.