Agenda item

[To Follow]

The Corporate Parenting Panel considered the Children in Care Performance Scorecard which provided an overview of the May month. The Panel received an overview from the Interim Director of Early Help and Children’s Social Care, Roisin Madden who highlighted the amber and red key performance indicators.

In summary:

-        There were a number of amber performance indicators which were very close to green.

-        Most children getting an up-to-date care plans and pathway plans were still difficult as this required the presence of a young person. This was statutory.

-        Children in care continued to have the same social worker and the service was striving for this continuity to remain.

-        Placement stability key performance indicator was close to green. There were a lot of children in care being placed in Croydon and others placed outside the borough.

-        The fostering indicator highlighted that a lot more work needed to be done.

-        The Adoption figures had shown that care was provided via the Adopt South, and this was good with the national indicators.

-        There were concerns with the care leavers being in education, employment and training (EET). There was nearly 90% in EET and 41% care leavers who were not in EET.

In response to queries raised by the Panel, the following was clarified:

-        All services were working together to better the 20-day statutory obligation in completing the initial health assessments (IHA). Dissecting the data further, it appeared that a delayed referral from the social care team to the health services would impact on the 20-day turnaround time.

-        The inaccurate data for the last month was presented for assurance. This addressed (for example) that should a young person be referred in the latter part of a calendar month, the 20-day period for their health assessment would enter into a new calendar month, and their attendance may only be seen as one appointment. The data was therefore presented in this manner.

-        The fluctuation in April saw seven children referred for an IHA. Young children not attending their scheduled date or children transferred out of borough with assessments not completed before, may look as though the children did not have an assessment. However, this is the lowest number of children who had not received an IHA.

-        There was a lot of learning during the pandemic year, whereby children who consistently declined for an assessment were offered telephone assessments which was preferred, particularly from the older children.

-        A lot of work was undertaken relating to reducing the delay in initial referrals, many related to consent. Health services and social care services had been able to concur with accurate data since the beginning of this year and there were no longer discrepancies between the services with regards to cases.

-        All children were receiving their IHAs in time for their Children Looked After Reviews; and all children were having their assessments completed even if it was a day or two outside of the 20-day timescale.

The Co-optee Foster Carer representative Member commented on the pathway plan and how the service had been performing very well over the last years. Foster carers had now seen their children being more involved in the plan, though it was noticed that the plans were not often completed within the timeframe in time for a change over in social workers or transitioning down. Remuneration was also often an issue.

The Chair informed that the limited change of the social workers for the young person would be helpful and recommended for conversations at an earlier stage to happen.