Agenda item

The Children & Young People Sub-Committee is asked to review the information provided on the identified budget proposals and reach a conclusion on the following:-

1.         Are the savings deliverable, sustainable and not an unacceptable risk.

2.         Is the impact on service users and the wider community understood.

3.         Have all reasonable alternative options been explored and do no better options exist.

The Sub-Committee considered a report set out on pages 13 to 30 of the agenda, which provided identified budget proposals for 2023/24. The Director Quality, Commissioning & Performance introduced the item and went through the additional slides appended to these minutes and the presentation included in the agenda with detailed input from the Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention and the Head of Service, Social Work with Families and

Children with Disabilities.

Review of Front Door Services

The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention responded to questions about whether the Multi-agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) team were co-located and informed Members that this was the case, with police officers, Independent Domestic Violence Advisers (IDVA) and Education officers also sitting with MASH colleagues in Bernard Weatherill House. There was ongoing work to ensure there were increased presences from the Health and Housing departments, possibly through a hybrid solution. The Sub-Committee asked whether there was staff capacity to meet current demand, and the Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention explained that the service had been designed to meet current demand and needs and thought had gone into who the best teams were to respond to any given query. There was a significant number of staff in the MASH team with increased capacity through the Early Help triage team.

Members asked about the limited funding for the Social Workers in Schools (SWIS) programme and the future of the programme. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that schools participating in the programme saw significant benefits, and that SWIS was 80% funded by the Department for Education and 20% by the local authority and schools. Members heard that in an ideal world with no funding restrictions early help schemes designed to work with families where they were often were the most effective; schemes such as SWIS added significant costs due to having to operate from multiple locations. The Sub-Committee heard that in response to the financial challenges of Croydon and the challenge in recruiting qualified social workers, there had been a shift in approach to ensure that non-social worker roles could deal with cases, where appropriate, to free up qualified social worker capacity. This approach was supported by the Croydon Safeguarding Children Partnership, and had not been decided in isolation.

The Sub-Committee asked how demand on the Front Door compared with neighbouring boroughs. The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention explained that meetings with neighbouring boroughs and police colleagues were regular but, as they were smaller than Croydon, demand was significantly less. Not all enquiries to the Front Door led to referrals into the Children’s Social Care system and partnership working was important to ensure that other interventions and services in the Croydon community were tried first; this approach was embedded in current MASH transformation activity. Members asked if data was compared with statistical neighbours, and were informed that this was the case and was done on a regular basis through a monthly dashboard.

The Sub-Committee asked how the effectiveness of the new structure would be measured. The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention explained that practise would be considered within a quality assurance framework to look at the outcomes that were being achieved for children and an evidence based performance framework would be used to look at and scrutinise data across the different service areas. Members heard that a live dashboard was currently in development to support MASH activity, and would show data on the number of contacts coming in to the Front Door and the number of open cases. Soft data from service user feedback would continue to be collected throughout interventions as part of the quality assurance framework.

Members asked about efficiencies that had been identified from process improvements, and the Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention provided the example of consistent management oversight for cases for their duration, which allowed for decisions to be made in a more efficient and effective way that was safer for children. In response to questions about whether efficiencies were about service improvement or saving money, the Director of Children’s Social Care explained that it was both but that safeguarding children and responding to urgent referrals was always the priority. The introduction of contact and referral officers meant that qualified social workers had additional capacity, as they would not need to focus on administrative tasks, such as requests for information from the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (CAFCASS). The Early Help Triage was led by social workers who were experts in this area, and this meant that families were offered solutions quicker, which led to greater take up and reduced demand on social work services.

Members asked whether the Sub-Committee would have access to the dashboard. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that the dashboard was incredibly detailed and was not public, although the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People would have access to the dashboard. Information in the dashboard would be RAG rated against national standards.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People informed Members that they had spent time with the MASH team and had seen significant improvements and flexibility in the service. The Sub-Committee heard that officers were enthusiastic about this new way of working.

The impact of the reduction in spend on the adolescent service 

The Sub-Committee asked about the Integrated Care Board funded roles and it was explained that these officers would work collaboratively with Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAHMS) to decide the best plans for immediate follow-up intervention for children.

Members asked about disproportionality in safeguarding and whether officers were confident that early intervention was effective in reducing the number of young people in crisis. The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention explained that there was a positive offer in Croydon across Young Croydon and Youth Justice Services with a wide variety of targeted early interventions across the continuum of need. Work was ongoing with Community Safety colleagues on identifying contextualised risk and to identify hotspot areas and provide youth interventions to tackle risk factors in the community. In response to questions on how the effectiveness of this would be measured, the Sub-Committee heard that the quality assurance framework went across Children’s Services and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for individual services were scrutinised on a regular basis.

The Sub-Committee commended the thought that had gone into the transformation of the service. Members asked how the voice of the service user had been incorporated into transformation and whether complaints had increased. The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention responded that complaints were used to assess how well services were working, but that none had been received on the reconfiguration of the services specifically; relations with children and parents were overall good, with complaints managed largely at the stage one and two level. Service user engagement was more developed in the Youth Justice Service, and Young Croydon were working with the service to further develop this.

The review of care packages for children with disabilities aged 0-17

The Sub-Committee asked how many children were catered for by Calleydown Residential Home, and heard that currently there were 55 children who received overnight respite, and 10-15 children who received daytime respite. There were two children who were on the waiting list, but these children would begin receiving care later in the month. The capacity was seven children a night, but this fluctuated based on the needs of the individual children. Members heard that there were always at least four members of staff on site at any given time, but this also varied based on the needs of the individual children.

Members asked if domiciliary and respite agency carers received the London Living Wage and heard that this was the case. The Sub-Committee asked about joint funding arrangements and were informed that a monthly Joint Funding Panel, chaired by the Director of Children’s Social Care, reviewed and challenged joint funding arrangements with Health. The Director Quality, Commissioning & Performance explained that this was challenging and required a culture shift, but that partners were being engaged on multiple levels. Horizon scanning for opportunities through the South West London Integrated Care Board and Partnership were ongoing. The Sub-Committee asked, whether when service users were transferring between Children and Adults services, if it was seen that service users were eligible under the Adults framework when they had not been under the Children’s framework. The Head of Service, Social Work with Families and Children with Disabilities responded that this was not something that had been noticed, but would be looked into outside of the meeting.

The Sub-Committee considered the case studies in the report and asked what happened when care packages were reduced. Members heard that officers had been unable to find an example of this happening in the last four months. It was thought that there may have been some reductions in care packages at the beginning of the review in 2021, but now as circumstances changed this needed to be looked at in the context of what else was available to the service user; for example, there may have been a decrease in domiciliary care, but this could have been supplemented by an increase in respite care. The Head of Service, Social Work with Families and Children with Disabilities explained that the impact on the individuals and families was always considered, explained and mitigated.

Members asked about the increased level of savings that needed to be delivered in 2023/24, and the Head of Service, Social Work with Families and Children with Disabilities explained that the increased level of savings was based on the new Care Provider Register, introduced in July 2022, that it was thought would produce significant savings as long as demand for services remained stable.

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People explained that a number of transformation projects were being looked into, with one of these being an expansion of the offer at Calleydown Residential Home. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that transformation funding would be used to fund an expert in house development to look at possible alterations or extensions that could provide additional bedrooms or the possibility of a self-contained flat on the grounds through the conversion of a garage. It was highlighted that these changes would require a number of approvals and capital expenditure.

Members asked about the use of data in the transformation of services and what this would mean for service users with the inherent risks of trying to maintain service levels with reduced resource. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that transformation of practise sat alongside data driven monitoring but that there was a difference between transformation of services and transformation funding. Transformation funding was limited, and looked to enable changes to a system or service to provide better outcomes in the long term. The Director of Children’s Social Care explained that the biggest risk to the Council was the possibility of increased demand, which was not within the control of services and could lead to higher levels of risk held in families as a bottom line was reached. Members heard that this could lead to overspending as interventions that are more expensive are required.

The Sub-Committee asked about trends in demand and demand forecasting. The Head of Service, Access Support and Intervention explained that demand often spiked at points that coincided with the school calendar, and that COVID recovery was still ongoing and impacting trend figures, but it was thought that demand on services was increasing nationally. Members heard that there had been increases in the number of young people presenting with mental health needs, which was being monitored against the figures of statistical neighbours.

Conclusions

The Sub-Committee were reassured by the answers provided by officers in the course of the meeting.

The Sub-Committee welcomed the possibility of a transformation project looking at expanding the offer at Calleydown Residential Home.

The Sub-Committee acknowledged the demand led nature of the services provided by the Children, Young People and Education Directorate and were reassured that officers were managing this well with the information that was available.

The Sub-Committee were encouraged by the work being done in the three areas that had been presented, but acknowledged that services were in new territory as recovery from COVID continued.

The Sub-Committee were hopeful that the departments succeeded in delivering the budget and intended savings for 2022/23 and 2023/24, and were encouraged that this was on track from the discussion in the meeting.