Agenda item

To follow

The report of the Independent Review Officers (IRO) was delivered by former Authority Designated Officer and current Quality Assurance Manager Lead Karen Massey and current Authority Designated Officer Adam Stanley-Feron of Croydon.

Officers highlighted that there was more room for improvement following the  

Ofsted Inspection for the IRO to challenge social work practice and provide evidence. The service needed to evidence challenges of inadequate performance to help the whole service on the journey and focus on good quality care plans.

Drift and delay was highlighted as a main area of concern where things were not quickly resolved. The service had relaunched the Croydon Escalation Resolution Protocol (CERPs) process, which was a way of formalising challenge talking to team managers and social workers first. The role of the IRO would be to focus on the outcome and not the process, and this would be aimed to be completed in a timely way. This way, the IRO service should be able to manage the drift that happens.

Data was shared with the Panel informing that in the two-thousand and nine reviews there was one-thousand one hundred and nineteen with children. This provided a lot of information in what had happened to looked after children within Croydon. The focus was on the activities of what the staff can do as a service of how to improve.

Officers highlighted the gaps in the service which needed to be improved, which included completing reviews on time and knowing when reviews took place.

Since February 2018, there was a number of structures that changed to better the service. This included the processes of how reviews were monitored. Officers informed that reviewing looked after children cases was a statutory requirement for the IRO to monitor, scrutinise, think about planning, listen to the voice of the child, ensuring that the right consultation forms was shared at the meeting where an outcome is later taken into account. Through this the IRO team can service all LAC Reviews, this also included the quality for the IRO work with their quality of report and minutes and family approach.

Officers note that there was sixty mid-year reviews that had taken place in August. This helped the service demonstrate better ways in working with children.

The service was looking into the way children would be better involved in the LAC reviews, and this would be by way of an app or a smiley face form instead of a paper consultation, to engage children. This way the service was putting the child at the centre of attention to ensure a better resolution in a plan that would identify their need.

With questions arising of the use of the consultation form, Child M highlighted that she liked the smiley face form (consultation form) as she was able to identify her emotions of being happy or sad. Ashleigh recalled of the paper work being well used, but understood the difficulty of the form and suggested that a voice note or an app would be a better tool at the LAC reviews.

Members of the Panel welcomed the thorough report although they would have liked to have seen more outcomes and examples of the difference made to children. Some Members pointed out the awareness of the IRO role within the council, as the report was a response to the Ofsted failure of service drift and delay, and it was reassuring to note that there was plans in place to build the service going forward.

In response to questions around handling complaints on the forward plan in specifically to the IRO, officers inform that there was an Annual Complaint Report that was presented at the Scrutiny and Overview Committee and identified how matters was tackled and what the service needed to act on.

Panel Members noted the phrase “Independent Reviewing Officer” as important, as it was a clear indication from the Ofsted report that touches the independence of the IRO and lack of robustness to the IRO which had not come out in the report.

In reference to the IRO Annual Report of 2017/2018, the CERPs report identified how to deliver a better service. The IRO would be able to take better responsibility in their work with the more the CERPs the more the robustness in addressing to all challenges. The idea of setting appraisal objectives and discussing challenges at team meetings, also was other source to support the team and individual.

Panel Members noted that there was not an IRO sitting on the Panel.

In further discussions of the evaluation process, officers informed that there was an issue to challenge and the entitlement to challenge the service, and that the service would need to be enabled to challenge. The idea that the IRO should hold the service to account if there was underperformance, should be a culture of where the service would need to be prepared to take on the challenge. It was further noted by officers that there was far fewer escalations. The change was noted that the challenge and interaction was difficult to put the child in the middle of the conversation. It started with talking with the child to change to culture of the style and language of discussions.

Panel Members noted that there had been a culture of blame between the services which derived from past expectations. Officers ensured that there was now less confusion of roles from all services involved and a better structure was implemented.

Ashleigh shared her experience in the past where she felt IRO and LAC Reviews meetings tendered to be tick box exercises and a child’s view would need to be better collated to get the right level of honesty from a child. In all services there was always room for improvement specifically on time scales for better delivery, planning and preparation to get the most from the meeting from the people involved.

The Panel Co-Optees highlighted the involvement of foster carers and IRO in LAC Reviews and with the young person, and highlighted that there was a set structure for the IRO to spend time with the young person providing better quality in having a true reflection of the child. Foster carers would be able to seek support through the Croydon Foster Carer Association. Officers informed that also the looked after children service manager would be available to provide additional support to help resolve immediate matters. Panel Members informed that the fostering handbook of the role of foster carers and the IRO would need to be readdressed, as foster carers should be able to seek support and know where to go to when making complaints. Complaints was also an option for foster carers to use if the channels are not working or if foster carers was not being listened to. Members would like to see foster carers being supported and the monitoring of their concerns be taken into consideration.

The Panel discussed that the social work service was responsible for the delivery of the children care plan, and it was for the IRO to escalate any underperformance as their role was to challenge a social worker’s delivery.

The Chair concluded that the service was not about attributing blame, the service was about ensuring that the right process is in place where everyone knows where to go for support and where to find the support.

Action: For the foster carers list to be recirculated.

Recommendation: To look into where there was a process for the Quality Assurance of IRO.

Note: For future reports of complaints to be reviewed to understand how many was dealt with.

The Panel adjourned for a short break at 6:33pm

The Panel reconvened the meeting at 6:48pm