To receive an update on the Children’s Improvement Programme.
Minutes:
The Executive Director of Children, Families and Education introduced the report and the following was noted:
In response to a question for clarification on the assessment team vacancy rate of 80% and whether there were interim posts, officers responded that this was interim/agency rates. There had been some issues with senior management in the service which had been resolved. The team currently had excess number of staff which would be reduced gradually over the next few years.
It was questioned how confident the service was on the figures presented regarding the number of private fostering cases. Officers responded that whilst they were not confident that the figures were accurate, Croydon was doing well in trying to identify private fostering arrangements. In order to identify further cases, all partners needed to be vigilant and proactive in identification and reporting of concerns.
A Member commented that the report showed that 59% of children’s immunisations were not up to date and questioned how this would be addressed. Officers responded that this was an area of priority and work was being done by Early Help through a joint workshop to look at current processes. Additionally exploring alternative ways of working together more effectively to address the numbers of children not immunised.
A question was raised on what the sustainability of the service would involve and officers responded that the transformation and sustainability of the service would be based on early intervention. Currently, as a result of the Ofsted judgement, Croydon was conducting more assessment and S47 than any other borough and using up a lot of resources. This was attributed to social workers are being over cautious. It was envisaged that this would improve in time through social workers and senior managements increased confidence in their judgements.
It was commented that the reduction of child protection cases was evidence that the service was moving in the right direction with its preventative work.
The Sub-Committee came to the following Conclusions:
Supporting documents: