Agenda item

Report of Strategic Director, Resources and Digital

Committee received the Performance Management and Improvement Framework (PMIF) for the first six months of 2022/23, 1 April to 30 September 2022.

Following consultation the new PMIF focuses on six policy objectives from the Health and Wellbeing Strategy, the most relevant to this Committee being; Give Every Child the Best Start to Life.

A number of cross-cutting areas have emerged over the last six months, including;

·        Budget pressures – an increase to £55m funding gap

·        Increased demand pressures particularly in terms of Children’s Social Care

·        Impact of Brexit and the conflict in Ukraine in terms of costs facing local people and delivery of council services

·        Widening inequality gap – 2% increase in the number of people who are considered vulnerable

·        Staffing pressures across the Council presents challenges in delivering services

A presentation was given on the deep dive work undertaken around placement sufficiency which continues to be an area of challenge.  It was acknowledged that work continues on reducing demand through supporting families to prevent children from coming into care or to enable them to return to families where it is safe to do so.

The Early Help Offer aims to keep families together through such things as respite day care, parenting support groups and courses.  In addition, a good Edge of Care Service is essential, to provide a robust assessment of need and make sure intervention plans are in place.

A key part of the priorities is to look at how to help children return home, what can be put in the household to make that possible. This involves reunification planning as a partnership, not just Social Care.

A Trauma Informed Care Model is due to be implemented early in the new year, this will involve work with Children’s Homes to look at how the service responds to support those young people.

The Mockingbird programme is working well to create sufficiency of places and work is ongoing to look at how to broaden the model across Foster Carers to ensure all children and young people have that extended family.

Transitional Care Planning is in place for children with complex needs, work is ongoing towards a better model so that there are more flexible routes.

It was noted that there are currently 38 children and young people placed outside of Gateshead in residential provision and this number needs to be reduced. In order to bring this young people into the Gateshead, additional provision is required in the following areas; child sexual exploitation, therapeutic support, multiple and complex needs and children with disabilities. It was acknowledged that the key challenge is ensuring the right care and accommodation is available in Gateshead, however, as is the same in other local authorities, this resource does not exist.

It was reported that there has been a huge increase in the number of Independent Foster Association’s (IFA) being used. The aim is to reduce the number of children in IFA’s as these cost more and the money could be better invested for in-house foster carers. It was also noted that young people would be supported to stay with those foster carers once they approach adulthood, whereas IFAs are more likely to make business decisions, which would mean young people moving to independent living earlier than may necessarily be best for them.

Work is underway to improve the supported living offer with staying close options and opportunities are being looked at to see if more can be done to address timeliness of care planning.

In terms of commissioning practice this needs to look at the best use of block contracts and spot purchases; looking at who we are already in partnership with and how to get better quality and cost and the monitoring arrangements around that. In addition, better relationships with external residential home providers is necessary so that more young people stay in Gateshead. There needs to be preparedness for increased costs due to the general cost of living increases and there needs to be an understanding of what that will mean going forward. Another priority is to increase in-house foster carers to ensure robustness.  It was acknowledged that the deep dive exercise showed that getting these factors right would start to turn the curve.

It was questioned as to how it is judged when it is safe for a child to return home, would this be evidence based or a judgement call. It was noted that this would be through constant re-assessment, looking at why the child came into care initially and if those risk factors are still in place. It would also be to do with the age of the child and re-assessment of family members and looking at the family network. It was confirmed that not all children will return home as this is not always in the child’s best interests, but that wherever possible this would be the aim.

It was queried the reason why 38 children are placed outside of Gateshead. It was confirmed that for a small number of those children it was because of the risk posed to them through criminal or sexual exploitation. Some are to do with education and care needs with cannot be met in Gateshead. It was also noted that for some the reason is because there are not enough places in Gateshead, either foster carers or residential beds. The point was made that this is not disproportionate to other local authorities.

It was questioned whether there are any reciprocal arrangements for children from other local authorities finding optimum placements in Gateshead. It was advised that specialist provision will taken children from all over the country, however private provision in Gateshead, although registered in Gateshead do not always prioritise Gateshead children. It was noted however that the service does work with all providers in Gateshead but does not always know who the children placed there are. It was confirmed that a piece of work is underway to establish the number of private providers within Gateshead and the children and young people placed there.

It was questioned whether there is expansion of preventative work planned. It was confirmed that the service is looking at its practice and decisions to bring children into care, looking at a whole system approach to ensure only those who need to come into care are coming in. There is a clear driver to keep children and young people with their family networks.

The question was asked as to why a Foster Carer would choose an IFA. It was confirmed that Gateshead Council has never ‘lost’ a Foster Carer to an IFA whereas some Foster Carers do move from IFAs to the authority. It was acknowledged that IFAs have a huge amount of money to target recruitment but the quality does not always match what the authority can provide. From Gateshead’s point of view the authority is very good at retaining Foster Carers and there are good conversion rates from initial contact to Foster Carer approval.

It was questioned why there is no up to date data regarding childhood obesity and school readiness for children on free school meals as the last data was from 2020. It was confirmed that this would be reported back to Committee at the annual report stage as no data had been provided by Public Health England.

RESOLVED    -           (i)         That the six month performance report be noted and

further information be provided regarding childhood obesity and school readiness.

                                    (ii)        That the performance report be referred to Cabinet for

consideration in January 2023.