Agenda and minutes

There were none at this meeting.

RESOLVED – That the minutes of the Safe and Strong Communities Select Committee held on 6 March 2017 be confirmed and signed by the Chairman.

Presentation by the Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Families and Communities

The Select Committee received a presentation by the Deputy Chief Executive and Director for Families and Communities which outlined the areas for scrutiny across the Select Committee’s remit. Members were reminded that select committees were themed around County Council outcomes and therefore didn’t sit exactly within the work of one directorate. However a large proportion of the work of this Select Committee was within the Families and Communities Directorate and covered children’s social care, children and families commissioning, community safety and regulatory services. The Select Committee’s remit also covered safer roads partnership and adult safeguarding.

Members heard details of the work within children’s social care, including:

·         a 24 hour a day, 365 days a year emergency and out of hours service;

·         the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) which brought together a range of partners from social care, health and the Police. The Staffordshire MASH was very highly regarded and it was suggested that Members may find a visit beneficial to understanding the type of work undertaken there;

·         services across the continuum and the four tier levels of support around: early help (2776 families); children in need (4897cases); child protection (545 children); Looked After Children (994 children); and children with disability (492 children);

·         the areas within the Looked After Children’s Services, which included fostering, adoption, residential care, respite and kinship care and the role of both the Virtual School and the Corporate Parent;

·         Looked After Children and the various targeted Preventative Services which included intensive prevention, family group conferencing, intensive prevention support services and the Breathing Space project; and

·         Youth Offending Services (YOS) and the YOS Board. Staffordshire’s YOS had recently been given 22 out of 24 stars for this service, which is believed to be the highest rating achieved so far nationally.

Members heard that within Children’s Commissioning, work included child health and wellbeing 0-19 and the work of Children’s Centres, Health Visitors and the School Nurse. Commissioning was also around:

·         Early help intervention;

·         Building Resilient Families and Communities (BRFC) (Staffordshire’s version of the national Troubled Families programme);

·         Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Missing Service. Missing episodes could include children missing from home, school or care, with any episode explored to identify whether it was symptomatic of the individual being drawn into behaviours with serious safeguarding consequences;

·         the Emotional Health and Wellbeing Framework;

·         Sustain+, which offered mental health support for children and their families within the looked after system;

·         Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS) pathways;

·         Locality based commissioning which was pertinent to a specific area’s need, such as BRFC;

·         People Helping People through the Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) contract; and

·         Supporting the victims and perpetrators of domestic violence, where the aim was to increase the level of reporting whilst decreasing the level of repeat reported as a result of effective intervention.

Members noted that Children, Young People and Families Services were being significantly reshaped to ensure a sustainable set of future services. The proposed re-design was being considered by Cabinet at their meeting of 21 June, with  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.

Report of the Scrutiny & Support Manager

The Scrutiny and Support Manager presented a report on work programme planning which set out the remit of the Select Committee, considered methods of scrutiny and looked at work previously considered by this committee.

Members requested the following be included on their work programme:

·         the West Midlands Peer Review of Adult Safeguarding;

·         how to engage with hard to reach communities;

·         modern day slavery and domestic violence; and

·         CSE.

Having given consideration to the information received at this meeting Members were asked to contact either the Chairman, Vice-Chairman or Scrutiny and Support Manager with any requests for items to be included on the work programme.

RESOLVED – That the items listed above be included on the work programme.