Agenda item

Presentation on behalf of the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People

The Cabinet Member for Children and Young People introduced a presentation on the impact of the Cabinet investment in Children’s Services.

Members received a breakdown of spend and details of a timeline for all recruitment activity, most of which had been completed by the end of July. The exception to this was the additional challenges around new social work posts where, rather than just wishing to uplift the current posts, there was work towards addressing two additional problems: having enough staff to meet workload needs; and to find a longer-term solution to making Staffordshire the Authority of choice for social workers. Part of the identified solution was to establish excellent training and development alongside a progression mechanism to enable Staffordshire not only to grow their own social workers, but also to retain them. Consultation with staff and the Trade Unions around these developments finished this week and it was expected that recruitment to these new posts would start from October.

Members also heard that last year an investment into residential care staff had been identified to help support the high numbers of children and young people coming into residential care. This investment supported Staffordshire in being competitive within the market, helping recruitment and retention of staff and to future proof Staffordshire’s residential service. This was particularly important because of the increase in complexity of need of those requiring residential care. A decision had therefore been taken to look again at planning within this service area resulting in a delay with this investment. It was expected that business cases would be shared with Members later this year.

Cabinet’s investment had reflected well with both DfE and Ofsted, clearly showing the service aspirations and the support from the political leadership. This had helped to influence Staffordshire being chosen by the DfE to take part in two pilot projects, with two further bids currently being considered. There had also been DfE support for the progress made around the Accelerate Progress Plan (APP) for SEND.

Staff stability and morale had seen a significant improvement, being more positive and more solution focused, as evidenced in both staff retention as well as through results from the employee Net Promoter Score (eNPS). The additional 1.5 social work posts had added capacity to district teams to support children and families. Improvements made had resulted in some district teams stabilising for the first time, eg Cannock.  Members were also pleased to note that the narrative for Staffordshire had changed as a result of the investment, with more positivity amongst its staff and with increased numbers and quality of applicants where posts were advertised externally.

The Committee heard details of developments resulting from district investment, including the recruitment of deputy district leads, embedding a culture of performance and better financial management, with a focus on   Early Help, Children with Disabilities and SEND. These services had been   amalgamated well within the district working place-based approach and ideology from the Transformation process. All SEND key workers were now in post. Recruitment of Education Psychologists had been a challenge, but this was a challenge nationally. Three Education Psychologists had been recruited to start in September 2023. Whilst an increase in demand had meant that caseloads remained quite high, the additional capacity resulting from the investment had enabled this increase to be managed effectively.

The Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) service was now fully established. Whilst the average workload had gone down it was still a little higher than the ideal number. However, a reduction in the number of children on Child Protection (CP) plans, and hopefully reducing the number of children in care moving forward, should help bring caseloads more in line with ideal figures by the end of this financial year. An important part of the IRO role was to look at managing risks and closing CP plans with efficacy and in a timely manner.

Staff recruitment to central service roles had been completed, with all staff now onboarded. A new strategic operational governance process was being developed. Improvements were also being developed around Missing children and those vulnerable to child exploitation. This included increasing the number of staff to ensure the challenge of exploitation could be more effectively tackled. Working with partners was key to this area of work, with more effective partnership working with the Police and the harm reduction hubs to create an effective level of support for those young people who were vulnerable to exploitation.

A Quality Assurance (QA) Officer, along with commissioning support, had been recruited. This would enable a more balanced workload and oversight of the quality of placements as well as embedding timely processing of contracts and re-commissioning.  QA officers also helped to work with providers to ensure safeguards were in place for the complex needs of children in residential care, enabling better collaborative relationships with providers, helping to de-escalate challenging situations and avoid providers refusing young people with complex needs.

Details of the average applications per vacancy by district showed South Staffordshire appeared to have a reduced number of vacancies from the previous year. Members queried the reasons for this. South Staffordshire was a stable district dealing, in general, with less complex needs. The reason for this may be due to there being less vacancies.

Members discussed the balance between progression planning and internal recruitment that enabled the best candidates for any post to be appointed. Discussion also centred around cultural change and how this was managed. The Committee were informed that many staff were lost during the Transformation process. However, a number had now returned. Opportunities for staff progression helped support retention, though any appointment was equitable with high challenge, high support and high standards.  Posts would be advertised externally where there were no suitable internal candidates.

The Overview and Scrutiny Committee welcomed the presentation, and particularly the frank and insightful nature of the question responses. The manner in which areas of improvement had been identified and investment targeted was supported and Members felt progress was encouraging.

Resolved: That the Cabinet Member and Officers be congratulated on the improvements made through the effective targeted use of the Cabinet investment to date.