Agenda item

(Liz Mellor, Children’s Commissioning Development Manager and Nigel Sargeant, Catch 22, in attendance for this item.)

Prior to September 2017, Children who go Missing from Home Services had been delivered by Staffordshire County Council, Families First and Brighter Futures. Whilst there had been a high quality of practice, in some areas this had created an inconsistency in the model of service, quality, reporting methods and challenges for other partners across the sector, such as Police, Schools, Health and other providers. In 2017 Catch 22 were commissioned by Staffordshire County Council, Stoke City Council and the Office of the Police and Crime Commissioner, to deliver Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Missing Services across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. The first year of operation had focussed on transitioning to the new delivery models, gathering baseline data and working with partners to ensure consistency, protecting and safeguarding children at risk.

The Select Committee received data provided by both the County Council and Catch 22 which reflected the current transition period. Members received details of Catch 22’s working arrangements. Catch 22 had completed between 70-80% of missing person interviews whilst the national average was 38%. Interviews for missing episodes were given to all children suffering an episode who were resident in Staffordshire, including those who were placed by other local authorities (LAs) in Staffordshire care homes. The Catch 22 team had a good record of building a rapport and relationship with those at risk of episodes to help reduce this risk.

Where a child went missing from home permission had to be given by the parent and social worker to allow the Catch 22 team to undertake an interview. This sometimes presented problems for the team when parents refused to give permission. Where this happened the team would work to try and establish  the reasons for this referral and work to ameliorate them.

Examples of successful work was shared with the Select Committee. Members heard that whilst every effort was made to interview a child within 72 hours of an episode, this was not always possible. They had been commissioned to ensure interviews were completed within a 14 day deadline and this was achieved. In some instances the interview would relate to more than one episode. Catch 22 always represented the voice of the child.

Members were informed that the way in which the Police categorised missing episodes had changed, with the category “absent” no longer being used and therefore many more incidents being classed as “missing”. This had resulted in a rise in the number of missing episodes reported. Members also noted the high number of missing episodes in Stoke-on-Trent and were informed that the majority of episodes in this area were children and young people missing from home rather than from care, and in general these tended to be higher volume but lower risk episodes. Members were informed that the high number of missing episodes in Tamworth related to children going missing from a care home.

Catch 22’s success measures were outlined in their contract with the Council. The measures were around reducing risk and worked with a matrix similar to that used for CSE, identifying cases as high, medium or low risk. There was an estimated combined cost of between £2000.00 and £3000.00 per episode, which included the cost to the Police, Social Services, Catch 22 and other partners. The most prevalent age group for missing episodes was between 14-15 years.

Members were pleased to note that Catch 22 had performed well in its first year of delivery and had demonstrated commitment and enthusiasm to improving the lives of vulnerable children and young people across Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. In particular they noted that Catch 22 had quickly adapted to working with the complex local arrangements within Staffordshire, although there remained further work to be done. The work with Staffordshire looked after children placed out of the area was less consistent. Members heard that ideally all LAs would offer the missing episode interview service offered by Staffordshire to those resident in their authority. However many other LAs did not offer this service. There was also inconsistency with reporting back to the Authority placing the young person and work was currently underway to establish the variation in practice before this could be addressed.

The Select Committee asked whether the ICT systems used by Catch 22 were synchronised with those used by the County Council. The first four months of the new contract had worked towards building a bespoke system for Staffordshire. Although it was unable to “speak” to the Council’s IT system, the data would enable appropriate analysis. There would also be some areas of non-correlation where work was undertaken with young people from outside of the County but placed in Staffordshire care homes.

Members congratulated the Officers and Cabinet Member on the successes of the new contract so far. They requested a further report in six months to identify progress made.

RESOLVED – That a progress report on the Catch 22 contract to provide Missing Services be brought to the Select Committee in six months time.