Agenda item

Report of the Deputy Chief Executive and Director for Families and Communities

The Select Committee considered an overview of the delivery and future commissioning intentions of the Pan-Staffordshire Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Missing Children and Young People Service. The Service was currently delivered by Catch22 on behalf of Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and the Staffordshire Commissioners Office. The Partners of the Joint Commissioning Group had agreed that the Catch22 contract would remain in place until 31March 2022, following approval to extend the provisions of the Deed of Agreement within the internal governance arrangement of each Partner. On 1 April 2021 Catch22 entered the final year of delivery under the current procurement arrangements. The Partnership are working collaboratively to co-produce future commissioning intentions. The intention was for the reconfigured Service to be inclusive of all forms of exploitation, configured around three components: child exploitation; lived experience; and statutory functions.

Members were reminded that Catch22 facilitated all independent Return Home Interviews (RHI) for missing children and young people aged up to 18 years residing in Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent. This included children and young people cared for in Staffordshire who were the Corporate Parenting responsibility of another local authority. Interviews were an opportunity to gather information from individuals, identify root cause factors contributing to the incident and aimed to protect and prevent future missing episodes.

Members received performance data for the period April 2020 to December 2020 and heard that throughout Covid-19, Catch22 had continued to offer face to face delivery of RHIs when they were requested. Flexibility of delivery had enabled Catch22 to provide virtual and phone RHIs when these were preferred, or necessity required this approach.

Covid-19 had resulted in an increase in overall declines of an RHI and this was seen across all quarters. Where families and carers had agreed to the RHI taking place there had been an increased parental and carer involvement which had seen positive results. The number of children and young people receiving an RHI remained consistent. Members were reminded that it was usual for the number of individuals to be less than the number of notifications and the overall RHI offer figure as regrettably multiple missing episodes took place in quick succession for some individuals.

Members raised some concerns around difficulties in scrutinising the performance figures owing to the discrepancy between the notification figures and figures for the number of RHIs offered. They were informed that, for those young people who were placed in Staffordshire from other Authorities, the LA with the corporate parenting responsibility could choose to undertake the RHI themselves and therefore decline Catch22’s RHI offer. Equally in some circumstances the LA with corporate parenting responsibility may ask that no offer is made by Catch22 as they undertake the RHI themselves, however Catch22 would still receive the notification. Whilst understanding this Members felt the figures given prevented them from effectively scrutinising performance. Data recording was being addressed as part of the new commissioned service approach, allowing the specific data relating to those young people for whom Staffordshire was the Corporate Parent to be identified. However, it was necessary to continue to report the current figures as well as all missing incidents in Staffordshire potentially had a wider impact, allowing the whole picture to be better understood and helping to map the safeguarding impacts. This change in reporting would allow Members to see the complexity of the picture whilst easily identifying performance specific to Staffordshire young people.

The Select Committee were pleased to note that there had been a reported overall reduction in the number of children and young people requiring intervention meetings for the 5+ or 9+ missing episodes over a 90-day period. The average number of episodes had remained between 2-4, suggesting that in many instances the first intervention meeting held at 3+ missing episodes had been impactful.

The Select Committee heard that Catch22 continued to deliver against the Performance and Quality Assurance Framework for the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) and Missing Children & Young People’s Service. They have adapted their delivery during the pandemic and their efforts with this have been recognised nationally.

RESOLVED: That,

a)    the performance of the Pan-Staffordshire CSE and Missing Children & Young People’s Service provided by Catch22 be welcomed;

b)    the emerging future commissioning intentions in relation to the Pan-Staffordshire Exploitation and Missing Children & Young People’s Service be acknowledged;

c)    the service delivery outlined within the report contributed to the delivery of the Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent Child Exploitation Strategy; and,

d)    the proposed changes to performance data recording be welcomed.