MIDDLESBROUGH COUNCIL

EXECUTIVE REPORT

External Scrutiny and Social Work Caseloads

Councillor Mike Carr, Executive Member for Children, Families and Learning

Gill Rollings, Executive Director, Children, Families and Learning

14 August 2012

PURPOSE OF THE REPORT

1.To provide details of current arrangements for external scrutiny of children’s services, including the requirement to be subject to a Peer Challenge and the new framework for inspection of Local Authority arrangements for the protection of children.

2.To provide information on current children’s social work caseloads and to propose additional investment to reduce these.

SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

3.That Executive note the contents of the report and agree to increase resources within Children, Families and Learning to enable the appointment of 11 additional social workers as follows:

  • Social Work post x 2 – 1 per Assessment Team
  • Social Work post x 6 – 1 per Locality Care Planning Team at a senior practitioner level, Grade L
  • Social Work post x 2 – Children with Disabilities Team
  • Social Work post x 1 – Children Looked After Team

IF THIS IS A KEY DECISION WHICH KEY DECISION TEST APPLIES?

4. / It is over the financial threshold (£150,000) / X
It has a significant impact on 2 or more wards / X
Non Key

DECISION IMPLEMENTATION DEADLINE

5.For the purposes of the scrutiny call in procedure this report is

Non-urgent / X
Urgent report

If urgent please give full reasons

BACKGROUND

6.The Government intervenes in Local Authorities where children’s services are deemed of concern. This applies to around 20 (out of 150 Local Authorities) and is mostly as a result of inadequate Ofsted inspection outcomes.

7.It has recently been announced that the Government is intervening in 20 Local Authorities where it has identified concerns about adoption processes. These Local Authorities have been identified on the basis of a scorecard of performance indicators and there are indications that such an approach will be used for other services.

8.Middlesbrough currently performs well against the adoption scorecard. No intervention will be made this year although the ‘bar’ is expected to be raised next year. However, the numbers of children adopted each year is very small and subject to fluctuation. Future performance against the scorecard cannot therefore be certain.

9.In recognition of the high level of risk within children’s services, the Government has allocated £8m to sector led improvement activity in 2012/13. A further £5m is allocated for 2013/14 (subject to review) with sector led improvement to be self sustaining thereafter. As part of this arrangement every Local Authority will be subject to a Peer Challenge before December 2012.

10.The Government has provided this funding under the auspices of the Children’s Improvement Board (CIB) to enable Local Authorities to deliver sector led improvement through regional arrangements. A CIB Regional Partnership for the North East and Cumbria has been formed to deliver:

  • a general improvement in the system of children’s services in striving for optimal outcomes for children, young people and families, and excellence, efficiency and economy in the services that support them;
  • support and intervention in the case of material weakness or potential failure of children’s services;
  • a channel for the delivery of policy initiatives and innovations in pursuit of excellence and better outcomes.

11.Middlesbrough underwent a Safeguarding Peer Review in 2010 in preparation for the last two week inspection of safeguarding and looked after children in 2011. It is expected that each Local Authority will undergo a Peer Review every three years. It is anticipated that Middlesbrough will not seek another Peer Review until 2013.

12.In addition, the framework for inspection of safeguarding services has been revised with unannounced, two week inspections by Ofsted of Local Authority arrangements for the protection of children in place from May 2012 to March 2013. At this point a revised framework is expected which will involve Ofsted, HMI Probation, HMI Constabulary and the Care Quality Commission.

13.The 2011 Ofsted inspection of Safeguarding and Looked After Children for Middlesbrough judged services as adequate overall. The report highlighted that caseloads for children’s social workers in the town were comparatively high and that this was impacting on their ability to work with families. Ofsted acknowledged that Council investment had reduced caseloads but that these remained high. Ofsted also noted that although there is a well established development programme to support newly qualified social workers, a small number of workers experience caseloads which are not sufficiently protected from high numbers, complex cases and child protection cases.

PEER CHALLENGE

14.The arrangements for sector led improvement for the North East and Cumbria are being co-ordinated by a secondee from Newcastle Local Authority and a co-ordinator acting on behalf of the national board. The regional Partnership Board includes a Chief Executive, a Lead Member for Children’s Services and three Directors of Children’s Services.

15.All Local Authorities must be the subject of a Peer Challenge by 31 December 2012. Peer Challenges have been piloted in Newcastle and South Tyneside and others are being planned. Middlesbrough will be pursuing a Peer Challenge on early help. This reflects the action required by Ofsted following the 2011 inspection and will provide an opportunity to both check on progress made and to learn from the experience of other Local Authorities. Peer Challenges will be led by Directors of Children’s Services and senior officers from within the region.

16.Priorities for sector led improvement at regional level have been agreed as follows and Middlesbrough will fully participate in these:

National Priorities

  • the Munro Review, social work reform and early help;
  • adoption, commissioning for children in care and the Family Justice Review;
  • early and foundation years, commissioning sufficiency and quality;
  • data profiles, innovation and commissioning for youth and integrated workforce developments.

Local Priorities

  • working with Troubled Families (as part of early help);
  • changing nature of relationship between schools and Local Authorities;
  • alternative models for configuring and delivering services (to include, for example, consideration of a regional Emergency Duty Team),
  • health/public health developments and championing children’s agenda;
  • approaches to new inspection framework.

17.Each Local Authority has already committed to organising a good practice event. The Middlesbrough event will focus on sharing our experiences of the changes made to the front of house services for safeguarding.

18.The key focus of sector led improvement will be, however, to provide cross Local Authority challenge and support where performance of any Local Authority is identified as causing concern. A mechanism for assessing/sharing performance issues is being developed and will lead to bespoke support for individual Local Authorities ahead of any issues identified through Ofsted inspection.

NEW OFSTED INSPECTION FRAMEWORK

19.The framework for the inspection of Local Authority arrangements for the protection of children is attached at Appendix A. It is expected that the majority of such inspections in 2012/13 will focus on Local Authorities with an inadequate or adequate overall judgement from the previous inspection. Other information such as whistle blowing and serious case reviews will also be considered. Middlesbrough may well be inspected again under the new framework in 2012/13.

20.The key features of the new framework are:

  • inspections are unannounced and start with the previous two day unannounced focus on front of house arrangements;
  • a focus on the child’s journey with greater interrogation of case files, interviews with case workers, children, young people and their families and observation of practice;
  • a focus on the effectiveness of multi-agency arrangements to protect children;
  • a focus on the effectiveness of early help services as well as the formal child protection system.

Grades are awarded as follows:

Outstanding / A service that significantly exceeds minimum requirements
Good / A service that exceeds minimum requirements
Adequate / A service that meets minimum requirements
Inadequate / A service that does not meet minimum requirements

21.Preparation for a potential inspection is underway with activity focusing on:

  • the outcome of pilot inspections under the new framework/lessons to be learned;
  • continuing audit/improvement in case file recording although this is limited by high caseloads;
  • progressing the roll out of Practitioner Portal for the Integrated Children’s System (ICS);
  • developing early help/0-19 services through amalgamation of IYSS and Sure Start;
  • participating in a Peer Challenge – focused on early help which was identified as an issue in the 2011 inspection;
  • participating in good practice/sector led improvement events;
  • raising awareness across the Council and with partners;
  • raising awareness/preparing social work staff for the new form of inspection;
  • undertaking a test of assurance of children’s services responsibilities.
CAPACITY IN SAFEGUARDING SERVICES

22.Safeguarding, Intervention and Specialist Services are continuing to face significant pressures across the social work teams.

23.“Safeguarding Services” are made up of the management of the Review and Development Unit, the two Children’s Assessments Teams, the CFL First Contact Team, the recently established Social Work Youth Team and the Local Authority Designated officer (LADO).

24.The CFL First Contact Team screens all contacts received by CFL in relation to children and are focused upon early preventative and educative work with families to prevent escalation in the family’s circumstances. First Contact seeks to identify resources from within the multidisciplinary team to advise families and other professionals as to the appropriate course of action. The First Contact Team then passes appropriate safeguarding contacts through to the two Children’s Assessment Teams.

25.The Safeguarding Assessment Team Manager completes a Contact Assessment and makes the decision, based upon the Middlesbrough Threshold Criteria, to progress the contact to a referral. Once this has occurred, an initial assessment of the family’s situation must take place within 10 working days of the referral date. Once the assessment has been completed and a decision is made that there is a safeguarding role within the family, a care plan of intervention is completed with the family. This care plan may be under child in need family support, legal proceedings, private legal proceedings, child protection or Looked After by the Local Authority.

Intervention Services

26.“Intervention Services” are made up of six Locality Care planning children’s social work teams and the management of the Middlesbrough Children’s Family Resource Team.

27.The Intervention Care Planning Teams receive cases transferred from the two Middlesbrough Children’s Assessment Teams. They work under Section 17 (Child in Need), Section 47 (Child Protection), Sections 31 to 38 (Court Actions and Orders) and Section 8 (Private Law) of the Children Act 1989 and 2004.

28.Interventions with families range from supporting and monitoring children, young people and their families under ‘child in need’ and undertaking family support interventions to prevent the family situation escalating to a child protection or becoming looked after level. The Locality Care Planning Teams complete private fostering assessments and monitor private fostering arrangements until the young person is 16 years of age, complete core assessments of child protection and legal cases and child in need cases that are open over 5 months in duration.

29.The team’s work with families within child protection and within the court arena; this involves multiple meetings, multiple productions of child protection and court reports and has a stipulated visiting frequency that must be adhered to due to the significant risk to the children in those circumstances. All of these actions in child in need, child protection, court and children who are looked after cases have strict timescales that need to be adhered to.

30.The Locality Care planning teams work under strict statutory guidelines and as such must adhere to the policies and procedures set down legally under the Children Act and within the Middlesbrough Safeguarding Procedures.

31.The recent Norgrove Family Justice Review and Care Planning Regulations 2010 have had a significant impact upon the care planning routes for children and a subsequent impact upon social workers, as timescales for planning for children have been reduced – Middlesbrough have been unable to meet these statutory requirements due to the high caseloads that impede upon the social workers’ time to complete tasks within the statutory timescales.

32.The Locality Care planning teams work with families until the conclusion of their intervention, whether this is closing the case, referral as a step down to the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) for early help support, concluding child protection intervention or the recommendation that children cannot return to their parents. Once a recommendation is made that children cannot return to their parents the Locality social workers are responsible for the permanency planning of the child or young person. Where there is a plan for adoption, the child’s plan requires the completion of a lengthy planning document (BAAF child permanence report) and presenting to the Middlesbrough Family Placement Panel for approval. Where the child or young person’s plan is long term foster care, the case and the plan has been finalised within the court arena, with the final orders being made the responsibility for ensuring the child or young persons plan will be transferred to the Child Looked After Team.

33.The recent development of the integrated transport unit and the Contact Service has relieved some of the pressure regarding social workers supervising contacts and undertaking the transportation of children.

Specialist Services

34.Specialist Services are made up of The Children Looked After Team, the Children With Disabilities Team, Families Forward, Pathways Leaving Care Team and Adoption and Fostering.

35.The provision of services to Children Looked After is a core activity and a statutory responsibility within social services. Research has consistently shown that this group of young people has reduced life chances and under-achieve in all aspects of their lives. Middlesbrough has a higher level of children looked after, which consequently has put pressure on the whole system. The creation of the Children Looked After Team in May 2004, was primarily to deliver consistency of practice. This has been demonstrated by performance in terms of stability, health and the maintaining of birth contact amongst others. The work of the Team was rated outstanding by Ofsted.

36.The key function of the team is to support stability for children and young people in their care setting and ensuring that their looked after care plan is meeting their needs. The social worker has a statutory responsibility to co-ordinate the Personal Education Plan for the young person, the health assessment, SDQ, annual assessment and plan. Due to difficulties in sourcing local placements, social workers can spend a lot of time travelling long distances to fulfil their Looked After responsibilities.

Levels of Demand

37.The newly established Children, Family and Learning First Contact Team received 5000 contacts between December 2011 and March 2012. In addition, the two Assessment Teams have seen an increase in the number of referrals being made into the team. The complexity and requirements of the cases has also increased, causing additional pressures. They have received 1175 referrals in the same period - see Appendix B.

38.Due to the increase in work into the Assessment Teams, the number of transfers into the Locality Care Planning Teams has increased; since the 7 January 2012 the Assessment Teams have transferred 231 children into the Locality Care Planning Teams.

39.All cases are allocated to social workers throughout the service; however, this has meant that social workers have caseloads that are high and difficult to manage to ensure effective care planning for children. Children’s plans cannot be swiftly executed leading to delay in moving cases forward.

Caseload Measures

40.In his review of Child Protection Services in England in March 2009 Lord Laming recommended a maximum of 12 complex children per experienced social worker; Middlesbrough aspires to the following case load numbers:

  • Intervention / Specialist Social Worker with 0 to 1 year’s experience – 15 children
  • Intervention / Specialist Social Worker with more than a year’s experience – 20 children
  • Assessment Team Social Workers with 0 to 1 year’s experience – 25 children
  • Assessment Team Social Workers with more than a year’s experience – 30 children (given fast track nature of the cases)
  • Assistant Team Manager – 12 children

41.At the present time a number of the Assessment Team Social Workers have caseloads in excess of 40 children; this is placed in the context of the speed at which the cases are moved through to the Locality Team at the 20 day point.