Issue - meetings

The Panel noted the report of the Service Director, Legal and Governance providing an overview of performance across Children and Families Services since July 2017.

Councillor Jordan, Lead Member for Children’s Social Care, Hilary Brooks, Service Director, Children and Families Services, Phil Bullingham, Service Lead – Safeguarding, Improvement, Governance and Quality Assurance, and Jane White, Service Lead – Children’s Social Care were present and with the consent of the Chair addressed the meeting.  In discussions with the officers, the Panel noted that performance continued to improve overall, although there were inevitable dips in performance due to the school summer holidays.

It was noted that the number of child protection conferences fluctuated frequently.  This was partly due to large sibling groups and also due to meaningful delay to get a good conference with the right people and information all in one place at the same time. The number of child protection conferences would decrease as robust child protection care plans helped families to progress rapidly, however there were also many repeat child protection plans as many families were close to the threshold between child protection and Early Help.