Issue - meetings

The Panel considered the report of the Director, Legal and Governance which provided an overview of performance across Children and Families Services since June 2019.

Councillor Paffey, Cabinet Member for Aspiration, Children and Lifelong Learning; Hilary Brooks, Service Director, Children and Families Services; Sharon Hawkins, Interim Service Lead, Children’s Social Care; and Phil Bullingham, Service Lead, Safeguarding, Improvement, Governance and Compliance; were present and, with the consent of the Chair, addressed the Panel.  In discussions with the officers, the Panel noted the following:

• There had been an increase in cases into the service and peripatetic teams have been utilised to assist with the management of this increase as cases progress through the system
• Research into the increase in contacts had been commissioned and a presentation of the findings could be made at the next meeting.
• The recruitment of extra practitioners as well as a focus on management oversight of cases and reducing the high caseloads had contributed to the allocation of all cases within the service.
• The manager of the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) had worked on resolving some ambiguity about the different criteria for different tiers of the Local Safeguarding Children’s Board’s continuum of needs.
• The new website system for making referrals to the Children and Families services had helped to ensure appropriate allocation of families to either the Early Help Hub or MASH.
• There was a need to build our intelligence base around Missing, Exploited and Trafficked children (MET) in order to understand more about hotspots and county lines and map risk.
• Funding had been received from the Department of Education to increase the family group conference offer, which would be utilised by Early Help and Edge of Care to prevent problems from escalating.

RESOLVED

  (i)  That a breakdown of Looked After Children that are not placed with in-house foster carers or independent fostering agencies would be circulated to the Panel.

  (ii)  That the 23 January 2020 agenda would include consideration of the issue of child exploitation in Southampton.