20 Children and Families - Performance
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Report of the Director, Legal and Governance
providing an overview of performance across Children and Families
Services since August 2019.
Additional documents:
Minutes:
The Panel received the report of the Director,
Legal and Governance which provided an overview of performance
across Children and Families Services since August 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:
- Nationally there had been a 78%
increase over the last ten years in the number of people who had
contacted Children’s Services.
- In Southampton referrals increased
by 119% between January and July 2019, compared to the same period
in 2018.
- There had been an increase in crime,
which had contributed to an increase in referrals from the
Police.
- There had also been an increase in
low income families in the city.
- There had also been media coverage
of a serious incident where a child was murdered and these events
tended to cause an increase in contacts.
- In Southampton the group with the
largest increase in referrals was teenagers. There had also been a significant increase in
referrals that featured mental health, domestic abuse and
neglect.
- Referrals from schools had also
increased and a strategy had been implemented to support community
organisations and other services to manage risk in the
community.
- The occurrence of repeat referrals
remained within normal ranges, the spike in referrals between
January and July 2019 had been caused by an increase in new
referrals.
- Three peripatetic teams had been put
in place to help manage the increase in referrals and
assessments.
- Workshops had been held with team
and service managers to calibrate the decision making on referrals
and assessments across the service.
- Weekly Performance Improvement
Boards had been implemented to monitor the progress of referrals
throughout the service.
- Ofsted had been kept informed
through monthly reports and the Department of Education were
interested in the rich learning that will come from
Southampton’s Children’s Services management of the
high increase in referrals.
- The high number of contacts made to
Children’s Services since January 2019 had transferred into a
high number of referrals and this had created pressure on the
completion of assessments. Safe
planning had been prioritised over rushed planning.
- The retention of social work staff
had stabilised and a Smarter Ways of Working refresh was planned
for January 2020 as well as a refresh of recruitment webpages.
- A vision for children and a 5 year
plan for children in Southampton was in development.