Purpose

To provide Cabinet with an update on the
national and local issues relating to the Children’s Services
Directorate.

Content

Since the last update to
Cabinet in October 2022, the Service had received two regulatory
visits. The first was a Focused Visit from Ofsted that looked at
the services and support offered to care leavers and the second was
an inspection of Youth Offending Services by HM Inspectorate of
Probation. Both visits went well and confirmed that the Service
continued its improvement journey and whilst there was more to do,
the Service had an accurate self-assessment and understanding of
what was needed to be done.  In
addition, two of the Council’s Children’s Homes were
now judged to be ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted and the
Council’s new 4 bedded Parent and Baby residential assessment
resource had just opened, following registration by
Ofsted.
 
IMPOWER had now completed their
analysis of the profile of demand and developed a number of recommendations outlining how the
Service could improve its financial sustainability by delivering
better outcomes at less cost. The IMPOWER work also concluded that
the service and its partners could work differently together to
meet the needs of children and young people. The findings from this
analysis had helped the Service to refine its self-assessment from
which a whole system Children’s Services Transformation
Programme had been developed. This change programme would redefine
the support that was to be provided to children and families and
redevelop the model to enable interventions that were more
responsive to children’s needs. The ambition was to create
more opportunities for professionals, including partner agencies,
to integrate services around the needs of communities and move from
a process driven case management model with multiple hand off
points to a relationship based, solution focused
system. 
 
There were a number of significant national policy changes on
the horizon and the proposed changes to the way in which the
Service operated were in line with national policy direction and
were based on ensuring that children receive a consistent,
purposeful and child centred approach wherever they are on their
journey of need from early help through to being in
care.
 
RESOLVED –
 
That
the national and local developments across the Children’s
Services Directorate be NOTED.