The People Overview and Scrutiny Committee of Shropshire Council met on Wednesday, 22 October 2025, to review performance across adult social care, education, and children's services. Key discussions included the outcomes of a Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment for adult social care, which rated the service as 'Good', and the progress of a Local Youth Transformation Pilot aimed at rebuilding and resetting youth services. The committee also reviewed the Quarterly Performance Monitoring Report, which covered a range of services including SEND and children's social care, and discussed the committee's future work programme.

Quarterly Performance Monitoring Report

The committee received a comprehensive report on the performance of adult social care, education, SEND, and children's social care services.

Adult Social Care

Demographic Pressures and Demand Management: Tanya Miles, Director for Adult Social Care and Interim Chief Executive, highlighted the demographic pressures facing the service, particularly the increasing number of individuals over 85, coupled with a drop in birth rates and younger adults migrating out of the area. This demographic shift is driving demand for services.

Community Social Work Teams: Amanda Alcott, a Service Manager in adult social care, detailed the focus on early intervention through community social work teams, integrated into family-based hubs and the Let's Talk Local model. This approach aims to identify needs sooner and connect individuals with services to prevent needs from escalating. The model has seen an average of 88 referrals per week, with 29% from individuals or family members, indicating its success in managing and lowering demand. Approximately 35% of these referrals require a full CARE Act assessment. Waiting lists have been reduced, though there has been an increase in demand from self-funders and a reduction in capital reduction referrals. The complexity of cases, particularly those involving dementia, has also increased.

Hospital Discharges and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DOLS): Performance in discharging individuals home from hospitals has been sustained, supported by services like START, which aids in managing complex needs at home. Nationally, there has been an 11% increase in DOLS applications, with Shropshire seeing a sustained 9% upward trend.

Safeguarding and Occupational Therapy: The safeguarding team provides a same-day response, with 89.66% of surveyed individuals reporting successful outcomes. The backlog for occupational therapy has been reduced, with work now progressing on referrals from 2024. A new occupational therapist appointed in September will play a key role in advancing the practitioner and practice model.

Emergency Social Work and Preparation for Adulthood: An audit of the emergency social work team found sound and robust practice, receiving excellent feedback from inspectors. The preparation for adulthood team engages with young people earlier for future planning, with allocations increasing by 51% due to earlier involvement, now including all known 16-year-olds requiring complex planning.

Learning Disabilities and Mental Health: A newly established learning disability team has improved pathways from children's to adult services and assessment timeliness. The mental health social work teams have maintained zero wait times for 12 months, with the Let's Talk Mental Health model embedded in practice, offering timely information, advice, and assessments. A third of referrals achieve a successful outcome on first contact, a third proceed to assessment within 28 days, and a third are allocated for ongoing support.

Self-Funding Market and Financial Pressures: Councillor Mandy Duncan raised concerns about the self-funding market, noting it as a fast-growing pressure area. She questioned the projected cost of individuals moving from self-funding to council care and actions being taken to align private care home rates with council rates. The service acknowledged the difficulty in quantifying those not yet known to the council and highlighted plans to improve advice and information dissemination through family hubs and partnerships with GPs and health providers. The complexity of forecasting for this group was noted as a significant challenge. Ruth Houghton, Portfolio Holder for Social Care, emphasised that understanding the average length of stay in care homes is crucial for informing self-funders' decisions. The council's deferred payment applications amounted to nearly £3 million last year, presenting a revenue pressure despite eventual property sale recoupment. Councillor Mosley noted that adult social care has seen £34 million removed from its budget over the last two years, achieved through service transformation, such as reducing short-term residential beds and supporting more people at home. The corporate peer challenge report was complimentary about adult social care's governance and savings delivery, though it indicated benchmarking as middle-of-the-road compared to statistical neighbours. The council is actively seeking opportunities for further transformation and sustainability.

Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) and Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG) Deficit: Lisa Taylor, Principal Educational Psychologist and Preventative Lead, reported an increase in EHCPs, a national trend. The EHCP team has been restructured and is now fully staffed. While there was a dip in the percentage of EHCPs issued within 20 weeks due to training and quality assurance processes, this is now on an upward trajectory. The team is also working on recovering overdue annual reviews, aiming for completion by May 2026. A significant challenge is the pressure on the Education Psychology Service, with 700 requests for statutory assessments compared to a model based on 137 in 2018-19. This has led to a reduction in preventative traded services. Councillor Thomas Clayton raised concerns about the Dedicated Schools Grant deficit, which has reached nearly £37 million, largely due to the high-needs budget. The council is exploring strategies for financial sustainability, including an increased focus on inclusive mainstream education and early intervention. John Rowe, Head of Education Quality and Safeguarding, highlighted that Shropshire is currently bottom of the West Midlands for Key Stage 2 outcomes, with reading, writing, and maths performance falling for the third consecutive year. Maintained schools generally outperform academies across most measures. The council is developing a new Education Excellence Strategy to provide challenge and support to academies, though resource constraints are a significant factor.

Children's Social Care and Early Help: Sonia Miller, Service Director for Children and Young People, reported that the number of children open to the statutory sector is at its lowest in over six years, indicating the positive impact of investment in early help and prevention services. Data quality was rated at over 99.5% during a recent inspection. The number of children looked after has decreased, with more children exiting care than entering it. The vast majority of children in Shropshire are cared for in family settings. While the number of children looked after has increased since pre-COVID, inspectors found no evidence that these children should not be in the care system. The report detailed a reduction in Section 47 enquiries during school holidays, suggesting the protective nature of schools. A joint working group with the virtual school, education, and children's social care monitors attendance rates for children with social workers and electively home-educated children. Assessments are being completed within 45 working days, with performance consistently above 90%. The complexity of casework in court proceedings has increased, with challenges arising from parental issues, harm, international complexities, and family make-up. Sonia Miller noted that a key area of complexity is parents' access to early intervention for mental health, drug and alcohol support, and domestic abuse, particularly when experiencing all three concurrently. This can lead to children being in limbo for extended periods.

Local Youth Transformation Pilot: Helena Williams, Youth Support Manager, presented the Local Youth Transformation Pilot, which has secured £621,000 in funding. The pilot aims to rebuild and reset youth services in Shropshire, focusing on culture change, youth governance, local youth partnerships, infrastructure support, workforce development, and youth work in schools. A key ambition is the formation of a youth assembly or youth parliament to involve young people in decision-making. The pilot acknowledges the statutory duty of the council to provide youth services, which has been historically underfunded. The importance of engaging town and parish councils in co-investing and developing sustainable youth services was stressed, with the understanding that the council cannot fund all aspects directly. Concerns were raised about the financial implications for town and parish councils and the potential for increased council tax. The pilot aims to build capacity within the local authority and partners to enable the youth sector to thrive.

Work Programme: The committee discussed its work programme, noting that it is intended to be flexible and responsive to emerging issues. Following the extensive discussions, it was agreed to hold an informal Teams meeting in the coming weeks to consolidate feedback and identify specific areas for further investigation and prioritization for future meetings.

Care Quality Commission (CQC) Update Report: Shropshire Council's Adult Social Care service was rated 'Good' overall by the CQC. Strengths highlighted included positive user experiences, effective use of assistive technology, strong reablement outcomes, no waiting times for key services like safeguarding and hospital discharge, innovative rural service models, and active co-production. Areas for improvement identified included timeliness of assessments and reviews, accessibility of online information, support for carers, transitions between services, equity in experience and outcomes, uptake of direct payments, delays in Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) assessments, and learning from complaints. The council has developed a Towards Outstanding Action Plan (TOAP) to address these areas, with key actions focusing on streamlining front-door processes, expanding reablement, enhancing carer support, improving equality and diversity initiatives, strengthening market quality assurance, developing dementia and SEND strategies, and improving co-production and engagement. The committee acknowledged the 'Good' rating and committed to continuous improvement, requesting updates on the TOAP's progress.

Work Programme Discussion: The committee discussed potential future items for its work programme. Suggestions included further scrutiny of the self-funding market, a report on the Euroacademy Liaison Programme, inviting Joe Kelly to discuss the virtual school, and a report on private fosterers and local authority fosterers. A joint scrutiny session with the Health and Social Care Scrutiny Committee on the self-funding market was also proposed. The committee agreed to hold an informal meeting to consolidate these ideas and prioritise topics for future investigation.