Agenda and minutes

Venue: The George Hudson Board Room - 1st Floor West Offices (F045)

Contact: Democratic Services 

Webcast: videorecording

Items
No. Item

1.

Declarations of Interest (5.31 pm)

At this point in the meeting, Members are asked to declare any

disclosable pecuniary interest or other registerable interest they

might have in respect of business on this agenda, if they have

not already done so in advance on the Register of Interests.

Minutes:

Members were invited to declare, at this point in the meeting, any personal interests, not included on the Register of Interests, or any prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interests they may have in the business on the agenda.

 

None were declared.

2.

Minutes (5:32 pm) pdf icon PDF 137 KB

To approve and sign the minutes of the meeting held on 13 April 2022 and 03 May 2022.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Resolved:  That the minutes of the last meetings held on 13 April 2022 and 03 May 2022 were approved and signed by the Chair as a correct record.

 

3.

Public Participation (5:32 pm)

At this point in the meeting members of the public who have

registered to speak can do so. Please note that our registration

deadlines have changed to 2 working days before the meeting, in

order to facilitate the management of public participation at our

meetings. The deadline for registering is 5.00pm on 24 June 2022.

Members of the public can speak on agenda items or matters within

the remit of the committee.

 

To register to speak please visit

www.york.gov.uk/AttendCouncilMeetings  to fill out an online

registration form. If you have any questions about the registration

form or the meeting please contact the Democracy Officer for the

meeting whose details can be found at the foot of the agenda.

 

Webcasting of Public Meetings

 

Please note that, subject to available resources, this public meeting

will be webcast including any registered public speakers who have

given their permission. The public meeting can be viewed on

demand at www.york.gov.uk/webcasts .

 

During coronavirus, we have made some changes to how we are

running council meetings. See our coronavirus updates

(www.york.gov.uk/COVIDDemocracy ) for more information on

meetings and decisions.

Minutes:

It was reported that there had been no registrations to speak at the meeting under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.

4.

Children's Services Ofsted Report (5:33 pm) pdf icon PDF 450 KB

This report presents the outcome of the Ofsted inspection of Children’s Social Care under the Inspection of Local Authority Children Services (ILACS) framework, which was conducted between 7 and 18 March 2022. Members are asked to consider the council’s draft action plan in response to areas for improvement identified and to make any recommendations regarding the council’s proposed submission to Ofsted.

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Interim Director for Children’s Services presented a report which outlined the outcome of the recent Ofsted inspection of Children’s Social Care under the Inspection of Local Authority Children’s Service (ILACS) framework.  She introduced the draft action plan in response to identified areas of improvement which had to be submitted to Ofsted by 12 August 2022.

 

She noted there had been some inconsistencies in practice and that decision making had sometimes been slow or delayed at leadership level.  This had led to insufficient progress being made towards targets.  The pandemic had been a factor in this, although it had been identified that social workers had been supported well during this time.  Whilst work with partners had slowed down during the pandemic, the service was in a position to act quickly in the implementation of the improvement plan.  One of the key areas for improvement was Children’s Voice, particularly in relation to the Care Plan.  The action plan would be owned by Ofsted and City of York Council (CYC) and Ofsted would check progress biannually or more as required.

 

The Head of Innovation and Children’s Champion highlighted the areas that had been developed well such as the Multi Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) and the Targeted Families Support Service.  He thanked staff for their efforts and noted that consistency, the ability to act quickly and a focus on quality was essential moving forward.

 

Cllr Waller, Executive Member for Children, Young People and Education, thanked staff and noted the short term deadlines.  He identified the need to balance pace with capacity.

 

In response to questions it was confirmed that:

 

·        Work was already underway on many aspects of the Action Plan and the deadlines were achievable.

·        Regular updates to Scrutiny would be provided.

·        Corporate parenting initial training and briefings would take place in July.  A video briefing would be shared with all elected members.

·        The additional financial investment had been spent on improving social worker recruitment and retention. The ‘grow your own’ scheme had two pods which would produce 10 qualified staff in September, there was to be one pod moving forward. Dedicated business support had been provided, freeing time for social work.

·        Quality Assurance was in place through Heads of Service and regional support was available through ADCS (Association of Directors of Children’s Services). Practice standards had been agreed for the quality assurance framework and case sampling was taking place monthly.

·        The Ofsted assessment of ‘requires improvement to be good’ recognises that the improvement journey has started but has not yet reached good.

·        The protocol had lapsed prior to the Ofsted inspection for point e in paragraph 17 ‘the responses to children aged 16 and 17 who present as homeless’.  This had since been updated.

·        An unregistered placement was one that was not regulated by Ofsted.  These placements were used when the registered care available did not match the needs of the child. This was a national issue and CYC had been working towards securing closer to home provision, especially for children aged  ...  view the full minutes text for item 4.

 

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