Agenda item

To consider an update on the outcomes of the Ofsted monitoring visit in July 2021.

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee requested to receive a further update on children’s services performance to the Committee meeting on 25^th January 2022 covering the following matters:

·      Additional measures to further improve recruitment and retention of social workers

·      Achieving consistently good quality practice for all children, supported by full implementation of the practice model

·      Outcomes of the Ofsted monitoring visit due to take place in November 2021.

The Chief Executive of Northamptonshire Children’s Trust (NCT) gave an overview of the Ofsted monitoring visit in July 2021 on children who are the subject of child protection and child in need plans.  He highlighted the following points:

·         Ofsted had found that senior leaders, both officers and councillors, were maintaining a strong focus on improving practice, which was continuing to benefit children.

·         Ofsted had been complimentary about the direction of travel in Northamptonshire, although further progress needed to be made.

·         The monitoring visit recognised that more timely decisions were now being made in child protection cases, which had previously been an issue.

·         The monitoring visit identified that the quality of social work was improving but still varied.  This was a key area for improvement and current work sought to build on that started by the Director of Children’s Services when at Northamptonshire County Council.

·         There were no surprises in the findings from the monitoring visit.  This showed that the organisation knew itself well and would increase the trust that Ofsted put in it.

·         It was expected that Ofsted would carry out a full inspection of children’s services in Northamptonshire in summer 2022, resulting in a performance rating.  Ofsted would then need to determine how it inspected West Northamptonshire and North Northamptonshire councils’ services in future.

The Committee considered the report.  Members generally welcomed the progress made with children’s services under the current leadership, whilst recognising that improvement needed to be sustained.  Members raised particular points as follows:

·         What was Overview and Scrutiny’s role in supporting further progress?  It could potentially review key issues such as staff recruitment and retention and high caseloads, which directly affected the quality of provision.

·         The government had proposed having social workers in schools.  How was it anticipated that this approach would work?

·         Following the inadequate Ofsted judgement in 2019 resources were being focussed on achieving improvements in the 2022 inspection but how would subsequent challenges be managed?

·         Children’s services needed to have good intelligence from those working on the frontline about approaches that were successful in different parts of the county as well as good engagement with schools.  There were some excellent people working in the county and this should be made the standard.

·         The Director of Children’s Services and Chief Executive of NCT were encouraged to pursue a progressive, innovative approach with the aim of producing class-leading children’s services in Northamptonshire in 10 years.

·         Northamptonshire still faced the challenge of having too many young people in the care system.  What was being done to help to address this by recruiting foster carers and by avoiding young people coming into the care system when this was not the best option for them?  The consistency of support for looked after children in schools could also be improved.

·         How should multi-agency locality working be re-established and how could WNC support this?

The Chief Executive of NCT responded to points raised by councillors as follows:

·         The NCT Improvement Plan areas identified as ‘next steps’ in the report could be a focus for future scrutiny.

·         Northamptonshire’s first priority was to reach the point where Ofsted considered that young people were safe.  His professional view was that Northamptonshire would not get beyond a ‘requires improvement’ rating in the 2022 inspection.  It would then effectively have another three years to continue to improve, with less intensive monitoring than at present.  Current improvement actions would continue beyond 2022 where appropriate.

·         There was a will to address the number of young people in the care system in Northamptonshire: the challenge was the scale of the task.  Northamptonshire still needed to put in place an effective early help function.  The lack of this had meant that opportunities to use low level support to prevent issues from escalating could not be taken, whilst schools perceived that making a referral to children’s services was the only option open to them.  Such referrals were unlikely to meet the criteria for statutory action, meaning that the situation would continue to worsen.   

·         Work was being done to improve the local offer to prospective foster carers and the support provided to them after they have taken on the role.  This should include a contact point for foster carers experiencing day to day issues.

·         The current discussion could help to support further improvement if it gave councillors confidence that the creation of NCT was not just a change in organisation.  He had taken on the Chief Executive role to make a difference.

The Director of Children’s Services responded to points raised by councillors as follows:

·         There were arguments for and against putting social workers in schools.  Some support should be available in schools, but the most effective approach could be for school staff members to refer issues to a family support team.  Given national pressures around recruitment it was important that social workers were deployed to best effect and other staff used to provide support in schools when this would achieve the desired outcome.

·         The relationship between local authorities and schools in the county did need to be built further.  Work was being done towards establishing school clusters that would provide more of a platform for activity by NCT.  Children’s services needed to be accessible from the schools’ perspective. Consistent senior leadership also helped to produce confidence. 

·         It could be productive to focus recruitment on social workers who had previously left Northamptonshire County Council, given that children’s services could now offer stable and effective leadership, alongside previous positives.

·         She could provide an item on the development of multi-agency locality working to a future Committee meeting.  However, it was not planned to make changes immediately to reflect that Northamptonshire was still at a relatively early stage in the Improvement Plan as well as needing to deal with local government reorganisation and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

·         Councillors had a part to play in promoting a balanced view of children’s services in Northamptonshire that recognised there were both positives and negatives.  If councillors fed back to her or the Chief Executive of NCT on issues raised by constituents it enabled misperceptions to be corrected or concerns to be investigated.

The Committee subsequently considered the need to revisit the topic of children’s services performance in 2021/22 and the best timing for this, noting that a further Ofsted monitoring visit was due in November 2021.

RESOLVED that: the People Overview and Scrutiny Committee requested to receive a further update on children’s services performance to the Committee meeting on 25^th January 2022 covering the following matters:

·      Additional measures to further improve recruitment and retention of social workers

·      Achieving consistently good quality practice for all children, supported by full implementation of the practice model

·      Outcomes of the Ofsted monitoring visit due to take place in November 2021.